Basecamp launched its email product Hey earlier this week. David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Basecamp, tweeted on Tuesday that Apple is already creating challenges for the firm. In a series of tweets, he said: Apple just doubled down on their rejection of HEY’s ability to provide bug fixes and new features, unless we submit to their outrageous demand of 15-30% of our revenue. Even worse: We’re told that unless we comply, they’ll remove the app. On the day the EU announced their investigation into Apple’s abusive App Store practices, HEY is subject to those very same capricious, exploitive, and inconsistent policies of shakedown. It’s clear they feel embolden to tighten the screws with no fear of regulatory consequences. He adds: Apple has been capriciously, inconsistently, and in a few cases, cruelly, enforcing their App Store policies for years. But most of the abuses were suffered by smaller developers without a platform and without recurse. Apple saw that it worked, and that it paid. Now moving up. This is exactly the issue I gave testimony in front of congress earlier this year! We hadn’t yet launched HEY, but I said it worried me, what Apple might do, if you’re in direct competition with them. And now we know what they’d do. Attempt to crush us. But while I’m sure Apple’s attempt to cut off the air supply to the likes of Spotify is board-room stuff, I think what we’re facing is simply the banality of bureaucracy. Apple has publicly pivoted to services for growth, so KPIs and quarterly targets trickle down. And frankly, it’s hard to see what they have to fear. Who cares if Apple shakes down individual software developers for 30% of their revenue, by threatening to destroy their business? There has been zero consequences so far! Most such companies quietly cave or fail. We won’t. There is no chance in bloody hell that we’re going to pay Apple’s ransom. I will burn this house down myself, before I let gangsters like that spin it for spoils. This is profoundly, perversely abusive and unfair.

We did everything we were supposed to with the iOS app. Try downloading it (while you can?). You can’t sign up, because Apple says no. We don’t mention subscriptions. You can’t upgrade. You can’t access billing. We did all of it! Wasn’t enough. We’ve been in the App Store with Basecamp for years. We know the game. It was always rigged. It was always customer-hostile, deeply confusing, but the unstated lines were reasonably clear. Now Apple has altered the deal, and all we can do is pray they don’t alter it further.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Basecamp’s Hey, a New Email Product, Claims Apple is Rejecting Bug Fixes to the iPhone App Unless the Firm Agrees To Pay 15-30% Commission