#Apple challenges the courts again on payments processing.
You can now show users an external link to process the payment outside of Apple’s platform.
But that comes with a new “external link fee” of 27% - to be paid on top of the fee you pay for users who still make their purchases through the App store.
I’ve said it several times, I’ll repeat it: companies like Apple can get away with such parasitic rent-seeking behavior with no added value, and with challenging courts all over the world, because they are practically above the law.
They can afford to create their own taxation system as if they were an independent country, but without being accountable to voters, and without losing a single percentage point of market share if they behave like jerks.
And any fine thrown on them by courts around the world is likely to be only a tiny part of their revenue - unless we get the balls of fining them for hundreds of billions and use that money to support more competition in the market, which would be an act of redistribution long overdue IMHO.
Apple can treat fines as small operating costs because their monopolistic behaviour is still profitable enough to pay those one-off fines many times over.
And if they are above the law, it’s because too many people bought their crap and gave them power that they didn’t deserve. And they’ll keep buying their products even if Tim Cook starts wearing a Darth Vader mask during interviews.
If you use anything made by Apple, you are part of the problem.
