NEW YORK TIMES - Nov 19 - Apple, facing growing antitrust scrutiny over what it charges companies for access to its App Store, said it would cut in half the fee it takes from smaller app developers. Developers that brought in $1M or less from their apps in the previous year will pay a 15% commission on those app sales starting next year, down from 30%. The change will affect ~98% of the companies that pay Apple a commission, according to estimates from Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm. But those developers accounted for ~5% of App Store revenues last year. Apple said that it had made the change because 2020 was a difficult year for many small companies. The fee cut probably won't calm the waters between Apple and the larger app developers that have long protested the fee most loudly. Epic Games sued Apple in August. A month later, 13 companies, including Spotify and Match Group, formed the nonprofit Coalition for App Fairness to fight the "app tax." And American and European regulators are investigating Apple for anticompetitive behavior, partly because of its commission.
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