[colonwqbang]

Well, isn't that the point? If you desire uniformity above all then a local monopoly is the best possible situation for you.

Competition requires diversity, there has to be different offerings which work in slightly different ways.

An app on your phone is "third party" from the perspective of Apple but from your perspective it is a first party. You are doing business with them, presumably because you wanted to.

[vlovich123]

It’s a tragedy of the commons situation though. Apple can try to enforce policies at some level but at the point where every 3p app is pushing their own payments solution, it’s a lost cause.

Right now, Apple can enforce payment guidelines uniformly across everything and they can provide the subscription and payment management experience that they want. If they open it up, then apps will force users to use their payment mechanisms. I suspect you’re overly discounting that people can treat their Apple relationship as the sole party responsible for what happens on their phone and overly privileging the how people interpret “doing business” with arbitrary 3p apps, especially if they’re not subscriptions (and for subscriptions I trust Apple to not follow dark patterns trying to get me to stay).

I agree you should be able to pick at least to give your payment details directly, but I think it makes sense to allow that apps be required to also ask preferentially for Apple Pay if there’s no such payment information provided.

[ImPostingOnHN]

The previous state was that apps can force users to use their own payment mechanism, but only if Apple made the apps. As a result of the ruling, Apple's competitors now also can, and the playing field between Apple and Apple's competitors is closer to level.

The key takeaway is that Apple's payment processing business shouldn't be treated preferentially over a competing payment processor by Apple's mobile OS business, so any solution has to start there, and only then consider what Apple wants.