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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

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Could Apple Be Forced to Reduce App Store Fees?

Just ahead of Apple's World-Wide Developer Conference, the company is getting a lot of heat about their app store fees.

👉 Verge Story: Apple’s App Store Fees Are ‘Highway Robbery,’ Says House Antitrust Committee Chair

TLDR: The Basecamp folks are being loud about their treatment under App Store rules and Apple's attempts to earn 30% fees. These rules more or less date back to the inception of the app store, and somehow Apple has avoided much scrutiny in the matter.

Nobody is better at causing a fuss about this kind of stuff than DHH and Basecamp.

How do you predict this will shake out?

Top comments (67)

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dpashutskii profile image
Dmitrii Pashutskii

I have no idea how it will end up but I hope Apple comes to their senses.
It wouldn't be a problem and nobody probably blame them for anything if they would've been consistent.
But small companies which only started to earn money have to pay 30% and live with it but huge unicorns like Netflix and Spotify have not? I feel it's really unfair and should be another way around in the perfect world.

PS I'm Apple fanboy but even I resent it 😂

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brookesb91 profile image
Brookes

What we have noticed is that Netflix and Spotify handle their subscriptions outside of the app to avoid the 30% charge. With this though, there are limitations such as not being allowed to explicitly direct your users out of app to make payments. There are a lot of holes they are jumping through to avoid the 30%.

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dpashutskii profile image
Dmitrii Pashutskii

Unfortunately, there aren't holes and that's the problem. If you can charge for your product outside of the AppStore we wouldn't have this conversation in the first place.
Apple forbid charging the customers outside of the AppStore and you have to sign up and charge through the AppStore.

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nathanheffley profile image
Nathan Heffley

HEY is already trying to do this, but Apple changed their policy recently that if you offer a subscription you MUST allow for users to sign up through your iOS app which means paying the fee.

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j_mplourde profile image
Jean-Michel Plourde

Also it seems to be a per case situation. They won't force Netflix or Spotify to change it, but they sure will try it on emerging apps that don't have the kind of resources those other behemoths have.

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renesansz profile image
Rene Padillo 🇵🇭 • Edited

I love my Macbook Pro and my iPhone, I just appreciate Apple's decision on making their ecosystem stable and secure.

But in regards to the App Store fees, I think Apple is belittling their other customer which are the developers.

Have they ever thought to themselves that if all of a sudden all developers will stop publishing apps for their platform will greatly affect their revenue?

sure they can always pay other developers to build for them but would it be a boring ecosystem without competition? and without competition there's no innovation?

I hope Apple will think deeply on their current decision, because right now they might think they are superior, but they under estimated with what the open-source has achieved in these past couple of years and we can see that Microsoft is adopting the principles in to their business and it seems going pretty well for them.

So I think they should have to think about that long term and hear the feedbacks from us devs.

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nirlanka profile image
Nir Lanka ニル

I feel Apple is relying on Stockholm syndrome a bit too much 😑

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seanmclem profile image
Seanmclem

Yeah, the truth is that once you go through all of the effort and time and programming required to make sure that Apple gets their cut so that they'll accept your app - you feel almost a blind loyalty to their platform because you've taken the time to figure it out and understand it.

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terkwood profile image
Felix Terkhorn

💯

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

Have they ever thought to themselves that if all of a sudden all developers will stop publishing apps for their platform will greatly affect their revenue?

I imagine this has been discussed, but they won't think it's going to happen. And it probably won't. There isn't an alternative to the App Store that's usable for most users and if there were, Apple could keep releasing updates that disabled or hampered it.

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renesansz profile image
Rene Padillo 🇵🇭

yeah. that's what I also thought. It's their house their rules anyways, so it's only up to use if we play by their rules or move elsewhere.

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guneyozsan profile image
Guney Ozsan

Considering itunes and xcode, apple should never be allowed to develop any consumer app ever. This would look like reverting all web pages to fancy 90's.

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jdorfman profile image
Justin Dorfman

Marketing is one of the many things DHH does best. Basecamp (creators of HEY) knew what Apple's rules were before writing a line of code. He found an opportunity to get a million dollars worth of press for HEY by doing what Spotify did last year.

How do you predict this will shake out?

In a few months, DHH, a representative from Spotify (USA Inc), and a few other App developers will testify in front of congress to debate why Apple is a monopoly. In the meantime, Basecamp will cave to Apple's rules because they need HEY to be in the App Store. For now, Apple holds all the cards, and they are not going to fold unless they have to.

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cristiannebunu profile image
Cristian N

Exactly, Apple is too big to make a change without a higher power forcing them. But then again, even if they bring this to congress, the since the US has that lobbying thing, they could still come out good from this entire process.

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karandpr profile image
Karan Gandhi

Nope.
Developers are paying for access to a large and specific userbase.
App stores are very convenient from a software distribution perspective.
While the 30% fees is steep ,
developers/business owners should always consider it as a factor while deploying on app store.
I think the guys at basecamp should just behave rationally and hike the price for iOS platform or find some sort of pricing model which compensates the difference.

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aminarria profile image
Amin Arria

But the thing is you can't offer a different price for App Store subscription per their guidelines.

And yes, App Store is a convenient way to distribute your app, but its also the ONLY way. That's why this ends up as a monopolistic practice.

