Should decentralisation pay taxes on centralised channels?
Several platforms launched custom royalties in the last few months, causing controversy in the industry over artists’ zero royalties, but when iOS 16 went live, they stayed silent.
On October 24th Apple updated its App Store policy, which allows users to view their NFT Holdings but prohibits them from using it to unlock additional“Features or functions”. Apps must not contain buttons, external links or other features that guide users to make purchases outside the app store. That means Apple is allowing web 3 start-ups to sell NFT directly and Pay directly using Apple Pay. But apple charges as much as a 30% commission on NFT transactions through iOS apps.
After all, this is the inevitable friction between the web 3 upstarts and the Web 2 Giants. This is a battle of words and strength. The NFT project’s willingness and ability to resist Apple’s massive traffic may not be decisive.
- Hong Kong determined to compete for global virtual asset hub
- Ant whale probe online custom-made clothing and decorative paintings, physical custom is the future of digital collections?
- The continuing downturn in cryptocurrency markets has not stopped NASDAQ and fidelity investing in cryptofinance
On the other hand, Apple’s software and hardware revenue models will be revolutionary new changes, under pressure from the European Union to support the Type-C interface is the trend, exploring more subscription services in the face of sluggish revenue growth is also an established route.
For apple, the use of more NFT, Crypto, metaverse, and AR Technologies is inevitable, judging from the huge demonstration and driving effect of Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, apple has the potential to be the next NFT leader.
Apple Tax: a very flexible bottom line
The Apple Tax is a more flexible bottom line. In 2020, the App Store removed the blockbuster game night at Fort, created by Epic Games, and the two Data East , Inc. v. Epyx, Inc. , apple’s main complaint is that Epic’s in-app model violates Apple policy.
But Epic stuck to its guns even as it retreated from the iOS ecosystem, a classic case of apple being forced to open up to third-party payments.
Earlier wechat adopted a Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of CHENCANG approach, using praise codes to circumvent the policy, and it can be found that Apple often adopts different standards within the same system.
But the question is who will challenge Apple in the NFT’s decentralized model? OpenSea has yet to make any real moves.
Apple’s assault on NFT, which it plans to charge a 30% fee, may seem like a way to give NFT a“Legitimate” place in the iOS ecosystem, but it’s more of an afterthought.
Before the policy was introduced, NFT platforms such as OpenSea already existed in App stores in many countries, and before that, a number of trading platforms, such as MNA and FTX, launched their financial activities directly on iOS platforms.
After this policy update, NFT can be cast, sold, and displayed within the iOS ecosystem, but only through in-app purchases, to be exact, apple still sees NFT as a kind of in-game prop, rather than an exclusive user’s chained credentials.
It is not clear how this will be done, but it is speculated that there may be two ways:
- Use legal tender to purchase cryptocurrency and then use cryptocurrency to pay Gas fee;
- NFT is purchased directly with fiat money, and then split between Apple and the app into user profits;
If it is the first kind, then it still retains a little bit of the dignity of the blockchain. If it is the second kind, then in fact it has little to do with the blockchain, it is more like a domestic digital collection (if you add restrictions on transfers and secondary sales, it is exactly the same) .
Apple’s long-term strategy, which includes more advertising (fans cry) and more software subscriptions to support the stock price, is to go long on in-app sales.
For now, Apple sees NFT as a source of profit, rather than embracing blockchain technology and decentralisation wholeheartedly, and does not want to share profits with apps, let alone give them back to users.
In the search for NFT, Meta has come a long way, although the current stock price is not very good, but the Meta-universe fusion of the real world is the trend.
Apple, on the other hand, is betting on AR devices over VR headsets on hardware. Software ecology still treats NFT the same way it treats traditional game props. It still wants to keep users and traffic in its ecosystem.
NFT’s future: an organic option at risk
Whether Apple’s measures will work is a matter of right and wrong.
The current policy is mainly aimed at the NFT trading platform, developers and embedded NFT-like applications, such as games.
In the context of the industry’s custom royalties, the NFT trading platform can not be set up for Apple taxpayers, the NFT trading platform can be said to win or lose, win in recognition of Apple’s NFT casting, trading legitimacy, the downside is that Apple won’t allow app platforms to bypass apple and take sole advantage of the profits, and the platform won’t be able to use other means of payment and diversion, including buttons, external links or other“Induced” actions.
But NFT, which can not be bought and sold freely in the secondary market, is hardly decentralized, and there are also concerns about the leakage of users’ privacy data.
If apple were to intervene in the details of the transaction, it would also have access to the user’s behavioral data, and even if it were to log in anonymously, the user identifier would still exist, hardly a guarantee of privacy.
But iOS’s explicit support for NFT will significantly help developers and the general public to test the waters and push NFT into the mainstream. On previous iOS platforms, NFT was not defined by clear boundaries and policies, but in fact required clear guidelines for developers from multiple perspectives, including copyright, censorship, and local restrictions.
In other words, Apple officially recognizes NFT developers as part of the iOS ecosystem, an optional feature that goes beyond the “Little picture” community, the developer craze is already a strong demand visible to the naked eye.
Games that are built into NFT-like applications can be expanded, most typically by NFT-ing in-game props, which is also a new revenue-generating direction for Apple, while traditional game makers have not yet widely supported the launch of the NFT, it is not clear when Apple will be able to contribute to its earnings.
For ordinary users, it’s under IOS control. The time is right for a more legitimate user experience to reach out to NFT, a blockchain-driven product form, although that experience is bound to be somewhat emasculating, but Apple’s involvement in payments has also relatively reduced security issues such as outright getaway and wallet fraud.
Whether NFT can find its opportunity in this will depend on what comes next. Although MagicEden, Solana’s largest NFT marketplace, has said that if Apple announces the rule, it will be taken offline from Apple Store, it has not yet seen the move.
NFT should not be domesticated by the Giants as the Golden Goose
While this issue continues to fester, it should be an industry consensus that instead of going completely decentralised, it will happen again and again, eventually aiming to upend the blockchain technology of Web 2, will be domesticated by the giant chicken laying golden eggs.
The real inspiration for the industry should be that Web 3 innovation can not only stay in the public chain, NFT mechanism, for the broader decentralization of consumer-level terminals should also be treated equally, to carry out a thorough reform.
Tim Sweeney, chief executive of EpicGames, retorted when Apple floated the idea of a tax on the NFT: “Apple is killing the NFT business that he can’t tax. And it is precisely businesses that compete with overpriced built-in tax payments that are being killed off. Apple must be stopped.”
Maybe Apple will win now, because the two sides are not equal. Apple’s move could send shockwaves through the NFT, but given the continuing inability of NFT to gain incremental users, it is inevitable that some trading platforms or game makers will bow down.
But as Gabrielle Leydon, founder of the linked-game Limitbreak project, said on Twitter, everyone is watching the apple tax, not realising that this could be an opportunity to embed an ETH wallet in a game for a billion gamers.
Indeed, in this context, Solona may have had the foresight to build the phone, ethOS is no longer a toy joke, and a decentralized APP must have a decentralized OS and hardware to ensure a complete experience, no matter where it leads, at least both have made their own explorations in hardware and software.
Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our top stories.
We will continue to update Gambling Chain; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!
