You may recall in 2020, popular mobile game Fortnite attempted a wild PR move - they decided to add a system that deliberately advertised the option to buy in game currency for cheaper if you completed your transaction through a web based payment processor, rather than through the App Store. Apple wasn't happy with this, and it led to a lawsuit that spanned many years, and we are now starting to see the effects of. And I don't think they are necessarily good effects.
Before I dive into scrutinizing Epic, let's look at the fees most developers would pay.
All developers pay apple a fee for a license to use the Developer Platform. This includes access to APIs for Apple services, the ability to distribute on the App Store and TestFlight, and access beta SDKs. This all comes at a flat fee of 99 USD a year - and that fee is waived for nonprofits and education.
Next up is the transaction fee, or platform fee. When selling a paid app or in app purchase on the App Store, any individual or business making under $1 million USD is eligible for the Apple Small Business Program, and only pays 15%. Which yes this fee is higher than say, the 3% of a Stripe transaction. But you pay more because Apple have put years into building the payment frameworks, the CDNs, the analytics, keeping everything easy and compliant, and doing the R&D on how to best convert your sales and keep things fair to customers as well.
The ONLY companies that get charged 30% are the ones that already make more than $1 million a year from App Store sales. And these are the companies that are complaining that these practices aren't fair. The ones who make the most money from the App Store, and use Apple's hard work and engineering the most, are the ones complaining that they shouldn't have to pay at all.
For a good example and explanation of this, refer to the below article -
While the US courts didn't make much in the way of change for this, Europe did concede to Epic and the other companies who wanted change. And thus, sideloading and linking to additional payment methods was allowed in the EU. I'm not a fan of this, not for the fact of it allows the companies to have their cake and eat it too, but for the fact that sideloading should be an easy gate of access to allow anyone to install whatever they like on their phone, that is happily endorsed by developers, not technology that was begrudgingly forced in as a way to loophole a system that needs to exist.
These companies are fighting a system that is benefiting them - and they need to realise that sometimes its better to tank the fees and accept the conversion boost, than expect that the world will be given to you on a platter just because you made your successes elsewhere.