Comment by Wazako 3 days ago
What is absurd is finding yourself paying 30% on every digital item purchased on a smartphone app. It would never even occur to us that Microsoft takes a 30% margin on Steam, yet that is what happens on webtoon apps.
Let me clarify. Microsoft did not approach Valve and say "give us 30% or else." Valve saw that Microsoft was moving in the same direction of Apple where their devices would be locked down and only run software from their store, felt threatened, and decided they couldn't remain tied to that ecosystem.
Microsoft don't really have an equivalent to iOS so let's compare oranges to oranges: macOS vs Windows.
On macOS, Apple don't take a 30% cut on Steam purchases. Steam take 30% however.
There's a big difference - when you develop an app for iOS or macOS, using Apple's APIs, platform and app store tech, it's reasonable to pay Apple something and they legally can charge.
I don't actually have an opinion on whether 30% or 15% is too much or not. It's factually wrong or illogical arguments that bother me: how can we fight anything when the arguments are just nonsensical.
Apple make plenty of user-hostile decisions, but people need to criticise them reasonably, otherwise they will be ignored by those that might have the influence to change things for the better.
> when you develop an app for iOS or macOS, using Apple's APIs, platform and app store tech, it's reasonable to pay Apple something
Is it?
We spent several decades of the PC world, MSDOS and Windows, with zero platform license fees or approvals. This was hugely beneficial for innovation, and this is why everyone hates the sudden rise of platform landlordism.
You're perfectly entitled to distribute a macOS app with your own paywall, the same as ever. Nothing has changed from that perspective.
Rent-seeking on SaaS platforms is far worse I think, e.g. $30 per month for 10GB of data in a recent offering I was looking at, and who knows where the data are. Some datacenter in a foreign land with a mad king probably.
> You're perfectly entitled to distribute a macOS app with your own paywall
Are you sure the ToS allows that? Given the "anti-steering" rules? Can you point me to an example that isn't by a megacorp?
> $30 per month for 10GB of data in a recent offering I was looking at, and who knows where the data are
That's worse pricing than my mobile contract!
Remember when software was sold in a box with a paper manual in a store? Before App Store and steam, retailers and publishers of games and software also took their share of the revenue from the work software developers created. Their cut wasn’t small.
If the government stepped in to regulate the sales of software (to protect developers and consumers?) do you think: A) apps will cost less B) the government won’t want their cut
Yeah but there was a big difference: As a developer you could opt out of that distribution and go your own way. I knew people who sold floppies out of their garage. IBM or whoever made your hardware, and Microsoft or whoever made your OS, could not prevent your users from installing your software on their machine.
Gov't taking a cut from tha App store is already happening [1] and it's a legitimate concern unlike the concept of Apple taking cuts from people's salary (LOL).
[1] https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/02/12/app-store-and-japanese-co...
So they aren't exempt from sales tax in Japan, and they're crying about it?
Microsoft threatened to take 30% margin on all Steam transactions. That's why Valve embraced Linux and made the Steam Deck and Steam Machine.
Valve already takes a 30% cut of all Steam transactions. It's just corporations fighting to steal each other's revenue streams.