Apple under fire for their Idiotic decision to charge 27% for 3rd party payments

[darknessblade]

12 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Having less than 50% market share doesn't make one a monopoly lol. At that point Android is more of a monopoly based purely on market share. 

And yet on android you can just link to a 3rd party payment system without any issue, that does not rely on android-pay/ the playstore

[Brooksie359]

21 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

And yet on android you can just link to a 3rd party payment system without any issue, that does not rely on android-pay/ the playstore

And so does apple. You just have to pay 27% for being hosted on the apple app store. 

[WhitetailAni]

22 hours ago, darknessblade said:

-Can you install android on a IPHONE "without Jailbreaking it": NO: YOU CANNOT.

Even then, Android on iPhones only works for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, and you don't get audio, cellular, or camera.  

On 2/19/2022 at 7:24 AM, RejZoR said:

I can't seem to find exact data how far back iOS 14 and thus iOS 15 goes? I know iPhone 6s from 2015 was eligible for iOS 15. Do you have any info on iPhone 5s? Is it stuck on iOS 13 or iOS 12 ? If it was eligible for iOS 14, then it would also get iOS 15, but I don't think that was the case.

6S and newer get iOS 15. 6 and 5S are stuck on iOS 12 as they don't have enough RAM - iOS 13 needs 2GB RAM minimum, and the 5S and 6 have only 1GB.

  

21 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Not to mention I don't understand people who Jailbreak iPhones. They literally pick up one of rare devices that works superbly out of the box and it's literally great the way it is because it's tightly controlled by the vendor of it and they go and fuck it up and make it more inconvenient to maintain and use. Android ROM's are not much different. Everyone throws them around as some sort of argument, but they are so inconvenient, so impractical, so clumsy and require user to invest so much time into them to even get them working they simply stop making any kind of sense.

Simple. They like controlling what they own, with themes and such, or quality-of-life improvements like not having to swipe up to unlock with Face ID, or adding shortcuts to the volume buttons to play/pause or change music tracks. Most people who jailbreak aren't dumb either and aren't jailbreaking because their friend said to.

  

On 2/20/2022 at 5:41 AM, RejZoR said:

Because typing "netflix" in Google is hard... If people can dig some god forsaken promo codes from fucking shadiest webpages one can imagine, making excuses "people don't know" in age when everyone fucking searches entire internet over to get lower prices is the lamest excuse I've ever heard.

Oh nice, that's one app.

What about Clash Royale?

Or Genshin Impact (I don't play but a lot of my friends do)?

Or a whole bunch of other iOS apps with in-app purchases?

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

How the F is this any different?

Because with Steam, you have the option to use Origin or others.

On iPhones, All You Have Is The App Store.

You can easily avoid Steam's profit cuts by buying from Origin, or directly from the dev. Then Origin takes a cut, or the dev gets all the profits.

On iPhones, you CAN'T avoid those profit cuts. You will give Apple 30%.

Or 29%. With a $5 purchase, that's a 5 cent difference.

Now please, answer this question directly. No comparisons to other companies, no huge rants. Just a simple question.

 

Why does Apple seek to prevent people using other payment methods if it doesn't matter?

 

Again.

Answer this question directly.

[HenrySalayne]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Having less than 50% market share doesn't make one a monopoly lol. At that point Android is more of a monopoly based purely on market share. 

I already explained why one company with a reasonable slice of the market can still influence pricing on other platforms. 

I don't understand why people are always like "ohh, it's not 50% of the market yet, so it's not a monopoly". If a company controls and exploits a considerable chunk of the market, their actions will reach beyond their own ecosystem and have negative impacts on all consumers. And this is clearly happening here. 

 

And you should not rate the market share by devices sold but revenue. Most cheap phones are just used as simple phones and no apps or subscriptions are bought.

Ohh, look, now Apple has a market share of 64%! Is this enough of a monopoly for you if they control 2/3 of the market? 

 

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

Wow, imagine actually answering a question directly rather than pointing at other services. Steam does not prevent this in any way, you can have as many links to your own websites in your game as you want. Are you going to answer on why Apple feels the need to prevent it if you think it makes no difference or are you just too proud to admit you're wrong?

You do realize that it's standard operating procedure that if you use X store, you are expected to abide by X's rules? It's amazing that people can't understand.

