Facebook has said that it wants Apple to waive the mandatory 30% fee that Apple takes when small businesses invest in Facebook’s new paid online events feature.
The public call from Facebook comes just after Epic Games made headlines for suing Apple and Google for continuing to take a 30% cut of in-app purchase revenue on its Fortnite game, and all other apps in the two companies’ app stores.
Facebook has just launched paid online events as a way “for businesses, creators, educators and media publishers to earn money from online events on Facebook. Now Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place,” said Fidji Simo Vice President, Head of Facebook App.
The service within the Facebook app mixes marketing, payment option, live video, and paid online events for small business to use to reach their audiences and customers as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the global economy.
Facebook Live can be used to stream events, and Facebook said it was testing paid events within Messenger Rooms, its group video chat service.
But in the blog post it announced the service with, Facebook also took aim at Apple. It first said it “will not collect any fees from paid online events for at least the next year. For transactions on the web, and on Android in countries where we have rolled out Facebook Pay, small businesses will keep 100% of the revenue they generate from paid online events.”
It went on to say:
“We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs will only be paid 70% of their hard-earned revenue. While Facebook is waiving fees for paid online events we will make other fees clear in the product.”
With business owners currently able to keep 100% of revenue from online events via the web or via Android in some countries, Facebook is putting Apple under pressure to waive its fee.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.