[microtherion]

Apple does not charge the fees just for the payment processing.

Ultimately, Apple would like to earn money from the products they make. There are a variety of models to do so:

* You can sell the hardware, sell OS upgrades, and let third parties sell apps without taking a cut. This was the original Mac model.

* You can sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, and privilege third party developers who give you a cut, while preserving a way to side load. This is the current Mac model.

* You can sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, and take a cut from third party apps. This is the current iOS model.

* You largely let others build and sell the hardware, give away OS upgrades, take a voluntary cut from developers, and sell or monetize the user's data. This is the Android model.

* You give away the hardware and OS upgrades and live off venture capital. This is a popular startup model.

Each of these is viable to some extent. None is 100% popular with customers.

But what some people seem to be asking for is "Gilette, but give away razors and adopt an open standard for the razor blades".

[scarface74]

I didn’t say that Apple does just make money from payment processing I said they could. There are dozens of payment processors that make money just by being credit card processors. It would make things a lot simpler and they could get a cut of payments that they can’t get right now from companies that won’t do in app purchases through the App Store. Netflix and Spotify were consistently two of the “top paid” apps when they had in app subscriptions. Now Apple doesn’t get anything from them.

They could even charge slightly higher fees than most credit card companies just like AmEx does. They have the infrastructure in place via Apple Pay.

Since Apple Pay already supports the industry standard Web Payments API. They could convince more companies to accept Apple Pay on the web without being “locked in” to Apple Pay since if you implemented the payments API, it would also work on Android with Android Pay.

Apple Pay is an open standard that integrates with your standard credit card processing flow.

[staticman2]

This has to do with Apple using Mafia style tactics to demand 30% of all economic activity. It has nothing to do with payment processors as such.

[LexGray]

But what percentage would developers consider appropriate? Apple works partially as a consumer advocate in this space preventing many shady practices through their draconian rules. There is definitely value preventing developers from innovating over customer expectations.

[scarface74]

Fair point.

I would be okay with a graduate app fee.

Tier 1: Hobbyists, you can have a “self signed” cert that allows you to have any app tied to your own device. You could also freely share source code for other people to compile themselves and put on their own device using their “self signed certificate”. This could be free. Of course you would still have to have a Mac.

Tier 2: a really cheap fee where you could sign apps that were distributed outside of the App Store for Macs. Signing apps that are distributed outside of the Mac App Store don’t require any manual approval or sandboxing.

Tier 3: the current App Store model. But the difference is that the first $x amount is charged at 30% and then it gradually goes down at larger volumes. Say the first $10K? Where eventually it is basically barely above payment processing fees. I’m sure the Epic’s of the world would be okay with this.

[bigiain]

Your tier 3 is effectively regressive taxation. The “Epics of the world” who benefit most from Apple/iPhones/iOS/AppStore existing, end up paying the smallest percentage of their profits back to the org that built all that for them.

The Chardonnay Socialist in me reckons that should be completely the opposite. Let apps that make less than $10k a year (or perhaps apps from companies/brands with less than $1mil turnover per year) be free. As your revenue goes up, your percentage “tax” for using the AppStore goes up.

In my opinion, Epic needs a free ride way way less than a couple of high school kids or college grads with an innovative idea.

[scarface74]

That’s how the real world works. Big companies get the best deals when you buy in bulk. You have more negotiating leverage. The days of the indy developer making it big on the App Store are long dead. The best chance you have is selling a service surfaced by an app. In that case, you won’t be paying any in app fees.

But with the limit being $10K. The difference between Apple taking a $3000 cut and a $500 cut is not going to make or break your business.

[scarface74]

What is your point? Didn’t I just say that Apple should scrap IAP and just become a payment processor by using Apple Pay?