Apple's kicking us off the App Store unless we give them 30% of all transactions

https://twitter.com/jasminericegirl/status/1486414212381360131

by keleftheriou • 4 years ago

15 24 4 years ago

Cyberdog2• 4 years ago

Well… yes. This is a well-established factor of being in the App Store which not even other massive corporations are exempt from, and surely she knew about it before submitting her app. Did she think an exception would be made for her for some reason?

keleftheriou6• 4 years ago

Both the legal & ethical aspects of Apple’s rules are currently being questioned. Also:

If a platform developer doesn’t charge their creators a commission, Apple doesn’t get a cut either – great. But should the developer decide to keep even 1% to run their own business, Apple asks for almost a third of the entire transaction – how does that make any sense?

Cyberdog2• 4 years ago

Maybe it makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. Regardless, those are the rules to be on the App Store. They are widely known and shouldn't have been a surprise or a source of frustration to anyone. If her entire business model was somehow built on Apple bending the rules for her and they failed to do so, that's on her. She should have anticipated these rules and worked within or around them as everyone else does.

If I ask you to take your shoes off before coming inside my house, and you tromp on in with your shoes still on and naively expect I'll just be cool with that, don't be surprised if I just kick you out of my house instead. And then don't expect anyone to care when you go protest in the public square about the injustice of me not letting you violate a rule I hold everyone (including myself) to.

(At any rate, didn't Apple actually reduce fees to 15% for smaller companies last year? Isn't that still in effect?)

olliej3• 4 years ago

The legal aspect seem to revolve entirely around their restrictions on other payment services, not the platform commission.

musicale2• 4 years ago

not even other massive corporations are exempt from

Massive corporations can sometimes make a special deal with Apple.

Small companies, not so much.

Therefore it makes sense for small companies to assume that they will have to follow Apple's rules, whether or not they agree with them.

nabla9• 4 years ago

Digital feudalism.

Justin_K• 4 years ago

More reason not to build your house on someone else's land.

keleftheriou6• 4 years ago

I'd love to be able to reach iPhone owners outside of the App Store, but Apple is preventing that.

airpoint2• 4 years ago

Just how exactly are you or anyone else prevented to run your business in mobile browser.

ketz1• 4 years ago

Block all safari users on your side projects guys. Don't support digital feudalism

olliej3• 4 years ago

Yes! Everyone let's support Google's monopoly on the web!

throwaway9465132• 4 years ago

Block chrome too, redirect to Firefox.

dangus• 4 years ago

This Twitter thread is just a pain to read.

Sure, Apple is charging a lot for their platform. It raises anti-trust issues as a duopoly.

The irony here is that the Fanhouse business model itself is exactly what Apple is doing on the App Store, the only difference is that they’re not a monopoly/duopoly power. By that I mean: why would anyone give Fanhouse a 10% cut when credit card transactions only cost 2-3%? Oh, right, so you can get on the platform…sound familiar?

This thread has a taste of hyperbole. It’s overly dramatic.

OnlyFans operates without an iOS app for this very reason. Fanhouse says “fuck Apple” but then does business with them anyway by implementing the surcharge.

If I were an investor I’d probably be having a word with the CEO about publicly hurling insults toward the “store” that’s selling my product.

Also, she’s misrepresenting the Netflix situation. Netflix has to abide by the same rules but she’s saying they get special deals. No, their app says “you can’t sign up for Netflix in the app” for this very reason. Spotify has a free tier and doesn’t handle subscriptions through iOS. Google goes the Fanhouse route and adds a surcharge to iOS-based subscriptions. Prime Video is browse-only last I checked.

I have a hard time sympathizing for a business owner who got $30M+ in a funding round. She can talk about her past life of food stamps all day, but she’s part of the ownership class, just not on Apple’s level of ownership. It feels a little insulting for the situation to be framed as a struggle of the working class.

That feels a lot like marketing: stirring up controversy so that people know who Fanhouse is. It’s a lot cheaper than running ads, isn’t it?

keleftheriou6• 4 years ago

The difference here is that Fanhouse has to compete with other similar apps, thus the current 10% is driven by the market, not artificial restrictions.

Also, Netflix got some really special treatment: https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/05/netflix-apple-in-app-purchase...

throwaway9465132• 4 years ago

Other similar apps

My first assumption by the subtitle was the 'SFW Fan-Creator Platform' essentially a SFW variant of OnlyFans. In which case, OnlyFans was able to function with a browser only setup... why can this not follow for Fan house?

I use Patreon in the browser, checking on posts via email. And don't get me wrong, I dislike the in-ability to sideload applications on iOS, but that's much par for the course with Apple.

airpoint2• 4 years ago

The only other submission linking to that Twitter profile is about the very same thing but 7 months ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com/jasmineri...

Did they release a new version or something that they need the eyeballs? One can’t help but wonder…

keleftheriou6• 4 years ago

Today was the deadline Apple gave them at the time, before which they had to comply.

olliej3• 4 years ago

once again, the 30% is not a transaction fee. It's a platform fee, and it's in line with every other platform.

musicale2• 4 years ago

Identifying it as a platform commission rather than a payment processing charge would nullify the argument that "Apple/Google/Nintendo/etc. is unfairly overcharging for payment processing" so it cannot be identified as such by anyone making that argument.

ab_testing• 4 years ago

If the same company has both and Android and iOS app, does that company need to pay 30% to both Apple and Google. I am thinking learning apps like Pluralsight etc. They have one user account but then let the user access the content on multiple devices Android and iOS

How does the payments work in that case.

spectre3d• 4 years ago

It’s rough there hasn’t been more progress since we last heard about this 7 months ago[0], There are some good suggestions in the comments to that post.

It’s understandable that the marketplace owner wants to have an iOS app and not just a site like OnlyFans.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27451689

Apple's kicking us off the App Store unless we give them 30% of all transactions

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