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

appfairness.org

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

#401

Post by stale2002 »

pb7 wrote: post #349
ViViDboarder wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because app stores are acting as platforms as well as used to restrict third parties and improve first party products. Does Fortnite even have a platform for developing cosmetics and selling them? If not, then this argument misses the mark. Consoles do provide salient examples though.

Why isn't Epic forced to make it a platform? They have a large captive audience with money and I want a cut of it. Opening it up to everyone will drive competition to the digital skin market, and as we all know from this thread, that's a good thing. Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?

> Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?

The answer to this question is quite obviously that the smart phone market is much much larger, and has a much higher impact on society, than an in game cosmetics market.

This is what courts care about. They care about real life consumer impact.

And anyone who is not stupid, or intentionally trying to mislead people, can understand than the smart phone market matters a whole lot more, than an singular in game cosmetics market, which means that preventing monopolization in the phone market is way more important.

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

#402

Post by wvenable »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #202
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…

The logical conclusion then is that the only device that should be allowed to be manufactured is a personal computer. Companies producing specialized hardware/software couplings does not preclude another company developing open options. I usually choose an open option for most of what I do but when it comes to some mindless gaming or my phone that I use for some sensitive matters I want them limited in their scope in…

> does not preclude another company developing open options.

Agreed. But they don't. I think this the point of government intervention to require or provide incentive to do something which benefits society even if it doesn't benefit the company.

Automobile safety and emissions limits comes to mind for me.

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

#403

Post by dingaling »

jonny_eh wrote: post #382
danShumway wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. A better analogy would be Cheerios sticking an insert inside their box of cereal that said, "save $1 at Costco". That kind of behavior is pretty common with physical retailers; most boxed products I buy will contain inserts that advertise replacement parts and other products from other sources. Apple isn't just banning apps from mentioning competing stores in app descriptions, it's banning them from mentioning co…

This! Even better would be an insert in the box saying "buy future Cheerios from Cheerios.com at 30% off".

I frequently receive inserts like that from sellers on eBay, promoting their own direct-sales site.

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

#404

Post by spullara »

danShumway wrote: post #11

Can we just link directly to the advocacy group's page ( https://appfairness.org/ )? I'm not certain the article is adding anything. ---- I'm generally supportive of at least some of Epic's arguments towards Apple, and I do believe that Apple (and multiple other FAANG companies) are engaged in anti-competitive behavior that's currently hurting the market. But a lot of the arguments I'm reading on the App Fairness sit…

When someone offers a coupon, that company pays the store the difference. I don't think they are asking to do that.

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

#405

Post by cafed00d »

nicetryguy wrote: post #388
clansimus wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "great for developers" just shouldn't matter. It should be about what the consumers want.

That's an easy opinion to have when it's not your livelihood. Does consumer centric focus necessitate draconian developer policies?

> That's an easy opinion to have when it's not your livelihood.

Isn't this sensationalist?

Developers, just like Apple or any other software maker, can be incentivized to work _against_ the consumer. PC on '00s had many developers whose livelihood compelled them to bundle their apps as "free trials" in PCs. As a user, I had to deal with pop-up after pop-up asking me to buy the full thing; each of those apps took up disk space, power and, most importantly, my brain cells. ugh.

Developer livelihoods are not as important as a frustration-free user experience.

>Does consumer centric focus necessitate draconian developer policies?

>Who do you think makes all of those wonderful apps "consumers want" anyway?

Agreed. Apps from 3rd party devs makes the user experience wonderful. But not _solely_ because of the developer.

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

#406

Post by stale2002 »

Shivetya wrote: post #128
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?

Well they never want to take this to its logical conclusion which is every manufacturer would have to provide the means for anyone, including direct competitors, a means to sell software through their device. So do we also force any app store owner to also provide access to their payment services as well? If Apple is forced to open the iPhone do they also have to grant access to the phones secure means of payments? T…

> which is every manufacturer would have to provide the means for anyone, including direct competitors, a means to sell software through their device.

Nope! This is not true.

The court case is only regarding companies that have significant market power.

So, if a device manufacturer does not have significant market power, then the court case, which is regarding section 2 if the Sherman anti trust act, would not apply and they would not be forced to do anything.

> So what prevents Apple from permitting third party stores but still restricting that only signed and reviewed applications can run?

What prevents them is that they have significant and durable market power, and that their behavior is anti competitive.

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

#407

Post by dhagz »

nguyenkien wrote: post #46
chacha2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Website's broken on my Firefox, won't scroll.

Same problem on Edge chromium.

If you're not auto-accepting cookies, then the site won't let you scroll/do anything until you accept them.

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

#408

Post by damnyou »

asou wrote: post #150
damnyou wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the world I inhabit, Apple is the one that intentionally makes it really hard to cancel subscriptions. You literally cannot cancel a subscription to an iOS app from an Android phone or Linux PC.

You can't subscribe without an IOS Device , Mac or Windows PC. If your in some strange edge case where your subscribing to services and then discarding your IOS devices before canceling , that's on you. In a worst case scenario you could borrow a friend's Windows PC. As much as I love Linux I can't imagine most Linux users don't have at least one windows PC or Mac. If we really want to get technical, spin up an AWS i…

No, what the fuck? It's not "on me". It's on Apple to make it easy to cancel even if I no longer have an Apple product or Windows PC on hand.

Borrow a friend's PC? Spin up an AWS Windows instance? Seriously, WTF?! I can cancel my Android subscriptions from anywhere with a web browser.

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

#409

Post by spullara »

ksk wrote: post #221
dpratt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a flawed analogy. The correct one would be Cheerios printing "If you buy me at Costco, I cost $1 less" on the outside of the box. No rational retailer that isn't Costco would carry that product.

Its not on the outside of the box, its on the inside. Apple forbids in-app discussion. I wonder what Apple would say if the app had a browser component that directs users to a web-page. These draconian rules are such a clusterF* hope these guys succeed. BTW, all analogies are flawed in some manner or another. If you take away the abstraction, every single one breaks down. And then you end up talking about the intrica…

Their current position protects consumers from being defrauded. I'm all for it.

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

#410

Post by mantap »

M4v3R wrote: post #395
izacus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. This would be true if iPhone would be only a toy. But it's also the only source of person-to-person communication, source of news and primary computing device for large part of USA population. And that makes it very different from a PS5. By market share. By use. By impact. And IMPACT is what we're measuring here.

Where do you draw the line, though? PlayStation / Xbox are basically computers from a technical standpoint. They have hundreds of millions of users. They also store your personal data and credit card information should you provide it.

The only people who have only a PlayStation or Xbox as their single computer - no phone, no laptop, just a games console - are kids.
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