I think so. But it is a "competitive" issue. It will certainly bring chaos and hurt consumers in some ways.
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Google Now Lets Apps Use Third-Party Billing in EU, Apple Yet to Announce Plans
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I once tried to get a refund from an in-App purchase, it was a nightmare and at the end Apple did not refund me.
Just because you don't want to use another payment party that means that no one should and they shouldn't exist? I'm not even saying I would use them but don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to exist. That's just a form of monopoly and the world is already anti competitive enough as it is.
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️
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Getting a refund from the App store used to be easier and more seamless press. Nowadays, It has become extremely complicated.
The "one stop shop" Apple currently provides is a unique ecosystem and should be viewed as a choice consumers made when purchasing Apple products. Legislating it into looking just like Android is not the answer. If enough Apple customers leave because Apple is "too restrictive" they will change or fail but to have brainless politicians dictate technology choices is not the right answer.
If alt-stores are legislated into existence then those stores will compete for supremacy and one of the methods they will use will be exclusive distribution. So an app I own today may no longer be available via the Apple store tomorrow but as an example might be on Steam. Now to receive updates I need an account with Steam. A year from now Amazon might give the dev a better exclusive offer, now I need an account with Amazon, etc, etc, rinse and repeat.
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I'm sure Google/Apple charging a fee for a developer to use another payment provider is not what the EU intended.
Give it time, this will be outlawed too as it should.
The dev is going to save 3%, and likely have to pay SOME percentage to the other processor. I doubt you're going to see them giving a 25% bonus.
Can't ever see that happening, especially with the amount of app store loyalist like yourself developers won't cut off that supply of income.
It's up to Apple to stay competitive with them. Do you get it yet? Competition is the key for consumers to not have to over pay for things in the future.
The only apps anyone really needs usually are life apps like banking etc and those are free anyway.
What if those different payment processors offer the same security Apple Pay does, for example hiding your credit card information?
It advantages the payment processors who paid off the politicians to get this bill passed.
The typical retail card processing fee is between 1%-3%, and some have a min fee based on the total sale.
None are even close to 15% let alone 30%.
It's cute that you think alt-stores and alt-payment processors will result in consumer savings, won't happen.
It is quite common for payment processors to collect between ~1% and ~4%, both Apple and Amazon have reduced their store commission by 3% where forced to do so. Do you really believe that devs choosing an alt-payment processor will charge ~1% less for an app via their processor vs Apple? LOL. They will pocket any savings.
The rest of the 15-30% commission charged by most stores is for the "store front" if you will and advertising/marketing. Alt-stores will probably result in discounts for devs as the stores compete but again do you really think that will result in discounts for the consumer? Suppose Steam gets in this game and offers a store commission of 25% versus Apple and Google at 30% do you really think the dev will discount the app by 5% on the Steam store versus the Apple store? LOL, example, plants vs zombies from the apple store .99, from our indie store .94, LOL!
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It is still a numbers game. How many major retailers have suffered data breaches? The more times you put your info out there the more likely you are to suffer fraud.
Not saying Apple is infallible but I am saying that if I have 50 apps under the current ecosystem I only released payment information to 1 processor. In an alt-payment processor world I may have to give 50 processors my info, that is a much larger pool of targets for hackers.
It’s a race to the bottom for consumers, devs, malware and scamware.
True... but no one ever said Apple charges 15% or 30% just for credit card processing.
There is other stuff that Apple is doing to earn their commission.
Here is another forum post detailing some of what you get for Apple's commission fee:
- we developers get up to 1 petabyte of user storage via CloudKit 100% free. Bear notes app does this and they manage 0 servers for their subscription-paid users.
- we could submit 1000 app and app updates in a year which translates to Apple paying about 1000 man-hours worth of paychecks at about $30/hr or ~$30k for app review
- we have free access to using Apple Maps instead of paying Google tons of money to use their mapping API keys (for those high volume users). this saves Yelp and Facebook a ton of money as well as small developers.
