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Comment by norman784 | Hacker News Reader

As a user I don't care for the 30% cut, what I care is to have a centralised payment method and subscription system, I don't have energy/time to keep with different subscriptions in each service/app and knowing that there are bad actors, they will do whatever possible to make hard to unsubscribe (like a few years ago the NYT, where you could only unsubscribe by phone and was very hard even so). But if even when using third party payment systems they need to integrate with Apple subscription API and you can cancel/track in one place then I'm fine with that.

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The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law, not by granting a payments monopoly for all users of a specific operating system or phone model.

It should be, but I’m not holding my breathe for the US to suddenly start ancting like a functional government (and there are probably other countries where a legal fix is less likely as well). Until then companies are free to offer private alternatives to users who find that to be a valuable service.

> Until then companies are free to offer private alternatives to users who find that to be a valuable service.

The question with the App Store is, are customers allowed to choose?

>The inability to unsubscribe should be fixed in the law

Even taking your second part as given without addressing the actual complexity here: then how about you accomplish that FIRST? Because I've heard a lot of "we'll break this hack that makes things work suboptimally but better than nothing and then fix it properly in law later" over the decades and 99% of the time it breaks the hack and then surprise surprise never ever gets the "fixed in law" part, leaving us worse off without the gain. I'm all in favor of passing some laws in this area that'd accomplish stuff more efficient with fewer perverse incentives on all sides. I'd like to see users have the option by law to control their root key stores, to require standard secure APIs for subscriptions so that multiple 3rd parties can offer central management and users can cancel without any interaction with what they're subscribing to, for long basic price linked warranties required by law, local use and ad free data control options by law, but also for manufacturers/devs to be protected by default from liability etc. It'd be great to fix a whole lot of stuff.

But until that happy day happens I'm less inclined to just mindlessly bash down what we have and a lot of people are pretty happy with and seems to have struck an ok if far from ideal compromise. I mean, killing upgrades alone makes me hate the app store, but still fix first.

That's a fair statement, you may like Apple payment even if it adds 30% to whatever you are buying. What is not fair is forcing everyone into this.

If I'm selling content, why couldn't I give customer the choice between:

- Paying the 30% Apple cut and benefiting from everything you like about this

- Buying directly, cheaper, without Apple cut (or maybe with a tiny cut if that make any sense, removing only 3pt is a joke)

Because it's Apple's marketplace and Apple's customers.

They spent billions on hardware, software, R&D, marketing and operations.

Why would they give another business a free access to a billion of their customers?

You want to earn money of Apple's customers? Then pay Apple a revenue share of the money you get from their customers.

That's how pretty much any marketplace works in the world.

From your local Target to Salesforce/Shopify/PlayStation/Epic Store/Steam/etc.

I don't think that's equivalent. If you buy a Ford car, you aren't forced to buy tires from the Ford dealership. You're not a "Ford Customer" beholden to the Ford Motor Company when it comes to everything related to the car. If you buy a Dell desktop you aren't forced to buy all software through a Dell marketplace. I'm sure if these companies could, they would, and apple can and so they do. But is that the world we want? Sure, in a totally "free" market apple should be able to do want ever they want. But are we more interested in freedom for corporations or freedom for people? Would things be better for everyone if we used the power of government to prevent these anticompetitive practices? Why can't apple offer good reason for iPhone users to buy software through their marketplace and take the 30%, all the while allowing users to choose to download software outside of the marketplace?

This is rapidly changing with Tesla first. Outside the tires not much you're going to get after-market except from Tesla.

You always have the option to not buy a ford, or not buy an iPhone.

That's true and is not something most people are happy with. This model is being pushed on us by billionaires.

And you're convinced that this is good for us?

We have the option to make the laws such that this cute little rent-extracting business model you defend gets companies who follow it shut down for being criminal enterprises.

Apple does not create that kind of value; it hoodwinks buyers with a pretty interface and its cultish marketing. Like any hazing ritual or circumcision, the new apple user feels he put in a heavy cost to join what appears to him to be an elite class (but really a marketing trick). The new user is now complete and ready to defend his newly acquired identity in internet forum posts critical of it.

I'm not advocating for PayPal, but PayPal does all the stuff that Apple does and they don't charge a 30% cut. I've been contributing to a freeDNS Service managed by PayPal for the last 10-15 years. I noticed the annual renewal was coming up and thought it was time I bump up my contribution, so I went into PayPal and did it.

Nobody is complaining about that. Apple can freely put whatever price they want for their payment/subscription services. It’s a good product even, albeit with an outrageous price.

People are upset that developers are forced to use that product, and now with this news: pay an extortion fee on a 3p transaction that doesn’t concern Apple.

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