After releasing a new project, it was time to spend on Instagram Ads. The process to set this up on the mobile app was seamless. Once set up, I head to the checkout and see my purchase has an additional 30% "Apple fee" added on top! This was a result of the App Store restricting all alternative in-app purchase methods, so Meta very directly calls this out and passes that fee onto the customer.
You may recall that Epic Games (creators of Fortnite and Unreal Engine) sued Apple about this 30% revenue cut. They had attempted to circumvent it by providing other payment methods in their apps and were then blocked by the App Store. Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney asserted that the revenue sharing cut should be closer to 8% when considering the current eco-system (Epic Games Store itself takes 12% commission.)
It was ruled that Apple could continue to restrict payment methods for apps, but they had to allow developers to link to external websites to offer alternate payment options. Because of this ruling, I was able to instead leave the Instagram app and complete my purchase on the Instagram website and avoid paying the 30% Apple fee - yay for consumers!
Weirdly enough, Google's Play Store has a very similar 30% cut and so Epic also sued them, but Epic won that case! I'm not a lawyer™ but apparently it's because:
- Apple owns iOS and only allows apps from the App Store
- Android is open-source and you can sideload or use alternative store, but Google made this harder to do (apparently... in my experience sideloading on Android is ridiculously easy, to the point that it could be considered a security concern)
- The Google case was a jury trial whilst the Apple case was a bench trial (decide by a judge). Epic revealed some internal documents which made the jury take their side
The result was that Google now allows alternative payment methods and rival stores on their platform. So Apple isn't a monopoly, but Google is both a monopoly and abused it!
Personally this feels like bullshit and I could totally see Apple being considered a monopoly here. Android really doesn't feel like a monopoly considering the variety in Android devices and how easy it is to install whatever you want. Ideally the consumer doesn't have to pay 30% extra just because they got their app from the App Store, but for now, that may be the case.
I think it's cool to see these rivalries actually play out inside the apps and services we use. I'd never see an app explicitly call out the "Apple fee" in their pricing and make the user pay for it. Historically Zuckerberg has beef with Apple because of the various limitations Apple places on their devices which harm Meta's business, such as disabling app tracking and privacy related features, but also these fees.
This is part of a series where I try to improve my writing.
- I performed a lot better w.r.t starting with 'I' - even though I did it for this sentence
- Tried to cut any superfluous words and descriptors