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

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

#571

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #565

scarface74 wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right because ramming your car into someone else is the equivalent of not being able to side load apps on a phone that you don’t have to buy.

Right, because that's exactly what I said. The point that you missed, since you're being extremely uncharitable, is that rule by government works more often than it doesn't. Nobody agrees with you here. That's why all of your comments that got any attention are disappearing.

See the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Crime” as counterpoints.

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

#572

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #570

scarface74 wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s every suggestion that Spotify are struggling to defend themselves against artists who demand bigger payments. So you’re okay with Spotify “defending themselves” against artist who want more of a cut? It takes 180,000 plays to make minimum wage. https://help.songtrust.com/knowledge/what-is-the-pay-rate-fo... Spotify also takes a 30% cut. Artist are also complaining about Spotify’s payout. https://www.businesso…

> So you’re okay with Spotify “defending themselves” against artist who want more of a cut? Yes, there’s no god given right to be paid for your art. Just because I put some tones together and throw it on the Internet doesn’t mean I deserve to paid significant amounts of money. Or indeed any money at all. > Actually Apple Music pays artists more per stream than Spotify. That only proves my point, competition is drivin…

Yes, there’s no god given right to be paid for your art. Just because I put some tones together and throw it on the Internet doesn’t mean I deserve to paid significant amounts of money. Or indeed any money at all.

But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%?

Not only that but Apple Music may soon be the dominant streaming platform, and if they can do that would resorting to anti-competitive behaviour then is show that artists can make a living, and consumers can continue paying ~$7/month for music.

How do you propose that Apple becomes more dominant than Spotify worldwide when Apple only has a 15% market share? Are people really signing up for Apple Music on Android or are the few Android users who use Apple Music doing so only as part of a Family Plan where the other member of the household is an iOS user?

That only proves my point, competition is driving up payments to artists, the system works.

It’s only “working” because Apple, Amazon, and Google don’t need for music streaming to be profitable - unlike Spotify. They can operate at break even. Artists aren’t choosing one over the other.

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

#573

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #559

scarface74 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is going to be the year of the dominance of the web app after close to 15 years?

You asked if there are a large amount of successful web apps on Android, I provided evidence that points to the likelihood of it happening on that platform over iOS, due to official first party interest and efforts and improving them. You're moving the goalposts, and arguing just for the sake of arguing.

You said “more likely to happen” not “has happened”.

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

#574

Post by d0gbread » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #567

d0gbread wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More lowest common denominator talk despite these issues being economic which was ranked as the #2 issue in the source you presented. The three options you present are a completely different level of granularity, I'm not clear why you're ranking them. No one is a single issue voter down to Apple's 30% cut, that's just a piece being discussed to better understand the larger issue (or lack thereof, if that's your point…

And people concerned about “the economy” care about geeks not being able to sideload or having to go to a website to subscribe to Netflix. Out of the 5 major tech companies, the only one that has a negative image in the mind of most people is Facebook - and they still use it. The issues that you bring up don’t affect most people. Most people willingly spend their money at Apple and Amazon. People spend more to buy Ap…

You keep drawing me back in because you state the issue, but don't seem to see it as an issue - you're not seeing the forest but the trees are obvious.

It's not about the workarounds, those are symptoms and some of the reasons this is a thing in the first place.

The face that sentiment around Facebook is generally negative but most still use it is testiment to the monopolistic powers these discussions are all about. Could people migrate to Twitter or some other social network? Sure, maybe. Are they? No. Why? Everyone thought Facebook was a blip in a string of Friendster, MySpace, etc -- but boy they've had staying power despite the low switching cost we thought we had on the early internet. How is that not worth exploring to the fullest?

We don't actually know if these issues affect most people. What would Amazon be like without their Amazon products crushing their third party partners? What would Facebook be like without WhatsApp and Instagram? What would Apple be like if you could plug your weather app of choice in vs their acquisition and likely destruction of all current iOS weather apps? Will Apple nail the DarkSky integration and make a top notch user experience? Almost certainly -- that's not in question.

All of that has a ripple effect through the economy and right now there's purely discovery happening and I still haven't heard one good reason why this discovery process isn't worthwhile, outside of its lack of effectiveness, from the very people who seem to be against any kind of change.

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

#575

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #572

avianlyric wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you’re okay with Spotify “defending themselves” against artist who want more of a cut? Yes, there’s no god given right to be paid for your art. Just because I put some tones together and throw it on the Internet doesn’t mean I deserve to paid significant amounts of money. Or indeed any money at all. > Actually Apple Music pays artists more per stream than Spotify. That only proves my point, competition is drivin…

Yes, there’s no god given right to be paid for your art. Just because I put some tones together and throw it on the Internet doesn’t mean I deserve to paid significant amounts of money. Or indeed any money at all. But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%? Not only that but Apple Music may soon be the dominant streaming platform, and if they can do that would resorting to anti-compet…

> But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%?

No, but the market clearly values developer time significantly more than artist time.

If you wanna have a debate about the relative worth of people professions to society vs their pay. Then talking about the difference between a sports persons pay and doctors pay tends to make for a better argument.

> How do you propose that Apple becomes more dominant than Spotify worldwide when Apple only has a 15% market share? Are people really signing up for Apple Music on Android or are the few Android users who use Apple Music doing so only as part of a Family Plan where the other member of the household is an iOS user?