 

I invite you into my house, I expect you to take off your shoes. You're instead standing in the entrance and complaining that taking your shoes off here is an inconvenience, and you don't have to do it at the disgusting hoarder neighbor's house. You take one step into my house with your shoes on, and I'm pushing you out and shutting the door, and you're no longer welcome.

 

If you sell on eBay or Amazon, you are forbidden from having links or language in the listing telling people to buy somewhere else. You don't get to go into Walmart and have all the merchandising vendors going "buy directly from us and save the Walmart tax"

 

It's a non-argument. Apple saying you can't offer alternative payments is about playing by the rules that everyone who uses the store agreed to. The app store is a digital goods store that Apple operates, and does all the work for. If you want to pay using a third party system, that does not get you out of the platform. 

 

This is only ever been about third parties wanting to eat the entire cake, and quite frankly the commission amount has never been the issue, it's always been about trying to have the ENTIRE cake. That is just what businesses do, they see an opportunity to reduce their costs, and take it. If it breaks a rule, they risk being banned from the store forever. Which is what happens on Amazon and eBay.

 

 

https://www.reuters.com/technology/dutch-watchdog-fines-apple-5-mln-euros-failure-comply-app-store-2022-01-24/

 

Quote

Apple said it still intends to charge a 27% commission on any in-app payments it does not process, only slightly below the 30% it charges on those it does process.

 

The ACM has rejected Apple's moves as putting an unreasonable burden on software developers and not amounting to compliance.

 

Well yes it's unreasonable. What would be reasonable is removing all Dutch dating apps, and any other app that serves the Dutch market that has IAP's used the same way. If you're not willing to do the bookkeeping to have a third party payment process, then you don't deserve to have IAP's at all.

 

[WhitetailAni]

15 minutes ago, Kisai said:

You do realize that it's standard operating procedure that if you use X store, you are expected to abide by X's rules? It's amazing that people can't understand.

Yes, but on iOS, you can only use store X - the App Store.

On Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, etc., there's many, many stores. Don't like store Y? Go use store R, or M, or W! There's many options.

Yes, you can install apps on macOS not from the App Store or from identified developers. It just takes knowing how to go "right-click + open". If only Apple allowed that on iOS where you could sideload by enabling something settings, agreeing to a disclaimer about "we are not responsible for harm to your device", and putting in your iCloud password.

[Brooksie359]

47 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

I already explained why one company with a reasonable slice of the market can still influence pricing on other platforms. 

I don't understand why people are always like "ohh, it's not 50% of the market yet, so it's not a monopoly". If a company controls and exploits a considerable chunk of the market, their actions will reach beyond their own ecosystem and have negative impacts on all consumers. And this is clearly happening here. 

 

And you should not rate the market share by devices sold but revenue. Most cheap phones are just used as simple phones and no apps or subscriptions are bought.

Ohh, look, now Apple has a market share of 64%! Is this enough of a monopoly for you if they control 2/3 of the market? 

 

2/3 of the market doesn't make a monopoly. Monopoly would imply that there is no reasonable alternative which in this case there clearly is (andriod). People keep on acting like Apple is a monopoly when it really isn't even close to one compared to actual monopolies that exist like isps and youtube. 

[Kisai]

14 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Yes, but on iOS, you can only use store X - the App Store.

On Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, etc., there's many, many stores. Don't like store Y? Go use store R, or M, or W! There's many options.

Yes, you can install apps on macOS not from the App Store or from identified developers. It just takes knowing how to go "right-click + open". If only Apple allowed that on iOS where you could sideload by enabling something settings, agreeing to a disclaimer about "we are not responsible for harm to your device", and putting in your iCloud password.

Apple is "take off your shoes"

Windows is "I don't care if you wear your shoes"

Linux is "here's a ball of thread and a loom, make shoes if you want it"

 

Different platform, different rules. If you don't want to play by the rules, there's the door.

[Forbidden Wafer]

41 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Different platform, different rules. If you don't want to play by the rules, there's the door.

Yeah, if Apple doesn't want to obey the law, nuke them out of your country.

[RejZoR]

@FakeKGB

ONE APP!!!!

 

I literally gave examples of 4, but whatevers... Why those you mentioned don't have it? I don't know, ask them, not me.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

You do realize that it's standard operating procedure that if you use X store, you are expected to abide by X's rules? It's amazing that people can't understand.

