[offtotheraces]

Mobile app operator here - let me clarify some things:

1. Until June it was impossible for a developer to issue a refund to an angry customer - Apple simply did not allow developers to do that, despite the app store being around for 13 years. This has led to untold frustration among developers - angry customers email us, leave horrible reviews, leave screeds on social media about how we “won’t” refund them, when in actually Apple reserved that right only for Apple support agents. Literally - if you forgot to cancel your Calm or Headspace subscription, neither Calm nor Headspace could give you a refund. You had to call Apple. That’s insane and leads to horrible customer experiences. (I can send you actual emails we got blasting us for this, and us pleading with them to contact Apple because we literally can’t do anything to help them).

2. You may love the Apple subscription experience, but we shouldn’t be letting Apple decide what experiences we do and don’t have online (within reason). For instance: Apple doesn’t allow subscriptions priced at less than $0.99. Why not? What if I had a product that i wanted to sell for $0.50 a month? Why should Apple get to decide that that’s not high enough? There are many examples of things like this.

3. I think we should grapple with the ideas and arguments of the author, when in this case or others, and not focus on the pedigree of the publication they write for

[asimilator]

> Apple doesn’t allow subscriptions priced at less than $0.99. Why not? What if I had a product that i wanted to sell for $0.50 a month?

I’d pay $0.50 more.

I just had the unpleasant experience of canceling a non-Apple controlled service. It sucked. Pages and pages of “are you sure you want to cancel” dark patterns.

You guys did this to yourselves with absolutely shitty customer experience. Could not care less if Apple makes things harder for you. Do not care if I pay more.

[djbusby]

Right, or there's me, with no dark patterns, easy cancellation (one email, we answer our phone) on a $1000/mo subscription app. And the hoops to get into apple, and they wanted a cut, even when users create an account and engage from our plain web-app ages before trying for iOS app. It took almost a year to get approved with Mostly our terms, apple forced a bunch of changes - which frustrated our users (who just went back to the web-app). For us, Apple was a zero-value time-suck, degraded user experience, and since we're not assholes, the IAP benefits were moot for our clients.

App store is classic rent-seeking; it's also an economic force. So, we've pulled our app, but I'm long $AAPL

[nemothekid]

Yes, I'm sorry the millions of developers with their $3.99/mo apps ruined the experience for your unicorn $1,000/mo app. I'm sure your users, with such a high need that they would pay so much, are perfectly able to find a workaround.

[djbusby]

Thanks! Yea, they were, as I commented, it's all just web-app, which works in Safari

[madeofpalk]

I’m all in favour, as a user, for Apple IAP subscriptions. But shouldn’t “the market” be able to send a signal that they prefer that?

Shouldn’t Apple’s IAP actually be able to compete on its merits (like the better experience that we both prefer!) rather than arbitrary platform lock-in?

If, faced with actual competition, users and/or developers do not chose Apple IAP, wouldn’t this signal to Apple that they need to do better and improve their service?

[8note]

Even further than that, users should be able to set their own police's for how much they want to pay for things and when.

Remove the centralization of apple driving the policy, then again to get rid of the centralization of developers choosing

[iscrewyou]

Not OP, but market does send a signal when I prefer that. That's how I signed up for Netflix and Spotify. I saw that in-app prices were high when I tried to sign up, looked elsewhere and found out that website prices are lower and now apple doesn't get my cut. But for everything else, I am happy paying apple more because I only have trust for a few companies. If apple is charging app developers more than they should be, those apps can have their own billing page and manage the billing and let the user decide how they want to pay for it.

Yes, users know how to shop around. That's how they buy cars, groceries, gas, computers, cellphones, etc.

[madeofpalk]

> If apple is charging app developers more than they should be, those apps can have their own billing page and manage the billing and let the user decide how they want to pay for it.

The problem is that on iOS apps are forbidden from telling their users that this is an option.

It's not much of a fair market if one of the items have been removed from the shelves and you have to specifically ask for it and the price.

Is it fair if Spotify and Netflix are charged a 30% tax on Apple's platforms when Apple's services arent?

[louisswiss]

> It's not much of a fair market if one of the items have been removed from the shelves and you have to specifically ask for it and the price.

To be fair, this isn't a very apt analogy.

A better one would be to liken Apple to a smart fridge...

- Is it ok for Apple to say "only products bought through our smart fridge's grocery app can be stored in this fridge" ? --> probably not

- Is it ok for Apple to take a cut when the consumer purchases through the smart fridge's app directly? --> IMO clearly yes

- Should Apple be required to warn you that it'd be cheaper to buy the same brand of milk from a grocery store 10min walk away? --> IMO clearly no

[madeofpalk]

Should Apple be required to warn you that it'd be cheaper? Definitely not. But when you've taken the milk home the milk should be able to say "Hey, If you buy directly from us it's 30% cheaper!".

Right now Apple prohibits developers from being transparent about what the users choices are. I think it is wrong that developers are not allowed to explain the rules to its own users.

Apple should compete on the product itself, not technicalities and obfuscation. There should be pressures on Apple to lower prices for what it charges.

[dmitriid]

> But shouldn’t “the market” be able to send a signal that they prefer that?

Ah yes. "The market".

People forget that before Appstore mobile apps were distributed through stores controlled by mobile operators. With "store tax" at 70% or higher.

Then Apple came along and decided to take only 30%. It turns out that this (and superior phones) is exactly what users prefer.

But wait, now it's somehow not the proper "market", there's some other "proper market" that must make it right.

[darkwizard42]

To some degree the competition exists...you leave the iOS ecosystem. Besides all the trendy parts of owning an iPhone (iMessage, camera, "fashionable") the simplicity of not getting burned by apps (or the veneer or not getting burned as often) is clearly valuable to consumers.

