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Elon Musk’s revamped Twitter Blue has once again been postponed, this time in an attempt to avoid the 30% App Store fees that Apple levies on all apps using its App Store’s payment modes.
Musk was tentatively planning on launching Blue on Friday before the launch was delayed again as Twitter didn’t intend to offer the subscription as an in-app purchase, avoiding Apple’s 30% tax. In a series of tweets, Elon went on about Apple opposing free speech while also monopolising the market for itself, slamming the 30% fee.
The new Twitter owner has also stated that Apple has “mostly stopped” advertising on Twitter and even threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store without explanation.
Whatever the case might be, the entire incident further pushes back an already controversial launch that has so far been plagued by-elections, impersonations, massive lay-offs at the company and poor implementation in general.
Changes to Twitter blue affect more than just the service’s price. Users can now get verified easily by subscribing to the service as well as priority in replies, mentions and searches; that said, access to ad-free articles, a rather useful feature in Twitter Blue, was removed from the subscription.
This isn’t the first time Apple’s App Store fee has caused conflict with a service. Epic Games already had a rather big scuffle with Apple on the fee, which saw Fortnite removed from the Apple and Google app stores for iOS and Android, respectively.
Suppose Elon’s battle to bend Twitter to his will during the negotiations for the controversial $44 billion deal is anything to go by. In that case, this might start another scuffle between the Twitter owner and one of the world’s largest companies.
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