Yes, it becomes a problem if that store has a monopoly on a platform because it also owns that platform. This is called an antitrust violation, wherein you abuse your monopoly position in one market (here being the iOS device market) to unfairly gain an advantage in other markets.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

If you sell on eBay or Amazon, you are forbidden from having links or language in the listing telling people to buy somewhere else. You don't get to go into Walmart and have all the merchandising vendors going "buy directly from us and save the Walmart tax"

With the crucial difference that I can in fact sell you my product regardless of whether I go through Amazon, Walmart, Ebay or any other storefront, or even none. I am not forced to pay their fees just to do business, though most will find that it's probably worth the investment.

 

If I want to sell anything for iOS I must go through the App Store and pay the fee.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

It's a non-argument. Apple saying you can't offer alternative payments is about playing by the rules that everyone who uses the store agreed to.

The rules you're forced to agree to if you want to distribute your iOS app. This isn't about you asking people to take off their shoes when they walk into your house. It's about you demanding they take them off when going into other people's houses just because you're the one who built them.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

This is only ever been about third parties wanting to eat the entire cake, and quite frankly the commission amount has never been the issue

Honestly I couldn't possibly care less about third parties making more money on their paid apps, I care about people being allowed to sideload on their own device they paid hundreds if not thousands for AND about being able to distribute free apps with a donation link. The whole argument is sidetracked; it's not about how high the percentage is, it's egregious it exists at all because you don't have another choice. The App Store can either be a mandatory baseline API you need to use for technical reasons, in which case it should be free and open to everyone to use, or be a commercial platform curated by Apple, in which case other options must be available.

[HenrySalayne]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

2/3 of the market doesn't make a monopoly. Monopoly would imply that there is no reasonable alternative which in this case there clearly is (andriod). People keep on acting like Apple is a monopoly when it really isn't even close to one compared to actual monopolies that exist like isps and youtube. 

You just said: 

4 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Having less than 50% market share doesn't make one a monopoly lol. At that point Android is more of a monopoly based purely on market share. 

Feel free to change your opinion but please not for the sake of an argument. 

 

To wrap this up:

Can developers boycott Apple? - Yes, but they would miss out on 64% of the market so nobody is going to do that.

Can consumers switch to a different ecosystem? - Yes, but they would lose all purchases and settings and habits they acquired for the platform they use. They would also have to get rid of their current device and buy a new one. And they wouldn't save any money because prices are inflated across all platforms. Apple mandates equal prices on all platforms so everyone has to pay the inflated price. 

Do consumers even know about the inflated prices? - No, because Apple strictly prohibits any mention of the fees of the transaction. 

Conclusion:
We need regulators to step in and end this anti-consumer behavior. And it's not a single thing Apple does that's problematic, it's all these things combined. That's what many people don't seem to understand. Alternative payment options or alternative app stores or a reduction of the fees to a "normal" level would all be viable options for a fair and competitive market. It should be quit clear why Apple is clinging to all of these things and they aren't moving an inch in the right direction. 

 

[WhitetailAni]

49 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

@FakeKGB

ONE APP!!!!

 

I literally gave examples of 4, but whatevers... Why those you mentioned don't have it? I don't know, ask them, not me.

4 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

Now please, answer this question directly. No comparisons to other companies, no huge rants. Just a simple question.

 

Why does Apple seek to prevent people using other payment methods if it doesn't matter?

 

Again.

Answer this question directly.

Do I need to make it rainbow for you so you see it?

[HenrySalayne]

1 minute ago, FakeKGB said:

Do I need to make it rainbow for you so you see it?

Argh, that's way worse. But I'm a little bit impressed you spend the time to colour each and every word (or even letter) individually. Kudos!

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, HenrySalayne said:

Argh, that's way worse. But I'm a little bit impressed you spend the time to colour each and every word (or even letter) individually. Kudos!

It's so annoying you have to see it.

Yeah, I spent like 10 minutes doing that

[TetraSky]

19 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

It's so annoying you have to see it.

Yeah, I spent like 10 minutes doing that

https://charlesstover.github.io/rainbow-text/

Just write your text in there and copy/paste the BB code it outputs in your post. It will look weird with codes and all after pasting, but once you post, you get the actual colored text.

You've wasted a lot of time for doing something you could've generated easily, then... That's unfortunate.

 

 

In any case, I'm not surprised to see where this thread has gone to by now.