Apple own almost 20% of the streaming market to Spotify’s 35% and show no signs of slowing down. Apples hardware market clearly hasn’t been a limitation so far. But again that isn’t a surprise when you consider that core markets for streaming are mostly western. And Apple have very high HW market share there, such as almost 50% of the US mobile market.

> It’s only “working” because Apple, Amazon, and Google don’t need for music streaming to be profitable - unlike Spotify. They can operate at break even. Artists aren’t choosing one over the other.

That just shows that Spotify’s cut isn’t unreasonable, they’re barely making a profit.

Ultimately artists choose to make art, they aren’t forced into. They, like any small business owner, takes a gamble. They trade a stable income for the opportunity to do some they love, and do something that has unbounded upside. If they strike a cord with popular society then they stand to make millions, an opportunity that a software developer earning a salary doesn’t have.

If they don’t like that deal, they get a salaried or wage job like the rest of us.

I started my own business for the reasons above, it didn’t pan out, and now I have a salaried job. But you don’t see me gripping about how someone else should have paid me more to run my business.

Simple fact of the matter is that society just doesn’t value artists that much. Neither Spotify or Apple is gonna change that.

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

#576

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

d0gbread wrote: post #574

scarface74 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And people concerned about “the economy” care about geeks not being able to sideload or having to go to a website to subscribe to Netflix. Out of the 5 major tech companies, the only one that has a negative image in the mind of most people is Facebook - and they still use it. The issues that you bring up don’t affect most people. Most people willingly spend their money at Apple and Amazon. People spend more to buy Ap…

You keep drawing me back in because you state the issue, but don't seem to see it as an issue - you're not seeing the forest but the trees are obvious. It's not about the workarounds, those are symptoms and some of the reasons this is a thing in the first place. The face that sentiment around Facebook is generally negative but most still use it is testiment to the monopolistic powers these discussions are all about.…

Facebook is the least essential of all the companies. Most people know FB is creepy, if they willingly choose to use it, should they government prevent them?

The weather app has no special significance on iOS. You can delete it. Choose another weather app. Put it in the Notification Center. Add a Siri shortcut for it.

Would the founders of the weather app that Apple bought be better off if Apple had just added the functionality instead of acquiring them?

Would Instagram had grown as fast without FB ad network and social graph? Would the founders be better off if the government had stopped Instagram from buying them?

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

#577

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #575

scarface74 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there’s no god given right to be paid for your art. Just because I put some tones together and throw it on the Internet doesn’t mean I deserve to paid significant amounts of money. Or indeed any money at all. But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%? Not only that but Apple Music may soon be the dominant streaming platform, and if they can do that would resorting to anti-compet…

> But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%? No, but the market clearly values developer time significantly more than artist time. If you wanna have a debate about the relative worth of people professions to society vs their pay. Then talking about the difference between a sports persons pay and doctors pay tends to make for a better argument. > How do you propose that Apple becomes…

Ultimately artists choose to make art, they aren’t forced into. They, like any small business owner, takes a gamble.

You could say the same about app makers. In fact, I am sure that I made more as “mobile developer” in 2008 working for a company that developed Windows CE apps for field services than most indy app makers make in 2020.

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

#578

Post by avianlyric » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #577

avianlyric wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there is a God given right for software developers to get more than 70%? No, but the market clearly values developer time significantly more than artist time. If you wanna have a debate about the relative worth of people professions to society vs their pay. Then talking about the difference between a sports persons pay and doctors pay tends to make for a better argument. > How do you propose that Apple becomes…

Ultimately artists choose to make art, they aren’t forced into. They, like any small business owner, takes a gamble. You could say the same about app makers. In fact, I am sure that I made more as “mobile developer” in 2008 working for a company that developed Windows CE apps for field services than most indy app makers make in 2020.

Yes you can. It what happens when the barrier to entry for an industry collapses, costs of goods also collapses.

But the positive impact of the pie growing, more people being employed, and cheaper goods is hard to argue with.

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

#579

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #205

inopinatus wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually do avoid installing all of those, and it is due to profound mistrust, so there's no reductio ad absurdum on that basis.

Those were high-profile examples. But most apps implement some sort of telemetry even just basic product analytics e.g. MixPanel or Google Analytics. Both of which collect a wealth of user data. So if I were you I would not use any app or search engine. Just to be on the safe side.

[deleted]

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

#580

Post by inopinatus » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #205

inopinatus wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually do avoid installing all of those, and it is due to profound mistrust, so there's no reductio ad absurdum on that basis.

Those were high-profile examples. But most apps implement some sort of telemetry even just basic product analytics e.g. MixPanel or Google Analytics. Both of which collect a wealth of user data. So if I were you I would not use any app or search engine. Just to be on the safe side.

If you were me, you might've deleted that remark in shame after realising it is maximising snark at the expense of worthwhile advice.

What I actually do is: minimise the number of apps installed, run a pihole to misroute unwanted traffic, run a VPN tunnel between home and a VPS that I manage myself for location masking and additional egress filtering, install a nonmonetized content blocker for which the source code is available (and run in advanced mode, with assets manually unblocked only by need), and use DuckDuckGo as my search engine.

Neither MixPanel nor GA are in my good books, and if a website requires such spyware to load before it functions, I abandon it.

What's more, I don't allow anything of the sort to be installed on my own services. The only third-party assets permitted are the card-capture fields from our payment gateway.