WSJ: Facebook and Apple had conversations about in-app purchases and subscriptions

Apple spoke with Facebook between 2016 and 2018, proposing to the social media company to introduce a paid subscription without ads. Apple also felt that a commission should be paid for promoted posts.

These ideas are according to The Wall Street Journal put on the table during talks that took place between 2016 and 2018, which explored how the two companies could work together more in the business field. One of the issues discussed was the introduction of a paid plan for Facebook that would stop users from seeing ads. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple wanted to earn more income from in-app purchases through Facebook.

The company also felt it was entitled to a commission from sales of promoted posts on the Facebook platform. These are advertisements based on Facebook messages that should lead to more sales. According to Facebook, promoted posts belonged to the category of advertisements and did not have to be paid a commission. According to the American newspaper, Apple saw this differently and thought that Facebook should consider promoted messages as in-app purchases. This would allow the Cupertino company to charge a thirty percent commission. Despite the talks between the two companies, no solution was found.

Apple introduced iOS 14 to the world a few years later, in 2020. The company then announced that it would add new anti-tracking features to its mobile operating systems. They came with iOS 14.5. Via the App Tracking Transparency function in that version of the operating system, users could now choose to have their activities tracked so that developers could show targeted advertisements. Many companies, including Facebook, opposed the new features and even claimed that it could lead to a drop in revenue. At the end of 2021, advertising company Lotatme estimated that social media companies had lost about $10 billion in revenue after two quarters due to the anti-tracking features in iOS.