NFT sales receive 30% Apple tax, the two-way salvation of "Graphic Circle" and Apple?
Should decentralization pay taxes to centralized channels?
Just a few months ago, some trading platforms launched custom royalties, which caused controversy in the industry because it would lead to zero royalties for artists, but they all remained silent after iOS 16 was pushed.
On October 24, Apple updated its App Store policy. Apps can allow users to view the NFTs they hold, but prohibit users from using NFTs to unlock additional "features or functions." Apps must not contain buttons, external links, or other features that direct users to purchases outside of the App Store. This means that Apple allows Web3 startups to sell NFT directly and pay directly with Apple Pay. But Apple charges a commission of up to 30% on NFT transactions made through iOS apps.
After all, this is the inevitable friction between the Web3 rookies and the Web2 giants. This is a contest of who has the right to speak and strength. Faced with the huge traffic of Apple, the NFT project may not be firm in its willingness and ability to resist.
On the other hand, Apple’s software and hardware revenue models will undergo revolutionary new changes. Under the pressure of the European Union, supporting the Type-C interface is the general trend, and facing weak revenue growth is also the way to explore more subscription services. established route.
For Apple, it is inevitable to use more NFT, Crypto, Metaverse, and AR technologies. Judging from the huge demonstration and driving effects of Facebook, INS, and Reddit, Apple is expected to become the main position of the next NFT prairie fire.
OpenSea still hasn't made any real moves.
Exchanges such as Binance and FTX even carry out financial activities directly on the iOS platform.
After this policy update, NFT can be minted, sold and displayed in the iOS ecosystem, but only through in-app purchases. To be precise, Apple still regards NFT as a commodity similar to in-game props. Rather than the on-chain certificate of the exclusive user.
It is unclear how this in-app purchase will be implemented. It is inferred that there may be two ways:
Use legal currency to buy cryptocurrency, and then use cryptocurrency to pay Gas Fee;
Directly use legal currency to purchase NFT, and then Apple and the application will share the user's profits;
If it is the first type, then it still maintains a bit of the dignity of the blockchain. If it is the second type, it has little to do with the blockchain, and is closer to the operation mode of domestic digital collections (if you add restrictions on transfer And the second sale, it is exactly the same).
Apple's hardware is sluggish, and it is a long-term strategy to do more in-app sales, including more advertisements (rice noodles shed tears), and more software subscription services to support the stock price. This time, support for NFT can also start from this idea.
At present, Apple still regards NFT as a source of profit contribution, rather than wholeheartedly embracing blockchain technology and the concept of decentralization, and does not want to distribute profits to applications, let alone give back to users.
On the road of exploring NFT, Meta has gone a long way. Although the current stock price is not very good, it is the general trend for Metaverse to integrate with the real world.
But Apple is very different. Apple bets on AR devices instead of VR headsets in terms of hardware. The software ecosystem still treats NFT in the same way as traditional game props, and still hopes to keep users and traffic in its own ecosystem.
Developers and embedded NFT applications, such as games, etc.
In the context of the industry's customizable royalties, the NFT trading platform cannot be set up by Apple taxpayers. The NFT trading platform can be said to have both winners and losers. The winner is Apple's recognition of the legitimacy of NFT casting and transactions, and the loser is Apple's disallowance. The application platform bypasses Apple to occupy profits alone, and the platform cannot adopt other payment and diversion methods, including buttons, external links or other "inducing" actions.
However, NFTs that cannot be freely traded in the secondary market are hardly decentralized. In addition, user privacy data may also be leaked.
If Apple intervenes in transaction details, the behavior data of user transactions will also be mastered by Apple. Even if anonymous login measures are taken, user identifiers will still exist, and it is difficult to say that privacy can be protected.
However, iOS's explicit support for NFT will obviously promote the testing of developers and ordinary users, thus pushing NFT to more mainstream people. In the previous iOS platform, NFT was not clearly defined boundaries and policies, but in fact, it is necessary to give developers a clear guideline from multiple perspectives such as copyright, review scale, and regional restrictions.
In other words, Apple officially recognizes the status of NFT developers in the iOS ecosystem. This is an optional feature, not limited to the "small picture" circle. The popularity of developers is already a strong demand visible to the naked eye.
The gameplay of embedded NFT applications can be expanded more, the most typical is the NFT of in-game props, which is also a new direction for Apple to generate income, and the current traditional game manufacturers have not yet widely supported the implementation of NFT. It is still unknown when it will contribute profits to Apple's financial report.
As for ordinary users, it is under the control of iOS. There will be a more compliant user experience to get in touch with NFT, a blockchain technology-driven product form. It is time to break the circle. Although this experience will inevitably have a considerable degree of castration, the intervention of Apple Payment is relatively reduced. It eliminates security issues such as direct running of the project party and wallet fraud.
As for whether NFT can find its own opportunities from it, it depends on how to disassemble it next. Although MagicEden, the largest NFT trading market on Solana, has stated that if Apple announces this regulation, it will be removed from the AppleStore, but it has not yet seen its dynamics.
However, this incident is still continuing to ferment, and one point should become the consensus of the industry: if we don’t move towards complete decentralization, such things will happen again and again, and eventually we will be determined to subvert the blockchain technology of Web 2, and we will be domesticated by the giants instead. Chicken with golden eggs.
The real inspiration to the industry should be that the innovation of Web 3 should not only stop at the public chain and NFT mechanism, but also treat the broader decentralized consumer terminals equally and carry out a thorough innovation.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, refuted when Apple announced that it would tax NFT: "Apple is killing the NFT business that he cannot tax. And what is killing is precisely the business that competes with the overpriced built-in payment tax. Apple It must be stopped."
Perhaps, Apple will win now, because the strengths of the two parties are not equal. Apple's move will trigger an NFT earthquake, but under the background that NFT continues to be unable to acquire incremental users, it is an inevitable choice for some trading platforms or game manufacturers to bow their heads.
But as Gabriel Leydon, founder of the blockchain game project LimitBreak, said on Twitter, everyone is paying attention to Apple’s taxation, but they don’t realize that this may be an opportunity to embed an ETH wallet in the game of 1 billion gamers.
Indeed, in this context, it may be prescient for Solona to build mobile phones, and ethOS is no longer a toy-like joke. Decentralized apps must have decentralized OS and hardware to ensure a complete experience. No matter what the final direction is, at least two The authors have made their own explorations in terms of software and hardware.