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The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

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Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#501

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So this must’ve happened to Google already since they allow sideloading... I was not able to find anything.

I hate the current situation where you buy a 1000$ pocket-computer and when you want to run your own software on it they call it "sideloading" and it might not be even possible.

Fortunately there are a ton of $1000 pocket computers on the market that let you do precisely that.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#502

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>Apple choose not to spend their time, money, and energy on supporting third-party app stores. Apple doesn't need to support third party app stores. Apple actively hinders them.

They'd have to write extra code compared to what they have now to do this, and then they've had to support that code. They don't want to. Why on earth should they want to spend time writing code to run other people's businesses that they aren't involved in. Do you require that McDonald's will sell you a Pepsi, when McDonald's want to sell you Coca-Cola? Do you demand that you should be allowed to set up a Pepsi store…

They wouldnt need to write more code, theyd need to remove code. Third party app stores already exist for iOS with no assistance from Apple, they are just prevented from running unless the device is jailbroken.

Granted, they might choose to write some code to manage how these additional stores work, but theres no technical reason I can think of that they would have to.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's exactly the goal. Antitrust laws need to be updated for today's technology and businesses.

And you trust the current politicians who were more concerned about Big Tech being unfair to conservatives than they were about antitrust. Did anything productive come out of the dog and pony shoe?

Yes, very productive things have come out of the dog and pony show: tons of conversation and debate amongst voters as people familiarize themselves with the nuance of these topics.

Do I trust the politicians? Maybe not the ones you're describing but read through Elizabeth Warren's proposal around platform utilities:

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

Maybe you agree, maybe you don't - the point is that it's clearly a well-articulated position. Not all US politicians are idiots, but the loudest ones certainly make it seem that way.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#504

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Well they can do all that with a 10% fee too. The author is contending that by adding those restrictions and a high 30% fee, Apple is acting like a monopoly - it's their way or the highway.

What evidence do you have that a 10% fee is enough to operate the App Store at the scale Apple does? When the App Store was launched, Steve Jobs said they plan to run it at break-even, no profit, and for quite a few years that was exactly what they did. Now they are profiting from the App Store and clearly could continue to run it as they do on a lower percentage, but I don't think 10% is that number. If they could r…

I cant find any evidence in their financial reports of Apple breaking down sales and cost of sales for the App store in early years. I would be very, very surprised though if it was not profitable almost immediately (unless you creatively move around numbers and claim 100% of the iPhone's R&D was a cost of sale for the app store).

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you trust the current politicians who were more concerned about Big Tech being unfair to conservatives than they were about antitrust. Did anything productive come out of the dog and pony shoe?

It is honestly frightening that HN wants to give the government more power over tech after what we've seen from Australia and forced backdoors.

It's not "more power over tech," it's the job of government. Distribution of power, promoting competition, tweaking the rules as little as is deemed necessary.

Is it really so outrageous to consider there might be a consolidation of power in a way we haven't dealt with before, seeing Amazon crush partners overnight, or Facebook impacting elections?

The very same HN that longs for the early internet, with web rings and personality, doesn't have a problem with Google scrapping content from pages you would have otherwise visited, further limiting smaller website's revenue opportunity?

For those of you not seeing clear anticompetitive behaviors that warrant discovery -- where is your line?

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#506
post #121
post #50

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Because, I guarantee, if iOS app distribution market was competitive, fee would be lower than 30%. 30% fee is a monopolistic rent.

Suppose you make the argument that developers, not consumers, pay for the dev kits, language, development, improvement, apis of the os. 30% might appropriately reflect the amount of work in an app that is apples work. 30% of subscriptions on the other hand might not.

Fortunately, Apple breaks it down for us:

Services net sales in 2019 was $46.2B, and the cost of those sales was $16.8B (source 2019 10-K). They dont specifically break out App store vs other services, but as a whole the services section of their business is very, very profitable, according to their accounting. It remains so even if you throw in the entirety of R&D ($16.2B).

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#507
post #9

As a consumer, I am 100% in favor of the way run the app store. I don't want to give random apps my credit card. I don't want to have 18 accounts to keep track of. I don't want to have to call telephone support to cancel my account. I don't want malware in my apps. I don't want apps to have my email if they don't need it. I don't need another middleman for content companies license and distribute. Everything Apple is…

It probably will look like the windows game stores, everyone could create one and sell games. But so far we only got: EA, UBISOFT, GOG, STEAM, epic and windows store.

+ origin, blizzard

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#508

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I agree in principle that this would be OK, except part of Apple's vetting processes is making sure apps aren't accessing private APIs. I don't want to download a game and find out that it's secretly spinning up a background spyware process to monitor the screenbuffer and sending the screenshots off to god knows where.

Presently, security researchers are already finding both major apps doing this on the Apple App Store (Facebook accessing the camera on the News Feed), and spyware apps happening on secondary Android stores (also on the official Play Store). Sounds like an opportunity for more security watchdog businesses.

The recent camera and clipboard things aren't private APIs, so the review process isn't looking for them being used in sneaky ways. I do appreciate iOS 14 adding a user-facing indication so we can tell when it's being abused though.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#509

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Android doesn't fit my needs. It doesn't integrate with my laptop and my watch. The hardware isn't as good. The privacy isn't as good. That would be like telling me that if I don't like the Honda Accord I can buy a pickup truck. They are different things and are not substitutes for each other. Android is not a substitute for iOS.

> Android is not a substitute for iOS. Regardless they compete in the same market, and Android dominates. You have a choice, and Apple is not a monopoly. Just because Apple doesn't make the product you want doesn't give you the right to compel them to do so.

Just because Apple doesn't have a monopoly in smartphone hardware doesn't mean they don't have a monopoly in iPhone software distribution.

Re: The App Store is a monopoly: Here's why the EU is correct to investigate Apple

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mono means "one", poly means many, as in: one supplier (Apple) for many customers (iPhone users).

So now we define monopoly as only one company can sell its own products? Doesn’t that make every company a monopoly?

The problem (if you agree there is one) is that Apple is the only company that can sell many other companies products, because they use technical restrictions to prevent those companies from selling their own products independently. They then use that advantage to charge an unreasonably high fee to consumers.
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