[bflesch]

I don't understand: Wouldn't Apple just remove their app from the app once they touch payments? Someone will be bitten by compliance, and if Telegram is able to circumvent that then the bucket stops with Apple.

This is what has stopped me from doing payment in my apps until now - you never know when some apple or google employee decides to smash you in the face with the ban hammer.

[rmc]

I suspect that once you get big enough, Apple is reluctant to touch you. Remember, Uber broken Apple's app rules, and were not banned, merely threatened[1]. If Apple removes the app, then who will people blame? The app or Apple? I suspect Telegram might be betting on that.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/04/24/ubers-ka...

[kayfox]

Telegram still concedes to Apple.

You cant join Telegram chats marked as NSFW on iOS devices.

[pjc50]

That's especially bonkers - you can't use it for private NSFW chat?

[kgwgk]

Probably this restriction is related to the “4+” age rating.

[aceoflzlz]

You can. He meant groups or channels whose raison d'être is the spread of pornography.

[goshakkk]

You can (for now?) do that with the official Telegram X app though (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/telegram-x/id898228810?mt=8)

[cordite]

Yet you can with discord on iOS.

[AJ007]

It is also opening them to regulation from a lot more than Apple. It is hard enough for a large tech company to deal with conflicting demands of various governments over privacy & censorship. Create a currency and now you can add financial demands as well.

Why are they doing this? Because companies are raising vastly more money and at a faster speed than going the traditional VC or even IPO route right now. The strategy: Make up any reason and do it.

I think the decentralized, semi-anonymous, open source development route can benefit from this approach better in the long term than a centralized for profit company can.

Games may also end up being some of the biggest success stories. When you can actually prove that something is rare, and even potentially decentralize the gameplay, it presents interesting options for anti-cheating and proof of value. What is dumber: crypto kitties or con artists making hundreds of millions of dollars off sloppy copy and pasted documents?

[frabcus]

I don't really understand the Apple policy on payments.

How come, for example, they don't demand their cut from Monzo person to person transfers?

[nihonde]

Isn’t Apple only seeking a cut of sales of digital goods? You can sell physical merchandise like a real book, but you can’t sell an ebook without cutting them in.

[weavie]

I thought surely you can buy ebooks on the Kindle app for iOS. But a quick search and you are right - nope, you cannot buy books on the Kindle app for iOS. The option just isn't there.

[jonknee]

And you can't even present a link to purchase digital goods through a browser... You can open Mobile Safari and search Amazon for a Kindle book, but you can't use an Amazon app of any sort to do part of it.

[tzahola]

Weird, considering the fact that the Bandcamp app lets you buy music digitally via PayPal. Am I missing some important difference between the two?

[jonknee]

I just downloaded Bandcamp for iOS and under Digital Album I see "Not available for purchase on this device" along with links to purchase the physical vinyl or CD.

[nihonde]

They must be paying Apple their percentage of the proceeds, unless they have an exception.

[baby]

That part really blew my mind. I spent a good 20min trying to find out how to buy audiobooks on audible

[Sholmesy]

That’s clearly different. Same question could be asked for any banking app.

[prostoalex]

Facebook Messenger supported peer-to-peer debit-card-backed payments for quite a bit now https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/750020781733477/...