Steve Troughton-SmithI think with Apple's latest changes to the Core Technology Fee, we're starting to see some of the elements that might actually work when all's said and done. Specifically, developers self-reporting company revenue — I think the only way to make the CTF fair is to have a flat fee, per year, that scales based on how much money your company makes. If you make $0, you pay $0. If you're Spotify, you pay $Ms. That takes away Apple's per-install tracking; devs don't need a nanny, they need a partner
Mysk🇨🇦🇩🇪@stroughtonsmith The amount owed to Apple should be capped at some point. It's unrealistic that if your business makes $∞, then you owe Apple $∞. Software licenses aren't based on income. In music production for example, you pay around $300 for a digital audio workstation (DAW), then you can produce a song that might make millions in revenues. You won't pay the DAW developer any cut of your revenues. Plus, macOS developers don't pay any CTF.
mxey@mysk @stroughtonsmith that is how game engines are typically licensed. It’s however a little different because you obviously ship the engine with your product, it’s not just the level editor or whatever.
Mutesplash@stroughtonsmith That requires Apple to trust other people too much. If they did that they would throw in mandatory auditing at the developer's expense
Matthaus Woolard@Mutesplash @stroughtonsmith Revenue numbers tend to be part of tax returns, so basing of regional revenue does not erqwuire much auditing just checking that the number reproted matches the tax return to that regional gov. Then let the local gov do the detailed audit.
@hishnash If the app isn't your only revenue source how's that gonna work? Apple entitled to % from all revenue everywhere?
@Mutesplash that is why I say it should be a per install but capped at revenue.
Eg 50c per install but capped at 2% rev.
If you have a very popular app (400m users etc) that is not making you money direclty the then the reason is that this is facilitating your revenue in other ways (like giving to data to sell or target ads with etc).
@hishnash Say 10% of the users are on the app because it's a viewer or something and 90% are on the web. Makes all the revenue on the web, why should they pay a % of that?
@Mutesplash Im not suggesting a raw % im suggesing capping the total amount per install based on company revenue. your still paying a 50c per install but your not going to pay more than 2% of your revenue. So yes if 10% of your users are using the mobile app then and you have a revenue of 25mill then you will pay the full 50c per user assuming your total user base is 20miill users. (if you have 20mil users as your rev is 25mil you should charge a little more)
@stroughtonsmith I think per install is find as long as it is capped based on EU revenue. If you're a huge company but you just want to ship a small app for a tiny market on the side you should not pay the same as Meta.
@hishnash if you're a huge company you can probably spin up a subsidiary just for the app in question, no? I don't think that’s punitive
@stroughtonsmith I would assume revenue rules would be written such that subsidiaries cant be used to hide revenue. I can fire up a subsidiary to my company here for less than $50 so all contracts based on revenue look at total aggregated parent company rev.
Kyle Howells@stroughtonsmith I'm worried they might get away with something like that. But I'm still fundamentally against Apple being able to tax developers at all.
Windows, macOS, Linux don't and have never worked that way.
You don't pay Google, Mozilla or Safari for your website being able to run on their browser.
I object to Apple being able to enforce a toll bridge between users and developers.
Not a payment processing fee, or a anything like that, just a pure tax just because.
@stroughtonsmith besides, they already have the developer program as a paid membership, which says when you sign up you are paying for access to their developer tools, etc...
Mayanja@stroughtonsmith They are doing this to block the Spotify's of this world. It's those type of apps that benefit from alternative app stores the most.
Uber won't mind because they don't have to pay the Apple Tax in the first place. So they have less reason to leave the app store in the first place.
As long as apple keeps discriminating between digital and physical goods the problem remains.
The CTF is abuse of power as it's based on an arbitrary distinction made by apple.
Archagon@stroughtonsmith Why should they get anything? Or, conversely, what argument is there for keeping macOS CTF-free?