Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#451

Post by worldsayshi » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #297

opportune wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major barrier is that you don’t have to meet any of your coworkers unless you explicitly seek them out, and your employer certainly isn’t going to help you. So yes I would say that labor organizing across a gig platform is considerably harder than for factories across geographic regions. The social fabric is a lot harder to construct

Many drivers (in NYC anyway) are members of online discussion forums, so they are connecting already. I read many a multi-hundred page threads of drivers ranting and deciding to strike several years ago over Uber forcing black cars to accept UberX rides. Them joining together is a major reason Uber backtracked that policy per Uber’s public statement about it.

I guess that the missing piece here would be better ways to organise strike funds and pay. Regarding the social aspect there's mostly a way if there's will.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#452

Post by worldsayshi » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

tareqak wrote: post #226

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big problems with forming a gig worker union is the same problem with gig work in general; you're disconnected with your coworkers and other firm participants. Uber can press a button in response to a strike and send out a push notification to potential scabs offering a bribe to cross the digital picket line. The strikers both don't know and can't efficiently tell who scabs are, and as such can't put press…

I'd argue that what people need is a "meta"-union with gig-specific chapters. Regardless of the type of employment, all people are human beings with needs, desires, and limitations. You could argue that government and political parties are supposed to be just that, but here we are.

Yes! Meta unions should be there for managing strike funds. This infrastructure seems like something that could be packaged in a reusable way. I don't think this should be part of the political establishment at all. Just as corporations should be kept separate from the state. The mechanics of labour unions are quite different.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#453

Post by chipotle_coyote » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 10:55 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #399

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple also has a large and growing editorial staff writing articles and highlights for their App Store; it's virtually becoming a house magazine. So being in their store potentially offers exposure and marketing for free that's immensely valuable. (Whether it's 30% valuable is debatable, of course. Personally I think they should drop it from 15%/30% to 10%/20%, but "Apple: always more expensive than you think they sh…

potentially is the key word here. If you are basing your business on getting exposure in the App Store then you are building it on shaky foundations.

There's a reason I put it in italics, to be sure. :)

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#454

Post by sleepydog » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #286

baby wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good chinese restaurants in London (like my old place) end up having less than 4 stars because of service. I find that raging since the food is the only thing that should matter.

I just had this discussion with my SO while traveling n Japan. Here google maps give a really good indication, but you really really have to check out restaurants with under 4 stars. We found several gems that had under 4 stars because these places where just really busy. From reading the reviews these places the bad reviews where all from really condescending assholes that would even sometimes claim that the waiters…

Everyone in Japan uses tabelog, and they are very tough - a restaurant with 3 out of 5 stars is an excellent restaurant.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#455

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

m_fayer wrote: post #440

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we as a society need to start thinking about how to halt the service-ization of everything. People don't care unfortunately. Services are convenient and offer a better bang for the buck in the sort term. At some point though you lose your job and your music library is gone, you have nothing to watch because everyone streams and thus the movie/show selling market was never forced to solve it's copyright issues. You h…

I'm curious about what a respectful and user-controlled smart household appliance looks like and how it's built. Thanks for pointing out that there is a non-BS vision of IOT, hard to remember that sometimes.

>what a respectful and user-controlled smart household appliance looks like and how it's built

Connected straight to your smartphone without a server in the middle or not connected to the internet at all. E.g. make your bathtub automatically fill up with water at your preferred temperature on a specified time every day and then maintain that for x amount of time. Flush it automatically after that time if you haven't pressed a button manually. I could see coming home after work and jumping straight to the bath being convenient and this setup doesn't even need connectivity.

Maybe some stuff could connect with each other only via LAN. E.g. night/day sensors that will turn the outside lights on when there isn't enough sunlight. Or a monitoring panel( basically a tablet) that will tell you if your fridge is struggling to keep the temperature down( maybe the underside needs cleaning). That could also be used to create various profiles for your smart lightbulbs so you can get the exact type of light that you want. Slowly increasing in luminosity to wake you up or getting a red led-like light profile for when you want to watch a movie. Maybe a more blue oriented light to help suppress melatonin when you have to stay late. A coffee maker( using regular grounded coffee, not capsules) will notify you when the internal coffee storage is low. I hate it when I run out of coffee without realizing it and I have to leave the house early in the morning without any caffeine.

