David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

We're running on the same model we've run Basecamp on in the App Store for a decade.

If you're not signing up through the app and we're signing up our own customers on our own website and they're just going to the App Store to download their companion app, we're going to be fine.

That was the truth, right?

That was why I never got so fired up about the App Store, even as Apple started tightening the screws, was like my business was OK.

Now, suddenly my business wasn't okay.

Apple was willing to destroy Hay if we did not agree to give them 30% of all the signups that came through the iOS app.

And it wasn't just about the 30%.

It was also about splitting and not longer having a direct relationship with our customers.

When you sell an app in the app store, you're not selling an app to a customer.

You're selling an app to inventory at Apple, and then Apple sells an app to that customer.

That customer has a purchasing relationship with Apple.

So if you want to give discounts or refunds or whatever, it's complete hell.

If you want to easily support multi-platform, that's complete hell.

If someone signs up for Hay on their iPhone and they want to switch to Android, but that...

Billing relationship, it's tied to Apple.

It's complete hell.

For a million reasons, I did not want to hand my business over to Apple.

I did not want to hand 30% of our revenue over to Apple.

So we decided to do something that seemingly Apple had never heard before.

We said, no, we're not going to add the in-app payment.