[klaustopher]

> provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users around the world.

That's what the 99$ fee for the developer program is for. The 50ct Core Technology Fee is just Apple showing the middle finger to successful developers. I hope the EU goes after this fee first. The whole reason for the DMA is that developers do not use Apple's platforms to bring apps to the user's devices. The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.

[dbbk]

Yeah this is what I really don't understand. They say they have to be compensated for their R&D work and for providing the APIs and cloud services etc. Okay.

...but the program fee already does that??

[kmeisthax]

They have to be "compensated" in the intellectual property[0] sense of "we reserve the right to invent new reasons why we need to be compensated". Nothing is ever truly "paid for" or "owned" here.

[0] "Federal contempt of business model"

[bee_rider]

I’m not sure what % of their R&D budget comes from the $99 fee vs various other AppStore percentage based fees. But… should it be a flat fee? It seems sort of reasonable to charge more successful apps more, they are apparently benefiting more from the ecosystem, right? Like progressive taxation. (If anything, why not institute increasing developer “apple tax” brackets?)

It looks like, just from some random googling, Apple makes somewhere in the range of $85B per year from their App Store, and there are around 34 Million iOS app developers. Do people really want to pay north of $2000 for their developer licenses?

[judge2020]

I think you'd be hard pressed to take the $99/yr they make from the dev program fee and use it to cover the salaries for the engineers implementing and maintaining all of iOS' developer-facing APIs.

[joking]

and what about the devices itself? doesn't apple get money from selling iphones and ipads?

The only downside I see on the DMA is that it has come very late, and that it's only an european law. Mobile devices are computers, and once sold you should be able to install whatever you want like on any other computer. The shame on apple is that it is increasingly difficult to install software even on the computers.

[jijijijij]

Maybe Apple's goal is to become irrelevant enough to not be subjected to the DMA. I mean, making developers despise you is a brilliant first step towards such an end!

[judge2020]

Why is size a question here? If apple is subject now, but then dropped to 1/10th the number of users, could they suddenly no longer be required to adhere to the DMA? Why is the size of the provider suddenly a test to determine if consumer protections are in order?

[paulmd]

> The user has paid for the device and the operating system, the developer has paid for the developer account, so I am really interested to see how Apple justifies that fee in a court of law.

pretty much the same way nintendo or sony or microsoft justify it, I'd think.

it's pretty much exactly the same thing as windows S edition, or a console - you paid for the laptop, the developer paid to get notarization to release it. As Android shows, it is also probably legal to refuse to unlock the bootloader... now you own an "appliance".

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/windows-1...

And again, consoles have been doing this for two full decades now. PS5 isn't sold at a loss (and I don't think it matters if it is - your business model is not my problem) but I can't go mine crypto or emulate games on a PS5 or Xbox even if that's what I want to do with it as a user.

And I know that consoles got a specific carveout in the DMA "for some reason" (more evidence this is really just a bill of attainder in generic dress) but really there is not a moral difference here, and people have (including here, including the apple haters) have generally convinced themselves that it's OK. It's simple, just do the same thing with apple: "my phone is an appliance and I don't need to emulate games to be happy with it". It's a console in my pocket that makes calls.

[fxtentacle]

In the EU, the spirit of the laws is what counts in court, not the letter of the law. That means it's a lot easier to understand things if you start with the intended consequences:

Can you have a normal life without Xbox S or PS5? Yes => no need to regulate here

Can you have a normal life without iOS or Android? No => it's an essential utility => let's regulate this