Apple charges an additional 30% charge for apps, in-app purchases and even on posts that are boosted.
Telegram Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov announced late last Friday that the company was removing users from using paywalls for posts in order to force users to pay for access to content on iOS devices. Evidently, Apple did not enjoy the thought of users making payments to bots, without paying for the toll of trolls.
In the first report by 9to5Mac the Social media expert Matt Navarra spotted Telegram users soliciting users to pay to view their posts. Although Navarra initially believed that Telegram had been testing ways for its platform to let users pay for postings, Durov made it clear that it was a an automated payment system from a third party.
The paywall bots concealed posts under a message to pay a fee for access to the content. The blurred image actually the hyperlink that took users to an external payment service. It’s not clear whether the images of Navarra are connected to the bot called @donate which claims to create an invoice for the content you purchase with the press of a button. It is possible to use Telegram channels need to have at least 100 followers however, channels can also be classified as private. The bot page is still available for Android devices.
It basically transformed Telegram into a form of OnlyFans-lite with all profits go to its creators. Apple’s policies for apps charge 30% for paid applications, purchases in app and, as of the last week, even promoted posts.
Durov appeared to commend users for their inventiveness and claimed that by using these platforms “content creators would receive almost 100% of the amount their customers paid for and that was a huge benefit.” He also lashed out at Apple for making use of the company’s “trillion-dollar block” to exploit “its market power at the cost of millions of who want to profit from the content they create.”
Gizmodo has reached out to Telegram but did not get a response on whether the platform had plans to develop its own pay-for-post service. Apple did not respond immediately to a request to comment https://sites.google.com/view/telegramcninfo.
Durov has stated that he’s the libertarian who’s been a bit involved in the field of decentralized finance. So it’s not surprising that Durov is so opposed to Apple’s policy regarding apps. In his previous posts Durov has complained that Apple’s fees cause greater prices, fewer apps available on iOS and increased ads. He’s also criticised the monopolistic approach of the tech giant to use of its proprietary app store to block content that is subject to the terms of service for its apps.
Durov isn’t alone to consider Apple an unregulated Monopoly. Apple is one of the main participants in the ongoing battle over antitrust as well as being spotted in the creation of fake grassroots campaigns in order to fight against the efforts to dismantle the tech giants.
Google also charges a fee of 30% for in-app purchases, but developers of apps have recently received $90m as settlement payments in a lawsuit filed against an owner of the Play Store owner. Google has also agreed to allow apps with a value of less than $1 million annually to pay the 15 percent back on in-app purchases.
Telegram advertises itself as an all-in-one encryption program that’s accessible to everyone and anyone however, that open-door policy comes at costs. Apple has been known to have previously mentioned Telegram and pulled it from the stores for allowing sexual abuse of children to go unreported within the application.