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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

#161

Post by Mindwipe »

gmanley wrote: post #126
gamblor956 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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). Can you point me to the specific law they are violating? From my understanding antitrust laws really aren't that clear and it depends on the situation and their control of a market. For ex…

Certainly in the EU you are not required to demonstrate a monopoly.

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

#162

Post by Mindwipe »

zachruss92 wrote: post #125
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…

First of all, my stance here is that Google is pretty reasonable with their guidelines compared to Apple. My biggest issue in the iOS vs Android debate is that apple is behaving monopolistically and Google isn't. Using the respective app stores give publishers an inherent audience to distribute/sell content through. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple/Google to try to profit off of the audience they've built. W…

If it makes some people in this thread feel better, Google also acts in many ways that are breaches of competition law, just in different ways!

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

#163

Post by AsyncAwait »

Despegar wrote: post #135
AsyncAwait wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not have a monopoly in the smartphone market, but it does have a dominant position there and a monopoly in the tablet segment where it does the same thing.

"Monopoly power" and "dominance" mean the same thing. One is used in the US, the other in the EU. You're going to have a tough time getting a court to agree that Apple is dominant in smartphones in the EU.

A monopoly means you're pretty much the only viable supplier/provider for a particular segment of the market. A dominant player is someone who isn't an outright monopoly, but nonetheless has a sizable market share and can influence pricing, competition, (i.e. by its patent licensing terms and deals with key component OEMs), the ability to set or influence standards etc.

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

#164

Post by [deleted] »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #137
tracerbulletx wrote: post #13

People keep writing about businesses like they are surprised they aren't moral entities with consistent moral logic. Businesses take whatever action or position they can to maximize their results. The more power the business has, the more they can leverage that power to get what they want. This should just be the default assumption at this point and we should talk about if that is ok for society, not keep feigning su…

Indeed they are compelled to maximise profit (the business leadership), else the shareholders will replace them. In fact I believe there’s even a US law to this effect.

[deleted]

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

#165

Post by chongli »

jaimehrubiks wrote: post #112
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 it says "on other music players". It doesn't really specify, but I would say that "Spotify" is the music player, and you still need to use it whether it is on the browser or other platform, but it is still "the same music player". I guess that the second case is more related to buying digital content, say an image, music, video, where you get the actual right to use that image, music, video on any platform. But I…

I take "on other music players" to mean other devices. If you have an Apple Music account, you can listen to the music on your MacBook, your iPhone, your iPad, and apparently also your Android phone. All of these devices are functioning as music players when you're playing the music you pay for on Apple Music.

The same goes for Netflix. Google does not try to take a cut of Netflix revenue even though you can only watch Netflix shows and movies through the Netflix first party application. You can, however, watch Netflix on many different devices.

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

#166

Post by hamandcheese »

spideymans wrote: post #152
echelon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> All the users and developers are there by choice. > I strongly beg to differ. How? Which users are being forced to use an iPhone? This is a bizarre statement when fully eighty five percent of smartphone users are not on the iPhone.

Anyone who cares about privacy, anyone who bought in to the Apple ecosystem long ago so now the switching cost would be huge, anyone who is non-technical and had their children choose an iPhone for them (i.e. my parents).

Also, in the US iPhone has >50% market share.

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

#167

Post by pccole »

gamblor956 wrote: post #70
snowwrestler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

I wouldn't say Apple or Google do nothing. Their Argument is we provide the infrastructure and developer tools so we're going to take a slice off all your sells to keep this stuff up and running. Even the Amazon App Store takes a 30% cut.

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

#168

Post by ridiculous_fish »

zachruss92 wrote: post #125
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…

First of all, my stance here is that Google is pretty reasonable with their guidelines compared to Apple. My biggest issue in the iOS vs Android debate is that apple is behaving monopolistically and Google isn't. Using the respective app stores give publishers an inherent audience to distribute/sell content through. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple/Google to try to profit off of the audience they've built. W…

Google's stance here looks good on paper, but the reality is very different.

Fortnite was the most ambitious attempt to distribute outside of Google Play. Here's what Epic had to say:

> After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization: Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third-party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.

And Epic gave up and put it on the Play Store.

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

#169

Post by mikestew »

wildfire wrote: post #158
LeoPanthera wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple" is not a single monolithic entity. The engineers who will be working their asses off to create and present WWDC have absolutely nothing to do with the business decisions of the App Store. Do not bully them, and do not waste the time of other participants who will have genuine engineering questions.

Those engineers enabled this outcome. It is perfectly reasonable to ask why they facilitated immoral actions. There is a code of ethics all computing professionals should use to consider their actions. https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics#:~:text=The%20Code%20incl... .

It is perfectly reasonable to ask why they facilitated immoral actions.

Are you seriously proposing to give the presenter for the Core Audio session grief over this? IMO, that's just being a jackass "because purity". Or something; I'm at a loss to truly categorize such behavior.

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

#170

Post by stale2002 »

gmanley wrote: post #126
gamblor956 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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). Can you point me to the specific law they are violating? From my understanding antitrust laws really aren't that clear and it depends on the situation and their control of a market. For ex…

".e., leveraging dominant/monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market"

This is a very common thing that is brought up in anti-trust law cases. That is what he is referring. It is regarding anti-trust law.

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