Peter Kafka, Recode:

Facebook’s effort to help media companies sell subscriptions has hit a snag: Apple.

The two companies are butting heads over Facebook’s plan for a new subscription tool in its mobile app. The tool will put paywalls around some articles in Facebook’s news feed, and then send users to publishers’ sites to buy subscriptions.

The issue: Apple wants to take as much as 30 percent of any subscription revenue Facebook helps generate. Facebook wants all of the money to go to publishers.

This is nothing new. The 30 percent model has been in place since inception. But:

People familiar with Facebook’s plans say Google won’t take a cut of subscriptions users sign up for using its Android operating system.

And there’s the rub. I don’t think there are many people who will switch platforms because of this issue. This is about the publishers.

Note that not every publisher likes Facebook’s subscription plan. Notable holdouts from the test plan the company is announcing today include the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

And you can see why. Both the NYT and WSJ have existing paywalls that work for them. This is a complex problem, one I hope gets resolved quickly.