The US federal appeals court has ruled that Apple’s 30% tax on in-app purchases from the App Store is illegal. While the ruling will likely be appealed, it could have significant implications for NFT marketplaces and the buying and selling of NFTs on Apple’s products.
The case centred on Apple’s monopoly of the app market, which appealed to antitrust laws designed to prevent anti-competitive behaviour. The panel rejected most of the claims against Apple but did conclude that the company’s policies impeded proper competition. Notably, this included the 30% fee they levy on in-app purchases. This decision has the potential to make buying NFTs on Apple products far cheaper. We also hope it may open up opportunities for the use of cryptocurrency on in-app transactions. This comes across fees being lowered in other parts of the industry, specifically OpenSea dropping its fees due to its battle with the NFT marketplace Blur.
Blockchain and Web3 are designed to offer users freedom from major financial institutions; however, there are concerns that the large marketplaces that have emerged to make blockchain more accessible are more corrupt than the financial institutions that Web3 sought to avoid. We’ve spoken in the past about how to do an NFT marketplace right, but beyond anything, a 30% fee createes a more expensive marketplace for users and leads to ‘stifled innovation’ (in the words of the Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeny, who originally took the case to Apple).
Fortunately, Stratisphere is a sustainable, convenient and successful marketplace. We look forward to the potential for cheaper NFT purchases on Apple products in the future.
