Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out? I read somewhere (I think Epic v Apple) where the judge surmised that App store model was not just payments but the whole mechanism of tracking subscriptions, cancel and refunds, and standard pricing for purchases. I can understand the viewpoint that Apple customers might expect the same functionality if they purchase directly on site. But then, let the developer explain that too. "You can get this cheaper on website, but will no longer be able to cancel via App Store" is a fair enough line that can be mandated just like they mandated everything else. Think they will have to do away with it eventually, though from the outside it looks like they think if they drag their feet on this, maybe regulators won't come for other things.
They could also provide developers some APIs to register external subscriptions and purchases, and thus make cancellation and refunds available through centralised user interfaces within iOS, but they don't, because their goal isn't actually to create great products for their customers, it's to create value for shareholders, and they can more easily do that by locking users into their model.
As a user I really like the fact that Apple is the only one with my payment informations. I can safely install any app that I want, get subscription, in-apps etc without ever having to wonder where my payment informations are going.
You can't have that level of safety with API. Nothing prevents a dev from building an API that returns always "200 OK" when being called for a "terminate subscription" action, but that does nothing under the hood. If I unsubscribe from an Apple provided UI, I will hold Apple responsible for the execution of the action. Apple works really really hard to make sure that this trust we have in their system is warranted. As we know, trust is hard-earned, easily lost, and difficult to reestablish. So all it takes is a single bad experience to make me doubt everything else.
The current system allows Apple to control 100% of the process and to be fully responsible for everything.
That being said, Apple should allow users to perform all these operations outside of the iOS ecosystem if the developer allows it. I feel there is a clear communication here that "anything done outside of the Apple UI's is not the responsibility of Apple" (including payment / subscription management).
I can dispute a card transaction, cancel a payment, maybe even send a nastygram to a developer. But if I dispute something with a middleman like Apple, Google, Steam, etc. I have to consider the possibility that they'll cancel my whole account if they think I'm abusing their system with any dispute.
My wife received over a thousand dollars in mystery credit card charges from the App Store over a period of about 6 weeks. Apple couldn't explain it or provide any insight whatsoever. Nothing.
Apparently, the charges were on her credit card but associated with another Apple ID.
We did a charge back which was successful. Now, I'm just waiting for the inevitable locking of her Apple ID. Luckily, she has already created a new one, but if the same thing happened to me I'd be in serious trouble. In my case, simply creating a new Apple ID is not an option.
I mean, canceling a check costs money, and a charge-back (or perhaps more accurately rephrased, the request for a charge-back) on a credit card can be declined by the financial institution if they don't believe it's the correct action, and they'll usually ask you to work with the merchant first.
I'm not saying the middlemen you mention there are beyond reproach, merely pointing out the alternative systems that are implied here to be more/perfectly effective aren't exactly that either.
The behaviour of a credit card company would vary enormously around the world though, for example in the UK credit card providers are jointly and severely liable for any action brought against the merchant (ie if they won't do anything you take both them and (eg) Apple to court) so they tend to be far more responsive to consumer complaints.
And if a company keeps charging you unconsented fees on your credit card and you keep complaining to your bank, the CEO goes to jail.
Canceling a check is on you since if you didn't want to spend the money you shouldn't have written the check. CC Chargeback hits the merchant hard if approved, since they fucked up. And your chance of approval is similar as with Apple.
If it's an Apple-approved unconsented fee and you keep complaining to Apple, they remotely brick your phone and your computer along with deleting all your emails, your family photos, and your contact from everyone else's phone.
They are saying the middleman gatekeepers are dangerous becasue if you push them too hard they can take away your access to everything.
Whereas if your agreements are with the individual companies and developers then the worst they can do is take away that one app.
On the other hand, those middlemen gatekeepers also make it a big part of their value addition to me, as a customer, to throw their weight around in my favor against all the other companies I can’t be arsed to argue with. For example, one of the reasons people pay for that AmEx Platinum card or Sapphire Reserve is specifically because you can call in the lender to do chargebacks, and the merchants themselves know that if they get too many complaints filed against them the financial institution will visit consequences on them.
I view Apple in much the same way. I don’t trust most developers, and part of what makes me willing to go out on a limb and throw a bit of money their way is the knowledge that I’m not gonna have to go through a whole path of dark pattern bullshit when I want to modify or cancel my subscription.
