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Apple Study Finds Mandated Fee Reductions Never Reached European Consumers (macrumors.com) 42

Posted by msmash from the welfare-theater dept.
Apple said Wednesday that European Union developers pocketed the savings from mandated commission reductions rather than lowering prices for consumers. The iPhone maker commissioned Analysis Group to study pricing behavior [PDF] after the Digital Markets Act forced Apple to cut its App Store fees from up to 30% to an average of 20%. The research examined 41 million transactions across 21,000 products between March and September 2024, generating 403 million euros in sales. Developers maintained or raised prices on nine out of 10 products. Non-EU developers captured 86% of the 20.1 million euros in reduced commissions. Price cuts occurred on 9% of products, but the study attributed these to normal pricing patterns unrelated to the fee reduction.

Apple argued the regulation creates barriers for innovators and exposes consumers to risks without delivering promised benefits.
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Apple Study Finds Mandated Fee Reductions Never Reached European Consumers More

Apple Study Finds Mandated Fee Reductions Never Reached European Consumers

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  • Well, not that shocked.

    • Re:I am shocked. SHOCKED! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @02:43PM (#65790886)
      The point of the fee change was to shift profits away from Apple, which has clever tax avoidance strategies in Europe, to developers in Europe with fewer tax avoidance strategies. Europe wants to tax more of its economy than it can, because Europe's economy is less "domestic" to Europe than it should be. Europe uses more American tech and services from American companies than it wants to, so more of its money flows over the Atlantic. This was a shitty attempt to change that. It had nothing to do with consumers or developers. It was a tax scheme.
      • Sure, that's the real reason. It's not the nominal reason- which was to prevent the monopolistic abuse of EU citizens by Big Bad Apple.
        i.e., Apple's monopoly was costing Europeans more than they would otherwise pay.
        And this would be true- if there weren't a middle man to step in and do exactly what they did to the same exact captive market.
        • Europeans have a thriving app economy with low cost and high quality. What problem were they exactly trying to solve? The paid for apps subsidies the cost of the free ones too so its not like you get nothing in return.

    • Agree.

      No reason to lower prices when you can just pocket more profit.

  • Good for the Consumer. Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @01:14PM (#65790642) Homepage

    If a price is set, it is usually very sticky. Successful products do not cut the price simply because their cost goes down. They are already established, they were surviving before, they will keep the extra profit

    But new products WILL be affected.

    Some business will start with a lower price because they can afford to use it as a door buster to break into a new business.

    Other products will be started because they did the math and decided they could make a profit now that Apple is not stealing their lunch.

    The people will benefit with better and cheaper new apps, even though it will not affect the prices of older established companies.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Another factor that comes into play is that there's a better margin to make a better product.

      Meanwhile the Apple product are now more or less stagnant in development.

      • Nobody ever makes "a better product". Everybody makes as crappy a product as their own conscience will allow. If there's any wiggle room between what it costs and what they can sell it for, great! - the product has a future. Otherwise there's never a product to begin with.

        When there's extra money freed by lower costs, they make the same product cheaper and sell at a higher margin; they never upgrade the product quality while keeping price and margin fixed.

        • So then go build a shitty product and then tell us how well that worked out for you. Make sure it's worse than what your competitor offers.

        • Nobody ever makes "a better product".

          Tell me you've never worked in product development without saying you've never worked in product development.

          Every company is constantly trying to make a better product for less cost. All day, every day.

          I work in high tech. Yesterday's great product is obsolete junk tomorrow. Just look at phones. A phone from 2010 doesn't hold a candle to what you can buy today in terms of quality and features.

          Other fields are much more stable. My wife is getting into ceramics and they use these things called witness cones.

          • Today's phones aren't always better, in many ways they're worse: less stable, break more easily, not repairable. And they're not the same price (which was our premise), they cost a lot more.

            What they are though is based on better technology.

            But why don't you take something that's pretty much settled, technology wise? E.g. washing machines? (IKEA) furniture?

            • What they are though is based on better technology.

              But why don't you take something that's pretty much settled, technology wise? E.g. washing machines? (IKEA) furniture?

              Sure. Washing machines today use far less water than they used to (although dollars to doughnuts that's government mandates, not customer demand). They may very well use less power too.

              Furniture used to be really expensive. IKEA's flat pack stuff is low(ish) quality and really, really inexpensive. TBH, I've never bought any so I don't really know about the low quality part. Anyway, if what you're looking for is low prices, IKEA was a great innovation. If you want furniture made out of actual wood, there are

              • Ikea furniture was cheap when they hit the market. Today it's expensive, amd doesn't have any wood except for 2" x2" piece where the screws go in. I'm actually building my own kitchen right now, out of aluminum and full wood, cheaper than Ikea sells their cardboard ones.

