I'm not sure where you work (or where you live), but my experience has indeed been that payment processing is a pretty cut-and-dried technology at this point. People charge insane overhead for it because, as a marginal utility, other people have no way of determining what it's actual value is.
> That's what a lot of people say, but how much of that is _really_ they just don't want to pay a 30% cut?
I don't really think it matters, the statement is true nonetheless. If third-party app stores exist, Apple would be undercut in a heartbeat. By obstructing other people from competing with their App Store business, they're eliminating the need for the market to set a price.
You can argue to the ends of the earth with that logic (lord knows Apple keeps lawyers on retainer for that express purpose), but Apple's strategy here is to prevent them from having to compete with the rest of the market. There's a reason why European regulators are wising up to this nonsense (and a reason Apple obeys); it's a lost case. Everyone knows that it's dumb, the only defenses I've seen for it boil down to apologism and misunderstanding.
Why do we need to keep giving the world's largest company the benefit of the doubt? Can't we just hold them accountable for once?
They do? In my experience it's much higher, particularly if you're dealing with low value transactions. When I worked in retail 15 years ago our payment handler charged a 1% fee on cash drops, and charged 0.30 plus 2% capped at some number I can't remember off the top of my head, _plus_ the card issuer fee. On a $100 transaction sure that's close to 2%, but on a $2 IAP or a $10 subscription (like Netflix) that's 17% and 5% respectively. I'm also pretty sure on top of that we had to pay a dispute fee if one was lodged with the issuer; presumably in the region of $10-15 per dispute. the risk of those disputed being opened on an online purchase vs an in person purchase is significantly higher.
> You have no opportunity to compete with Apple in this space, and that's what pisses off a lot of people
That's what a lot of people say, but how much of that is _really_ they just don't want to pay a 30% cut?