Google threatened to end my access to their payments system, which at the time would have caused my Google Fi phone plan to be unpayable, because they refuse to acknowledge a fraudulent charge through some Google Wallet apparently/maybe physical card at Forever 21's Indian affiliate for like $20 or $25. I have never, ever shopped at Forever 21 and didn't ever have a physical Google Wallet card. The charge was obviously fraudulent, but Google refused to help (and I also couldn't get anything particularly useful from Forever 21 other than to confirm that they hadn't integrated Google's payment method directly, so it must have been a physical card).
So I disputed the charge with my real bank, which corrected the problem by refunding me.
Google told me that if I ever did that again, they would lock me out of not just my account, but any future account using Google payment methods that was linked to me. That would make my phone service and the Google Play Store unusable. That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Google services. So yeah...I do not trust Google or Apple as intermediaries for every payment in my life.
Oh, point taken certainly. But I have a feeling if a credit card issuer believes you are abusing their charge-back system, they might well nuke your account there too.
If a credit card issuer drops your account, you don't lose access to things you paid for with the card.
If a DRM store drops your account, you often do. (I think some of them do have a limited account type, so they will no longet let you transact, but you can still use the content you didn't chargeback)
If the charge back is approved, by definition it's not abuse, and the issuer makes money on successful chargebacks. They also make money on you having an account there. And they have the responsibility to give your money back if they close it. Plus you're ultimately, if indirectly, backed up by the full power of the civil justice system, courts and judges and all that. It may be very flawed but let's buy pretend it's as nearly as bad as the whim of one underpaid Apple intern with no real incentives or accountability.
It's different because you only have to figure out how to deal with Apple rather than discovering a new process for every app you want to install. Far lighter mental load.
Apple doesn't legally deserve a privileged position there, because they are legally equal to any other payment processor that wants to be the "only one". Apple has no more right to be the "only one" than a competitor does.
Their spite fee for alternative payment processors being almost equal to their own payment processor fee, though, kinda shows their goal is just money anyways.
Having said that, I don't think figuring out how to use Apple Pay and Paypal is that hard. My friends use all kinds of payment processors.
My comment isn't addressing whether they deserve anything or whether this arrangement is beneficial overall - I'm only recognizing that it's easier to deal with a single supplier rather than a multitude of them.
I like seatbelts but that doesn’t mean I’ll drive into a truck… I still use critical thinking when I buy stuff. But when I forget to cancel a subscription I can ask for a refund and 99% I get it back from Apple. Like 20-30% when I haven’t used the App Store and went directly to the merchant.
The worry is that after asking apple for a certain amount of refunds they flag you as a troublemaker and block you from using any of their services. This happens all the time.
Going directly to companies and merchants keeps this control in your own hands, nobody can block you from buying other software just because you had issues in the past.
As a user I really hate that I'm forced to give Apple my payment information when I want to do business with a third party on an iPhone, including the possibility that the 30% fee they take gets factored into the price I pay.
I think the EU's solution will make us both happy: you don't have to do business with companies that don't offer Apple pay, and I don't have to do business with companies that do.
> Nothing prevents a dev from building an API that returns always "200 OK" when being called for a "terminate subscription" action, but that does nothing under the hood.
Laws. Existing laws prevent developers from doing that.
> As we know, trust is hard-earned, easily lost, and difficult to reestablish. So all it takes is a single bad experience to make me doubt everything else.
This is true.
> The current system allows Apple to control 100% of the process and to be fully responsible for everything.
However, that same system prevent me from buying Kindle books from the Kindle app on device, for example. Even though I can open the browser on that same device and buy them from Amazon.
> Laws. Existing laws prevent developers from doing that.
Laws mean nothing to scammy developers trying to make a quick buck. Would you hire a lawyer to sue for a $4.99 refund? And even if you’re willing to spend that money, are you sure you can figure out who to sue? The scammy developer is likely using some shell company registered in some dodgy jurisdiction. Sure, what they’re doing is illegal, but the average consumer has no real recourse.
My bank gave me a $10 refund, no questions asked, for a service that wouldn't answer cancellation requests. I don't think they even dinged the service, since they tried to bill me again the next month.