                Car quality, in.particular on ICEs, peaked 25 years ago. Except for US cars, they stayed crappy all along. Yet prices, compared to income, are now double that.

                Planes have a lot more seats, less space now. Like A LOT.

                It used to be that Siemen

          • Just to be a predictable jerk, I will point out that the 2010 htc droid incredible was £200 with a two year contract, had a headphone jack, memory socket, and best of all an inverted optical mouse trackball so you could move the cursor without your fingers obscuring the screen. It could also browse the Intartubes and display cat pictures. Current smartphones only have the last two of these features.
            All companies are frantic to make a shittier, less durable new version of their product if the c

    • If a price is set, it is usually very sticky. Successful products do not cut the price simply because their cost goes down.

      You think? Some prices are sticky. For example, people tend to consider wages to be a sticky price. Other prices drop all the time. My cell phone plan costs much less and delivers more than in years past. Stock brokerage fees are much lower than 30 years ago. Streaming services are much cheaper than cable. Fresh produce is cheaper and more easily available then when I first started paying for groceries.

      Walmart, a Fortune 1 company, is famous for cutting costs and dropping prices. They really do stick with t

    • But new products WILL be affected.

      The large amount of data supplied already disagrees with your promise of future price cuts.
      The market will price near or at the level they were sold in the Apple App Store because that was what the market was willing to pay. Anyone selling their apps would be stupid to do otherwise, despite your "I promise it will be cheaper in the future'

      Uh huh, right. But great you got the "open marketplace" you wanted enjoy!

      • You failed to read my evidence. I said I was NOT promissing it will be cheaper. I will repeat it for you here:

        1) I specifically listed a sale for new products. That is what I meant by door buster. That is, if you want to compete with a product that everyone else sells for $2.99, you can offer yours at $2.50 specifically BECAUSE everyone else is at $2.99
        This is not a promise of cheapness, but a short term business strategy that everyone knows exists.

        2) The decision to start the product is made in part be

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      So how come games on Epic Games Store aren't cheaper? Game prices have only gone up despite EGS charging developers only 18% vs. Steam's 30%. Many games were exclusive to EGS, and they didn't launch at lower prices or spur a trend to lower prices.

      They started at the same price point as other games.

      Prices are just sticky - if you're paying $60 for a game, why release your new game at $55? People are used to $60 so you might as well pocket the extra $5 and selling it for the same $60 despite the store taking

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I agree with most of this, except for the "stealing their lunch" part. C'mon. Apple has put together a nice, mostly safe environment for apps, and 30% isn't onerous for being allowed to take part in their environment. You don't like it? Build your own phone, develop your own APIs, deploy your own servers, and build a better mousetrap. Let's see it, champ. Should be a cinch, right?

  • Working as intended? (Score:3)

    by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @01:18PM (#65790646)

    So profits go to developers not the market operator (or consumers). That's a greater distribution of the wealth generated, which sounds like a good thing to me. I'd imagine the total number of people employed by app developers far exceeds the number of Apple employees, so in some sense the money is (in theory at least) going to more consumers, just not necessarily consumers of iOS apps.

    • It's inconsequential for the most part. If it went to Apple instead it would be spread out to shareholders through dividend payments. Large developers that are publicly owned companies may do the same themselves. Either company may invest the that money in something else which pays it to some third party that now has it. This only changes who is doing the distribution and who might be on the receiving end of that. There can be further downstream effects from this which may be more or less beneficial than so

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by smap77 ( 1022907 )

        Paying for a report to undercut legislation that reduces profits to the payer is a standard business tactic.

        Any Insights and Conclusions that do not further the goals of the payer would run counter to the business interests of both the report producer and the payer.

        Read the stated goals of the legislation in the legislation. They are far more expansive than this report's tiny swath of scope:
        https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/... [europa.eu]

        With a report so narrowly constructed, it's a wonder there aren't more that are also

  • Typical Apple gaslighting. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @01:27PM (#65790660)

    This wasn't about consumers, it was about developers you mid-wits. This is nothing more than an attempt from Apple to gaslight the EU by somehow claiming that something that worked exactly as intended, wasn't working.

    The EU generally concerns itself with more than just consumers when it looks at market power. Virtually none of the anti-trust related rulings in the past decade have been because of consumers, they've all targeted developers and B2B restrictions.

    • The EU generally concerns itself with more than just consumers when it looks at market power. Virtually none of the anti-trust related rulings in the past decade have been because of consumers, they've all targeted developers and B2B restrictions.

      Interesting. Can you cite some sources? This sounds plausible but I'd like to see what EU regulators and politicians were saying when it actually passed.

