Greetings from the Great Lakes where our beaches look like this.
So, yeah, the Apple vs. Basecamp clash.
The TL;DR version:
Basecamp is a popular project management software firm that’s coming out with a high-buzz Gmail successor called Hey. Hey will cost $99 a year and promises users it’ll sharply reduce the time they spend on work emails. Most people read email on their mobile devices, but Apple suddenly rejected Hey from their App Store because it didn’t allow in-app subscriptions to Hey (which would give Apple a substantial cut of Basecamp’s $$$). Hey has a 50,000 person waitlist and now users can’t access the buzzy software they were excited about.
It all comes down to how Apple makes money. Selling computers, smartphones and tablets is only part of Apple’s revenue stream. Apple—a publicly traded corporation with a duty to make it’s shareholders as much money as possible—charges fees to companies offering subscriptions through the app store (among many other things). Apple takes 30%…
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