Facebook joined the growing ranks of companies publicly complaining about the 30% fee that Apple collects on payments made through its App Store.
\nThose complaints came midway through\u00a0a blog post about the social network\u2019s new feature supporting paid online events. Facebook said that to support struggling businesses, it won\u2019t be collecting any fees on those events, at least for the next year, which means that those businesses keep 100% of payments on the web and on Android.
\nBut Facebook said that won\u2019t be the case on iOS, due to App Store fees, and it took aim at Apple with surprisingly direct language (at least, direct for a corporate blog post):<\/p>\n
We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs will only be paid 70% of their hard-earned revenue. Because this is complicated, as long as Facebook is waiving its fees, we will make all fees clear in our products.<\/p>\n
iOS purchase flow on left, Android purchase flow on right. Image Credits: Facebook<\/p>\n
To that end, the post includes screenshots of how the events payment flow will look on iOS and Android . On Android, it says, \u201cFacebook doesn\u2019t take a fee from this purchase,\u201d while on iOS, it says, \u201cApple takes 30% of this purchase.\u201d
\nFacebook said this language is included in the app update \u201cwhich we submitted to Apple today for approval\u201d \u2014 suggesting that there\u2019s a possibility that the update won\u2019t be approved.
\nThis comes just about 24 hours after Fortnite was removed from the App Store, after Epic Games introduced direct payments into its hit title. It seemed like Epic was intentionally trying to provoke a fight, with the company quickly announcing a lawsuit against Apple and releasing a short in-game video parodying Apple\u2019s famous 1984 commercial, with Apple cast as the villain. (The game publisher is in a similar battle with Google and Android.)
\nWhile Apple\u2019s 30% fee has been around for as long as the App Store itself, the issue came to the forefront earlier this summer after\u00a0Basecamp got into a public feud with the company over its subscription email app Hey, for which the developer tried to circumvent App Store fees by only accepting subscription payments on its website.
\nApple\u2019s Phil Schiller told us\u00a0at the time that the controversy was not prompting the company to reconsider any of its rules, which he said were designed for a better app experience \u2014 to avoid situations where \u201cyou download the app and it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Epic Games launches a campaign (and lawsuit) against Apple<\/p>\n