Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#51

Post by hu3 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

harry8 wrote: post #45

hugi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I choose to spend my money on devices from a company that's explicitly and repeatedly stated that their mission is privacy. But if you choose to buy phones from ad companies, it's your decision.

They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them. Their commitment isn't valuable or enforceable or anything other than a dodgy sales pitch. Really. They can encode it in contact in a second and choose not to.

> They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them.

Like when Apple dropped end-to-end encryption on iCloud because FBI asked them politely.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#52

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

tracer4201 wrote: post #49

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

I specifically buy Apple products because I trust their App Store. I trust Apple with my information. I’m counting on these guys to get out software I download from the App Store. And I trust them to protect my privacy, better than anyone else. You’re calling them anti consumer. But that’s wrong. This is why I give them my business, and if they bowed to pressure so people can execute whatever software on my device, I…

I seek this asinine take everywhere around here. Opening these platforms doesn't kill them, it forces them to compete.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#53

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #9

ent101 wrote: post #6

I feel like we keep getting these inquiries/lawsuits/press releases every year but, literally, nothing gets any better at all. Every developer KNOWS that Google is extremely abusive towards them solely because of their position in the market yet nothing ever improves. If these are not illegal monopolies, what is?!

Well, the problem is that they aren't monopolies. They may be problematic but we don't have laws or regulations to deal with this specific situation. And when we call it a "monopoly" because that seems to be the closest thing then the defenders of these organizations can say "but it's not a monopoly!" and they are right. So if you think it is problematic to have two players in a market even when they are on equal foo…

"Citation needed". Whether they’re a monopoly or not is an opinion, one which Epic is currently trying to assert in court.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#54

Post by gonehome » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

I agree - Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage and it requires that their 'store' is the only available store so app devs can't bypass their requirements.

I like Apple forcing use of in-app-payments, I like Apple giving me subscription control to make canceling easy. I like Apple blocking app tracking and forcing design constraints.

That said, the 30% weakens their entire argument about this and is a racket. If they want to charge a yearly deployment fee or something fine, but 30% of a company's income via IAP? That's obnoxious and anti-competitive, particularly in cases like Spotify where they directly compete and undercut them in the same market.

Apple is skimming a tax off the top and they're forcing everyone to pay the toll. It weakens their entire argument. I wish they would stop, because I think a world with multiple stores and such would be a huge pain and customers would suffer because of it.

If you think it's a pain to have 15 streaming services or 10 different game distributors all with their own shitty incentives - it'd be that on the phone.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#55

Post by edrxty » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

By the same logic we should just eliminate free will because it's dangerous sometimes. I hate these arguments as it is allowing incompetence to drive innovation. There are plenty of other options whereby 3rd party apps/app stores could be installed safely, just like on any other computer system. If you need to give someone with diminished mental faculties a locked down device, that can be made explicit.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#56

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #52

tracer4201 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically buy Apple products because I trust their App Store. I trust Apple with my information. I’m counting on these guys to get out software I download from the App Store. And I trust them to protect my privacy, better than anyone else. You’re calling them anti consumer. But that’s wrong. This is why I give them my business, and if they bowed to pressure so people can execute whatever software on my device, I…

I seek this asinine take everywhere around here. Opening these platforms doesn't kill them, it forces them to compete.

[deleted]

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#57

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

jbverschoor wrote: post #8

Well I love my Apple App Store. It protects me for certain things with payments, and it’s another line of defense against some attacks.

Does it actually? Or does OS security models protect you from attacks?

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#58

Post by ninjin » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

This point of view comes up from time to time and it is and has always been a false choice. What you need is a consensual mechanism to relinquish in part or entirely aspects of your control to Apple in exchange for convenience/security. Think “parental control”, it does not come with the need to shut down a device as a whole, but simply with an interface to bar certain areas off if you so desire.

Now, implementing this technically could be somewhat challenging and there is no obvious line to me where the boundary for customisation/freedom should be. But I think a first step is recognising the false choice that you present so that we can move the discussion to the details of where that technical/societal line should be rather than talk in freedom/non-freedom absolutes.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#59

Post by ajayyy » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #50

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Let’s not pretend they do these things as charity. Chrome is open source because, as a fork of WebKit, it has to be. For other things, they use open source to drive adoption.

This is not true, webkit is BSD license. If that were true, then Edge, Opera, etc. would also be open-source.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#60

Post by rawtxapp » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

That also gives you a false sense of security and putting too much trust on Apple, some people have discovered it the hard way [1].

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/30/trezor-...