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Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

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Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#111

Post by [deleted] »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #94
sooheon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue here is precisely that you cannot set up your own internet corner shop and ignore Apple, as that means you have no access to consumers who use Apple I don't understand why businesses are entitled to have access to consumers who use Apple. If you don't want to pay to play on their platform, imagine a world where Apple doesn't exist, and position your business accordingly. Nothing is actually forcing you to…

> I don't understand why businesses are entitled to have access to consumers who use Apple. I don't understand how expecting a computer to just run software became entitlement. Why should anyone need Apple's permission to do anything?

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#112

Post by FakeRemore »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #5

Apple wants to own iPhone consumers so that anyone who wants access to that demographic must pay the toll and follow their rules. It's far too much power for one corporation. Nice to see authorities are starting to take the matter seriously.

> Apple wants to own iPhone consumers so that anyone who wants access to that demographic must pay the toll and follow their rules. It's far too much power for one corporation. Nice to see authorities are starting to take the matter seriously.

Unfortunately, this seems like a problem where nobody has come up with a good solution. Google allows other app stores on their phones and they allow sideloading, which might seem like the ideal situation. The biggest issue then is that Google still has the monopoly on apps on Android because the size of the Play Store far eclipses every other store. So if Google bans an account or app unfairly, the only realistic option is to appeal and cave in whatever they want you to do. Because being relegated to an app store that nobody uses is essentially a death sentence for that app and its revenue.

How do you fix something like that? The power or the problem doesn't go away because there is choice. I feel like Google has neatly sidestepped the problem from their perspective and thus aren't being scrutinized, despite being in nearly the exact same situation as Apple.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#113

Post by FakeRemore »

FakeRemore wrote: post #112
matheusmoreira wrote: post #5

Apple wants to own iPhone consumers so that anyone who wants access to that demographic must pay the toll and follow their rules. It's far too much power for one corporation. Nice to see authorities are starting to take the matter seriously.

> Apple wants to own iPhone consumers so that anyone who wants access to that demographic must pay the toll and follow their rules. It's far too much power for one corporation. Nice to see authorities are starting to take the matter seriously. Unfortunately, this seems like a problem where nobody has come up with a good solution. Google allows other app stores on their phones and they allow sideloading, which might s…

Addendum:

A slightly different example. Internet Explorer essentially dominated the browser space for nearly forever until Chrome. There are any number of reasons, but the most obvious is that Microsoft could leverage their position as the platform owner to promote IE over all alternatives. EU tried to regulate it by forcing them to add a "browser choice" dialog, which didn't work. The only reason why Chrome became so popular was because Google did exactly the same thing as Microsoft. They could leverage their search engine, which by that time already owned 90% of the search engine market, to aggressively promote Chrome at every single opportunity.

There are all these examples of tech companies leveraging an existing platform to edge out competitors in clearly anti-competitive ways, and modern laws simply aren't up to the task of ensuring a fair, competitive market where massive companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon can't abuse their power.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#114

Post by lozenge »

kjakm wrote: post #56
ageitgey wrote: post #21

I don't think the pressure on Apple is going to let up. Smart phones are no longer a tech toy and have become a literal part of government and commercial infrastructure. Apple's arbitrary power over the platform is pissing off and embarrassing governments in the COVID era. During COVID, governments around the world have been making major decisions based on mobility data from Apple and Google which shows trends of whe…

>> Yesterday, the UK announced it was abandoning its own COVID contract tracing app and moving to the Apple model because they couldn't figure out how to make iPhones wake up via bluetooth (because that's a private API only available to Apple). A major western government is facing huge public embarrassment in a public health crisis over what comes down to not having permission from Apple to use a specific API in an a…

Both sides need to use the app in contact tracing, therefore an Android only app is near useless. Anyway, it's open source and you can see third party enthusiast test results on GitHub. Also, Australia and Germany followed a similar path which you can see in the tech news.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#115

Post by lozenge »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #64
rydre wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just because the government wants to violate its citizens’ privacy doesn’t mean its citizens want that. If the majority of the citizens want that, then they can outvote their leaders. If the minority of the citizens want that, they either convince the majority to agree, or they keep quit. I haven't bought the iPhone for the privacy stance. Apple is a part of PRISM. There is ZERO % chance that their privacy stance is…

So assuming I do not want my privacy violated, I am simply at the tyranny of the majority?

Just don't install the app?

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#116

Post by koheripbal »

kjakm wrote: post #56
ageitgey wrote: post #21

I don't think the pressure on Apple is going to let up. Smart phones are no longer a tech toy and have become a literal part of government and commercial infrastructure. Apple's arbitrary power over the platform is pissing off and embarrassing governments in the COVID era. During COVID, governments around the world have been making major decisions based on mobility data from Apple and Google which shows trends of whe…

>> Yesterday, the UK announced it was abandoning its own COVID contract tracing app and moving to the Apple model because they couldn't figure out how to make iPhones wake up via bluetooth (because that's a private API only available to Apple). A major western government is facing huge public embarrassment in a public health crisis over what comes down to not having permission from Apple to use a specific API in an a…

They are correct though - that API is indeed private.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#117

Post by koheripbal »

sjwright wrote: post #69
matheusmoreira wrote: post #5

Apple wants to own iPhone consumers so that anyone who wants access to that demographic must pay the toll and follow their rules. It's far too much power for one corporation. Nice to see authorities are starting to take the matter seriously.

That's fine, but how are you going to construct legislation that specifically targets Apple's walled garden without breaching the Fourteenth Amendment?

No new legislation needed. Existing anti-trust laws can be used to force them to de-couple the apps from the devices.

In the same way the government forced Microsoft to de-couple Internet Explorer from Windows.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#118

Post by koheripbal »

t0ughcritic wrote: post #8
stunt wrote: post #4

I believe Apple just don't see any reason to be nice. And probably that's what many companies would do if they were in that position. We know that we can't stay dominant forever, We know someone will force us to reduce Apple-tax later, So we have to get as much as we can, for as long as we can.

#mafiatax

This is why we have anti-trust laws.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#119

Post by koheripbal »

Nasrudith wrote: post #31

Perhaps it is a matter of my preestablished cynicisms but this seems like a campaign contribution shakedown/stupid election year publicity stunt where they rail against a big bad company for complete bullshit reasons. I don't get why people go with the Apple locked down system personally but they aren't even a majority of the market nor a plurality. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the House gives a shit…

Google isn't much better. I suspect the government is going to force both of them to open their app store with anti-trust suits.

Re: Apple’s App Store fees are ‘highway robbery’ – House antitrust committee chair

#120

Post by koheripbal »

hyko wrote: post #87

Why should I pay $99 per year for a hey.com email address? Robbery! I demand the courts lower this to 9¢ immediately, which I deem to be the true value of an email address. Hey are abusing their monopoly power over the hey.com domain...this will not stand! Burn it to the ground! Write to your congressman! I’ll spend my millions fighting this! Over my dead body! I’ll chase them round the moons of Nibea and round Antar…

The rules change when a company has a near-monopoly and practices anti-competitive tactics to nerf their competition.

That's why we have anti-trust laws.

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