
Apple told WeChat and other Chinese social apps to disable “tip” functions, - xbmcuser
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-tip-for-apple-in-china-your-hunger-for-revenue-may-cost-you-1495100964
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saurik
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-19/tencent-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-19/tencent-
s-wechat-abolishes-tipping-feature-on-apple-iphones)

April 19: "Tencent's WeChat Abolishes Tipping Feature on Apple iPhones"

"Tencent Holdings Ltd. is shutting down a popular feature on WeChat that
allows iPhone users to tip emoji and content creators to comply with Apple
Inc.’s policy on in-app purchases."

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mankash666
China seems the perfect place to call Apple's B.S. policies out. The
government isn't afraid of confronting a global powerhouse if it threatens
domestic companies with unfair trade practices. And Apple's whole running of
the app store approval and payments policy and process is nothing but unfair.

~~~
IBM
I'd bet on Apple having more leverage with the government than Tencent just
because Apple indirectly employs millions of workers.

~~~
captainmuon
Actually, I'd think the Chinese government has quite some leverage over Apple,
too, since all their products are manufactured by Foxconn etc..

I wonder what negotiations and power struggles are going on behind the scenes?

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Grazester
I wonder how long the iphone would last in China without WeChat if they were
to ever decide to just not publish their app in the app store because of this.

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ksec
I dont quite understand why Apple requires 30% cut here.

There are many other payment services App that allow you to transfer money
from one person to another. And those are free from the 30% tax.

So why does tipping requires 30% cut?

( Both are totally different to In-App Purchase )

~~~
Veratyr
Because Apple wants a 30% cut and is big enough to force developers to accept
it.

~~~
valuearb
Because 30% has always been a screaming deal for developers too.

I'm old enough to remember when Ingram MicroD took 50%, and out of our half we
had to pay for shipping, packaging, disk duplication, and pay them and stores
to promote our products.

~~~
Veratyr
If it was a "screaming deal" for developers, it'd be popular based on merit
alone and Apple wouldn't need to disallow other payment methods, yet they do.

~~~
valuearb
Yea, that doesn't make sense. If I charge 30% to host foodcarts at my concert
event, cart owners will agree only if it's a good deal. If someone else
decides to tear open a hole in the fence and sneak their cart in, it doesn't
mean it wasn't a good deal, it means they were cheating scumbags.

In Apples case they've paid developers tens of billions, at least 2x as much
as all other mobile app stores combined, and never lacks for new apps from
their developers. Their devs clearly think App Store access is worth 30%.

Tencent should man up and pay the 30% to Apple, and send the 70% to the
Tippees.

~~~
Veratyr
> If I charge 30% to host foodcarts at my concert event, cart owners will
> agree only if it's a good deal.

They agree because it's the _best_ deal. In your hypothetical and the case of
IAPs, it's the best deal because it's the _only_ deal. When the options are
make no money and make a little money, you're going to take what little you
can get. That by no means makes it good.

Devs have no choice. Users are caught in an Apple/Google duopoly and both app
stores charge 30%. Devs can either pay their 30% or give up on IAP revenue as
a whole.

~~~
saurik
Dealing with license management and account access and payment processing and
chargebacks and international tax compliance and everything else I am not
thinking of after only five seconds is actually a lot of work. Apple has a lot
of _revenue_ from the App Store, but almost no profit: it is something they
run and have weird business model restrictions on to maintain device lock-in
for users, not something that makes them much profit. In fact, Apple has often
reported in public earning calls that the App Store mostly breaks even, and a
judge reviewing Google's finances showed that they were losing money on the
Android Market.

I run an app-store-like service myself with the same 70% split (which is a
more honest way of describing the "30%") that has no forced restrictions (as
you can always sidestep it and still distribute your products via my
services), and vendors have often even shut down their own payment processing
once trying mine as it is just so much easier: being able to concentrate on
building your own applications rather than spending time on distribution is
actually valuable.

Again: the reason Apple wants payments to go through their wallets and they
want licenses for apps to be managed by their store and to control the device
licensing model is to maintain platform lock-in for users. It is really
important to them that when you buy your paltry $30 in apps--where even if
Apple made _all_ of the "30%" they would only net under $10--that that
"investment" doesn't make you think twice about plunking down $600 on a new
iPhone, where estimates have been made that Apple has a nearly 50% profit
margin.

To make this work Apple needs to maintain all of this ludicrous platform
control, as otherwise your custom licensing model is obviously going to
support stuff like users getting discounts if not entirely free copies of your
app for Android if they just bought it for iOS or charging upgrade fees for
users who switch to the latest generation of device. I honestly don't believe
that given their intense desire to maintain this control--which I will argue
is the real problem here--that the 30% just falls out as a reasonable charge
for what they are providing (in some cases whether you want the service or
not, such as the app review process).

~~~
Oletros
Exactly, it is not the 30%, it is more the lock in.

Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, etc would be glad to use their own payment systems

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pmontra
Non paywalled article at [https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/18/apple-chinese-
chat-apps...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/18/apple-chinese-chat-apps-
disable-tip-functions/)

~~~
MiddleEndian
As a former MacRumors regular, I find it interesting to see that the even the
Mac fans there are not in favor of Apple's decision, with a notable exception
being a user who mentioned that without the app store, the apps would be
nothing.

WeChat is huge in China. It's used for everything. It's bigger than Apple's or
Google's app stores. I expect (and hope for) Apple to lose this battle.

~~~
addicted
MacRumor regulars have turned quite sour on Apple.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a pro Apple site with a pro Apple fan base, but
it has a very strong contingent of Mac fans, many of who've been around since
well before OSX, who feel, justifiably, completely neglected by Apple. Despite
the fact that one could make a strong argument that these Mac fans are the
reason Apple existed long enough to even make the iPod in the first place.

~~~
valuearb
No one has time to post on MacRumors unless they are super pissed off. These
posters are representative of little to nothing.

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typednothing
With IPhone's market share of just 9% in China, WeChat should drop support for
the IPhone.

~~~
captainmuon
They probably have the resources to buy or develop a jailbreak. If not
software then maybe even hardware via the connector, and have it installed in
all those little telefone shops in China.

