> "Out of the blue, one day they said you have to add in-app purchase to stay in the App Store. They stumbled upon something in the app that mentioned there were paid plans, they went to the website and saw there was a subscription you could purchase, and then turned around and demanded we add IAP. There's nothing you can say to that. They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes. We simply complied in order to save our business."
Yes, as I said, ideally Apple would allow other forms of payment alongside IAP, but that's not even the issue here. The issue here, as I said, was that ProtonMail was trying to avoid implementing IAP at all.
You have described a different objection, which is not "bigger". It's a different problem people have.
> they are forcing you not to inform the customer about alternatives
That is part of what's going on but you're missing the main issues. They are forcing an app owner to add a purchase that gives Apple revenue if Apple can find ANY other way that the owner is offering to be paid for app features. There was no advertisement or inform within the app at all. Also, you cannot inform the use about WHY the alternative exists (apple gets part of it).
That's how it's worse than even you think.
If Apple thinks people are paying for something, they force you to add something that is preferred that pays them. It's extortion (via a protection racket, "i heard you got an inheritance, be a real same if something happened to your app") or racketeering, depending on how broadly you want to define things.
I also don't like Apple's insistence of "only IAP or nothing at all (not even a mention)" but how do you suggest they make profit from the developer side? Or they should not do that at all?
It should be 10%? 20? 5%? What will be an acceptable %? Who decides that? What's the framework for deciding that?
I see one solution, and it's far fetched, developers/companies should fund and push for an alternative open platform, along with phone/device makers. Something that's not tightly controlled like iOS and Android. But then they will be losing on iOS. I think they will have a choice to make, consumers as well. Also, it's not an easy and short term solution.
We gleefully buy Macs, but imagine you buy a Lenovo/etc laptop and you are told you can't install Linux on this, only Windows. I won't be comfortable with that, but I am comfortable with the Mac buy where I Windows can be installed only via Mac (and Linux isn't even supported) - of course there could be work around with lots of circus and you cna live with a broken system.
Problem is not the cost. Problem is mono/duopoly of walled gardens.
The framework is called competition. If Apple's IAP billing or the whole app store in general faced any competition on iOS they wouldn't be able to charge anywhere close to 30%.
But Apple designed their platform specifically to prevent that, to retain a tight grip over app distribution and billing.
> I see one solution, and it's far fetched, developers/companies should fund and push for an alternative open platform, along with phone/device makers.
Good solution, but we won't get to it. The moat of Apple-Google mobile duopoly is way too massive to overcome naturally at this point. We need some regulation to reign this in. Mobile computing is just as essential as telephony and internet access. We can't have two companies dictating the rules of the game for the whole economy.
As much as I wish there is third option ( I cant believe Microsoft is something I considered, giving what I went though in the 90s ) the Smartphone moat make it pretty much indestructible.
I still remember thinking, we could make something better than Microsoft with tens of billions dollars, decent management and strategy in the 90s. Despite my disagreement with Apple's App Store, I am not sure I can make something better than Apple. It is so well run, with so many loyal customers, that when they were doing good ( Under Steve Jobs ) I was very happy. Now under Tim Cook, it is damn right scary.
My main point about he number x% tax is that the number itself is irrelevant, a judge should not decide that if the number is 30 then Apple is fine but if is 31 or 29 then is not fine, so people looking at the number are looking at the wrong thing.
Extortion (or blackmail) has a legal definition and this isn't it. In California (where Apple is incorporated and headquartered), the statute states:
Extortion is the obtaining of property or other consideration from another, with his or her consent, or the obtaining of an official act of a public officer, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.
I am sorry if fanboy will hurt someone feeling, but if for example: Google (or Apple) would have a new rule that if you want your website to be opened in Chrome(or Safari) and not marked as malware you have to include Google Pay(or Apple Pay) and remove the Visa/PayPal and all the other payment options and some person would say "this is exactly what we wanted, no more choices - force everyone to a Google(or Apple ) tax , this choices are overwhelming my poor brain then tell me the correct adjective to describe this person that thinks removing choice and forcing the big coorporation way is the best thing.
It's also possible for 2 people to read the same thing and come to different conclusions so please don't imply others must have misread something to have disagreed with you. Not only does it not move the conversation forward any it's needlessly insulting.
It would be one thing if they were selling phone and skipping Apple that way. But if their are no phone payments, and only non-obvious links, it should not be required (or maybe I am misinterpreting this)
https://venturebeat.com/2011/06/09/apple-backtracks-on-in-ap...
Look, Apple does all kinds of terrible things, and I definitely think the government ought to take action against them.
But Apple one time, in 2011, announced that they were going to put in a rule that you couldn't charge a different amount outside the App Store than inside, and when furor erupted, they never implemented the policy. That's it. One time, never actually in practice.
They are still 100% terrible with this nonsense about not being allowed to link to or even mention alternative forms of payment, but let's focus on what they actually do that's bad, rather than what we imagine they might like to do in alternate realities.
Apple is going to force all apps that offer messaging as a feature to integrate with iMessage!
Apple is going to force companies with an iOS app to turn over 30% of their total gross revenue! And it's additive!
If you don't buy an iCloud subscription Apple is going to randomly delete some of your alarms!
Obviously it's not a 1-1 comparison, but Apple is giving the apps a similar platform to sell their product.
It's the fact that not only are Apple providing a platform to sell the product, they're also the only distribution method for the product and are slowly clamping down on the loophole of providing a "free" app that requires a subscription bought elsewhere.
To continue the flawed analogy, the Best Buy houses are clearly the best houses in most other respects in the opinion of a lot of people and it's hard for the market to apply pressure about this one specific limitation. Whether that's fine or not is basically the philosophical argument being had.
Not really. For Epic, you can buy things in Fortnite on other platforms and you get them in the iOS account. Same goes for ProtonMail I assume. The issue is that you can't advertise in the app that users can purchase the things elsewhere.
The problem and complain is much more complex once all these additional factors comes into play. It isn't so much a problem if we look at it in isolation. As in your Best Buy example, which I agree is perfectly valid.
Yes, the most disagreeable thing about Apple's IAP policies is where they forbid links to alternative purchase pages. But it is also the smallest of the current complaints.
It's not "additional" means of purchases many companies are pushing for. They want to be able to avoid offering Apple's IAP whatsoever.
I mean, ProtonMail did not have IAP in their app at all, but offered options to pay for their service on their website. Apple insisted, as you suggest, that they "at least offer the platform's own payment service as initial and preferred choice," and now ProtonMail is saying that is "Mafia extortion."