Comment by rob74

30% is also the cut google takes on the google play store. This is not an apple only issue. This is a regulatory one.

Apple makes sure it's not practical.

You still can't have a "share to" target that is a web app on iOS. And the data your can store in local storage on safari is a joke.

Of course, forget about background tasks and integrated notifications.

In fact, even on Android you miss features with web apps, like widgets for quick actions, mapping actions to buttons and so on.

And no matter how good you cache things, the mobile browser will unload the app, and you will always get this friction when you load the web app on the new render you don't have on regular apps.

> I think they're very overused

I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities that no web application can match. The inability to control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying to create an experience with minimal friction.

As a user please for the love of god to not make me use a stupid mobile browser for everything. Native apps are so much better.

The hosting aspect is only necessary because a) piracy and b) Google would eat their lunch if they were the gate keeper to content. Bit like how Ticketmaster takes all the money from artists because they get to say who sits in a seat.

You could if they built a donation & support trading app separate from the content app?

They do with Apple Pay, and don't allow Banks to roll with their own system like on Android

Isn't that exactly what this is? Except they're targeting a single app.

I would be surprised by that because iPhone users would notice that. I think the App Store model relies on their fee being invisible to consumers, and the increased price you’re paying not being linked to them. AFAIK apps aren’t allowed to explain that they charge more if you subscribe on iPhone to users either, or why they do so.

When you use Apple Pay, Apple collects ~0.15% (15 bps) from the issuing banks for credit. $1B in transaction volume = $1.5M

In 2022 the total volume was estimated at $6T * .15% = $9B. Real number would be maybe half due to lower fees on debit, but it's hugely profitable for Apple, and carries zero risk.

Something interesting is that Apple and Google Pay charge a tiny commission (don't have the number at hand). Which banks didn't like, so at least on Android they created their own NFC payment stacks for a while. Only to then discover that maintaining such a stack cost them more per year than the commission.

> certainly found elsewhere

I agree that if someone discovered the artist elsewhere, Apple has weaker standing in claiming a huge commission. But if they found an artist elsewhere, they would also know that they can support that artist elsewhere and not through the iOS app. If the patron found them through the patreon iOS app and use the app to consume the artist's content, then clearly the patron has indicated that they prefer the iOS experience.

Chrome, Windows and Lenovo don't have the payment system baked in, with all the consumer protections that come with it.

I'm not entirely pro-Apple percentage in this argument, but I think people often dismiss the magical thing that Apple created with the app store and their payment/subscription system. The rest of the world keeps ripping users off, and Apple's walled garden is as protected a thing as it gets.

I've gone directly to my bank for subscription charges billed directly to my credit card and they wouldn't reverse or stop them. Cancelling and reversing on the App Store is basic, easy, and friction-free.

Plus, the Android environment doesn't yield nearly the same sales volume even with significantly more installed units.

People spend on iOS and they don't spend on other platforms.

30% hurts and it sucks, but.. Patreon will probably take it because they'll do the math and it won't come out in favor of the alternative. That's what really sucks, beyond Apple max-max-maxing this.

>What next, should apple take a 30% cut of my rent because I found my apartment on the Craigslist app? Should they take a 30% of my train ticket that I purchased using the Safari app?

Sure they could, and usage of those products to purchase goods would nominally drop to 0%. People do not care about a lot of things, but they do care about losing money.

> I didn’t realize I was buying a ticket to Disneyland where the seller of the product decided how I interacted with everything the device enabled.

If you're the sort of person who posts on HN and you bought an iPhone after they hit the $1000 price point, you probably did know that.

It surprises me a little that so many people who do know still make that choice.

> I certainly think it’s incredibly false marketing for Apple to claim I bought an iphone, when in reality I paid upfront for essentially AOL.

I wonder if that has ever been tried against Apple or a similar company in a court of law, because I think there might be real merit there. One would have to get a bunch of people together claiming a refund on the purchase price on the grounds that ownership hasn't been transferred and therefore Apple is in breach of contract in relation to the contract for sale of an iPhone. Then those people would have to bring a class action, and the case would revolve around the concept of "ownership". Because "ownership", to a first approximation, means the legal right to do with some piece of property essentially as you please, and Apple is clearly basing much of their business on the assumption that users do not have those rights and is taking positive action to prevent users from exercising such rights.

I don't know much about the law in the rest of the world, except Germany, but in Germany that would certainly be the case, and there is a surprising amount of case law revolving around such things as horses or other animals being sold, and the former owner then trying to restrict the new owner in exercising their ownership rights, which generally end with ownership rights being upheld by courts.

Is this sarcasm? Apple pretty much invented the walled garden of personal computing.

The EU has the right approach. Don't try to legislate exactly what is a fair/unfair amount of profit to make - change the rules of the game by requiring third party marketplaces and payment platforms so apple has to lower rates or lose every app into a third party store.

Apple can easily say "Use our store exclusively and you get our security/privacy guarantees. Go outside our store and you're in the wild west". App developers can then decide how much fee they are willing to pay for access to the user base who refuse to venture into the wild west. Other stores might try to persuade users that they are more secure and more private too via stricter review policies or more locked down permissions etc.

What they should get is customers for their phones and computers.

I think that is in fact exactly what GP is suggesting.

Don't worry, we are well into "car branded fuel only" territory with electric vehicles.

"Buy our electricity at a huge markup to power your vehicle. Oh, you don't have one of our vehicles? Sorry, that's an extra 10% on top"

This was dystopic scifi like 20 years ago and Americans are so clueless they just sleepwalked into it because they'd rather not have a government at all.