Pavel Durov called for limiting the monopoly Apple and Google to distribute applications. At the same time, the Vice President of Telegram expressed this idea to Mishustin

The founder of Telegram Pavel Durov called for the fight against Apple and Google as monopolists in the application distribution market.

Durov noted that the application developers should pay 30% of Apple and Google only for their products to get on the AppStore or Play Market-according to him, because of this, the creators of the applications themselves receive less pure income from them than these two companies.

“In fact, today all the developers of the world who sell smartphones to premium and digital services, work on Apple and Google to a greater extent than themselves. As a result, Apple and Google will accumulate tens of billions of dollars on their offshore accounts, while hundreds of thousands of local developers teams around the world are on the verge of economic survival, ”Durov wrote.

Durov separately noted that while in the case of Google, developers can at least promote their applications and without using the Play Market, Apple directly prohibits the distribution of applications in the bypassing of their store.

The creator of Telegram expressed the opinion that the developers have never previously been so powerless and dependent-for example, in the 1990s, during the Microsoft monopoly in the operating systems market, developers could freely create and distribute programs for Windows without paying additional Microsoft deductions.

At the end of the post, Durov supported the intentions of the EU and Russia authorities to introduce antimonopoly measures against Apple. At the same time, he called the requirement to prescribe Russian applications to iPhones with an insufficient measure and called on the authorities to oblige Apple “at least to preserve its own - alternative - applications stores that would allow local developers not to send 30% of their turnover to California.”

"Law against Apple"

In December 2019, Russia adopted amendments to the Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights” prohibiting the sale of phones, computers and smart TVs without Russian software. In the media, the amendments were called the “law against Apple”, since this company fundamentally does not pretend to be third -party applications to its devices.

It was planned to do the mandatory pre-installation of Russian software from July 1, 2021, but due to the pandemic of coronavirus, the entry into force was postponed until January 1, 2022.

Since Telegram is distributed free of charge, the developers do not pay anything Apple and Google (except for the costs of registering developers' accounts). Nevertheless, in 2016-2017, Telegram had to abandon the game platform inside its own application, as Apple threatened to remove the messenger from the App Store.

The post of Durov appeared on the same day with the performance of Telegram Vice President Ilya Perekopsky at an event in Innopolis in Tatarstan, where the Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin attended-there Perekopsky also emphasized that 30% of Apple and Google did not allow developers to completely reveal their potential. This was the first performance by the Telegram representative at a public event in Russia since Roskomnadzor announced that he would no longer block the messenger.

Grigory Levchenko