[Brooksie359]

49 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

You just said: 

Feel free to change your opinion but please not for the sake of an argument. 

 

To wrap this up:

Can developers boycott Apple? - Yes, but they would miss out on 64% of the market so nobody is going to do that.

Can consumers switch to a different ecosystem? - Yes, but they would lose all purchases and settings and habits they acquired for the platform they use. They would also have to get rid of their current device and buy a new one. And they wouldn't save any money because prices are inflated across all platforms. Apple mandates equal prices on all platforms so everyone has to pay the inflated price. 

Do consumers even know about the inflated prices? - No, because Apple strictly prohibits any mention of the fees of the transaction. 

Conclusion:
We need regulators to step in and end this anti-consumer behavior. And it's not a single thing Apple does that's problematic, it's all these things combined. That's what many people don't seem to understand. Alternative payment options or alternative app stores or a reduction of the fees to a "normal" level would all be viable options for a fair and competitive market. It should be quit clear why Apple is clinging to all of these things and they aren't moving an inch in the right direction. 

 

I didn't change my point of view though. My previous point that android would be considered a monopoly by your standards is still true even though I personally wouldn't consider it because of obvious reasons. If 60ish percent market share us considered a monopoly then we have alot of monopolies out there lol. How about you talk about actual monopolies rather than fixatting on Apple saying that there is no alternative when there. Sure some might not prefer that alternative but that doesn't mean there isn't competition when there clearly is. There are so many more nefarious monopolies out their but we fixate on Apple which clearly isn't one of them why? It's because epic is butt hurt after trying to bypass Apple tos and getting clapped off the apple app store. 

[HenrySalayne]

14 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I didn't change my point of view though. My previous point that android would be considered a monopoly by your standards is still true even though I personally wouldn't consider it because of obvious reasons. If 60ish percent market share us considered a monopoly then we have alot of monopolies out there lol. How about you talk about actual monopolies rather than fixatting on Apple saying that there is no alternative when there. Sure some might not prefer that alternative but that doesn't mean there isn't competition when there clearly is. There are so many more nefarious monopolies out their but we fixate on Apple which clearly isn't one of them why? It's because epic is butt hurt after trying to bypass Apple tos and getting clapped off the apple app store. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Quote

Fallacy of relative privation (also known as "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to what are perceived to be more important problems. First World problems are a subset of this fallacy.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Yes, it becomes a problem if that store has a monopoly on a platform because it also owns that platform.

Stop right there.

 

You want to sell at Walmart, you play by Walmart's rules. Walmart has been known to completely bankrupt their suppliers in order for that supplier to even have a space in Walmart. You don't want to play, then you miss out on Walmart.

 

Swap Walmart with Apple, things are exactly the same. 

 

You don't go to the checkout and demand to pay with monopoly money either.

 

You are not required to sell at Walmart, but you might miss out on half the US market for sales. It's up to you if taking a stand is worth losing potentially billions of dollars in sales.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

You clearly missing the point. I am taking about real monopolies to show an example of what a monopoly is. Comparing the two isn't a logical fallacies lol. You look at isps or youtube and you can see that those are real monopolies with no real alternative where as Apple there is a clear alternative. Just because Apple has more than 50% market share doesn't mean it's a monopoly. Simply look up the definition of a monopoly and you will see that Apple doesn't qualify to be one as they have a clear competitor (android). Also my point is that the only reason that this issue is being brought up is because epic is butt hurt about being taken off of the apple app store. It just goes to show this is way more about corporate interest of app developers about than it is about consumers. 

[pas008]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Stop right there.

 

You want to sell at Walmart, you play by Walmart's rules. Walmart has been known to completely bankrupt their suppliers in order for that supplier to even have a space in Walmart. You don't want to play, then you miss out on Walmart.

 

Swap Walmart with Apple, things are exactly the same. 

 

You don't go to the checkout and demand to pay with monopoly money either.

 

You are not required to sell at Walmart, but you might miss out on half the US market for sales. It's up to you if taking a stand is worth losing potentially billions of dollars in sales.

what its not the same i can just buy from target or many other places and I can sell many other places

 

you see once you purchase your phone you should be able to do what you want and purchase software from where you want

just like any other computer/phone/console

cause i can buy switch codes/games at target/gamestop/etc

i can buy steam codes from many places

ios I cant do anything else that is anticonsumer