If you need proof that giant technology companies behave a lot like borderless governments, look no further than the brewing “app store taxes” debate.<\/p>\n
For the past decade, we\u2019ve come to accept that Google and Apple\u2019s digital stores collect an up to 30 percent slice of the money developers receive when someone purchases their app, pays for a subscription or buys in-game currency. Critics argue that Google and Apple, the mobile operating system duopoly, are the ultimate\u00a0rent seekers. Years after the companies really delivered anything new when it comes to selling or delivering apps, the pair are only tightening their grip on apps’ income, and cracking down on anyone who tries to skirt the rules.<\/p>\n
Understandably, app developers are getting sick of it. Netflix Inc., Fortnite creator Epic and the video game distributor Valve Corp. are all now trying to get out of paying the piper, Bloomberg has reported. And while fickle customers are happy to stream BoJack Horseman, build stairs to escape fires and defuse virtual terrorist plots, they don\u2019t spend much time thinking about how the money they pay is divvied up.<\/p>\n
You can see why it would be frustrating if you\u2019re Netflix. Even if I, a loyal Netflix customer, only spend 10 percent of my Netflix watching hours on my iPhone, if I decide to sign up via the app store, then Apple gets a recurring 15 percent cut of my subscription fee. If I buy a new TV, and stop streaming on my phone, Apple still keeps collecting. I\u2019d literally need to cancel and re-subscribe if I decided that I wanted Netflix to get its full money\u2019s worth out of me.<\/p>\n
App store defenders say that developers are effectively paying to help keep phones current and app stores curated. Just as a movie theater cultivates a film-viewing experience\u00a0and takes a chunk of ticket revenue, any distributor will demand a cut.<\/p>\n
Valve, in particular, may be ill-suited to the role of anti-app store tax crusader. The privately-held company has made billions with its own digital store for video games on the PC. Since Microsoft, scarred by years of antitrust investigations, couldn\u2019t force Windows users to buy video games through a Microsoft-controlled digital store, Valve saw an opening. The company built a game-buying platform called Steam, and now charges its own 30 percent fee on\u00a0games it sells.<\/p>\n
But at least anyone else could try to build another Steam. Google and Apple have dug a prohibitive competitive moat for their app stores by preventing other companies from selling apps on their phones. Now, regulators are stepping in and questioning whether that\u2019s in the consumer\u2019s best interest. In Europe, Google is no longer allowed to pre-install its app store on its phones. (Google is appealing.)<\/p>\n
The tide may gradually be changing. For now, though, Apple and Google don\u2019t just make decisions about what free speech looks like on the internet or what level of privacy a user can claim\u2014they get to collect taxes too.<\/p>\n
The “app store taxes” debate is here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":256041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2412,605,167],"class_list":["post-273209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-app-store","tag-apple","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273211,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273209\/revisions\/273211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}