Apple is calling out the hypocrisy of Facebook parent Meta Platforms’s intent to take a nearly 50% cut of digital asset sales within its emerging metaverse.
Meta said in a blog post Monday it is allowing a handful of Horizon Worlds creators to sell virtual assets that could eventually include NFTs. Virtual-reality platform Horizon Worlds is considered an integral piece of Meta’s unfolding metaverse.
The company said it will take up to 47.5% on each transaction, which includes a “hardware platform fee” of 30% via its Meta Quest Store, as well as a 17.5% cut on Horizon Worlds.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has blasted Apple for charging developers 30% for in-app purchases on the App Store. “As we build for the metaverse, we’re focused on unlocking opportunities for creators to make money from their work,” he said in November. “The 30% fees that Apple takes on transactions make it harder to do that, so we’re updating our subscriptions product so now creators can earn more.”
“Meta has repeatedly taken aim at Apple for charging developers a 30% commission for in-app purchases in the App Store — and have used small businesses and creators as a scapegoat at every turn,” Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said in an email to MarketWatch. “Now — Meta seeks to charge those same creators significantly more than any other platform. [Meta’s] announcement lays bare Meta’s hypocrisy. It goes to show that while they seek to use Apple’s platform for free, they happily take from the creators and small businesses that use their own.”
MacDailyNews Take: Facebook. A company so beloved they had to change their name.
It’s Meta Platform’s store. They own it. They should charge whatever rates the market will bear. If they’re charging too much, their store will flop. They can charge whatever they want.
Yes, after criticizing Apple, Zuckerberg is a hypocrite. He fits into Silicon Valley perfectly. — MacDailyNews, April 13, 2022
The funniest part of this is that Apple, with its App Tracking Transparency privacy framework negatively impacting Facebook’s ability to sell their users to advertisers, may have caused Facebook to overreach with these metaverse fees.
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