Cutting Apple's 30% Cut

The drumbeat continues for Apple to revisit their standard 30% cut with regard to the App Store. Now Rakuten (by way of their Kobo e-reader brand) has entered the chorus alongside Spotify. And they’re seemingly not looking for fines, but rather for change, per Javier Espinoza and Tim Bradshaw of The Financial Times:

The commission could theoretically impose a maximum penalty of 10 per cent of Apple’s global revenues for breaching competition rules, but rivals suggested it was more interested in other remedies.

“It has been shown in other fines against Google, for example, that these are merely the cost of doing business and have no meaningful impact in changing long-term business practices. Fines are not in the interest of Apple rivals or consumers,” said one adviser to an Apple rival.

Again, this is an attempt to force Apple to change their 30% rule, which was created in a very different world, both for Apple, and for everyone else. Yes, they’ve tweaked it over time, but it remains the standard. And while they may have made sense a decade ago, it feels like that has to change…

Also interesting: the EU is looking into Apple Pay as well — which seams a lot less straightforward, and could stall a program just starting to take off?