What you need to know
- Instagram's CEO says Facebook will encourage users to avoid Apple's 30% commission rate.
- Adam Mosseri says it is looking for ways to help creators facilitate offline transactions for real goods, taking money out of iOS.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has told CNBC that Facebook is looking for ways to encourage creators to do business offline, avoiding Apple's 30% rate of commission on its App Store.
Mosseri made the comments on CNBC's Squawk Box, where he stated:
"When there are digital transactions that happen on iOS, Apple insists that they take 30% of that. There's a very few number of exceptions. For transactions that happen in iOS, we're going to have to abide by their rules... but in general we're going to look for other ways to help creators make a living and facilitating transactions that happen in other places"
Mosseri said that Facebook could help brands and creators "vet each other and find each other" so that "they could make those transactions happen offline", turning affiliate marketing transactions into real goods instead of digital goods. Mosseri says Facebook is "going to try and lean in to the places creators can actually make a stable living."
All in-app purchases pertaining to digital goods on iOS are subject to Apple's 30% rate (15% for small businesses) of commission, a key point of contention in the Epic Games lawsuit that concluded recently. As CNBC notes Instagram and Facebook could push for this "to skirt around" Apple's rules "in an effort to make money off the iOS operating system."
Facebook and Apple have publicly butted heads over the 30% rate of commission before. Last year Facebook added a note to its app telling users that when they bought tickets to online events Apple would get 30% of the proceeds. Apple forced the company to remove the message, stating the information wasn't relevant to customers. Facebook and Apple have also clashed over recent changes made to iOS 14 which give users the option to opt-out of third-party tracking. Apple made big new privacy moves with iOS 15 at WWDC, announcing more changes to Siri and iCloud, including a new iCloud+ feature with added security measures.
