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by josephcsible·5y ago·view on hn ↗
I don't see a need for this. The reason Apple's commission for apps is a problem is that they have a monopoly on iOS app sales. But publishers can sell books that can be read on iOS without going through Apple. If they don't like the cut, they should just sell their product elsewhere. (Now if Apple were to do something like ban ePub reader apps that worked on outside purchased books, I'd change my tune.)
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That's one commonly presented half of the app problem, the other commonly presented half is the blocking of alternative means of payment from the device. The latter half isn't talked about as much on the app side because once you can load an app outside of the official app store the presumption is there won't be any problems with the app using non-apple payment. It's still a problem whether or not you can buy something externally and then import it as Apple has restrictions as to what the app can tell you about this (e.g. you're not allowed to say "go to website.com and buy it for 30% less than on your iPhone" in the app) and it's artificially increasing the barrier to this option.

Whether or not you think those points on their own is enough to warrant specific action is up to you. The problem is people talk in these threads as if arguments they don't agree with don't exist which leads to a lot of the same discussions every time a thread about this comes up.

My personal take is the official store should be able to set whatever percentages as long as the option to use 3rd party distribution and 3rd party payment is there. I.e. let people decide if alternatives are better not try to force Apple to set certain cuts. I can see a lot of why others don't think that though but for me it really comes down to full vertical lock in being as damaging to competition as full horizontal lock in IMO.