Live data from Hacker News

Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

theverge.com

131–140 of 387 posts

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#131
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure that will have massive opposition, because they are deathly scared of opening their devices back to the general-purpose computers they actually are. Who's the opposition coming from? Apple? They can fart around and waste time and money on appeals, but if they get hit with an antitrust ruling there isn't much they'll be able to do about it.

So tell me again when an “antitrust” ruling has ever been applied to a company with less than 50%?

A lot, actually. It's called a "per se" ruling.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings-alpha

Most antitrust cases are for things like price fixing, bid rigging, and mergers.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me again when an “antitrust” ruling has ever been applied to a company with less than 50%?

A lot, actually. It's called a "per se" ruling. https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings-alpha Most antitrust cases are for things like price fixing, bid rigging, and mergers.

So “a lot” was a very specific example....

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#133

As an app developer myself, with apps on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with over 250K monthly active users, I have become so frustrated with Apple's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its App Store regulations, its bullying and coercion of developers, its extortionate fees, and its monopolistic anti-competitive practices, that I have stopped updating my apps on the App Store. I wonder how many oth…

I'm an independent app developer too, and I share your frustrations. Sometimes I wish I had the luxury of walking away from the App Store -- but with ~80% of my revenue coming from iOS, I can't do that. Similarly, I can't give up on owning a Mac because you need one to develop for iOS. On one hand, it's super annoying whenever Apple rejects an update for some arbitrary reason. But on the other hand, making a living b…

I feel your pain. I would encourage you to grow and develop your audience on Android. There is a big market there to be tapped, which with some effort could equal or exceed your revenue from Apple. It's much easier to write cross-platform apps now than it was five years ago, thanks to frameworks like Flutter.

Of course, Apple would like to have us all believe that app developers couldn't make a living by writing and selling apps before the Invention of the App Store, and that they have done us all a great favor, one that warrants us paying them 30% of our income.

However, the reality is, this has always been possible. As early as the beginning of the 80s, indy developers made millions writing games for the ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro, the Amiga, and so on. You just had to work with a publisher or distributor, of which there were hundreds and it was a free market. In the 90s millions could be made from DOS and Windows apps in the same way. In the early '00s, it became possible to self-publish on the web and our apps would be indexed and marketed for us by search engines; we didn't even need a publisher, but could still choose to go through one if the value add merited the cost.

So there has been no radical innovation, no Invention that has changed what is possible for us to achieve as app developers. It's arguably a little bit easier to get our apps to market than it used to be, but given how onerous Apple's "guidelines" have become, I'm not even sure that is true. Writing websites serving apps and integrating with checkout engines just isn't that difficult... and most apps still need marketing to succeed because being listed in the App Store is not by itself sufficient.

The only thing that has changed, now that the mobile computing revolution has almost reached saturation point and the majority of screen time by consumers is on mobile devices, is that we are now all forced to publish through a single store on each platform, and we are permitted no alternative if we want to reach our customers. Equally, our customers are permitted no alternative way to obtain our products. There is no competition between publishers on Apple's platform, because there is only one publisher, Apple, by fiat of Apple; and we are now forced to pay a 30% tax, a figure which is not challenged by the usual mechanisms of competition, and supply and demand, which make markets efficient.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#134
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a libertarian. I believe in personal choice and freedom. But you have tons of freedom here. Instead of using an OS (iOS in this case) with 25% market share that forces you to go through their AppStore, you can choose to use Android (which has 75% market share) and side load apps to your hearts content. reference: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

Libertarianism is d̵e̵a̵d̵ * slowly dying , because it fails to recognize that corporations can exert a similar amount of oppressive force as governments. Your platform of choice is now your country, and the software that platform runs is your government.

Can a corporation reach into my bank account and take my money via civil forfeiture without a trial? Can a corporation in prison me? Can a corporation break into my house without identifying themselves and shoot me? Can a corporation stop me while driving down the street for “fitting the description”?

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#135
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is based on a lay-definition and not a legal definition. It's good to know your etymology, but that doesn't get far in court. From the wikipedia article on us antitrust law: > When enterprises are not under public ownership, and where regulation does not foreclose the application of antitrust law, two requirements must be shown for the offense of monopolization. First, the alleged monopolist must posses…

>Your argument is based on a lay definition and not a legal definition..,From the wikipedia article on us antitrust law: I’m going to let that sit right there.

