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Ryan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Promise Land of Trustafarians
 
2021-09-11, 12:23

I would argue that:

1) There's a difference between Apple taking a cut of app sales on their store, and demanding a cut of revenue for products that just happen to exist on an iPhone. Does Apple deserve a cut of revenue for, say, Facebook ads displayed on their iOS apps? For Kindle books bought through Amazon's apps? That's where I think Apple is over-reaching (and yes, Apple has started making demands in that direction for ad-based services).

I don't have a problem with taking a 30% cut of app sales, or even a cut of IAPs that use Apple's billing infra, but they're choking off developers at this point by threatening to ruin their businesses if they don't hand over slices of revenue for products that don't rely on Apple's infrastructure (other than the phone itself). There's no fair compensation going on here, it's just plain greed.

We have some new products rolling out where Apple is making more money off each purchase than we are!

2) Apple does get value from providing dev tools, distribution, etc even for free apps for which Apple makes no money. The iPhone would be far less valuable without the app ecosystem. Providing all that support is just the cost of doing business for Appleā€”the Apple/third-party-dev relationship must be symbiotic in both directions, not parasitic.
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