      It would seem odd for a regulator to say out loud "we're going to cut the costs to developers to pad their profit margins; consumers will see no effect" even if everyone fully expects that's what's going to happen.

      • I don't have the sources but this corresponds to our discussions at least in the software markets. 1) When the EC asks Apple to allow alternative app stores, this is about B2B not consumers; the problem being addressed is the monopoly that Apple holds on the market for software distribution, i.e. between the professional developers that wish to publish software for Apple hardware, and Apple. 2) When the EC asks Microsoft to unbundle Teams, it's about corporate contracts.

      • Interesting. Can you cite some sources? This sounds plausible but I'd like to see what EU regulators and politicians were saying when it actually passed.

        Like literally every case so far? Pick one. The app store fee structure was kicked off by developers in the Netherlands from a dating app, e-book publishers, and Spotify. The case found against Google was due to some business not being able to engage Samsung.

        Or ... in this case... this very case right here: hinged on third party restrictions on developers. It had zero to do with consumers. You want to here from them:
        "Third party contributions are very important for the effective enforcement of the DMA," a

        • Actually I take it back. It doesn't sound bad at all even when you phrased it like you did. Why should a developer not be entitled to set their own profit margins without undue influence? Consumers do not see the effect of every interaction a business has with their suppliers. Why is the consumer more important than the business when it comes to getting screwed by gatekeepers?

    • Gaslighting against millions of transactions, ok.

      • Gaslighting against millions of transactions, ok.

        Yes and? No seriously what point are you trying to make? The millions of transactions had their exact intended effect: developers choice. Claiming this was in any way about consumers is gaslighting. The entire case wasn't even brought to the commission by consumers, it was brought by developers.

        • Except that was NOT what was sold for the reasoning -- we were promised lower prices and didn't get it. Now there is a fragmented storefront with less privacy and security controls for dumb users. Doesn't sound like a win for consumers to me...

          • Except that was NOT what was sold for the reasoning

            By whom? Point to me where the EC published an official statement that this is about lower prices for consumers. The case wasn't even brought to the commission by consumers, it was brought by developers who complained about unreasonable cost.

            Now there is a fragmented storefront with less privacy and security controls for dumb users.

            There's no fragment at all. You are conflating different cases. This one was about fees, nothing about this judgement created any fragmentation. A different judgement may have created the allowance of an additional app store and THIS IS A GOOD THING. You the user should

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      This wasn't about consumers, it was about developers you mid-wits. This is nothing more than an attempt from Apple to gaslight the EU by somehow claiming that something that worked exactly as intended, wasn't working.

      More than just developers. There's an entire in-app purchase industry that basically doesn't exist because of Apple's monopolization of that market. Their behavior doesn't just affect app developers. It also affects banks that make merchant accounts available. It affects small-company payment processors like Stripe. And so on.

  • Trillion Dollar Company (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @01:29PM (#65790664) Homepage

    Trillion Dollar Company trying to drum up sympathy for its gouging of small independent developers.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Talla ( 95956 )

      Meanwhile, they increased the price for Apple TV+ by 30%.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Except as an iOS dev, I never felt "gouged." And it's not Stockholm Syndrome, either. I don't have to sell on Apple's platform, but it's a nice platform - all things considered - so I'll play by their rules. The alternative is to build my own phone, development system, app environment, etc, and I'm pretty sure it would be slightly more than what I pay to Apple.

  • So? (Score:3)

    by allo ( 1728082 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @01:57PM (#65790706)

    Apple is upset because not the customer but the developers got the money?

    I think Apple is upset because not Apple got the money and now they are trying to get the customers upset against the EU.
    When I pay the same and the developer gets more money, this means in the best case better software for me. I am also not too opposed against app developers being able to afford a coffee from my money instead of Apple getting even richer.

  • Ok, developers didn't lower their prices to match the reduced commission. Which means more money for the developers, and for some reason, giving more money to developers prevent them from innovating or making their software safer.

    And maybe non-EU developers got 86% of the benefits from the reduced commission, which for some reason is worse for the EU than giving it all to Apple, a non-EU company.

    Come on Apple, you are out of arguments besides "we want more money".

  • I didn’t reduce the price of my app because it’s listed at $0.99 which is the minimum price point.

  • This seems like the regulations working as intended? Apple's no longer taking as much of a cut, developers get to keep a little more.

    "The study was done on behalf of Apple, and it wasn't independently produced"

    What a surprise that the sponsor of the study still wants to keep a larger cut of sales.

  • LOL! (Score:2)

    by Sebby ( 238625 )

    The iPhone maker commissioned Analysis Group to study pricing behavior

    LOL - Apple hires its own PR firm to make claims it was right.

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