The real crime is that they prohibit developers from itemizing this fee for the consumer. That's what Epic et al should be focusing on. Customers would be aghast at the extractive abuse of monopoly power after having already paid (in many cases) an exorbitant sum for their device. Let the free market deal with the problem.

You're correct. It should be illegal to prevent apps from breaking down where the fees go. This is truly anti-consumer behavior.

Where is the line item for paying with Visa/MasterCard/etc?

It's irrelevant because it's an immaterial amount. Itemising 3% has no effect, compared to 30%.

I would support this, as I believe that we pay high taxes because we're pacified into not thinking about the amount.

Nobody cares about the app store cut.

A friend argued that the App Store cut is justified because it’s a free market and if consumers don’t think the value of the store is worth paying the cut, they can go get a different phone. Apple banning developers from informing consumers about the cut is a problem for this argument.

Consumers couldn’t care less, for sure. It’s only developers and corporations who cares.

It is a lot like all the furor over patent trolls. It only really hurts large companies, but techies decided it was somehow victimizing them and screamed about it constantly but consumers still didnt care.

Imagine in 1998 trying to get distribution for your literal box of disks in dozens of stores and thinking it costs you less than 30% of retail

In this hypothetical universe, Microsoft runs the only store, decides what you are allowed to sell, and blocks you from selling independently.

In reality you could sell your software by direct mail if you thought it was a better cost structure than a store, or if a store didn’t want to carry your product.

> In reality you could sell your software by direct mail

IIRC, that's exactly how some famous companies/developers (Apogee, for one) started out. They uploaded the demo to BBSes and then had interested users buy the full product by mail.

At least there were dozens of stores to be in.

I'm a bit confused, is this an argument against competition or against monopoly?

>Apple/Google, who leverage OS API control into a tax on all activity, do nothing and get $1.50.

Except they offer you a channel for distribution, discoverability, promotion, rating and monetization of your app.

On Android you don't have to serve your app over Google Play you can distribute .apk file elsewhere and pay 0% fee but on iOS unfortunately you can not do that.

> Except they offer you a channel for distribution, discoverability, promotion, rating and monetization of your app.

Only because they don't allow you to do any of that yourself or allow for any alternatives.

Read again what I wrote >On Android you don't have to serve your app over Google Play you can distribute .apk file elsewhere and pay 0% fee but on iOS unfortunately you can not do that.

They offer all that, and also restrict others from doing the same. What term would one use for that?

> Imagine people arguing in 1998 that Microsoft deserves 30% of all software sales with zero alternatives allowed lmao

https://www.xbox.com

Is there a very clear explanation of who gets charged & who doesn't?

From what I understand places like Amazon don't get charged for in app purchases, but Audible (owned by Amazon) would & so they don't offer buying books.

I assume finance stock/crypto/etc apps don't get charged.

I've heard that food & drink, taxi services, & house rentals don't get charged.

-- I could be mistaken about many of these above.

Physical goods don't get taxed. Digital goods do get taxed.

Silly question, but is it not possible at all to build this as a PWA to get around the app store fees? I believe Twitter already have a basic PWA Twitter client that seemed ok the last time I tried it.

The modern web has pretty good audio support these days.

I assure you that Apple has no incentive to keep Safari up to date with the latest webspecs that enable solid PWA. Further, If developers started leveraging PWA enough that it made a dent in revenues Apple would find a way to discourage PWAs. Tax avoidance is illegal in the Apple ecosystem.

Why are you saying tax avoidance is illegal in Apple App Store? Nothing in their policy says App Store authors shall maximise the revenue share of Apple in their applications.

Whether developers acknowledge or not, when they build their apps for the App Store they're forfeiting 30% off their revenues.

Of course they can build PWA's to try to keep more of the money but Apple will eventually find a way to capture that money. Apple controls the only browser engine on IOS and I don't expect them to investing in features that threaten the Apple tax.

If PWAs become popular enough then Apple will add a browser feature redirects/proxies payments through Apple and they'll take their 30% cut.

the argument is so biased. if you want to argue that Apple and Google do nothing, you also have to argue that Twitter is doing nothing, and eventually you’ll have to wonder if the creator is even justified in taking a profit for their content.

Nothing is preventing creators from setting up their own infrastructure and building their own platform and then taking all the profit. They don’t, thus they must believe that what both Twitter and Apple and Google are delivering is valuable and with the cost.

+1 point for the web. I'd like to see the day mobile web apps have as good UX/speed as app store apps.

"Do nothing"?

No curated/moderated/policed App Store?

No storage/distribution network for applications?

No vetted and trusted secure authentication and payment systems?

No meticulously-created hardware in the first place?

Yep, that sounds about right. They're just "doing nothing" and don't deserve to be able to run their businesses while other people build on top of their platforms.

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for a different sort of conversation here. Note these guidelines:

"Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I agree that “do nothing” is inaccurate (I think Ben later walked it back).

But overall, I'm surprised how common the take is in the software industry that this is a fine state of things. How much of Apple's cut is because they run a good distribution network, vs. how much is because they are the only distribution channel?

