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TikTok May Be Breaking App Store Rules by Avoiding Commissions on Tips
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European Parliament sues Garden of Eden because Eve complained she couldn’t sideload a new husband. Snake laughs.
Politicians have already decided due to the election.
Actual probability of a ban is extremely low. The during the Cold War, the Supreme Court already established Americans have the right to unrestricted access to material, regardless of the content. Any judge will see through the "divest or ban" dichotomy and delete the ban option.
Coins are just business as usual for apps.
They might be breaking App Store rules but how are they stealing from Apple? Is Netflix stealing from Apple because you sign up via the web and not inside the app?
As an outsider when reading about the coins and diamonds, all I could think of was Schrute-bucks!
Can't stand TikTok but Timmy isn't going to treat this like he does any other app. It's China. He's in bed with them.
Yikes... Why would ByteDance do this with only months to go until they are banned in the US? Something tells me if Apple were to enforce its rules against TikTok like it did to Fortnite, then it will give the Chinese government a "reason" to ban Apple. Ouch.
How is that different from what kindle does?![]()
TikTok appears to be quietly showing some users an option to purchase "coins" on the web instead of through in-app purchases, circumventing the commission that Apple receives on digital purchases.
![tiktok-logo.jpg]()
As noted by David Tesler (via TechCrunch) TikTok has been offering a limited number of TikTok app users an option to purchase coins on TikTok.com instead of in the app. "Try recharging on tiktok.com to avoid in-app service fees," reads the text. "You can save the service fee and get access to popular payment methods."
Following through and opting to purchase from TikTok.com brings up an interface for using payment options such as PayPal or a credit/debit card. "Save around 25% with a lower third-party service fee," the app suggests. The purchase workflow can be completed entirely in the TikTok app with no requirement to use in-app purchase.
TikTok's coins are used as a way for users to provide "Gifts" to creators. Users pay real money for a certain number of coins, and those coins are used for little gift emoji that can be provided to creators. TikTok says that gifts are used to determine the number of "diamonds" awarded to content creators, and diamonds can be redeemed for money. A TikTok coin is worth about half a diamond, and 100 diamonds is worth 50 cents, so TikTok is collecting quite a bit of money during the conversion.
Apple requires in-app purchase to be used for digital goods and services, and TikTok's "coins" presumably count as a digital good. If TikTok is indeed offering customers a way to purchase coins without in-app purchase as suggested by the screenshots from Tesler, then TikTok is breaking Apple's App Store rules.
TikTok coins would likely be considered tips, and Apple has forced other major social networks like Facebook to use in-app purchase for a creator tipping feature. What TikTok is doing is actually similar to the direct purchase options that Epic Games added to the Fortnite app back in 2020, a move that ultimately led to the banning of the Fortnite app and a multi-year legal battle.
Most TikTok users are only able to purchase coins through the in-app purchase interface, and the option to purchase direct from TikTok with a credit or debit card is allegedly a feature showing up only for a small number of users. The option is perhaps being limited to those who have spent a lot of money on coins in the past.
Article Link: TikTok May Be Breaking App Store Rules by Avoiding Commissions on Tips
Apple won’t ban TikTok. If they do, their market share in US will fall 25% in a year! I wish US government ban it like India did.
Never used tiktok and personally i relish the day it's scoured from this earth.
However, tiktok has reached killer app status; pulling it from the app store and apple devices would probably do more harm than good to apple; especially in the teens demograhic where apple traditionally dominates.
Also; don't other prominent apps also offer web based purchase options; often at a discount? e.g. reddit, discord.
However, tiktok has reached killer app status; pulling it from the app store and apple devices would probably do more harm than good to apple; especially in the teens demograhic where apple traditionally dominates.
Also; don't other prominent apps also offer web based purchase options; often at a discount? e.g. reddit, discord.
If you agree to a contract and then not paying the money you are contractually owed, that could be considered stealing. Netflix isn't stealing because what they are doing is still within their right according to the rules of the contract. These coin shenanigans aren't.
Here in Ontario it’s illegal to take any portion of tips. The service industry got that one passed a few years ago. I wonder if Apple would be in violation of the law here.
Tim?? I always figured he lurked on MR and only lashed out when it involved money.
I don't know how 'tipping' works on TikTok, but according to the coin -> diamond -> cash numbers shown here ($0.29 for 20 coins, a coin buys half a diamond and 100 diamonds are worth 50 cents), it costs the person doing the tipping 6 times the amount the person being tipped actually receives! i.e. TikTok takes 83% of the tip.
If that's right I can't see why anyone would waste their money tipping on that platform.
If that's right I can't see why anyone would waste their money tipping on that platform.
as opposed to reddit awards where the recipient received nothing at all?
But i agree, calling it a tip is a stretch.
Part of that is because Apple takes 30% off the top. If you go to TikTok's website, it's around 95 coins/$1, opposed to the around 66 coins/$1 through iOS In-App Purchase. If you do the math... 95*0.7=66.5. TikTok is still taking 75%, though. It makes YouTube's and Twitch's 30% of "tips" seem charitable. "Tipping" (Super Chat) in YouTube iOS results in only 49% going to the creator, since Apple and Google each take 30%.
The developer fee exists entirely to keep anyone and everyone from signing up to be a developer and release garbage on the app store. Charging $99 is a great help for this. It's not perfect but it keeps most of the 14 year olds out.
I would give anything for a real reddit alternative that isnt evil like them. They are the devil.
All of the social media platforms (except X) are in bed with China, but China has nothing to do with Apple treating this app differently. You know all the stories about huge iPhone adoption rates due to young people having iPhone as their first phone and never switching? Watch what happens if Apple tries to take TikTok off the app store. Those kids will switch to Android in a heartbeat.
all these **** apps pulling things like this. and EU has apple opening up their devices to any and all apps? too bad apple doesn't have just an iPod line up. all this clutter and trash ass stuff being ported over is just going to make it even more dodgy. it would be nice if they enforced the same requires on previous iterations of App Store to the Mac
The intent here is not to disincentivise small developers from releasing apps from the App Store.
Contrary to what many might believe here, what contributes to the vitality and vibrancy of the App Store aren't the big-name apps like Facebook, YouTube, Netflix or Spotify. Rather, it's the indie developers, and many of them are releasing apps that make no money (because they are free). Which in turns means that they don't pay Apple a cent either.
$99 a year is enough of a barrier to discourage any random Tom or Harry from simply signing up for one for the fun of it (or perhaps to get access to the latest developer betas ahead of time), while still not over penalising developers who may still be students themselves with no steady source of income.
Apple is not a very hard company to read.
The difference here is TikTok could make you go to a browser if it were going to be the same as Netflix and not steal from Apple.
But TikTok users are like.. what’s the web? Let the mindless drones lose their money, what do TikTok care?