> However, that same system prevent me from buying Kindle books from the Kindle app on device, for example. Even though I can open the browser on that same device and buy them from Amazon.
I’m sure Apple would actually prefer that you buy the Kindle books on the app, even if they didn’t get a cut of the sale. It is actually Amazon choosing not to do it in order to dodge paying the payment processing fees.
Not a single payment processor in the world has a 30% fee while also having a competing product in which they can have the prices arbitrarily low (because they don't care about the 30% fee they pay to themselves).
The egregiously high processing fees from AmEx are at 3.30%.
most of your comment is irrelevant because you assume Apple would be calling a external API, while parent means is external calling Apple API to register subscriptions. Then if you have concerns like yours you can stay within Apple ecosystem.
That only works if the external API is handing off the entire subscription to Apple, up to and including payments. But the entire premise is to move away from being forced to use Apple for these elements, which makes it a non-sensical interpretation. In fact, that particular interpretation is the current status-quo -- apps use APIs to create subscriptions entirely managed by Apple.
If Apple does not control the actual subscription, but is only providing an interface for managing it, then Apple must then alert the actual owner of the subscription upon changes. There's then no guarantee that the code on the other side is properly handling that alert.
How would that be helpful if you want to cancel the subscription using a third party payment processor from the app store/settings(current workflow)? Apple would still have to call a third party API, otherwise it doesn’t seem particularly useful (i.e. you just get to see the status and that’s it?)
The only reason is that they don't want the public to realise how greedy they are. They know the value they add is not worth the price difference to a lot of customers.
As many have said for years. As long as Apple is not able to explain their value to the customer, they have to rely on shady business tactics to maintain the revenue stream they became addicted to.
Having been so close to bankruptcy seemed to have tainted their behaviour, that now anything goes to protect what in the end saved them, moreso than in other companies.
No, not “moreso than in other companies” — maximizing profits is something that effectively all companies do.
The difference is that smaller companies can get away with anticompetitive behaviour but there are regulations for market leaders.
What Apple was allowed to do when they were a disrupter is different from what they are allowed to do with a dominant postion in the ecosystem.
PS Saying all companies are greedy and would abuse a market position is not a moral defense of Apple’s behaviour, it’s a defense of antitrust regulations.
Do you know any other marketplace / reseller who puts a message: "By the way, if you book directly with the provider and cut us out, it will be cheaper"?
I can fully understand Apple's position. They created the system that customers love, developers will have to pay something to get access to those customers.
Apple doesn't have to explain to customers the value. Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.
> Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.
Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
That’s what allows Apple to abuse their position as a quasi-monopoly (as a platform for app developers adjusted by user spending they are effectively that in multiple markets).
It's repeated again and again among hackers that Apple is a monopoly. While selling less devices than their biggest competitor. While having a much smaller install base for their OS than Android.
> They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.
Oh, I had no idea.
> You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.
What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.
Any store that can will take a cut from producers, whether that is a physical store like your local supermarket, or a digital store like Apple's.
The question is why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms, and why hackers hate that so much? How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?
> While selling less devices than their biggest competitor
That doesn’t matter that much (when taking about app developers) compared to how much money they are spending. A single iPhone user in the US and other rich countries is worth a dozen of Android users in India/African countries etc.
Also even if not literally a monopoly they can effectively behave like a monopoly and abuse their position because no tech company targeting consumers can afford to not have an iOS app.
> What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.
Not what I meant and not how it works. I’m using an iPhone in-spite of their abusive practices and restrictions because their other features/advantages compared to Android outweigh that in my case. It’s basically a shit sandwich…
> why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms
Because they have more money?
> How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?
Yes, that exactly what I’m saying. Apple won (clearly because of the merits of their products) and now they can squeeze developers and consumers to a very high degree without any negative consequences. That’s how monopolies (of course it’s scale, Apple is not literally a monopoly, for that matter neither was Standard Oil back in 1906, they had a comparable market share to Apple these days) work regardless of how exactly they became one, they get to keep all the market surplus that would go to consumers in a more competitive market.
