bolzano

I was waiting for someone to mention Peirce or Frege here! Kudos... Did you have any particular piece in mind?

I definitely don't want a "western" solution to a Russian problem... my point was that's pretty much what you're advocating.

The west has a terrible history of implementing these kind of self defeating, counter productive Strongman strengthening policies (e.g. Putin is largely result of the west supporting with Yeltsin), which is what I think would happen if you were to "teach the people a lesson" which if I'm not reading you wrong, seems to me, what you are suggesting.

Also, the question stands, what do you think the effect of your suggestion on the average Russian? Do you think they will see things your way, or will they (in some sense rightly) see this as patronising interference. How would a western person see it if Russia were to do this to their country?

So for BofA the first two results for "Bank of America Money Laundering" are:

from July 2012 [1] FBI: Drug Cartels use Bank of America to Launder Money

and Nov 2018... [2] Deutsche Bank, BofA, JPM Drawn into Danske Money Laundering Probe

Both make for good reading... [1] https://mic.com/articles/10959/fbi-drug-cartels-use-bank-of-... [2] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2018/11/...

What do you think ordinary Russians will/should think of the West if it does this? Do you think it will encourage them to vote for a pro western liberal democrat? or an authoritarian strongman?

What would you think if Russia did this to your country? Supported the oligarchs in your country... to make you see the error of your ways?

I'm not a game developer and I don't know the Steam setup very well. I would genuinely love to hear from some 'serious indie game developers' though. Do they really think 30% is fair? Or maybe are they, like me, just accepting it and have no other real alternative (Hobson's Choice)...

Which is not exactly happily handing over 30% of your earnings to Steam/Apple.

Also, as mentioned in other replies, Apple explicitly blocks any other licencing path unless you're one of the big boys and can afford lawyers etc...

I don't think this is a fair comparison. If I had the skills (which I certainly don't), I could make a cool Disney style movie and make it available for anyone, and even charge them whatever I liked.

I explicitly cannot do this for iOS apps. There is just no way for me to get my app in front of people's eyes without paying the Apple tax.

If I was prevented from distributing my movie somehow by Disney, you might have a point.

Thanks for that. Big fan of Jeff Vogel. Hadn't seen that talk so a link would be great.

I'm not saying Apple don't provide a service, of course they do, though at times it sucks. My main point is about is about the price, not the principle. I pay Apple a yearly subscription just to develop for their platform. On top of that every sale I make they get 30%.

Would 95% be ok?

Another extreme element of this is that I cannot sell a licence outside of the App Store to my customers. I cannot ask them to buy from my website (which many have asked about and would be happy to do) and provide them with a code they can use to unlock or upgrade. This is explicitly banned. Unless you're a big player like Spotify or Netflix your app will not be allowed to do this. I've tried and been denied and stonewalled.

In this case I am willing to build and manage my own payment/licencing setup to gain 30%. I'm just not allowed to do that.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.