They also, cleverly, give you an easy way to convert the Clip into the full App right from your home screen. I think certain segments of dev companies will love this as an avenue for onboarding.

But as mentioned, the audience is captive. If there was another parking option around the corner they would have used that. I don't think parking lots care how long it takes you to download their app and pay.

Not really, there are often other options. Different lots nearby using different systems, for instance. Or the option of simply not paying and risking getting towed / a ticket.

A parking lot clip could use the time-based notification to warn you that your meter is almost up and give you the option to re-up. Without having to walk back to the lot to do it. I imagine this would be especially useful in a tourist-heavy area since somebody who isn't sticking around won't want to download a whole app for the purpose.

I kinda doubt that parking lot management companies would be willing to pay Apple's 30% transaction fee though.

Apple's fees are on digital goods, not physical ones. Amazon doesn't pay a fee for me to place a physical order in the Amazon app, nor does the laundry app in my old apartment building.

I thought parking counts as a service, not physical goods, but then again I think I paid parking via app in the past, with external payment gateway, so you're probably right.

The in-app purchase system is the one which takes a fee, and is only sometimes required (and only _usable_) for services or digital goods consumed in the app itself.

Any real world good or service would fall onto Apple Pay, which makes its money through a micro fee on the card issuer, basically to use the phone as a convenient, highly fraud-resistant card.

You're also looking at this the wrong way. Parking apps make the overhead of managing parking lots less expensive. IF you have higher adoption of the app you have less problems with your onsite machines/attendants/cash. Those cost way more money than adopting this across your fleet of lots. Also a lot of lot owners, have a mangement company or work with an app vendor who will add this as a simple way to improve their cash flow.

App vendors are only paid by the people who use the app, so they have every incentive to make it that much easier for some one to use the app than the ticketing machine.

The parking lots may be competing with other lots, but really they are most likely getting money either way, they want to decrease their overhead, hence apps.

But the parking lot can just require the app. That’s the point. They do not need to worry about adoption of the app because you need the app to use the parking lot.

They can up until someone says they don't have a smartphone or their battery is dead.

The reality is that most parking lots do need to have fallbacks for these cases rather than telling people to drive off, and those fallbacks are often more expensive in terms of staffing/maintenance (which is why they added the app in the first place). Something where I point at a code on a sign, it pops up a payment button without me knowingly downloading anything will increase the cost savings beyond an app.

There's usually a non-app payment alternative.