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by Someone 1295 days ago
> This is akin to Apple trying to take a cut of fees for every email that gets sent over open Internet protocols

No, only the ones sent using their hardware. And I think there’s no law or regulation that would forbid them from doing that.

Similarly, if, currently, the App Store model doesn’t support what Coinbase wants to do, they shouldn’t have made an app.

(this isn’t a statement about the desirability of the current situation)

4 comments

> No, only the ones sent using their hardware.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying my iPhone belongs to Apple?

(I may be confused by how you mean "their hardware".)

I believe that could be changed to:

> No, only the ones sent using [an app distributed via Apple's App Store].

I don't want to speak for anyone, but that's (probably) more accurate to the intended meaning.

Since Apple's App Store is the only practical way to distribute apps on Apple devices, there isn't really a difference. The fact is that the owner of an apple devices has no control over their device.
I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of the current rules, though. Apple doesn't (yet...) demand a 30% cut when you buy stocks via an app on your iphone.
They're demanding a 30% cut of the transaction fees, not of what is being purchased.
This doesn't make sense because we can buy and sell crypto from Coinbase, Uphold, even Cash app right from our phones. We buy crypto and send crypto, and that has its own fees associated with it. Why does apple allow any app that support buying and selling crypto?
> And I think there’s no law or regulation that would forbid them from doing that.

They're lucky that the US has the particular form of "democracy" that they do, because I suspect the current regulations aren't exactly "the will of the people".