Elon Musk, who is also now the CEO of Twitter, called out Apple publicly on the platform, stating, “Apple’s store is like having a 30% tax on the Internet. Definitely not ok,”. And he has his reasons to care even more now, given his newly acquired social media platform plans to revamp Twitter Blue, with new features and also a brand-new pricing, at $7.99 per month. With Apple’s current revenue-sharing model on the App store, Twitter will only receive $5.6 from an individual subscriber, with the rest going to the Cupertino giant. To offset the revenue hit, the company allegedly plans price the Twitter Blue subscription at $11. But that is only when the subscription is purchased through Twitter’s iOS app. Users can also pay for the service through Twitter’s official webpage, with a reduced $7 per month pricing. Several Android and iOS apps also have similar arrangements, where users can pay for the service or subscription directly on the web. But developers usually try and keep the pricing consistent across platforms, ultimately bearing the Apple and Google tax. – Erin Woo, The Information The report doesn’t mention anything about Android, although even Google’s Play Store charges a similar 30 percent platform fees. Recently however, the company is trying to offer users more payment options with their recent “User Choice Billing” pilot. As of now, UCB is only offered on the Spotify Android app, but even Twitter would be a great choice for an extended pilot.
