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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

(www.theverge.com)
1704 points ardit33 | 4 comments | 13 Aug 20 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.831s | source
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hijklmno ◴[14 Aug 20 07:03 UTC] No.24154700[source]▶
It's not Apple vs. Fortnite. It's actually Apple vs. Users. Apple has been taking us for a ride this whole time. We pay damn much and buy the phone. It is the user's property from then on. What the user install's and uninstall's from his phone should be his decision. Taking a cut of say, 3%, to keep the app store running is forgivable. But 30% digging into users pocket is unpardonable. Apple is no longer the underdog that it was 40 years ago, and some fanboys pretending it to be is despicable. It's a monopoly and the only thing it cares is it's profitability. Despite all the sugarcoated lies Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have been saying to the senate, they are a monopoly. Stop letting them deceive us. Let's take the power back. Stop enabling such deception. Death of a country is determined by it's governance. Death of a society is determined by it's culture and greedy monopolies. The way we can claim our power is by raising awareness to the point that the powers that are will take note and take action.
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speleding ◴[14 Aug 20 08:33 UTC] No.24155360[source]▶
> 3% to keep the app store running is forgivable

Payment processing alone would cost Apple that much. You easily lose 1.5%-2% in payment fees and another 2% in handling fraud and customer support queries about payments.

For example, if a payment for an app is $1.99, Apple now takes $0.60. If a customer calls support to ask a question about the purchase it can cost anywhere from $15 to $30 in call center fees, so it takes 50 purchases to make good on that. If you lower that to a $0.06 take apple would have to make 500 sales for every phone call to support.

People don't realise good customer support is very expensive.

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alkonaut ◴[14 Aug 20 08:42 UTC] No.24155439[source]▶
If we disregard the app purchase (which few complain about) and focus on in-app purchases now. E.g. for buying fortnite hats or netflix subscriptions, where the in-app purchase is NOT processed by apple, surely that can't give rise to any kind of added costs for apple (customer support, transaction costs)?
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speleding ◴[14 Aug 20 08:47 UTC] No.24155466[source]▶
In-app purchases are processed by apple as well.
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1. alkonaut ◴[14 Aug 20 08:52 UTC] No.24155503[source]▶
No, not when they are angered by apps NOT doing that (e.g. Epic in this case, or netflix/spotify charging for subscriptions outside, etc).

This discussion is about Epic charging for in-app things outside of Apple's control. So apple can't use the argument that they have costs (support, payment) for those transactions.

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2. speleding ◴[14 Aug 20 10:24 UTC] No.24156092[source]▶
Users will still call apple if there is a problem. They will not understand the difference between Epic handling some of the payments and apple handling all the other ones. Customer support cost will not go down.
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3. alkonaut ◴[14 Aug 20 10:44 UTC] No.24156230[source]▶
When I buy a hat on Amazon Apple gets no cut and I understand that Amazon gets my customer service call if there is something wrong with my transaction.

If I buy a hat in the Epic store (and pay to epic) I don’t see why it would be very different.

Should it matter if I make the purchase in Safari or in another app?

Also: let’s forget the apps for a while. Assume I buy a navigation app for $10 on the App Store and then I visit a website and purchase gps maps for 3 countries to use in the app, for $100 each. Apple isn’t involved in that transaction. Should they claim a cut of the $300 because I can use the maps in the app?

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4. speleding ◴[14 Aug 20 11:26 UTC] No.24156525{3}[source]▶
I understand that you understand the difference between Apple, Epic, the payment processor, the credit card provider and your bank. I can assure you most people do not. I've worked in customer service. They will just call Apple.