Google
Checkout will serve as the payment and billing mechanism for Android
Market. But while Google Checkout typically charges sellers just 2 percent of the sales price, that’s being bumped to a 30 percent transaction fee for the Android Market.

I think this is right. I read it on wired.

 

Whats barristers take on it?

 

What, exactly, is your point? Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to use the platform. People do so because they like it for a given reason or twelve. Developers build stuff for it because it has a very large market. Apple's take on phone-commerce is really not anything hugely out of the ordinary.

Apple is a company. It exists to make money for its shareholders. Period. If it sees a market that it can leverage to make said money, and it does not, it is not operating as it should.

Apple is probably the least "evil" software and gadget company in the world. They go to great lengths to cultivate customer loyalty and spend a hell of a lot of money designing the best of the best, rather than the Microsoft ethos of make it just good enough so the number of returns is below this threshold.

It just blows my mind when people suggest that Apple, having invested galactic craploads of capital into the iPhone platform and infrastructure, should just let the whole thing run as some utopian "anything goes" fever dream. There's a reason the iPhone experience is the best one out there, and Apple's management of the app methodology is one of them.

 

Whoa, 30% is alot.

 

When I first read the original post I was alarmed. But then I realized it was misleading.

To be clear - I don't think they are charging 30% on everything sold on the iPhone. They are charging 30% on anything sold and delivered on the iPhone.

The distinction is important. If you buy a TV on the Amazon app, that is delivered to your home. Apple doesn't charge commission on that. If they did it would destroy the Amazon and eBay apps because there isn't enough margin there.

If you buy a book, magazine, movie, game or any other digital content which is downloaded on the iPhone then you pay the 30% commission.

 

^thanks for that clarification

 

The difference between apple products and windows is that apple products dont freeze your system everytime you want to open more than one at a time. Unless you want to buy a billion dollar system.

 

nope - if you sell something through your app, be it a TV, book, car, or Russian brides, you have to use Apple's payment system & pay 30%. that's the position they've taken.

if you have a mobile site, that a customer happens to access through Safari, then, no, you don't pay anything.


Simba, i expected you to take Apple's side of course. it's perfectly reasonable for them to take 30% if you use their payment system - there is value being created there. it's *not* reasonable for them to suddenly change the rules and say a) you must use our payment system and b) you can't use anyone else's, including your own.

what infrastructure have they built? they build a device and charge people a lot of money for it. now they want to take a cut of everything going through that device? if i were ATT or Verizon, i would tell Apple "since it's going through out network, we'll take our 30% please." where does this end? have you actually used the developer tools? they leave a lot to be desired.


regardless, it will be a very interesting few months. i believe developers have until July to meet these guidelines - will the Amazons, Netflix, Pandora, & other large essential content developers kowtow to these demands? or will they basically pull an Atlas Shrugged?

or will this be considered anti-competitive behavior? there are shades of similarity when Apple backed down from requiring all developers to only use their ad platform.

- chuck

 

Google just announced their OnePass today - 10% fee.

 

it's also optional - meaning you can use your own payment system for free.

- chuck