Are they wrong to do so? It makes no sense for them to make less money on a competitor's platform. There's also no real alternative to YouTube Premium on iOS (see: sideloading limitations) so they could arguably charge $50 a month and retain most of their iOS customers. This is your reward for locking yourself in a room with two hungry corporations.

> so they could arguably charge $50 a month and retain most of their iOS customers.

Source?

It's hyperbole, but people would still buy it. On iOS, Google is allowed to monopolize YouTube and it shows us a dark vision for the future of platforms that enable this kind of lockdown. Google can treat the platform like a second class citizen, buy up latent iOS advertising, force people to use an inferior app and still profit handsomely off it, all at the same time.

This doesn't have to be the case. But Apple's lockdown enables Google's tyranny, so there's really no other choice. On other platforms, I can install apps like NewPipe on watch YouTube in the background without needing to download anything from Google besides the videos I want. Google is not the savior of this story by any means, but they're not afraid to play Apple's game of turning iOS users into hostages.

They got to make up for that $18B+ a year they pay Apple to be the default search engine some kind of way.

They charge more because Apple takes an enormous cut. What kind of insane bias is your comment about CC data

I'd rather give my CC info to Apple than to the world's largest personal data and ad farm tbh.

Yes, and you pay a 30% fee for that

This really is the crux of the problem - I don’t think Apple “deserves” 30% cut[1], but I would rather pay with Apple Pay if necessary, or through iAP than give my CC, name, address, email, … to more companies, certainly not any of those ones that have sketch approach to security, or explicitly sell your info for profit.

[1] I think that there is an argument to be made that the store fee subsidizes everything that people don’t generally pay Apple for explicitly, which makes it possible for free/cheap apps to exist. I don’t personally feel like that argument reaches 30% however.

Good news, you can have your cake and eat it too. Get an Apple Card, buy it through the web, and then request a new CC number from the wallet App.

That seems reasonable?

I wish every subscription service did this. Make it very clear you subbing via Apple so you get charged 100% more. I can't think of a more parasitic rent seeking piece of trash policy then Apple's fucking 30% cut. Google too but you can at-least skip them without them banning you.

You can skip Apple too. Plenty of streaming apps don’t allow you to pay within the App Store including Netflix, Spotify, Hulu Live TV, etc.

Every retail outlet gets a “cut” when you buy from their store.

I hope the consumers know that. It would be a real shame if they accidentally clicked Apple's happy-path IAP and paid twice as much for their YouTube Premium subscription.

Or Google could just not allow in app purchasing at all like Netflix, Spotify, etc.

Are you also as outraged when consumers can buy cheaper goods online than at a BestBuy?