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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

How do Uber/Lyft etc. get away without paying Apple's 30% tax on in app purchase? I'll be surprised if Apple don't show up one day asking for a big check, every month, forever...

EDIT: Thanks for the clarity here, external goods and services are excluded from in app purchase. Makes sense, but surely represents a loop hole... that I think something I'm building might be able to exploit :-)

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Because you're not buying features or consuming what you're buying through the app.

Is Amazon supposed to give 30% of all purchases made through the Amazon app? ofcourse not. If Amazon made additional search features an optional upgrade for the app, I'd imagine Apple would want a piece of that.

You can purchase a Kindle, but not the books.

Because they obtain the user's credit card information independently. Developers who use the CC associated with someone's Apple ID are the ones paying the in-app purchase commission.

I think it has to do with the fact that customer's are paying for an offline service, not something that happens inside the application.

Likewise, I don't think e-commerce apps have to hand Apple a 30% cut of everything they sell.

Apple needs to first launch a competing service or acquire one of them before they'd pull that move I imagine?

Sounds like you don't know much about the market so good luck with you're loop-hole exploiting product.

The Apple commission is for in-app purchases that are mostly digital goods.

Does this applies to non-digital products and services?

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