Also, how should multi-platforms app do? Would I need to subscribe through the App Store instead of web just so my iPhone can have the app? What if Google Play Store starts demanding the same thing?

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karandpr profile image
Karan Gandhi

As far android is concerned, sideloading is allowed but at the cost of lucrative play services SDK. And play store implements rules haphazardly.
App stores are platforms where softwares are deployed. While creating a sustainable business model, it's necessary to study the deployment platform and implement the suitable 1 business model.
One of the best case studies for multi platform deployment is alto's adventure. It's paid on iOS and free on Android. They know the platform and target audience and implemented pricing models with the platforms on mind.
gamasutra.com/blogs/BencinStudios/...

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renesansz profile image
Rene Padillo 🇵🇭

I see, you might have a point. seeing it on a broader perspective it's just capitalism at work so I think there's nothing too see much about it.

Yeah. I think this is just the matter of our own decision whether we stick with them or find alternatives that will work with us.

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karandpr profile image
Karan Gandhi

Also it looks like the basecamp dude testified against apple for app store pricing practices and now expects to have some sort of preferential treatment from Apple ....
Well that's some logic....

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brenodamata profile image
Breno da Mata

I don't understand your logic here. Basecamp has always been vocal about Apple's monopolistic practices.

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karandpr profile image
Karan Gandhi

I dunno the exact history around basecamp and apple. I just read the tweet thread and found it funny that dhh testified against the platform and then expects the platform to provide preferential treatment to his business.
It doesn't make sense to me but that's just my viewpoint.

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rafi993 profile image
Rafi • Edited

I think the bigger problem is not the fee but the some apps get exempted while others are not even-though they are in the same category

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sigmapie8 profile image
Manav

I think Apple has become too big to care about anything else but its bottom-line. History has a clear lesson for people like that. Kings fall, it takes time, but tyranny eventually gets over.

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alfredosalzillo profile image
Alfredo Salzillo

As a Developer, Apple abuse of "privacy and security" they use as an excuse for hight fees, for the paleozoic tool they made us use (Xcode looking at you), an excuse to not implement features only because they threat their app store revenues.
They are not creating a likely environment for developers.
They are already like IE, but they do it on purpose.
As a developer, I will never develop anything for apple's device unless I have too.
They are losing the trust of the community with their tyranny.

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terkwood profile image
Felix Terkhorn

XCode (all 6.66GB of it) is gross. No lie. 😁

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alfredosalzillo profile image
Alfredo Salzillo • Edited

I don't know if there is something worse than XCode.

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guneyozsan profile image
Guney Ozsan

Perhaps iTunes.

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guneyozsan profile image
Guney Ozsan

Seriously I would love to drink a beer and chat with an application product designer working at Apple.

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kayis profile image
K • Edited

I hope, it will lead mobile app companies coming to their senses ans leave those platforms.

They should pour resources in the web to get it on-par.

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jbaruch profile image
JBaruch 🎩

How it is even a problem? Hey is for profit, their subscription costs money, those are the terms Apple suggests, you either like them and pay or go away. This is how free trade works. Not sure what all the fuss is about, or what do you mean by "scrutiny".

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maxart2501 profile image
Massimo Artizzu

I think there's plenty of motives to hold a grudge against Apple:

  • its approval policies are far from clear;
  • and farther from being consistently applied;
  • it doesn't allow other platforms in their systems;
  • it doesn't allow developers to tell users that they can subscribe elsewhere;
  • it's holding PWAs back in Safari because of pretty money;
  • it doesn't even allow other browser engines, because of "security reasons"... what?!
  • also, 30% is a lot.

I can go on. On the other hand, Hey would use Apple's platform to be distributed, and DHH says they don't want to pay for that. I don't think it's fair either.

Maybe if Apple can lower their share...

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patarapolw profile image
Pacharapol Withayasakpunt

I think if Apple doesn't decide, it will become the next IE.

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terkwood profile image
Felix Terkhorn

Never hurts to try!

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rubiin profile image
Rubin • Edited

Apple charges are really high. I mean 30% , for an app that has a fair share of profit , has to increase their prices so as to cope with this. Apple has a monopoly in the platform that's also true. What they did to Spotify is an example

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louy2 profile image
Yufan Lou

with a few minutes of research

and at least a few hours of setup and still clunky and weird to use. Just the screening feature requires non-trivial config on any other email service. Changing the displayed subject and merging multiple email threads into one cannot be implemented at the config level. Not sure whether that's worth the price, but the features sure are novel.

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ferricoxide profile image
Thomas H Jones II

While we're on the topic of usurious fees, can Congress maybe do something about credit-card fees? I mean, even with an 850 credit rating, most cards seem to want 10-20% if you're not on a 0% introductory offer. Funny thing is, seems like as Prime Rate has dropped, over the decades, the interest rates – regardless of creditworthiness – as have swipe fees.

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justgage profile image
Gage

I love how they categorize paying $100 per year as, "freeloading". They just see Basecamp as just small enough to bully, yet big enough to juice for lots of money. 30% is crazy too. Especially when you consider how small of a cut most payment processers.

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sethusenthil profile image
Sethu Senthil • Edited

I just want a way to side load apps. Something similar to Android. If Apple is forced to allow side loading apps then other companies will offer their apps outside the appstore if Apple doesn't lower the fees and acts less monopolistic.