I think this quote illustrates well your perspective and the general perspective of hackers here. Apple users spend more on software because they're just so dumb and don't know how to compile their apps and set up a self-hosted solution.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm very happy to spend money on quality software that I need to solve real world problems, instead of suffering with low-quality FOSS or ad supported software just to save a few bucks. I prefer saving my headache instead, so that I can tinker because I choose to, not because I have to. I think most non-enterprise software customers think the same way. They want something to solve their needs and are fine to pay a fair price for that. So they buy Apple products and later iOS/MacOS software.
If other tech companies cared at all about their product and their customers, they would do the same as Apple. But it's easier to sell to enterprise clients and spy on free users to sell ads instead.
> I think this quote illustrates
> Apple users spend more on software because they're just so dumb and don't know how to compile their apps and set up a self-hosted solution
Never meant anything even remotely close to that. Apple users tend to have higher incomes and therefore can afford to spend much more than average (globally) Android users. I see absolutely nothing wrong about people spending money on quality software (the opposite really and I entirely agree with your point about ad supported and OS consumer software).
> they would do the same as Apple
Well yeah, arguably that was one of the main reasons behind their success. However I don’t see how do these things contradict each other, Apple can continue producing great products while being less abusive towards developers who have much more limited bargaining power.
My apologies for reading something into your words that wasn't there. It just sounded so dismissive to say that they spend more money because they have more money, which is an attitude I've often heard, and which isn't true.
Most Android/Windows/Linux users in the developed world (and they are billions) spend less on software than iOS/MacOS users, even though they can well afford it. Small time developers on those platforms are left to beg for donations (that never come), or bundle their software with ads and spyware that some big company pays them for. If they want to make a living on their work.
Developers serving Apple platforms are as far as I know better off reimbursement-wise than developers serving other platforms. Apple takes their cut, but until somebody voluntarily offers developers something better I think it's misguided to go against Apple.
People say that Microsoft got hit with these kind of lawsuits in the 90s, but as far as I remember, they were threatening PC hardware vendors if they offered competitor's software – which is clearly an anti-competitive measure. Not a reply to you, just a general comparison.
Nor how dangerous first-party services like iMessage still are, for zero-click exploits like Pegasus. The average iPhone user knows almost nothing about their device outside of what Apple directly markets to them as true.
I would expect someone who wants something from someone else to formulate a polite, specific request, and to then submit the request in a manner somewhere on the spectrum between respectfully and deferentially.
Unless I totally misunderstood, and you don't want anything, and are just expressing that the universe failed to live up to your expectations. In which case: my bad, sorry for the misunderstanding!
If Apple's fees cost 30% of the price, then the actual developers who make the software must raise prices to make up for Apple's fees. How much, though?
One might intuitively guess 30%, bringing $1 to $1.30. But Apple will take a cut of this price increase as well: $1.30 * 70% = $0.91, so still losing money to Apple's fees.
The actual amount they must raise the prices is (1 - (1 / 0.7)) = 0.428, or roughly 43%.
Doing this math backwards to factor out Apple's fees yields a confirmation: $1.43 * 70% ≈ $1
> "You can get this cheaper on website, but will no longer be able to cancel via App Store"
This seems like a reasonable compromise. Allow Apple to tell you what you won't get if you leave their store, but otherwise let consumers choose.
> Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out?
The reason is that every major retailer has anti-steering or most favored nation agreements with their suppliers, and Apple thinks they shouldn't be banned from it when everyone else does it. Applied to physical retail it does seem pretty absurd, e.g. The Cuisinart blender box at Target says it's 10% cheaper at Wal-Mart.
Walmart isn't a gatekeeper because it doesn't make one of the most popular platforms on the planet.
If apple want to give up platform ownership and be a retailer, the EU wont have any complaints about them not allowing steering in their app store. Meanwhile Apple's app store would become one of many options rather than the default and only, so steering is moot.
Obviously that's not going to happen, hence they are going to have to hash it out until it's not longer anti competitive or be broken up forcefully.
My point was that the idea of anti-steering in retail is old and the idea of "gatekeepers" is new. Apple isn't unique. They are behaving exactly how you would expect if a regulator suddenly tries to stop them from doing something that was previously routine.
> The reason is that every major retailer has anti-steering or most favored nation agreements with their suppliers
Well, I don't think that should be allowed either. Especially when the retailer has enough market power that they can bully the supplier into accepting unfavorable terms, like say Amazon or Wal-Mart.
