Pavel Durov is once again dissatisfied with the commission in the App Store.
Telegram’s CEO has accused Apple of ruining dreams and destroying entrepreneurship with its App Store rules, more specifically the 30 percent commission the company charges on in-app purchases for developers earning more than $1 million a year.
Writing on his Telegram channel, Pavel Durov said that Apple had notified representatives of the messenger that it would not be able to allow third-party payment methods to be used to make sales. Telegram allowed content creators to offer access to channels or individual posts through a paywall, which users can pay with third-party payment methods rather than through an in-app purchase system.
According to Durov, Apple is “not happy about content creators monetizing their work without paying 30% tax” and that Telegram has no choice but to turn off paid posts and channels in its iOS app. “This is yet another example of a trillion dollar monopoly abusing its market dominance at the expense of millions of users who are trying to monetize their own content,” Durov continued.
Durov accused Apple of ruining dreams and hurting entrepreneurs with an App Store tax that requires Apple to charge 15% or 30% commissions on most in-app purchases. Durov urged regulators in the EU, India and around the world to “take action.” The full text of Durov’s message can be found below.
Some content creators have started using third-party payment bots to sell access to individual posts on their Telegram channels. This way content creators could get almost 100% of what their subscribers paid, which was great.
Unfortunately, we have received a message from Apple that they are unhappy with the fact that the authors monetize their efforts without paying a 30% tax to Apple. Since the company is in complete control of its ecosystem, we had no choice but to disable paid posts on iOS devices.
This is yet another example of a trillion dollar monopoly abusing its market dominance at the expense of millions of users trying to monetize their own content. I hope regulators in the EU, India and elsewhere take action before Apple crushes more dreams and crushes more entrepreneurs with a tax that is higher than any government VAT.
In the meantime, we at Telegram will work to offer creators powerful and easy-to-use tools to monetize their content – outside of Apple’s restrictive ecosystem.
This is not the first time Durov has spoken out against Apple. In August, the messenger’s CEO lashed out at the company over “baffling” App Store rules.
