⚠ The Rate RatchetModerate threat

The commission engine's power is the rate it charges; the danger is a ratchet that only turns one way. What was once a flat thirty percent on nearly everything has already been whittled¹: fifteen percent for smaller developers, fifteen on the later years of a subscription, reduced² and restructured fees under European rules, and court-ordered openings that let some developers avoid the cut altogether. In the United States a 27% fee on linked-out purchases was barred outright in 2025; the Ninth Circuit upheld the contempt finding in December 2025 but sent back the question of what reasonable, cost-based fee Apple may charge³. Each concession is defended as modest and contained, but they accumulate, and no one seriously expects the headline rate ever to climb back up. The direction is settled; only the pace is in doubt.

The danger is that the commission is at once the richest strand of the whole franchise and the most exposed, because everyone — developers, regulators, and courts — is pulling on the same thread from every side at once. As the effective rate drifts down and more transactions find lower-fee or fee-free paths around the standard commission, the engine keeps running but throws off less on each unit of traffic that passes through it.

The consolation is arithmetic and tactical at once: even a lower rate levied on a larger and still-growing base of digital commerce is a very large number, and Apple has repeatedly shown it can introduce new fees where old ones are banned, defending the substance of its take even as the headline figure falls. Access to a billion affluent users stays genuinely valuable, and Apple prices that access with skill.

A moderate worry, and the number to watch is the effective take rate, not the headline rate. This is not a collapse but a grind — a rate that gets a little lower and a little leakier over the coming years, trimming the single most profitable engine in the Services business at its edges, even as sheer growing volume keeps the absolute dollars rising for now.