Pretty big deal that Spotify didn’t have to pay Google the usual in-app purchase fees. The inconsistencies across developers is just as unsustainable as the high 15% or 30% cut. As I’ve been saying forever, the ultimate solution is side-loading and external payments. Getting closer to that future.

@manton Manton, I really don’t expect Apple to give up a cut even if we’re allowed to side load with external payments.

They’ll do something like, “you owe us 10% of each installation.” Which they’ll know about because of signing. Then it’ll be up to us to send them a check each month for total installs/sales.

Tim Cook eluded to that during testimony in the kerfuffle with that game company, can’t remember the name.

@fahrni @manton

1. Android already has side-loading, so that is not the issue in this case.
2. The EU has already shown that, while they will likely require Apple to allow alternative payment within the App Store, they are not going to disallow Apple requiring whatever cut of revenue.

@fahrni We'll see. There's no way most developers are going to voluntarily give up 10% of revenue. Tim Cook can say whatever he wants, that's just not going to work.

@clonezone Side-loading is still an important part of this, though, even if developers don't take advantage of it. It's the escape hatch if things go terribly wrong.

@manton

1. From what is visible in the APIs so far, Apple is not going to allow direct side-loading, but alternate app stores.
2. Side-loading has done very little in the Android world.
3. Regardless of your desires, I see nothing that will change Apple’s revenue share.

@manton You have your moral stance, but I see no economic nor government force anywhere on the horizon that will reduce Apple’s take.

Going outside the App Store will not be worth the headaches of the audits that Apple will require.

You don’t have to like it, but I don’t see any other outcome.

@clonezone Aside from the morals, I don't see how any practical way to enforce it. If Apple asks me to give them 10%, what if I say no? What if I report that I made $0? Who will review my books? Will they sue me, or ban me from the App Store? It's really wild if you play it all the way out, because they are reaching way outside of their lane. Apple is not the IRS. 🙂

@manton How will they enforce it? Gatekeeper. How will they know? You're going to need to go through an audit; there's an entire industry devoted to that. The system doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to be be difficult enough to get around that it isn't worth the effort to avoid.

@manton Assuming that the alternate app store thing is right, they can outsource the enforcement, as well. Hey, app store vendor, one of your vendors is doing stuff we don't like; shut them down or we shut you down.

@manton From what I've seen, that's exactly what they're doing. There's a new app type that's an app store and there's a whole API for the store to be able to install apps. I'm betting that that kind of app will only be allowed to be installed from the App Store.

@manton They're going to the effort to geo-lock this stuff, i.e. you’re only going to be able to use one of these app store apps from an EU-resident Apple ID.

Eventually, I bet this sort of thing is required in the US, as well, though how different the terms will be will be interesting.

@clonezone So what you are saying is that Apple is not just greedy, they are putting some smart people on keeping the Apple tax going despite regulatory pushback.

I wish they would assign some of those smart people to fixing bugs instead.