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Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

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Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#61

Post by smnrchrds »

dsjoerg wrote: post #41

I don't understand why people are putting moral dimensions on this business conflict. If you don't like Apple's platform or business practices, don't use it. All the users and developers are there by choice. Their alternatives were worse. And Apple didn't make them worse. I was active in the mobile development world starting in 1999. It was awful. Would I like it if Apple took a lower cut? Sure. I would prefer a 5% c…

> If you don't like Apple's platform or business practices, don't use it

Why should not using a company's products be the maximum you ever do if you don't like their practices? You are essentially arguing that if you are not happy with a company's business practices, you should at most personally not use them. "You don't like that De Beers trades in blood diamonds? Don't buy diamonds from De Beers, but don't go around being angry at them or badmouthing them either. You don't like Shell's environmental record? Buy an electric car, but don't you dare write to your member of parliament asking for tighter enforcement of environmental standards on Shell. You don't like Chick-fil-A's stance on marriage equality? Go eat at Popeye's, or go vegetarian, but don't even think about protesting opening a new location".

I don't understand your point of view. You are basically saying your actions towards a company should be either supportive (buying their products) or neutral (not buying their products). Why shouldn't it be negative (advocating against them, raising awareness, asking for regulation, etc.) if you perceive their actions to be wrong?

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#62

Post by bonestamp2 »

Good. The fact that all of these marketplaces take a 30% draw is egregious. The hypocrisy is almost inconceivable when Apple demands 30% of my revenue, but they're intolerant when Google wants exactly the same thing from them. Apple would kick my app out of their store if I did that.

I say "good" because hopefully this is the first major crack in this racket. As Apple has now admitted, a marketplace is not worth a 30% cut. I hope this helps build an Antitrust case against Apple, Google, Amazon, etc for the outrageous rake they're taking in their marketplaces.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#63

Post by lotsofpulp »

echelon wrote: post #52
dsjoerg wrote: post #41

I don't understand why people are putting moral dimensions on this business conflict. If you don't like Apple's platform or business practices, don't use it. All the users and developers are there by choice. Their alternatives were worse. And Apple didn't make them worse. I was active in the mobile development world starting in 1999. It was awful. Would I like it if Apple took a lower cut? Sure. I would prefer a 5% c…

> If you don't like Apple's platform or business practices, don't use it. This isn't an option! There are no alternatives. Most people do computing on their smartphones today. Apple has prevented web from being a first-class native construct on their devices. There's no technical reason web couldn't have a native-like experience with native windowing, sensor access, persistence, multithreading, and WASM speed. Google…

> Their alternatives were worse. Thanks largely to Apple.

I don’t recall anyone willing to take on the mobile networks in the US other than Apple. HP/Dell/Microsoft/Palm/Blackberry were all willing to let mobile networks interfere with the device and lock them to various networks.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#65

Post by jjice »

g_p wrote: post #12
bzb3 wrote: post #5

I don't understand what the screenshot is trying to convey.

This seems to be a support screenshot of the Apple Music app, running on Android. In it, it's asking for the user to enter payment information directly, rather than using Google's payment platform. The significance of this is that Apple is coming under fire lately for their policies around "everyone must use our built-in payments platform" so we can extract 30% of the value of anything you do on our platform that mak…

Link about the antitrust if anyone was curious: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21292651/apple-eu-antitru...

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#66

Post by reagank »

mmcclure wrote: post #54

It's very relevant to note that Google Play's terms around in-app billing[1] are far more liberal than Apple's. > Developers offering products within a game downloaded on Google Play or providing access to game content must use Google Play In-app Billing as the method of payment. Developers offering products within another category of app downloaded on Google Play must use Google Play In-app Billing as the method of…

But the second doesn’t apply - you can’t listen to Apple Music with a different app, you have to use their app.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#67

Post by mmastrac »

votepaunchy wrote: post #60
g_p wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference here is that Apple is the only retailer for someone to install an app onto an iOS device. It prohibits anyone else from setting up a retailer, through policy-based (not technical) restrictions. You cannot install an app on an iOS device, except from their store. Apple won't let you install an alternative store. Therefore their app store is a monopoly store, and should be regulated as such. (Is…

Well, Walmart is the only retailer in a Walmart store. Only Walmart is permitted to retail in a Walmart store.

But Walmart isn't the only store to go to in meatspace. If you have an iOS device, you get the Walmart of apps and only the Walmart of apps.

This is the problem.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#68

Post by morganvachon »

mattl wrote: post #47
jayp1418 wrote: post #26

We need to stop using android and iOS and move to pinephone and librem

I tried the last time with OpenMoko. Sadly, those things amount to little more than feature phones because they're just not powerful enough.

I'm not a fan of Purism, the company behind the Librem phone, but it's fairly capable hardware for the price. The PinePhone is arguably even better hardware for the money, but it isn't quite ready for prime time on the software side. Gone are the days where a $300+ device is too weak or slow to use daily.

A better tactic would be to purchase one of the few Android devices that are fully compatible with either Replicant or LineageOS, or a phone that can run Sailfish.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#69

Post by damnyou »

dsjoerg wrote: post #41

I don't understand why people are putting moral dimensions on this business conflict. If you don't like Apple's platform or business practices, don't use it. All the users and developers are there by choice. Their alternatives were worse. And Apple didn't make them worse. I was active in the mobile development world starting in 1999. It was awful. Would I like it if Apple took a lower cut? Sure. I would prefer a 5% c…

How much choice is it really if you're excluded from your friend groups because they don't like green bubbles? (True story, happened to a couple people I know.)

Apple excels at various kinds of lock-in. The more it does that the less tenable the "it's a choice" theory becomes.

If things like iMessage were available on non-Apple platforms, I'd be more sympathetic to Apple, to be honest.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#70

Post by gamblor956 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #50
gamblor956 wrote: post #30

Note to the people asking why this matters: Legally, if you take a position in federal court on X (i.e., that it's okay to ban external transactions by apps using your app store), and you are found to be doing not-X in an analogous situation (i.e., setting up external transactions to avoid fees in your competitors' app store), the court can rule against you in the original case...and then sanction you and your lawyer…

Obviously if Apple owns one platform, and Google owns the other platform, it is not actually the same situation. The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google's store the same way they choose to run their own store. In fact it's arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet cu…

Analogous != same. It means its very similar factually.

The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google's store the same way they choose to run their own store.

That's correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant/monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market). Apple cannot then do the same thing it prohibits in its own app store in the Google Play Store, which has similar rules, because both of these actions have the effect of taking legal positions.

In fact it's arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet customer demands.

Which Apple does not permit. It's literally Apple's way, plus a 30% cut for doing nothing, or you're not even allowed to play. And that's exactly what antitrust laws were intended to prevent.

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