←back to thread

Epic celebrates "the end of the Apple Tax" after court win in iOS payments case

(arstechnica.com)
432 points nobody9999 | 1 comments | 12 Dec 25 16:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
Someone ◴[12 Dec 25 17:14 UTC] No.46246157[source]▶
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. That should be more than enough to compensate the employees reviewing the apps to make sure outside payment links are not scams

I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Scammers will update the target of such links, so you can’t just check this at app submission time. You also will have to check from around the world, from different IP address ranges, outside California business hours, etc, because scammer are smart enough to use such info to decide whether to show their scammy page.

Also, even if it becomes ‘only’ hundreds of dollars, I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments.

replies(14): >>46246330 #>>46246353 #>>46246590 #>>46246629 #>>46247273 #>>46247730 #>>46248914 #>>46248949 #>>46248984 #>>46249805 #>>46249816 #>>46250039 #>>46251064 #>>46251907 #
GeekyBear ◴[12 Dec 25 18:47 UTC] No.46247273[source]▶
> CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees”

He seems to be ignoring the part of the ruling finding that Apple is entitled to "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property.

> The appeals court recommends that the district court calculate a commission that is based on the costs that are necessary for its coordination of external links for linked-out purchases, along with "some compensation" for the use of its intellectual property. Costs should not include commission for security and privacy.

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/11/apple-app-store-fees-ex...

Apple wanted 27% and Epic thinks it should be 0%. The lower court will have to pick a number in between the two.

replies(3): >>46247692 #>>46249201 #>>46250562 #
an0malous ◴[12 Dec 25 19:21 UTC] No.46247692[source]▶
Maybe next they can decide what Epic’s 12% fee for their own marketplace should be
replies(7): >>46247882 #>>46248315 #>>46248897 #>>46249166 #>>46249950 #>>46250410 #>>46257425 #
jack_tripper ◴[12 Dec 25 19:39 UTC] No.46247882[source]▶
I get your point, but looking at it at a glance without any other context, 12% feels like a pretty reasonable amount IMHO.

Like, if all major marketplaces only charge 12% from the get-go, we probably would have had much less fuss and lawsuits over this.

This issue was always the disproportionate size of the fee, not the fact that they charge a fee.

replies(3): >>46248253 #>>46248520 #>>46249599 #
ryandrake ◴[12 Dec 25 20:33 UTC] No.46248520[source]▶
I don't think a percentage makes any sense at all. Is it proportionately more expensive to host a $50 game than a $25 game? It's only a percentage Because They Can.
replies(8): >>46248913 #>>46248948 #>>46249852 #>>46250300 #>>46250303 #>>46250443 #>>46250922 #>>46252170 #
1. mrandish ◴[12 Dec 25 23:25 UTC] No.46250300[source]▶
I agree. Charging a blanket percentage of gross revenue is an extremely inexact way to monetize what is a broad basket of services that were previously separate including: electronic software delivery, software security verification, marketplace, transaction processing, DRM, etc. Since 2009, first on Apple's app store and then Google's, these services have all been arbitrarily bundled together despite having vastly different one-time, fixed and variable costs. People are only used to it in this context where every marketplace has been controlled by a monopolist gatekeeper.

Doing it this way makes no economic sense for either the seller or the buyer but it's coincidentally the absolute best way for a middleman to maximize the tax they can extract from a two-sided marketplace they control. In competitive markets, blanket taxing on total gross revenue generally only occurs when there's a single fundamental cost structure tied to that revenue, or the amounts being collected are so small it's de minimis. App stores are highly profitable, multi-billion dollar businesses.

Perhaps the most perverse thing about this is that electronic transactions for purely digital goods which occur entirely on real-time connected digital platforms make it trivial to price each service for maximum efficiency. It's easy for the price a 2GB game with frequent updates pays for electronic delivery to reflect the cost they impose on the infrastructure while a 100k one-time purchase app can pay a vastly smaller amount. And that's exactly the way the competitive marketplaces evolve - from moving shipping containers around the planet to residential propane delivery.