> which is why it’s app developers who were unhappy, not users

The judge commented on that

>> "Apple created an innovative platform but it did not disclose its rules to the average consumer. Apple has used this lack of knowledge to exploit its position.

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> Personally I probably just won’t buy things that require me to sign up for a new payment system

You, as a consumer, will now have a choice, which you'll get to exercise! You will be able to send a market signal for products (either the service you might subscribe to, and Apple) to get better and attract more developers/users. This sounds like a win!

> This sounds like a win!

Not if I wasn't interested in having the choice to begin with. Now some apps will not be purchasable by me unless I go through their account flow, which I don't want to. It's strictly worse (for me).

There is now a market force for Apple to make its IAP services better, which makes it more likely for developers to make apps with it (theoretically).

There will be larger players who won't bother with any cut -- they want to own the relationship with the customer, and view any intermediary with hostility.

Sure.

They’re either already not on Apple’s IAP (Netflix or Spotify) or they are very sensitive to optimising conversions, and would pay a premium to give users an easier option (which Apple is now incentivised to lower)

No one wants to own the payment instrument. That's useless, causes missed sales, and is a security nightmare. Companies don't reinvent their own Visa or Mastercard, for example, because that's a huge pain and the fees for using the existing products are low.

App developers were mad about Apple's egregious 30% cut for doing payment processing. If Apple wants everyone to accept Apple IAP, it can simply lower its fees to competitive payment processing rates.

> App developers were mad about Apple's egregious 30% cut for doing payment processing. If Apple wants everyone to accept Apple IAP, it can simply lower its fees to competitive payment processing rates.

Apple has never characterized the 30% as "payment processing" -- it's it's always characterized it as a commission, which the court affirmed and explicitly mentioned that Apple is allowed to pursue that commission, even if the developer chose to use another payment provider. Apple's IAP has been an enforcement mechanism for that 30% cut.

And before, they might not have bothered developing an app, or one for iOS. Now you have choice. Choice is good.

What big names haven't developed iOS apps but may do so now? I'm hard pressed to think of any. They may not always allow in-app purchases, of course, but they generally exist.

Well. Fortnite for example.

It's not guaranteed, but one realistic outcome is that its IAP services get worse, because e.g. automatically saying yes to all refund requests is less feasible when margins are thinner. Retailers like large supermarket chains are only able to have no-questions-asked refund policies because nobody is actually taking a bad box of cereal back to a store, but in digital, it might too easy right now for a 3% cut + absorbing chargebacks to be sustainable. Similarly, having cancellation be one-click and done is great for the consumer but if you're in the razor thin margins game unfortunately making unsubscribing difficult is a competitive edge.

IAPs are only indirectly a product that app customers get a choice in; the primary customer is app developers who have vastly different interests. There may have to be a shift on some of these axes for Apple to compete on price.

I trust Apple will force developers to provide a drop down menu of options for payments. I don't think they'll allow dodgy redirects and webviews. That's not in line with Apple's design principles.

The infamously dodgy "link".

I already had a choice. That’s one of the primary reasons I chose iPhone and tend to recommend iPhones to friends and family. This decision will by definition reduce the amount of choice available to smartphone buyers.

> why it’s app developers who were unhappy, not users

IIRC, Epic was offering their in game currency more cheaply outside of the App Store, which Apple didn't like.

I bet plenty of people would use an alternate payment method to save money..right now they don't have that choice.

It was pretty genius from Epic, they knew they'd get banned, but it instantly showed how the consumer is harmed by this behavior (pay more, get less).

Every mobile game with a cash store would instantly give you a discount to go through a different provider.

I highly doubt every, or even many mobile game devs who could suddenly switch from IAP to Stripe would pass those savings on to the consumers... Let's be real here.

That’s getting into pretty basic economic theory, costs going down across the board in a very competitive market will generally bring down prices, eventually.

I think if you offered the two options to users with even partial differences in price, most users would go for the cheaper option even if they had to do cartwheels to process payments.