If a retailer takes a bigger cut, it shouldn't forbid you from selling it cheaper elsewhere.
It's close to that, and if Apple was forced to advertise the cheaper price, or the product seller themselves was then it would be.
This is more like Target prohibits sellers from ever notifying you that there's a sales price at Walmart if you're looking for a deal. You're not allowed to push deals for you're own product during Black Friday or similar.
Frankly. I donno where the quote about the "do not tell about sales is at." I tried to read the legalese and got stuck on:
7.3 "You may also distribute Your Applications ... within Your company, ... on a limited number of Registered Devices (as specified in the Program web portal)" Wait. What? My own company has limited internal distribution on my own app?
7.6 "Except for the distribution of ... Licensed Applications through the App Store or Custom App Distribution, the distribution of Applications (using Section 7.3, 7.4, 7.5) ... and/or as otherwise permitted herein, no other distribution of programs or applications developed using the Apple Software is authorized or permitted hereunder. You agree not to distribute Your Application ... via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so." IE, you cannot go out on the street and "share" this app with someone, or give it to them, or similar. And obviously not 3rd party portals.
9.2-9.3: "You agree to protect Apple Confidential Information using at least the same degree of care that You use to protect Your own confidential information of similar importance, but no less than a reasonable degree of care." ... "Apple will be free to use and disclose any Licensee Disclosures on an unrestricted basis without notifying or compensating You." Note: Licensee Disclosures include All Data. You agree to put Apple's data in a vault, Apple agrees to copy your app.
> Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out?
As a user, it’d just be irritating noise to have this start showing up in apps, unless buried in some little out of the way link somewhere like other unimportant things like the supposedly legally binding t&c all these apps pretend we’re reading.
Messages like this (“go subscribe somewhere else to get a lower price”) also confuse the hell out of e.g. my dad and prime them to fall for scam messages.
Could just show "Apple transaction fees" as a separate line item instead of just the total. Everyone should be more accustomed to that than a possibly sketchy looking message.
Yeah making it itemized on the payment screen would be fine. As long as the stated amount and the final total weren’t different, like sales taxes in US stores. No “$10… just kidding now it’s $13”. But listing it on the “bill”, yeah, wouldn’t mind a bit if they were forced to do that.
> they think if they drag their feet on this, maybe regulators won't come for other things.
This. EU politicians and EU voters want the EU to crack down on foreign tech companies who abuse users data rights, use monopolies to push EU companies out of the market, and use accounting tricks to barely pay any taxes.
Therefore, the EU has to be fining Apple and Google for something. If not this, then it'll be something else.
Let's not make it some sort of agenda out the EU: these companies are out just for themselves and however much someone likes their tech/philosophy/ecosystem, their practices are bullshit and unfair.
I know it might be not be an obvious difference for people living in US these days, but there's in fact a massive difference between a megacorporation and elected government.
We vote for the parliament, which was only like a week ago. Each country also votes for their government, at times specified by their constitutions. Those governments then form the Commission and the Council.
One is a for-profit company known for anti-competitive and cut-throat techniques, as well as expert in tax dodging over the world.
The other is a governmental group formed by 27 rather different countries, all having a wide range of philosophies, cultures, corruption and mentalities.
I know which one I am more likely to get some level-headed decision which might help me.
The EU at the cutting edge of competition law, which is to say it is looking actively at the competitive landscape and saying "what are the problems?" then moving doctrine along to solve them. There's a lot to be said for the approach.
If the EU can be said to have an agenda, it is clear from the rules - their agenda is market fairness, and the ability of new entrants to successfully compete. The DMA is a key plank of that, but there will be others.
EU's single biggest win is free and open Single Market and it will fight to keep it so. It doesn't matter where companies come from – if you look at e.g. GDPR enforcement tracker you'll see they're as eager to keep internal EU companies in line.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
See, the problem is that if I name one as an example, you will just fall back to silly games like "but the EU defined the term 'gatekeeper' in such a way that your example does not count". It does not matter whether the market dynamics are the same as the defined gatekeepers, whether the market shares are similar, or anything like that. Your side will shut down any debate with logic such as that. So why bother engaging?