- we get many more new features every single year via the SDK compared to Android (like ARKit, Core ML, SwiftUI, Vision, etc... just to name a few).
- we get global distribution for free (including China, you know, where Google Play doesn't exist. also developers generally have to setup their own servers in China because of the great firewall, but if you used CloudKit, it just works without any extra setup).
- we get app store curated editorial with a chance to reach front page in front of 500 million customers a week.
- we have no credit card fees or international taxes to worry about
- Apple provides support to customers asking for refund for an app and app store support in general
- Testflight service is free (for public and private testing)
- app store automatically creates many different binaries of our app and distributes device-optimized versions to each customer. a 1 gigabyte app with many different permutations of versions across hundreds of servers around the world means Apple is hosting about several terabytes in the cloud for us from one single app
- push notifications/push notification sandbox servers
- Web SDK version of cloudkit/mapkit so that you can use it for a web version of your app
- Apple sign in
- Mac notarization service which improves trust by the user for downloading an app from the web
- yearly major releases of Xcode with new features
- analytics dashboard and crash reporting
- and the list goes on and on.
Do Stripe, PayPal, or other payment processors offer the above services?
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The EU has great regulations regarding payment processing, requiring a verification code for most transactions, so your point applies mostly to the US–which is behind as usual.
Your risk calculation also forgets to include that if all Apple users are forced to use Apple's payment services, then it becomes the largest single target for hacks, meaning that when Apple does get hack, billions of people will be impacted.
So now you can choose to give your money to a third-party that actually does nothing but taking your money to "process your payment".
So smart. /sarcasm
So smart. /sarcasm
Agreed, however I trust Apple far more than I trust some discount service an indie dev chooses in order to save 1%.
This was actually really cool to learn, thanks! I didn’t know Google charges developers to access their API’s.
It will have to happen or consumers won't switch from the App store. Why would they if it's the same pricing? Developers can't stop letting the app store sell there items either. That would be just and anti competitive.
So is the gaming apps micro transactions still a point of contention, looks like it? Even with a discount that still a sizable percentage compared to credit card transaction fees normal stores charge.
Yes that was my point. The 15-30% upcharge is why developers want a way to provide payments with another method. They wouldn't be complaining if it was 1%-3% which is more reasonable. Maybe a bit higher for what apple does promoting the products etc but 15-30% seems really high.
Nobody is making anyone get anything from these other payment and download options. They are just options. If people choose to continue with the app store because they feel it's safer they have that option. If the other options don't provide much of a benefit or cost savings they will fail.
It's just about having options and competition. Doesn't seem to be an issue on mac os either.
What?
In an iOS world with alt-stores or "side loading" a dev can completely remove their app from the Apple App store go it alone. I see all apps from major devs doing this.... amazon, meta, microsoft, epic, etc.
Why would they do this?
1) So they can increase traffic to their own web sites or store and limit exposure to competition, why allow your customers to get your app from Apple's App store where they also see competitors? Force them to your own site where they only see your own products. It is also easier to manipulate reviews or eliminate them completely outside of the Apple App store.
2) Avoid privacy labels, alt-stores will probably not be as privacy focused as Apple.
3) Lower their own costs.
None of these things benefit consumers or lower costs for consumers.
Granted, small indie devs will probably not do this as they need the marketing power and captive audience of the Apple App store but major players do not.
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Apple hasn’t announced anything because… why accept third party payments if, due to any other of the rather severe requirements, they’re finishing up their plans to make more wide ranging adjustments to their exposure in the EU? For example, Apple, is in no way, going to allow other voice assistants. So, if they did EVERYTHING else, but didn’t do that, they’d still be fined.
They’ve likely already been in internal discussions regarding the response to the new regulations (back when they were just proposed) and are still considering some final points before providing an all encompassing response. I look forward to seeing what that is!
They’ve likely already been in internal discussions regarding the response to the new regulations (back when they were just proposed) and are still considering some final points before providing an all encompassing response. I look forward to seeing what that is!