Epic Games and Spotify are founder-members of a new 'anti-app-tax' organization

[Redaktion]

Epic Games has been in open litigious conflict with Apple over the latter's 30% levy on developer revenue in exchange for the use of its App Store. Now, the studio has escalated this situation with the implementation of the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), a new non-profit for "developer rights". Spotify, another company openly disgruntled with Apple's "unfair" practices, has also helped form the group.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Epic-Games-and-Spotify-are-founder-members-of-a-new-anti-app-tax-organization.495732.0.html

[slyh]

When will Epic Games remove the "app tax" from their store?

[blowfish]

When will Epic Games remove the "app tax" from their store?

There's a huge difference between the 12% Epic takes and the 30% Apple takes.

Epic is in no way a saint or doing this of the goodness of their hearts, they are after money pure and simple, but I do believe they are in the right here, that 30% cut is absolute bullshit and I hope they win their case and are able to promote change in the industry

To put things in perspective, payment processors usually take between 3% and 5% for facilitating the trasaction (Epic store also has do deal with game download service so it takes more but still within what's reasonable imo)

[blowfish]

Maybe this will end the completely locked walled garden that is the iOS ecosystem if Epic gets their way.

It makes absolutely no sense that I need to either jailbreak or get a developer account plus something running macOs to run anything other than what the Apple overlords allow me download from their store.


Who should be really mad about this is microsoft who had to pay millions just because it bundled internet explorer and made it difficult to install something else.

[kek]

It might be just me, but I believe something else is being fought here. I really doubt Spotify and all those companies would wait like 4 years before deciding to take action against the 30% thing.

And this is obviously not for consumer's benefit, at all.

[blowfish]

And this is obviously not for consumer's benefit, at all.

Of course not, they're corporations and they only care about money. But consumers will benefit in the end and that's good

It might be just me, but I believe something else is being fought here. I really doubt Spotify and all those companies would wait like 4 years before deciding to take action against the 30% thing.

Spotify specifically has been complaining for years, not necessarily about the 30% thing but of the way apple delays their access to apis to update the app for example. They are not the only ones either, maybe epic is just better at organizing a coalition because this could have been done long ago

[Daniel Ridenhour]

This is happening now because epic's fortnite was big enough that it didn't 'need' apples ecosystem... or androids... and the users want the apps...  so it makes apple look bad.  The app stores are a double edge sword... they provide THE way to reach your customers... you can argue that the 30% is steep (I agree).... but its based on being 'less' than the discount developers had to pay to get apps into retail back in the ole days... that said apps are much cheaper in the stores so its not really an apples to apples comparison.

The big gotcha for me isn't the 30% tax... its the walled ecosystem apple sets up.    On android you can always sell your app direct and users can sideload the app if you think androids cut is too high but on apple the app store is the only game.

I develop niche apps for multiple platforms but stopped developing for iOS  after the iPad 3 for just that reason...  back then there was a messaging app called trillian...  it met apples rules but they wouldn't approve it because as it turned out apple had an app they wanted to push that did some of the same messaging stuff...  so the trillian developers invested all that time, money and effort in an app they can't sell... to anyone.   As a one man shop... the idea that I could pour 6 months of my life into an app that followed all of apples rules then they could keep moving the goal post if I happened to do something they thought was cool and wanted to duplicate themselves...  my time has value and I couldn't justify writing another line of code for an apple platform. 

It didn't help that you had (and still have to) use a mac to release iOS apps...   first thing I did when I stopped developing for apple was well my macbook pro... thus ending the most unproductive 18 months of my adult life.   

[TDR]

The courts will do their thing and should be allowed to do so. What really matters on a personal level is that Epic is fine with breaking a contract they signed with full understanding of the terms. How can I trust them to stand by their contract with ME as an Epic account holder? I can't.

So I deleted my account at the Epic store even though I have half a dozen games that I have yet to play. It's a matter of principle. I would do the same at Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, GOG, Steam, et al, if they started ignoring their legal and ethical obligations like this.

[Skittle Nugget]

The courts will do their thing and should be allowed to do so. What really matters on a personal level is that Epic is fine with breaking a contract they signed with full understanding of the terms. How can I trust them to stand by their contract with ME as an Epic account holder? I can't.

So I deleted my account at the Epic store even though I have half a dozen games that I have yet to play. It's a matter of principle. I would do the same at Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, GOG, Steam, et al, if they started ignoring their legal and ethical obligations like this.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. My opinion is that your opinion is stupid. You're obviously lying.

Let's take slavery as an example. Get on the ship and there'll be a surprise waiting for you on the other end. The surprise turned out to be nasty but it was a surprise as promised so why fight it?

I hate Epic games for ruining Steam but I love them now for fighting Apple.