The possibilities are there but those that make these devices need to look and listen to how people actually live instead of just trying to impress with useless and dangerous gimmicks or try to get extra money by extracting data.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#456

Post by kyle-rb » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

dkonofalski wrote: post #253

cgriswald wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be suggesting the only alternative to the App Store is a janky Apple-run Open App Store. All Apple has to do to offer an alternative is let people install Apps on their phones outside the App Store just like they can do on their Macs. People will still trust the App Store, but maybe a competitor comes along and maybe Netflix/Amazon etc use them or maybe they don’t.

I didn't suggest that at all. I suggested that it was a possible alternative simply because that's the only way something like that would be considered "official" still while allowing for any apps to be published. There's no reason for Apple to offer that on their phones since it dilutes the customer experience. Anyone that would care about doing that can still do that via XCode by side-loading the apps. Case in poin…

>Case in point - where's the competitor for the Mac App Store on macOS? There's not. Users have to do all the legwork themselves.

Yeah, double-clicking that DMG and dragging the .app 30 pixels to the Applications shortcut is a lot of work.

>That's literally no different than side-loading your own apps.

Yup, clicking and dragging is the same as configuring a different machine to properly build and provision.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#457

Post by zasz » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

betenoire wrote: post #323

zasz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Chinese service. I hate feeling obligated to make small talk with the waiters. "Is everything fine?" Fuck off, I'm trying to talk to my friend here.

I hope you are exaggerating a little for fun. Asking if everything is fine isn't really small talk and definitely doesn't deserve contempt.

Yeah, of course I am and I understand it's their job to do that. I really hate it when waiters come interrupt you, but what made you think I'd actually say it out loud? I used the phrase "fuck off" as an expression of annoyance, not contempt.

Now, white people not realizing that different cultural norms are at play and calling Chinese waiters rude, now THAT is definitely deserving of contempt.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#458

Post by Buge » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #431

Buge wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they've already been compensated to some degree doesn't mean they've been fully compensated. Video game consoles are sometimes sold at a loss in order to make money on games.

The richest company in the world, with the largest cash reserves in the world, is not being fully compensated for their efforts?

I mean they might not be fully compensated if they remove the app store fees.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#459

Post by valuearb » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 4:12 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #402

valuearb wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Payment processing is the smallest part of what the Google and Apple App stores provide, your comparison is ludicrous.

What other function do you think they are providing for the average developer?

Distribution is the biggest part.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#460

Post by valuearb » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 4:22 AM UTC

throwaway9d0291 wrote: post #411

valuearb wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling Apple a transaction facilitator is a ludicrous way to try to downplay what they actually do. They aren’t just a transaction processer, that’s the cheapest and easiest part of their job. They also host petabytes of apps in hundreds of geographically dispersed and localized app stores, and covers all bandwidth for distributing and updating those apps. And unlike google Apple actually reviews every release of ev…

> They also host petabytes of apps in hundreds of geographically dispersed and localized app stores So they run a CDN. In the US and Europe, Fastly charges [0] a maximum of $0.12/GB. A messaging app like Threema is 41MB and costs 3CHF (~3USD) where I am. That's ~$0.005 for distribution of a $3 app. For a 4GB app (the largest Apple supports), you're paying $0.48 but you're also usually charging on the order of $20 for…

First, You made a good run at the per user costs, but whiffed on how many users there are. Apple supports billions of downloads per year.

More importantly, Apple isn’t a mere payment processer, and it certainly isn’t a mere CDN.

Then entire storefront, updated constantly with new marketing programs in hundreds of country specific stores, and in dozens of languages. Then there is the technological infrastructure behind it, from XCode to TestFlight, to crash reporting, to all the payment systems, etc, etc.

And overall developers benefit greatly from App Store review.The average iOS user downloads more apps and spends far more on the App Store in a great part because of the greater safety and security of iOS apps.