from the what-you-don't-know-won't-hurt-you^W-Apple dept.
Apple won't let Facebook tell users about 30-percent Apple tax on events:
Facebook announced a new feature for paid online events earlier this month. It allows small businesses to host virtual cooking classes, workout sessions, happy hours, and other events and charge people to participate.
In its announcement, Facebook said it was not taking a cut of customers' payments. That means that on Android, "small businesses will keep 100% of the revenue they generate," Facebook says. But the story was different on iOS thanks to Apple's 30-percent cut of in-app purchases.
[...] the social media giant wanted to alert users to the 30-percent charge.
[...] But Facebook says Apple forced the company to delete the notice, dubbing it a violation of the App Store's policy against showing "irrelevant" information to users.
Apple's rules state that an app developer shouldn't "include irrelevant information, including but not limited to information about Apple or the development process."
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:29PM (10 children)
Shouldn't the big tech robber baron billionaires be united in their efforts at fucking over the poors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:47PM (3 children)
Aren't they already?
We may only see an orchestrated publicity stunt.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @07:24PM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:26PM (1 child)
Probably simple opportunism. You do not need a (grand) plan if you get lucky and can play profitable sides.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 31 2020, @11:44PM
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:09PM (2 children)
People who buy Apple products are definitely not poor.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:42PM
They aren't the really poor, but they're likely to be the poor. Too poor to invest in a house rather than renting, even though over the long term it would save money. Too poor for many other things that would cost more initially, but save money over the long term.
Consider Sam Vimes thoughts on boots. (paraphrased)"A rich man buys a pair of expensive boots, and they last for decades, needing to be resoled once in awhile. A poor man buys a cheap pair of boots that wear out after a year and need to be replaced, and his feet are wet whenever it rains the entire time."
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 31 2020, @05:58PM
Poor has multiple meanings.
Poor Trump, if he only had brains, or compassion.
Poor Apple users who have more dollars than sense.
As for the subject, doesn't the word "fang" have only one "A"?
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:11PM (2 children)
Why is this modded flamebait? Got some sensitive CEOs who think SN is a safe space to vent their racism, but can't handle criticism?
To answer the question though, they do work together somewhat but they still fight over their profits. FB doesn't want the PR backlash from Apples greed, but if Apple split it with them they'd STFU real quick.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:16PM (1 child)
It's flamebait because the OP suggests the robber barons are united in an effort to fuck over the poor, and that's just not true: they're not united at all! They compete with one another to fuck over the poor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:46PM
It's not that simple. You've got groups like the MPAA, that are unified (in some ways), but those groups are fighting other groups that take their profits in different areas. Most of them aren't specifically targeting poor people, but are rather targeting those who are defenseless. Children and teens with access to money are a big part of the target, but they're willing to target any large group that's defenseless.
It's the economics counterpart to power politics.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:40PM
When people buy an IOT device they typically buy the device THEN install the app. That’s a huge amount of spend escaping the App Store that can be captured simply by making IOT apps ONLY activate if sold through the App Store.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:51PM
Will this affect their propped up "valuation"?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Sunday August 30 2020, @06:56PM (4 children)
So don't mention the "tax" - just point out that they can get a 30% discount if they buy the exact same thing through Facebook's non-app interface.
While pointing out how big a slice Apple takes may be irrelevant information to the user, pointing out substantial discounts available at another location seems terribly relevant.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @07:26PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:16PM
And apple certainly has a clause prohibiting lower prices/'price discrimination'.
But yeah, this is anticompetitive behavior. And it's an attempt to use monopoly power in phone operating system to force concessions in social networking via artificial software installation restrictions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:12PM (1 child)
But but... Apple customers are used to pay too much for their stuff. They might get angry at FB for breaking a time-honored tradition.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 31 2020, @03:18AM
Yes! Yes! Flay Facebook with your earbuds! [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:06PM (6 children)
Because if Apple drops the Facebook app, they'll draw the ire of millions of Facebook addicts and slide into irrelevance faster than you can say "That's it! I'm buying an Android cellphone tomorrow."
Facebook hold Apple by the balls here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:20PM (5 children)
I'm not sure that's true but I would love to see Facebook test it.
I know a couple of iPhone owners who would burn the world down if they lost access to Facebook.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:22PM (4 children)
Well I suppose if you're that addicted to your iPhone *and* Facebook, you can always access it through the web browser.
Not that I know mind you, I own nor do neither...
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:41PM
I use Facebook on mobile through browser - only choice since they dropped app support for my phone. Works perfectly well, in some ways better than the app, you don't get notifications is the only issue but I don't consider FB important enough to care about that.
I wonder if you could just post a comment with a link to the web version saying "iPhone users click here to pay less (or pay the event more)", or maybe write a bot to do that, I mean obviously Facebook can't / won't but users could, in fact if it results in more money for the event then event promoters could do that, surely?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:51PM
I do occasionally use Facebook (well, YouTube) through the web browser, and you don't always need to enable JavaScript to use it. But you do often enough that I've a special user set up for the purpose. If I weren't low on disk space I'd set up a separate virtualized instance.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:58PM
iPhone users could indeed access Facebook through their browser, if only they could figure out how to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @12:41PM
A what? Is that something like Safari?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by EJ on Sunday August 30 2020, @08:35PM (3 children)
I want to see all the top developers pull all of their apps from the Apple store. Just go with HTML5 apps through the browser.
That would smack Apple pretty hard.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:52PM
Ah yes, the future that Apple originally (with the first iPhone) tried to convince everyone was all they needed, before the company got fat off its 30% cut of everyone's profits. The irony there would be great.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @02:41AM
Safari is the new IE
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @11:34PM
For the end-user functions that might be a good alternative, for some of the corporate functions that may not work out too well. The native app would have better access to track user behavior for some corporate use case like FB that the browser version is capable of; so from a corporate perspective they'd likely prefer their user base to use the apps.
However the outlook isn't looking good for these companies as Apple is starting to lock down these features anyway in ios 14 - i.e. tracking across apps are disabled by default and is an opt-in feature.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday August 30 2020, @09:40PM (1 child)
I don't use Apple or Facebook, but how is that Apple tax information irrelevant?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @02:03PM
I think the idea is that it is irrelevant to the user (of most apps) what percent of their payment goes where.
However, in this case, the payment is going to people much closer to the user than a simple software/service provider. It is their coworkers, so the irrelevance argument starts to sound hollow.
On the other hand, I'm sure Apple (and maybe Facebook?) sees this as the thin wedge to chop that tax off.
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Monday August 31 2020, @03:44AM (1 child)
It's interesting how often it seems to be the American companies that hate freedom the most.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Monday August 31 2020, @04:42PM
I just listened to a podcast [malicious.life] about the great firewall of China and the companies that helped build it. Aside from the usual American companies (of that time*), honorable mention goes to Nortel for furthering the surveillance state at home and abroad.
*This was pre-Facebook times, of course.
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