The article literally spells out the legal definition, summarizes numerous actual antitrust rulings, with plentiful citations to relevant laws and case law, many with full and well researched articles. Maybe give it a read. You might even find an example where 4 tobacco companies, each with less than 50% market share, were found to be abusing market dominance.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Or, keep on using the definition from your imagination. Whatever works.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#136
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a libertarian. I believe in personal choice and freedom. But you have tons of freedom here. Instead of using an OS (iOS in this case) with 25% market share that forces you to go through their AppStore, you can choose to use Android (which has 75% market share) and side load apps to your hearts content. reference: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

Libertarianism is d̵e̵a̵d̵ * slowly dying , because it fails to recognize that corporations can exert a similar amount of oppressive force as governments. Your platform of choice is now your country, and the software that platform runs is your government.

I wouldn't say libertarianism is "dead" but rather is quick to fall prey to logical contradictions justifying totalitarianism, similar to the two prime time political teams.

You're right that there is little difference between a corporation that one is de facto forced to interact with, and a bona fide government. For example, one can easily reframe USG as a corporation that you form a contract with by owning land, renting, or being on a public way. This does not mean that our current society is a libertarian paradise.

Turing completeness shows us the ouroboros of expressivity with programming languages. It's unfortunate people let their guard down in other areas.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#137
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your argument is based on a lay definition and not a legal definition..,From the wikipedia article on us antitrust law: I’m going to let that sit right there.

The article literally spells out the legal definition, summarizes numerous actual antitrust rulings, with plentiful citations to relevant laws and case law, many with full and well researched articles. Maybe give it a read. You might even find an example where 4 tobacco companies, each with less than 50% market share, were found to be abusing market dominance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_l…

[deleted]

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot, actually. It's called a "per se" ruling. https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings-alpha Most antitrust cases are for things like price fixing, bid rigging, and mergers.

So “a lot” was a very specific example....

The below took me about a minute to find through Google.

U.S. v Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S 150 (1940); United States v. Sealy, Inc., 388 U.S. 350 (1967); United States v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U.S. 596 (1972); Craftsmen Limousine, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 363 F.3d 761 (8th Cir. 2004), Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. US 356 US (1940); Agnew v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 683 F.3d 328 (7th Circ. 2012); or In re Flat Glass Antitrust Litigation 385 F.3d 350 (3rd Cir. 2004), National Soc. of Professional Engineers v. U.S. 435 U.S. (1878); In re Insurance Brokerage Antitrust Litigation, 618 F 3d 300 (2010); or In re Southeastern Milk Antitrust Litigation, 739 F.3d 262 (2014).

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#139
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your argument is based on a lay definition and not a legal definition..,From the wikipedia article on us antitrust law: I’m going to let that sit right there.

The article literally spells out the legal definition, summarizes numerous actual antitrust rulings, with plentiful citations to relevant laws and case law, many with full and well researched articles. Maybe give it a read. You might even find an example where 4 tobacco companies, each with less than 50% market share, were found to be abusing market dominance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_l…

You see the part about “collusion”? That’s why random HN posters make horrible lawyers.

As far as IBM (the case was dropped after 13 years and nothing came of it) and MS, they clearly had more than 50%.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So tell me again when an “antitrust” ruling has ever been applied to a company with less than 50%? 50% of what is the issue, though. Some arbitrary descriptive market the target company preferred to be used for the antitrust analysis, or the actual market in which substitution, and thus actual competition, occurs as found by the court hearing the case? Because defining the relevant market is not infrequently a cont…

So can I define Epic having a monopoly on being able to buy things in Fortnite? What if I want to sell my cool “Scarface dance” next to the “Carlton dance” within Fortnite without paying the “Epic Tax”?

I guess that’s the value of evaluating on a case by case basis. Depends on what you define as a market worth pursuing antitrust issues for. I would also argue this informally happens when people start to talk about antitrust as it’s usually applied to markets that are general enough that more or less everyone participates in (or feels consequences from) them.
Post reply on HN