Meta announced “New Ways For Small Businesses To Boost And Avoid Apple Service Charges” From the announcement:
Businesses with limited resources have found tremendous value in advertising through boosted posts to find new customers and have been utilizing them for many years. In fact, nearly all boosted post users are small businesses.
To support the millions of small businesses that use boosted posts on Facebook and Instagram, advertisers can now go to instagram.com and facebook.com on mobile and desktop their content and avoid a 30% Apple service charge.
The Apple service charge is a result of updates Apple made to the App Store Review Guidelines. Starting later this month, when an advertiser uses the Facebook or Instagram iOS app to Boost a post, they will be billed through Apple, which retains a 30% service charge on the total ad payment, before any applicable taxes. This charge is retained by Apple, not Meta.
We are required to either comply with Apple’s guidelines, or remove boosted posts from our apps. We do not want to remove the ability to boost posts, as this would hurt small businesses by making the feature less discoverable and potentially deprive them of a valuable way to promote their business.
We are committed to offering businesses flexible and convenient options to help them navigate this change and maximize the results of their ad spend. As parts of our efforts to do this, we have invested in alternative ways to boost posts.
Specifically, advertisers can access facebook.com and instagram.com on both desktop computers or a mobile web browser to boost their content. When doing this, they will have the same features as boosting posts from the iOS apps, except now they will avoid the Apple service charge…
MacRumors reported that in response to Meta’s announcement, Apple said App Store apps have always been required to use its in-app purchase system for the sale of digital goods and services.
“We have always required that purchases of digital goods and services within apps must use In-App Purchase,” said Apple, in a statement shared with MacRumors today. “Boosting, which allows an individual or organization to pay to increase the reach of a post or profile, is a digital service — so of course, In-App Purchase is required. This has always been the case and there are many examples of apps that do it successfully.”
As part of its response, Apple said that it has indeed given Meta ample opportunity to comply with the App Store Review Guidelines in October 2022. That grace period is clearly ended now.
The Verge reported that Meta is one of many companies that waged criticism against Apple and it’s new policies in recent months. After introducing a 27 percent tax on alternative payment methods in the US, Apple also announced plans to start allowing developers in the European Union to have their apps exist on alternative app stores, as long as they pay a brand-new “Core Technology Fee.”
Overall, I feel like this is a fight between Meta and Apple. Their spat isn’t going to affect people who casually use Facebook or Instagram. That said, it might cause some problems for Meta if advertisers flee.