Apple would not let them charge one price for App Store payments and another price for external payments.

Spotify did exactly this before they abandoned in app purchases. I believe Google does this for YouTube Premium.

Apple did have that policy for less than a year over 10 years ago.

A store cannot dictate how much you charge for a product at a different retailer, and they have no right to interfere with your business activity, and the agreements you have with a different distributor.

> A store cannot dictate how much you charge for a product at a different retailer

Isn’t this exactly what is happening everywhere you see “we price match!” or “low price guarantee”?

Platforms can and do require sellers to provide the lowest price, and take whatever measures including offing violators from the platform if this means they suffer losses every time a buyer does their research.

Not even mentioning exclusivity clauses, which are very much legal and very much dictate your relationship with other distributors.

I’m not saying Apple is doing that, but there are so many precedents that I doubt this practice is illegal.

> they have no right to interfere with your business activity

If you choose to do business with them, they are literally taking part in your business activity. No one made you sign the contract (presumably you have done so in expectation of benefitting from the platform, which would attract users to you since its owner develops products that users want). Calling this “interference” is nonsensical.

Nitpick: "We price match" is a store voluntarily taking a price cut for their customers. The other store "dictates" the price, but the first one can always end the sale if they wish.

Wouldn’t this open such a platform to scams where a friend of the seller gets discounts by pointing to seller’s site with super-low prices?

I’m not saying they do not take a cut voluntarily, but they must take measures if this happens too often with a particular seller.

Usually those ads have some fine print saying that their own terms of refusing a sale for whatever reason still apply. So if Store A is taking a loss on sales to force Store B to sell for cheaper, Store B can still refuse to sell you the product. "We price match" only applies if a sale actually goes to completion.

Not sure I get your point.

Imagine store A is a platform like Booking.com, and store B is seller’s site. There is a complaint every day to store A that store B sells cheaper. Store A charges the customer less but pays the seller the same, taking a loss.

Meanwhile, it turns out that those customers are friends of the seller, to whom the seller compensates the transaction plus some extra on top.

Apple can and does do this.

Products on the App Store can be sold at a different price, companies often do this to recoup some of that 30% App Store commission.

Edit: this is a fact, though feel free to downvote. Apple tries to hide this from the user by not letting publishers mention that the app or service is cheaper when purchased outside of the App Store or Mac App Store.

I must be misunderstanding this. Since Apple doesn't support sideloading, how is any product offered both on the App Store and somewhere else, let alone for a different price?

Some apps are sold for a different price on the App Store and the Mac App Store, than if you'd buy it directly from the developer or a store on a different platform. On iOS you can obviously only buy an app on the App Store, with some exceptions.

You can buy subscriptions outside of the App Store and still use the app.

That is not true, at least in the US.

> The whole “if you like the App Store, just don’t use the others” doesn’t work in practice.

Why not? Isn't that the status quo? If you like the App Store, you buy an iPhone and don't use any of the others. If you like F-Droid, you get an Android phone, put LineageOS on it and don't use any of the others. Or if you like multiple Android stores, you can do that too.

Allowing multiple stores on Apple devices just reduces the cost relative to the "buy a new phone" solution.

They're saying that when what's being asked (alternative stores without paying % cut to OS vendor) doesn't solve this at all, as Epic has its own store on Windows but gamers absolutely hate it since Steam is so much better[0], yet Epic purchases exclusivity rights to new games; it only has marketshare because they give away free games and Fortnite requires it.

0: https://redd.it/b94c4i