[tech-no-logical]

maybe I'm a cynic, but why should I care that Evil Corp A tries to rip off Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C ?

[righttoolforjob]

At the end of the day the consumers also hurt, so you should care. If basic economic theory puts the optimal price for this service at 10$ without the middleman, then perhaps it becomes 12$ with the middleman.

[HWR_14]

I doubt the customer's cost goes up by 20%. That seems pretty extreme. In fact, I'm not sure of the mechanism that makes that costs go up by that much. I guess it depends on the number of Uber drivers around, maybe? In economic theory, it would primarily come out of Uber's profit margin.

[tech-no-logical]

that's implied by every Evil Corp, but yes, you are correct. still, to the consumer it does not really matter which of the Evil Corp gets the money since they will pay it anyway. I don't, for a minute, think that the 30% would not be paid by the end-user if Evil Corp A was not in play. B and C would just raise prices.

[ForgotMyPwOops]

Because monopolistic business practices tangibly hurt consumers by reducing incentives to produce a good product and by artificially raising prices that get passed to the consumer

[sumedh]

> Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C

Because Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C will pass the 30% commission on the consumer.

[asteroidbelt]

But also because Good Small Corp D and Good Small Corp E would have to follow the same rules.

[walrus01]

It's like the model of the world of a turtle resting on another turtle's back, which is itself atop another turtle, but instead composed of FAANG C-levels doing dickish things to each other (and by follow on effect, the end user)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

[obmelvin]

Beyond caring about the larger issues at play here, the way it can effect you is if you have to pay 30% more for every subscription because companies need to account for paying Apple so much

This is not theoretical. In 2018 Netflix would've paid Apple around 256m [0] and Netflix also had a fair number of price raises in the past few years. Obviously the app store commission was not the only factor in these price raises, but it's clearly a factor the tune of about 250 million per year.

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/netflix-stops-paying-the-a...

[tech-no-logical]

personally, knowing the cuts that either app/play store take, I would _never_ subscribe to a service through either of them, that's luckily still an option. netflix raising prices _because_ of a store tax, even for users subscribing outside of them, would be worrying, but your link has no evidence of that, right ?

[heavyset_go]

A 15% to 30% cut of all revenue punishes small businesses and makes many businesses infeasible, especially low margin businesses, as that 30% cut cuts into margins. Loss of competition hurts entire markets, including consumers.

[tech-no-logical]

agreed. but neither Lyft nor Uber are not small businesses. they also just exploit their workers.

[yowlingcat]

If you think that every corporation is an Evil Corp and actions are evil because evil entities do them then there's no reason you should care.

But if you ascribe the degree of evilness to the action rather than the actor, then you absolutely should care because it's anti-competitive and poisons the general health of the market.

[tech-no-logical]

true. in general I would agree any party taking a 30% cut (whether app store or play store or whatever) would be the supreme evil. but since all three parties involved in this instance are of the same caliber, I don't care, and I choose to use none of them.

[wvenable]

What's missing is that companies don't pay the 30% -- it's the end-users that do. Every user of iOS pays 30% of every app and IAP to Apple. The other company never even sees this money.

[yifanl]

If MegaMegaCo forces MegaCo to give up X dollars, MegaCo isn't going to declare instant bankruptcy, it's going to use that as justification to raise its prices to you.