Dutch Regulator Now Happy With Apple's Rules Surrounding Dating Apps

What is the most popular Dutch dating app?

TWO LIPS.

I’m happy that they’re happy

Everyone is happy

???

Well they are still going to have to pay the other 27% via invoice and now will be on the hook for fraud compliance and chargeback management. The Netherlands needs to regulate those companies and their deceptive behaviors. That industry has always been shady. They want to control cancellations like on websites. Good luck figuring out how to successfully cancel now. Some shady sites will keep charging you after you officially cancel forcing a second call.

What exactly was the concession again? The developers still need to pay Apple their cut even on transactions made via third party payment options, right?

These companies just want to bring their true revenue driver to iOS. Cancellation dodging. Apple makes it too easy to cancel. They will quadruple their profits

why only dating apps? why are they special?

Dating apps have a monopoly on tech lobbyists in the Netherlands.

These companies just want to bring their true revenue driver to iOS. Cancellation dodging. Apple makes it too easy to cancel. They will quadruple their profits

This is probably unfortunately true considering that Match Group has been one of the groups stateside fighting for alternative payment systems. They’re definitely masters of the dodgy subscription scheme, with multi month mandatory payment schemes (for Match itself, you simply can’t get a subscription month by month, they’re either three, six, or twelve months, but you pay each month), difficult cancellations (considering that “match.com subscription cancellation” and “match.com subscription refund” are two of the top Google autocomplete suggestions for “match.com subscription” gives you a bit of an insight into what you’re getting into), and they’ve been known flat out to engage in fraud to get you to pay up (they got busted by US courts back in 2019 or early 2020 sending messages from fake profiles to people using Match.com for free, in order to trick them into paying so they could see messages).

This is Match Group, the face of mainstream online dating (only real competition is eHarmony and Bumble). And this is just Match.com, I can only imagine how aggressively monetized Tinder is (and some of their other properties are), and the subtle algorithmic tweaks and dark patterns they employ to convince you to pay for it. I’ve vowed never to give Match Group a single cent more, personally, due to how dodgy they are.

So it really wouldn’t surprise me at all if cancellation dodging is part of the plan. I was downloading apartment apps back in 2019, and I downloaded what turned out to be an exclusively Dutch app. And, before I could realize that, I’d picked the trial subscription option (3 days, followed by a $100+ USD price per month or maybe six month period). The fact that cancellation of Apple subscriptions is so easy and trustworthy was a real life saver. I was able to quickly realize “wait, these are all Dutch listings” and immediately cancel the subscription during the trial phase.