Surely we don't think it's a bad thing that desktop software went in the direction of being an open platform (which, it's worth noting, may not have gone in that direction without DOJ intervention). Why aren't we rooting for the same on mobile devices, which have become just as essential?

If I want a walled garden should I be allowed to have it? I understand individuals want to exercise control over things they own. I’m not interested in forcing brands to make their products open platform. I don’t want an open platform. I want a locked down and predictable platform. If you would rather argue that the distributor fee is too high I’d be inclined to agree.

Sure, I have no problem with there being a walled garden as long as users who want to have a way to opt out. Curated app stores do have value and I don't think they should disappear. I even think it is fine for niche platforms to exclusively have walled gardens.

> I don’t want an open platform.

Do you think the state of the world would be better if desktops were not open platforms? I'm genuinely curious because this is something I just can't relate to.

You want walled gardens with check points? What is the point in building the wall if you can just leave or enter when you desire? I’m interested in a digital prison for my phone. I have no desire to entertain the concept of hypothetical arguments which ultimately boil down to - I also want some of this money, let us in.

To expound on the other comments a bit more clearly: if it's the drive of a large portion of consumers that they only want to consume apps from the App Store because of the ecosystem that provides it should not require forcing everyone that has an iPhone to use the App Store, usage of the App Store and interest in apps working to get on it/pay dues should be a natural results of a large percentage of the customer base choosing to force apps to do such not a large portion of the customer base being forced into it because the hardware picks for them.

Did no one who bought an iPhone understand it has one store and a restrictive OS? I’m unsure of why you think the largest demographic isn’t already the ones who bought the phone with no side loading. I don’t give a shit that I can’t side load games on my console or my tv OS. The phone is the same and perhaps this is more of a generational difference.

I would wager a years salary if you went around to 100 random iPhone owners and asked them "did you buy the iPhone because it's a walled garden where you can't sideload" 90+ of the responses would be something along the lines of "what is sideloading".

For those that answer "yes, actually" the option for them to be able to use the walled garden would still be there - allowing others the option does not take that away from those that are actually choosing the walled garden vs being required to use it after getting the phone for other reasons.

Who is forcing you to leave the walled garden? All we are asking for is an option to install unapproved apps. You don't have to install them if you don't want to.

No one would force you to use third party app stores.

You don’t think that those third parties would move their apps to be exclusive to their stores?

The way it is now is very straightforward. If you want an app, you know where to get it. You know who’s vetted it. You know who’s handling your payment info. You (now) know what information about you is being gathered and disseminated.

Can you imagine how terrible a world where every App thinks it needs its own store would be?

This hasn’t really happened on Android or desktop open platforms. There are alternative app stores, but certainly not one for each app, and it would be a self-inflicted distribution wound for an app to go exclusive to a smaller app store.

Having a uniform way to handle payments is a great feature, but it would happen naturally if payment terms were competitive with industry norms instead of extractive prices that require a lock on distribution.

Why not allow other competitors to take over these software responsibilities if they want to? Why can't Google Play be on iOS too? Do you think Google wouldn't be able to effectively curate, distribute, and secure its own app store?

Yes, Apple builds excellent hardware, and deserves to be rewarded for it. They are rewarded when I give them money for their products. They shouldn't have a say in what I do with the product after I receive it. Imagine buying a new Ford or Nissan and the dealership sets which highways you're allowed to drive on!

BMW is trying to do this with their cars, every little feature is an odd on or subscription. I hope they fail a miserable death in this endeavor.

They could.

BlackBerry, Nokia, they all failed to create an app ecosystem.

Microsoft pushed personal computers to masses and the productivity gains fie society are insane. You really think they don't deserve 50% from every excutable for their innovation and vision?!

Microsoft didn’t invent the operating system, they just captured the market share with network effects before somebody else did. If it wasn’t them, it would have been apple. If it wasn’t apple, somebody else would have raced into the void with dump trucks of Vic money. All things said, we could have done worse than early days Microsoft, although modern Microsoft is all about advertising and tracking

> they just captured the market share with network effects before somebody else did

Ever heard of CP/M? That was an improvement over having every manufacturer ship it's own (unmaintained) OS. Microsoft's genius was seeing the value in Software, not just in shipping physical goods. And people believed they were crazy at the time.

> Microsoft didn’t invent the operating system

Didn't they? QDOS was bought, but 9x and NT were mostly MS with a little bit of IBM AFAIK.

This isn't a particularly good analogy.

Microsoft didn't build those computers.

Microsoft didn't sell those computers.

Microsoft didn't ship those computers.

They merely licensed their OS to the manufacturers and/or end users.

The X Box would be a better analogy, and MS does get a 30% cut there.

All great arguments for a fixed fee, not a massive % of sales (of sales...not profit). Apple has made BILLIONS of dollars running their App Store, I’d love to hear arguments why setting up an App Store with very minimal overheard deserves to reap billions of dollars of profit annually. None of the reasons you outline above would do it in my opinion.

All of those things can be had for cheaper from other vendors. Apple bans competition and overcharges for it on iOS.

Can those things be had cheaper, while being guaranteed interoperable and directly integrated into a trusted hardware security enclave without any further integration headaches?

Yes