Their business is virtualized. Then Apple wanted a cut.

ClassPass built its business by helping book exercise classes at a local gym. So when a pandemic shuts down gyms across the US, the company moved to virtual class.

Later, ClassPass received a concern message from Apple. Apple says the company has the right to receive 30% of its revenue compared to what was previously free, as the class it sold in its iPhone app was virtualized. A person near ClassPass talked about anonymity terms, fearing Apple’s confusion. The iPhone maker said it was just enforcing the rules of 10 years ago.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Airbnb experienced similar demands from Apple after launching an “online experience” business offering virtual cooking classes, meditation sessions, and drag queen shows, and launched it in 2016. Enhanced face-to-face experience.

Both Airbnb and ClassPass are discussing Apple’s demands with the House of Representatives to see how Apple controls the App Store through a year of antitrust law to the largest tech companies. As part of the survey, they talk about private conversations, according to three people who talked about the conditions of anonymity.

These legislators will grill Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon, Facebook, and Google CEOs at a high-profile hearing on Wednesday.

Apple’s controversy with SMEs points to the domination of the world’s largest tech companies overcoming the shift to online life brought about by the pandemic. While many of the rest of the economy were struggling, the pandemics further rooted their business.

Amazon and Google sell more online cloud space with millions of employees working from home, and Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud revenues soar in the first quarter of the year, including the start of the pandemic Did. Facebook and YouTube are part of Google, some of the largest meetinghouses on the Internet, Traffic surged Because people could not communicate directly.

Apple Also brought in more income From the online services business, mainly behind the App Store, Macs, iPads, and iPhones have become even more important tools.

Since the gym was closed, ClassPass has withdrawn its normal fees for virtual classes and handed over 100% of its sales to Jim. This means Apple struggled to cut from hundreds of independent fitness centers, yoga studios, and boxing gyms.

Apple didn’t try to generate revenue with Airbnb and ClassPass (which is a side effect), but instead tries to enforce the rules that have been in force since the app guidelines were first published in 2010. I said.

Apple has said that giving up commissions in these cases is not fair to many other app developers paying for similar businesses for years. Because of the pandemic, Apple instructed it to comply with ClassPass until the end of the year and said it will continue to negotiate with Airbnb.

“In order to enable every developer to succeed and grow their business, Apple maintains a clear and consistent set of guidelines that apply equally to everyone,” the company said in a statement. ..

ClassPass must comply with the rules of the month, according to people close to the company. Instead, Apple says it has stopped offering virtual classes in the iPhone app instead. As a result, fewer customers are likely to see the classes being promoted by gym partners.

In 2016, Airbnb launched a business to provide travelers with a direct “experience”, including guided tours, bar crawls and cooking classes with the locals on vacation. In early April, as the underlying travel plans for the pandemic and the company’s bottom line, Airbnb launched a virtual version of a similar experience, but with more famous chefs and more training sessions with Olympic athletes. We have rapidly expanded our business into prominent products.

Later that month, Apple was in contact with the company that the company would have to pay Apple’s fees when the online experience was sold on Airbnb’s iPhone app, people familiar with their exchanges said.

Apple believed that Airbnb had long been intended to provide a virtual experience-not just because the business was created for a pandemic-and would continue to do it when the world returns to normal. Apple also noted that despite Airbnb building a multi-billion dollar business with the help of iPhone apps, Airbnb has never paid Apple.

Airbnb is still in talks with Apple. Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, said in June that the online experience offering was the company’s “fastest growing product to date” and generated $1 million in revenue. Apple said the Airbnb apps could be removed from the App Store if the two companies did not reach agreement.

Many companies and app developers complain that Apple forces them to pay fees to be included in the App Store. This is important to reach about 900 million people on the iPhone. The App Store has 500 million visitors from 175 countries each week, according to Apple.

For months, Justice Department economists and lawyers have met with companies and app developers on the App Store as part of their antitrust investigation into Apple. Music service Spotify and another large, unnamed company have recently talked to the Attorney General in several states about the matter, he said.

Unlike Spotify, Airbnb and ClassPass do not offer services that directly compete with one of Apple’s digital products.

Many companies are dissatisfied with the whimsical enforcement of rules by Apple, which could cause apps to be removed from the App Store and stop some businesses. If Apple removes the app from the App Store, the developer won’t get new app users, won’t be able to update the app already on someone else’s phone, and eventually the app will break.

According to a survey released last Wednesday by Apple, a small portion of iPhone apps are subject to the fee, Apple said. Airbnb, for example, charges a 20% fee for experience.

“If you’re not on the App Store today, you’re not online. Your business can’t work. That is, they’re the gatekeeper of what every business wants,” says Swiss-based Encrypted. Andy Yen is the CEO of ProtonMail, an email service that “If you want to go through their gates, they will charge you 30 percent of your income.”

According to Yen, the company has been fighting Apple over the committee since 2017, and Apple has occasionally restricted the iPhone’s ProtonMail app. To account for Apple’s charges, ProtonMail has begun to charge 30% more subscriptions purchased through the iPhone app than subscriptions purchased on websites not covered by Apple’s rates. “The only way we could support this fee was to actually pass the costs on to the customer,” he said.

But when ProtonMail told iPhone users about the low price of its website, Apple restricted the app. Then, when trying to clarify that 30% of the subscription price would be paid to Apple, Apple again restricted the app. “We only hide things like this if they’re wrong,” Yen said.

When asked about ProtonMail’s experience, Apple said that certain apps should use payment systems and prohibit users from instructing them to purchase products or services elsewhere.