[shimfish]

As an indie dev, I'm really not getting this.

Android has had alternate app stores for years. I don't recall any of them being a panacea for poor struggling devs held captive by Google Play. I stopped offering my apps on any of them as it was never worth the bother.

What problem is this trying to solve for who exactly? I don't see any way this ends up as a win for small devs.

[thebaer]

Allowing alternative payment systems. This would be absolutely huge for small devs, as you no longer have to pay the ridiculous 15%-30% rent to Apple.

[scarface74]

Thought experiment: I have 7 subscriptions. 4 of those are through the App Store. My credit card expires or get lost. What are the chances I enter new credit card information on your site as opposed to App Store?

And let’s not pretend that Apple is making a lot of money off of Indy developers. Most of the App Store revenue is coming from pay to win games and loot boxes.

[shimfish]

Oh goody. I get to manage my own payment system. And have to worry about being tax compliant in every country and state. And deal with logins, and refunds and fraud and uptime and customer support.

Where do I sign up?

[henryfjordan]

Maybe there will end up being a single app store for both Android and Apple? As a small dev, you'd only have to deal with 1 upload, a single review process, one set of user reviews, etc.

[shimfish]

So you're suggesting that either Google or Apple will just step aside?

And the point of this monopoly busting legislation was to create a bigger monopoly?