Apple swaps Europe’s per-install fee for a transaction cut

The fee moves from installs to transactions

Apple’s EU announcement says the Core Technology Fee will be replaced by a 5% Core Technology Commission for digital transactions in apps distributed outside the App Store. It also says the initial acquisition fee and store services fee are eliminated.

The change has an immediate practical consequence for high-install apps: a charge triggered by scale becomes a charge tied to digital revenue. It does not remove Apple from the economic path of alternative distribution.

Notarization remains the gate

Apple describes notarization as a baseline review for functionality and serious threats, and says every alternatively distributed app still passes through it. The thread did not dispute that a platform can review software; it argued over whether the review plus a continuing commission leaves the alternative channel meaningfully independent.

One commenter compared the arrangement to a computer manufacturer taking a percentage of a taxi fare because it built the vehicle. The analogy is rhetorical, but it captures the objection: the payment is not for App Store checkout.

Linking out has its own price

The announcement also describes commission terms for App Store apps that link out to complete purchases, with reduced rates for certain developers. The discussion concentrated on how broadly that rule might reach services such as subscriptions or account management. The EU terms are changing, but the thread’s lesson was that developers still need to model each distribution and payment path separately.