[seemaze]

>What next, should apple take a 30% cut of my rent because I found my apartment on the Craigslist app? Should they take a 30% of my train ticket that I purchased using the Safari app?

Sure they could, and usage of those products to purchase goods would nominally drop to 0%. People do not care about a lot of things, but they do care about losing money.

[odo1242]

Apple would then force the with-IAP price to be the same as the without-IAP price so that they get a 30% cut of your rent regardless. You may be underestimating their willingness to tax all economic activity

[seemaze]

While this would obviously be harmful to the consumer, I don't see this as plausible.

Amazon was able to achieve this by positioning themselves as the primary distributor of the goods in question. Apple is in no position to leverage a monopoly over fiat transer or housing supply.

With regard to municipal transportation, perhaps they are edging closer with Apple Pay, NFC, Wallet, etc.. but I can't imagine municipalities supporting, or constituents accepting, a tax on their existing taxes.

Of course, maybe Apple.gov is the long game. Hard to say whether that would be better or worse that the status quo..