For fifteen years, Apple treated its 30% cut of App Store transactions like gravity—undeniable, invisible, and impossible to escape.
Developers grumbled, sued, and occasionally fled to Android.
Then, quietly, in the span of a few months, the wall started cracking.
In January, Apple began approving apps that link out to external payment systems in the US, following a Supreme Court decision that let a lower court's anti-steering injunction stand.
Translation: developers can now tell users, inside the app, that they can pay somewhere else.
For a company that once banned even mentioning the phrase "sign up on our website," this is seismic.
Apple's services revenue hit nearly $100 billion in its last fiscal year, and the App Store is the crown jewel.
Every percentage point of that 30% commission is worth billions.
When Epic Games sued in 2020, most observers assumed Apple would win and nothing would change.
Four years later, the courts, plus new laws in the EU and Japan, have forced the company into the most significant retreat in its history.
Potentially cheaper subscriptions, since developers pass savings along when they don't lose a third of revenue to Cupertino.
Spotify, which has feuded with Apple for years, already announced it will show users how to subscribe on its website.
Some apps could suddenly cost less inside the store—or offer perks for paying direct.
Apple still charges a commission on external payments, just at a lower rate, and it requires developers to jump through reporting hoops.
Critics call it malicious compliance—technically following the law while making the alternative path so annoying that most developers won't bother.
Google faces similar scrutiny over Play Store fees, and regulators are watching both.
The bigger pattern here is that app stores are becoming regulated utilities, whether they like it or not.
The iPhone was sold as a walled garden where everything just works.
That model is now being picked apart by courts from Oakland to Brussels.
The question isn't whether the 30% era is ending—it's how messy the transition gets.
Our take: this is genuinely good news for anyone who pays for apps or subscriptions, even if the savings trickle in slowly.
Apple built something remarkable, but a decade and a half of unchallenged toll collection was never going to last forever.
Final Thoughts
Watch your subscription prices over the next year—you might be surprised where the discounts show up.