{"id":44590,"date":"2024-08-21T15:39:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T19:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=44590"},"modified":"2024-08-21T15:39:30","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T19:39:30","slug":"self-hosted-vpn-app-rejected-due-to-iap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/21\/self-hosted-vpn-app-rejected-due-to-iap\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Hosted VPN App Rejected Due to IAP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@palmin\/112983785830011413\">Anders Borum<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@arroz\/112984073589112929\">Miguel Arroz<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@palmin\/112983785830011413\"><p>Patreon being forced to pay creators through in-app purchase reminded me of a cool app I made two summers ago.<\/p><p>VPN clients on iOS lie on a spectrum between selling you out to data brokers or being expensive subscriptions.<\/p><p>Having prior experience with Digital Ocean my app made it easy to spin up droplets configured as VPNs ready to use from your iPhone.<\/p><p>It was so fast that droplets could be launched on-demand and shut down fast keeping costs extremely low.<\/p><p>The app used OAuth to act on behalf of users on their personal Digital Ocean accounts making the cumbersome task of setting up a truly personal VPN available to the less technical or less patient user.<\/p><p>App Review rejected the app because I didn&rsquo;t collect payment to Digital Ocean through in-app purchase.<\/p><p>Tried to appeal and spoke to Apple on the phone arguing that the payment was outside my control and that my app was a privacy boon but they did not care.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Patreon was already collecting payments from supporters on behalf of creators, and Apple wanted a cut. You can think the cut is too high or disagree on principle, but it at least makes sense. In this case, Borum didn&rsquo;t even want to be in the business of selling Digital Ocean hosting services. He just wanted to make a utility to help people use their existing accounts. At least Apple is not requiring him to become an <a href=\"https:\/\/s3files.app\">AWS reseller<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/14\/creator-platforms-and-the-app-store\/\">Creator Platforms and the App Store<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/12\/apple-going-after-patreon\/\">Apple Going After Patreon<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/08\/the-business-of-vpns\/\">The Business of VPNs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/25\/potential\/\">Potential<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/21\/wordpress-bug-fixes-blocked-over-iap\/\">WordPress Bug Fixes Blocked Over IAP<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anders Borum (via Miguel Arroz): Patreon being forced to pay creators through in-app purchase reminded me of a cool app I made two summers ago.VPN clients on iOS lie on a spectrum between selling you out to data brokers or being expensive subscriptions.Having prior experience with Digital Ocean my app made it easy to spin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-08-21T19:39:32Z","apple_news_api_id":"aebed3f9-d510-48c6-9921-98d8c3a6eb4c","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-08-21T19:39:33Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Arr7T-dUQSMaZIZjYw6brTA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,130,522,31,2321,26,1132],"class_list":["post-44590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-rejection","tag-inapppurchase","tag-ios","tag-ios-17","tag-iosapp","tag-virtual-private-network-vpn"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44591,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44590\/revisions\/44591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}