What would an acceptable solution to letting both styles compete? (would it be controlled by the phone's settings and the end user can change how they manage their subscriptions? Is it at the app level?)

[gregkerzhner]

MacOS is a great example - you can buy and download software from the Apple sanctioned App Store or you can get it from other sources on their websites. The fact that I can do that on an 11 inch MacBook Air but can’t on an iPad Pro (which with a keyboard looks like almost the same device) seems pretty silly to me.

[Mertax]

I see no incentive for Apple to become motivated to do this on their own.

Google, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft all wish their app stores could be as lucrative as Apple’s, and most of these are trying to do exactly what Apple is doing.

What other product exists that is able to take such a large revenue cut from 3rd party product enhancers? Is this possible outside of software? Don’t see why Apple would give that up unless they were forced to.

[madeofpalk]

That's kind of the point, right? What forces or incentives are there for Apple to change its practices or lower its prices?

[chrischen]

There’s already a solution to dark patterns: chargebacks. Apple probably makes it worse by taking this avenue away because if you try to chargeback apple they probably just suspend your account.

[wayoutthere]

Chargebacks are no panacea for dark patterns; issue too many and you’ll start getting your card blacklisted from payment processors. I did this a couple times with an online retail store that was especially egregious on the dark patterns (sneaking things into your cart on checkout, etc) and my card would get rejected at certain gas pumps and online stores for the next 6 months. It wasn’t all of them, but a good 25% simply wouldn’t take that card.

[commoner]

I have never heard of a universal blacklist for chargebacks (spanning multiple unrelated businesses), and I don't think it exists. I've charged back transactions for legitimate reasons (such as fraud and false advertising) on quite a few occasions, and I've never received any kind of penalty. Even if there were such a blacklist, you could simply ask your card issuer to change your card number to get around it. In fact, when you perform a chargeback for a fradulent transaction, most card issuers immediately cancel your card and issue you a new one with a new number.

Now if you file a chargeback against Apple or Google, your account with that company will almost certainly be permanently disabled, based on what I've heard from users who have done it. This is a significant setback for consumer protections, and makes it less advisable to concentrate your digital identity into either of these companies' services. However, as inconvenient as it may be to get banned from having an account with Apple/Google, it shouldn't blacklist you from using your card at any gas stations or online stores, assuming that you aren't using Apple/Google payment processing.

[heavyset_go]

Companies, especially retailers, pass around lists of problem customers.

[chrischen]

While it’s possible Stripe implement this implicitly via their “fraud detection” machine learning model I’ve never heard of any blacklists currently being used and I operate an online retailer.

That being said you’d have to be purchasing from shady merchants quite a lot and using lots of chargebacks (and presumably losing them) to be blanketed.

[wayoutthere]

It was a few instances where a store crammed something in my cart, then ignored all contact when I requested to return them. So I ended up with both the money and the merch, which I suspect means they flagged me for “fraud”.

Needless to say I don’t shop at that store anymore.

[ksec]

I'd argue there is no reason why Apple cant force a much better, simpler or even standardise canceling experience without taking away all the relationship between your client.

[bradgessler]

It’s insane that Apple publishes tabled of all the “allowed” prices in a PDF file.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s because you’ve never read the App Store agreement. They have a table in the PDF that lists out every single price you can charge. $0.99, $1.99, $2.99, … , $999.99. Per country too. Want to charge $1.49? Sorry, it’s not on the table of prices. It’s just absurd.

[bagels]

There are minimum per transaction fees for most processors, so if you go at this alone, and you'd find that charging very small increments may not be feasible.

[andreareina]

That's up to the developer though isn't it?

[bagels]

Yes. I was just explaining one likely reason for this limit.

[huhtenberg]

And I'm sure Apple, being a small fish that they are, would be able to negotiate custom fee schedule to accommodate very small transactions. They just don't want to.

[ksec]

I just thought one thing no one seems to have point out yet. Apple framed this as a standard practice in business.

Yes, in a Supermarket, they will advertise your product on your behave. But customer dont run to Kraft Heinz, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble or Coca Cola for refund. They go straight to the store they bought it with. Or a better analogy would be tools ( multi usage ) rather than consumables. Consumer buying a tool will still return their tools to Home Depot rather than making complain about the tools maker not doing refund. But with Software that is not the case. Nearly all software are treated as "services" by consumer whether they are charged with subscription or not. And customer will act the same if they bought a services from Walmart. Let say Disney+ or Netflix. They will go to Disney and Netflix to complain or refund, not Walmart.

I think this distinction is quite profound ( to me at least ). Because we often use the product analogy with Software and Subscription. We even have a term SaaS ( Software as Services ) when in fact nearly all software are in some way treated as services by consumers. And of course Software developer have long thought of it as services due to its constantly updating nature.

So this mismatch, between how App Store operate, how Apps are priced and how consumer behaves with software seems to be fundamentally wrong.

[Terretta]

On the contrary, the CDPR release debacle shows consumers expect the refund from the app store aka the console store front, whether Microsoft or Sony. They’re mad at CDPR, they want their money back from Microsoft or Sony. And given that noise level, Sony yanked Cyberpunk2077, just as Apple might. Or Walmart with a bad batch of ketchup.

Similarly, people buying from the app store BnL don’t go back to the app store to find the developer web site and go there to look up a support phone number to ask a human if they can please cancel by physically mailing a certified letter somewhere (how you cancel most first party subscriptions). They go to the subscriptions settings and cancel.

I’d argue that is indeed exactly like Heinz vs. Walmart or whatever.