“Apple isn’t playing fair”: How Nothing CEO Carl Pei reacts to the Apple Tax

Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus and founder and CEO of Nothing, recently expressed his admiration for certain Apple products and practices – he said he respected Apple for constantly perfecting the iPhone. Just a few weeks ago, he said Apple's $3,499 VisionPro was not overrated, but, on the contrary, the space computer was in fact “underdone”. Additionally, he said he would review the Apple Vision Pro “when things calm down and I can be more objective” in a post on X/Twitter. Not being a smartwatch fan, however, he is not an admirer of the Apple Watch.

NOW, Carl Pei republished a satirical video from Morning beer X/Twitter account which describes one of the most universally criticized aspects of the Cupertino giant's actions: the famous Apple tax.

In the video, a man and a woman pretend to be children and play a game:

“Let’s play a game, I’ll be the store owner,” the girl says in the video – to which her counterpart in the app developer role responds: “Okay, I have an app to sell in your store.

“Oh, they’re so cute,” say the actresses as the European and American regulators watching the match unfold.

After the line “Every time you sell something, I get 30% of what you made” from Apple, the boy says, “That's not fair. I sell in another store.” Then there's “Apple's” punchline: “There are no different stores!”

After that, the European regulator is trying to get Apple to offer something different than the 30% tax. Apple's solution is a 17% tax, but a $0.50 fee for each download that exceeds one million downloads per year.

Here is the end:

“Your app has been downloaded 10 million times, so you owe me $400,000 because of the 50 cent fee”

“What!? My app is free, I didn’t make any money from these downloads!”

After that, European and American regulators talk to each other, claiming that “she doesn't play fair,” “she never listens,” and, ultimately, “she's a monster.”