Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

appfairness.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#131

Post by Razengan »

burlesona wrote: post #114
AlexandrB wrote: post #86

From https://appfairness.org/our-vision/ > No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them. I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5? Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?

Yes, it means Sony has to add Steam to PS5 or else it is narrow and arbitrary. To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those. Instead we have…

> To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those.

This! A hundred times over, and over again.

An iPhone is an iPhone, competing with a million other phones (well, maybe thousands).

An iPad however, is another story, as Apple themselves like to push it as a general purpose "computer". Maybe that's why they forked out iPadOS, so that if they're ever forced to make changes based on device classification they could limit those changes to the iPad?

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#132

Post by izacus »

asou wrote: post #18
doublerabbit wrote: post #2

"The Coalition for App Fairness", I cannot not laugh. On the stage you have: Epic - Trying to be the next Valve/Steam. Happy to rip off their customers via in-game transactions. Spotify - Who rip off artists by either failing or paying very little in royalties. Tinder - Sells sex. None of these companies have any care for the actual developer; who are the folk trying to make a living from their creations.

Considering Tinder's parent ( The Match Group ) got sued by the FTC for fraud, not very smart to include them. Intentionally making subscriptions hard to cancel is one of the behaviors Apple's payment system seeks to prevent. As much as I like Tim Sweeney's arguments for lower royalties, he doesn't have half a toe to stand on. Don't want to pay the Apple tax, make your own phone. This fairness coalition is free to ma…

> Don't want to pay the Apple tax, make your own phone.

Oh, so the price of entry to the mobile app market is just: "creating your whole mobile device, mobile hardware, app ecosystem and operating system". Sounds simple and really in line with benefits that free market competition brings to users!

Maybe we should put this in the physical world as well - anyone trying to open a new store on the corner with different margins needs to found its own town, build all the roads, complete all infrastructure and persuade people to mov e to this town.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#133

Post by Apocryphon »

vonwoodson wrote: post #80

But, can we just say: f ck Fortnite. This is the wolf calling for homes to be built of straw. We hate “free to play”/“pay to win” and in-app purchases. We HATE* them. Thank god that Apple is taking a stand. I haven’t been so happy with a company since they refused to unlock that dude’s phone in California a few years back. (Which, I know, the lawsuit ended the same day an iOS “security” patch came out.) Seriously. If…

Apple just complied with an FBI subpoena this past month:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24495707

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#134

Post by zepto »

onion2k wrote: post #99
zepto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - and they control their own platform. Therefore they are a monopolist. /s I clearly don’t actually believe this, but the point is that if Apple is a Monopolist, then so is Epic.

On Epic's game store the product is PC software. Epic don't control how all PC software is sold. On Apple's app store the product is iOS software. Apple do control how all iOS software is sold. Seriously, this isn't complicated...

Sure but it ‘iOS software’ is an arbitrary category.

It’s all just software.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#135

Post by dividuum »

AlexandrB wrote: post #86

From https://appfairness.org/our-vision/ > No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them. I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5? Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?

Also why limit to app stores. I want to sell my own cosmetics on their fortnite item store (jk, I don’t). Valve allows that for games like CSGO, if I understand that correctly. The whole „they build a platform, I want a part“ is weird.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#136

Post by dlubarov »

asou wrote: post #18
doublerabbit wrote: post #2

"The Coalition for App Fairness", I cannot not laugh. On the stage you have: Epic - Trying to be the next Valve/Steam. Happy to rip off their customers via in-game transactions. Spotify - Who rip off artists by either failing or paying very little in royalties. Tinder - Sells sex. None of these companies have any care for the actual developer; who are the folk trying to make a living from their creations.

Considering Tinder's parent ( The Match Group ) got sued by the FTC for fraud, not very smart to include them. Intentionally making subscriptions hard to cancel is one of the behaviors Apple's payment system seeks to prevent. As much as I like Tim Sweeney's arguments for lower royalties, he doesn't have half a toe to stand on. Don't want to pay the Apple tax, make your own phone. This fairness coalition is free to ma…

> The government can not compel two companies to engage in a contract.

It seems like there ought to be exceptions to prevent certain gatekeeping behavior. As a very extreme example, suppose a company bought up a set of private roads in such a way that without their roads, people in a certain area could not access the rest of the country. One would hope that the government would compel the gatekeeper to do business with everyone! (Perhaps with some reasonable fees, weight limits, etc.)

Apple decided to insert themselves as a gatekeeper between iOS users and developers, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to them that deciding to "not engage" with some parties raises antitrust concerns, since it means blocking users and developers from engaging in mutually beneficial relationships.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#137

Post by criddell »

karpierz wrote: post #115
grahamburger wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot of grey area between "legally mandated to make it easy " and "legally mandated to not make it impossibly difficult."

I agree, but the fundamental question is do you want the government to regulate what kind of OS interface should be legal?

When it's good for consumers, sure.

At one point AT&T was required to allow consumers to buy and connect their own handsets rather than only allowing them to rent from AT&T. Isn't that similar?

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#138

Post by uryga »

sneak wrote: post #76
candiddevmike wrote: post #62

Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by the devices. Users should have the freedom to install any software on their devices, period. Users should also have the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices. This applies to all electronics--video game consoles, TVs, printers, who knows what else…

If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them. For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on. I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways. Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were…

> If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them.

doesn't follow. people buying a thing despite flaw X just means don't consider X a dealbreaker, not that they actually want X

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#139

Post by pb7 »

bad_good_guy wrote: post #105
sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If users didn’t want these things, users wouldn’t buy them. For the vast majority of people, and iPhone is way, way better than a computer that can run any app, precisely because it can’t run any app they click on. I’m a hacker, so I would love to be able to install any software I want on my iPhone, and introspect it in other ways. Most users, however, would have a way worse experience using their phone if they were…

Its a lot simpler than users wanting a device that 'cant run any app they click on'. The vast vast majority of users don't consider anything except the marketing. And apple is good at marketing. So people want iOS devices.

Marketing only works for the first generation of purchases. Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings year after year so when a new product comes out, consumers know they will get a product they will be really happy with. That is not the case with many other companies.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#140

Post by Floegipoky »

zepto wrote: post #39
mFixman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three allow games, music, and dating to happen outside of their platforms. The Apple equivalent would be Microsoft not allowing any program being installed from outside their store or Tinder closing down all bars in a city to lower competition.

What does apple not allow outside it’s platform? How would they even control that?

There is nothing _but_ their platform- from the hardware, to OS, to app store, they're arguing that their platform encompasses an entire vertically-integrated business model. Microsoft got nailed for shipping their web browser with their OS (which users could easily replace), but it's fine for Apple to control all software a user can install? Take a monopoly and call it a platform, and it's fine? No. I have little love for Epic, but I'm glad somebody has the money to try to buy some law that will ultimately result in users having more control over the technology they depend on.
Post reply on HN