It's like arguing with a hardcore religious person about god. "Oh, but that's not what I meant by 'god'".
Initially all companies that were defined as gatekeepers under DMA were foreign, but on 13.5.2024 Booking.com was designated as one as well. They are a Dutch company.
> EU politicians and EU voters want the EU to crack down on foreign tech companies
EU tech companies want the EU to crack down on foreign tech companies. The Digital Markets Act’s standards for considering someone a “gatekeeper” seems like it was specifically tailored to exclude Spotify while binding Apple, Google, and Facebook.
> The Digital Markets Act’s standards for considering someone a “gatekeeper” seems like it was specifically tailored to exclude Spotify while binding Apple, Google, and Facebook.
A glance at that list of 4 companies will quickly lead a person to the intuitive observation that 1 of those companies is not like the other. It's hard to see how one would classify Spotify as a "Gatekeeper" in the sense that the others are, so perhaps your observation is by design: Why would we expect the legal definition of ”Gatekeeper" to include Spotify, if Spotify is not a gatekeeper even on a common-sense level?
It’s one of the few benefits of EU being a complete backwater when it comes to software and consumer tech products.
There will be very little harm to EU’s economy since almost all of the profits are being sent to the US anyway.
Also this/GDPR/etc. is a form of protectionism (not that I see anything wrong with that to a limited extent) which will hopefully give at least some slight competitive advantage to EU tech companies (since they really do need it) and maybe a bit more crumbs to fight over.
> Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out?
They haven't (and obviously won't), but the intent is clearly to eliminate any criticism of Apple from within apps, while also making sure that there aren't any "leaks" in the system from which money could escape that they want their fingers on.
(except for privileged companies like Netflix and Amazon)
> "You can get this cheaper on website, but will no longer be able to cancel via App Store"
For one thing, nobody reads that stuff and secondary, after a few months people forget the details of where and how they subscribed to things.
So it absolutely would lead to an increase in support calls to Apple as people ask why they can’t manage a subscription through the App Store. Even me, who generally does keep track of this sort of thing, completely forgot through what service I first activated an HBO subscription and it was kind of a hassle to cancel it since, it turned out, I had set it up through Roku and I haven’t owned anything Roku in 6 years so didn’t think to look.
A blanket ban is overdoing it though, and is just a lazy (and conveniently profit maximizing) way to stop it. I’ve long felt that what Apple ought to do is maintain a codified standard of bad behaviors that address the specific dark patterns they are worried about and just hold that over developers’ heads to retroactively punish abuse rather than having a default posture of being adversarial.
> what Apple ought to do is maintain a codified standard of bad behaviors that address the specific dark patterns they are worried about and just hold that over developers’ heads
The problem with doing that is that it likely results in a game of Whack-A-Mole with malicious parties. See for instance Google regarding SEO.
They’re already playing that game through App Review anyway though. This just gives them more granular sets of punishments they can dole out beyond just “accepted” or “rejected.” It also discourages seedy developers from just opening up chains of fly-by-night developer accounts to upload scams, since they could gate a lot of these elevated API privileges behind needing to have a good reputation.
> where the judge surmised that App store model was not just payments but the whole mechanism of tracking subscriptions, cancel and refunds, and standard pricing for purchases
Well, yeah. When it's your only goddamn choice it sure as shit becomes that. I can guarantee you it can be done for much, much less than 30%. But apple won't allow it.
But that’s how they decided to fund other areas like having iOS free. I still don’t understand the logic behind the complaint. If the developers don’t want to pay, why not just drop support for iOS? If the answer is because customers are on iOS then… idk respect that this is the decision of the user. Don’t force me to install another App Store or give you my card data so you can charge me the same amount and keep more profit while compromising my privacy and security
> idk respect that this is the decision of the user.
You have it completely opposite.
The argument is that the user should be given full power and permission over their own device that they own, and should be allowed to choose, on their iPhone, to install whatever they want.
If a user doesn't want to install an app, thats fine. But give them the choice to do so.
> Don’t force me to install another App Store
Then don't install another app store! Just don't do it!
> Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out?
Surely because they think, "We're Apple, this is how we do things." But honestly, there's starting to burn through a lot of the consumer good will credit they have built up. They're just another "shareholders first" company now.
