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Comment by ApolloFortyNine | Hacker News Reader

50 cents an install over 1 million downloads? Every year?

Is Apple trying to get fined? They're not even hiding the fact they're maliciously complying.

For one, this makes deploying a free app on an alternative store (that becomes popular) simply impossible? I highly doubt that was the EU's intent.

Usually with malicious compliance you can at least see the logic for a future legal case. Here, if they were trying to lose a future case I don't think you could do worse.

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Genuinely curious: people throw around the term „malicious compliance“ a lot. It seems the platform fee is explicitly allowed by the DMA, so Apple demands it. Again, I am not trying to troll but what would „benevolent compliance“ look like and what would Apple‘s incentive be to give up the fee?

> It seems the platform fee is explicitly allowed by the DMA, so Apple demands it.

What's your source on this?

Not sure where you're getting the info on platform fees (copilot didn't know either) but I'd assume you need to offer at least one way to install your apps without this fee.

>For one, this makes deploying a free app on an alternative store (that becomes popular) simply impossible?

You can monetize it with in app payments or ads such that wealthy people subsidize other users.

If the app is from a nonprofit they can get the fee waived.

This is asking some wealthier users to subsidize Apple, not other users.

Or, and hear me out on this, maybe I want to make useful apps that don't data mine their users and I also would like not to take donations. This is a valid want to have (and I honestly can't believe you would suggest to 'just' sell out your users) and it would take a single app getting popular (or apple just straight up lying, I would have no way of verifying their count) to wipe out all of my capital.

It's 'nice' that there exists options to pay for the fee, but realistically the fee shouldn't exist, and it is also illegal.

Lucky for you, you are still able to distribute your free app for free on the Apple App Store. No surprise costs if your app becomes incredibly popular, and better still- that's where the vast majority of people will continue to go for getting new apps (regardless of this legislation) so it's free exposure for you as well.

It was never free as it's 99€ per year anyway.

Aren't you still going to be paying that Core Technology fee once your FOSS non-profit app gets popular? I guess you would have to get that waiver but that's far from trivial[1], especially for an individual that just likes to publish an FOSS/free-as-in-beer app out of kindness.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-waiver/

If you're distributing your free app through the Apple App Store, no you wouldn't ever pay a core technology fee, even if you had a billion downloads.. it's a fee only for apps distributed by third party app stores.

Not every app needs monetization. And it's not exactly like 'just publish on the regular app store' is a fantastic option, since that still requires you to pay a developer fee.

I shouldn't have to register as a non profit so I can release a hacker news reader app for free...

At this point, I want to see a responsible person at Apple getting a literal fucking slap in the face for all that shit this company pulls off.

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