OPINION: I’ve been gripped by the Epic Games vs Apple lawsuit that took place in the US these past three weeks.
There’s little reason for this appetite of mine. Whoever the judge rules in favour of, and the implications that has, doesn’t really affect me much. I am not a developer and have no skin in the game.
But the drama of reading about Apple executives like Phil Schiller and Tim Cook – people I’ve met and held normal conversations with over coffee – being called into the courtroom and facing uncomfortable lines of questioning is, apparently, a drug I can’t get enough of.
It’s more than that, though. Putting the romance of the courtroom to one side, I have no idea which way Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is going to rule when she returns her verdict in the coming weeks/months. I don’t even know which way I want her to rule.
Apple’s argument is easy to understand. The App Store is something it owns. It’s a place that it polices, maintains and promotes. And therefore, a 30 per cent cut – 15 per cent for small businesses – is not an unreasonable fee to charge developers who enjoy the benefits it undoubtedly brings
That 30 per cent fee, after all, is similar to the fees its rivals charge in both digital and physical stores.
Epic’s argument is equally easy to understand. It doesn’t want to continue to pay Apple 30 per cent of its revenues on the App Store for eternity.
Thirty per cent of the hundreds of millions of dollars it generates each year equates to a lot of money. Epic, therefore, feels it’s disproportionately paying for the same service that every other app on the App Store enjoys, without any benefits, despite the obscene amount of money it generates for Apple.
And that’s exactly why Epic is doing this. Taking a hit for a few years while gambling on the verdict of a judge is a worthwhile exercise. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. Things can return to how they were originally and watch the cash roll in again. Well, 70 per cent of it at least.
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It’s more nuanced than that, though.
Developers can already sidestep the 30 per cent “Apple Tax'' if their users process their payments outside the app. If, for example, a Fortnite user completed a transaction via a web browser and not inside the App Store app, Apple doesn’t get a penny.
The problem here is that Apple doesn’t let developers advertise (inside iOS apps) that it’s possible to process payments in other locations. Is that fair? That’s for Judge Gonzalez Rogers to decide.
Admittedly, when I first learnt of this, I thought it was a bit stingy of Apple. Then I heard the argument for forcing a physical store to do something similar. The idea of Countdown or Noel Leeming being made to advertise a list of alternative places (and prices) next to the physical items it has on its shelves is unthinkable. So why should Apple?
That’s not to say I don’t have sympathy for the developers. I do. Sacrificing 30 per cent of revenues can’t be easy.
And while I’m sympathetic to developers, I’m also envious. Software, by nature, is infinitely profitable as there are no additional costs involved in replicating it. It doesn’t matter if the software is bought once or a billion times; the cost of developing that software is the same. So playing nice with the company that built the platform you’re using to sell your product seems like a pragmatic approach to me.
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