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

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

#191

Post by emodendroket »

FpUser wrote: post #137
emodendroket wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people like yourself, there is Android and there is jailbreaking. But I suspect most people do not actually desire complete control over their phones more than they desire a curated experience.

Modern phone is a powerful computer but both Google and Apple along with the phone manufacturers do not really want me to use it as one. And I am not prepared do dance around their platforms doing some hacks. The end result is that my current smartphone is mostly just a phone with couple of off-line apps like GPS and apps to install firmware to various gizmos like a drone. I do not even have data plan.

Well, I don't really like to fiddle with it that much either... but that's part of why I appreciate the App Store. I don't have to vet the software myself and if I buy a new phone everything just gets installed after I log in. It might be nice if they provided a way to install third-party apps without resorting to Test Flight or a dev certificate or jailbreaking, but I don't think I would actually use such a capability. I never did in many years of using an Android phone.

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

#192

Post by yc12340 »

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.

> You can have third-party Android app stores.

This is only half-true. Google allows users to install third-party stores. Because only handful of geeks do that.

But if your competing app store gains enough adoption and you make deal with device vendors to preinstall it, the negotiations will mysteriously break down and the other party will grow quiet... Reportedly, because their (NDA-covered) contract with Google does not allow them to preinstall software from Google competitors.

See also: Google fined in Russia for prohibiting vendors from installing Yandex applications on devices [1]

But court decision apparently wasn't enough, so Yandex had to lobby the government to force smartphone vendors to preinstall their apps or get booted out of Russian market [2]

1: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/17/google-reaches-7-8-million...

2: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-technology-softwar...

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

#193

Post by havernator »

Barrin92 wrote: post #180
havernator wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, ~100% of the software available for iOS has to follow Apple's rules, offer a consistent and safe payment method, and install through the App Store. I assume you think that would change, else why have other app stores. That's what I don't want. I want as close to 100% of the software for iOS as possible to have to follow the rules. That's part of why I chose iOS.

Sorry, but why exactly do you want other users to be deprived of software choice on iOS? Like how is that enhancing your experience? I get that people want to use Apple only software, in which case I'd understand why they don't want other software on the Apple Store, but how the hell is your experience worse if there is another store available on the phone? Just never use it? It's like as if Microsoft locked down Win…

Apple can no longer force vendors who want access to iOS to play by the rules that I want them to be forced to play by, is the main risk of adding more stores. I bought iOS devices in part for the effects of that leverage—I chose that. It's also a choice.

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

#194

Post by rektide »

i really don't mind Google's app store because:

1. most Android phones I've seen let you install other app stores. the OS is built to support running additional app-stores. it takes a manufacturer being cruel to mess this liberty up on Android.

2. i can run other browsers on Android. iOS does not allow any form of competing web technology to exist on their platform. iOS makes everyone showing web content use Safari. on Android, i can use Google's app store to load other browsers which are free to support different sets of online technologies. on Apple's platforms, i will always be restricted in connecting to others with whatever means Apple affords me in their Safari browser.

of the two entities, i only see one company engaged in outright anti-competitive behaviors. i would like to see both reduced in presence & dominance, yet i myself also often use Google's Play Store on my Android devices, and only occasionally reach out to the alternatives like F-droid. but i know, i expect & i do use these fallback stores on Android. and i do run other browsers. i would never considering buying an anti-consumer anti-competitive device like an Apple product, because sometimes good software does have a hard time making it through the gauntlet of approval & i do not want that constraint. i would not consider buying an anti-consumer anti-competitve device like an Apple product, because sometimes there are interesting new web & online standards & protocols & forever being limited to what Safari does is incredibly constraining. i would like to use Play Store less, but i am glad that the ecosystem it's built upon does not deliberately exclude all alternatives.

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

#195

Post by encryptluks2 »

orangeoxidation wrote: post #106
ninjin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

It's not possible to make this a switch the user can turn on or off (with reasonable effort). Take the alternative app store. If they are allowed you will have some with exclusive apps. Those apps are then outside the apple rules and you have to have to hit the switch if you want them. So you loose out on the app or on all your apps being apple rule / account / payment compatible. If there is no alternative store you…

If you lose out on an app because they decide to exclude themselves from the app store, couldn't you just find another app that doesn't exclude themselves that caters more towards your philosophy?

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

#196

Post by 8note »

hugi wrote: post #30
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.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

How do you know that apple isn't using your information to sell you things?

They sell plenty of things, including these apps

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

#197

Post by havernator »

fredophile wrote: post #170
simondotau wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you be willing to pay a premium for that? That's literally what millions of customers do, whether they do so explicitly or not.

Could you explain what you mean about customers paying a premium today? I don't think any apps that are on iOS and other platforms charge more for iOS. I also don't believe an iPhone costs more than a similarly high end Android phone. Where's the premium?

Some definitely do charge more for e.g. subscriptions on iOS than they do if you go through their website. They can't advertise the website option in their app, but it can exist.

Last time I made that mistake the site's subscription management interface was rather... uh, minimum viable product. Switching to paying the Apple premium was well worth it.

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

#198

Post by ehsankia »

yc12340 wrote: post #192
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.

> You can have third-party Android app stores. This is only half-true. Google allows users to install third-party stores. Because only handful of geeks do that. But if your competing app store gains enough adoption and you make deal with device vendors to preinstall it, the negotiations will mysteriously break down and the other party will grow quiet... Reportedly, because their (NDA-covered) contract with Google doe…

How come this never happened to Amazon and Samsung app stores?

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

#199

Post by ThatPlayer »

jackson1442 wrote: post #80
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then stick with it? Nobody is killing the app store. Having options doesn't kill anything except maybe Apple and Googles profits.

There will also be the fragmentation that you see with streaming services today; apps will choose an app store, there will be exclusivity deals; your kid will install a pirate app store to get games filled with deceptive crap in them for free, etc.

And fragmentation is competition. The issue with Apple App Store is they're using their monopoly to stop competition.

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

#200

Post by partomniscient »

hugi wrote: post #132
thombles wrote: post #120

Incidentally, if you have a business registered for GST in Australia you have to submit a quarterly activity statement. The tax office website had bizarre authentication requirements but the browser plugin was at least cross-platform. They now require you to use the myGovID app, which is - you guessed it - available only on the App Store and Play Store. You can't even run a business without being part of the duopoly.…

How is that legal? Isn't that just incompetent government?

We're living in a time where if you don't have a mobile phone you can't complete the online form and therefore the transaction becomes impossible. This is even worse if you're on the phone and the person on the other end of the phone that works for the company is the one filling in the digital form.

The fact that its now further embedded in an app. owned by international conglomerates is hardly suprising. They're slowly losing what control they had.

Governments are incapable of doing sensible things involving ever changing technology. There are too many things understood by too few people for sensible decisions to be made, let alone worrying about do these things age well and just add to the behemoth of red tape^H^H^H^H digital bureaucratic cloud storage.

Paper systems didn't have these problems (although they certainly had some disadvantages).

The ACCC is one of Australia's few good independent bodies, but pretty much all of the others have had their funding greatly reduced over time. Whatever good ideas they come up with just get ignored a lot of the time, because corruption pays and ineptitude is normalised. The financial watchdog is basically toothless at this point.

The Robodebt scheme [1] is just one of their recent screwups. Interestingly, there's now something similar that's come to light regarding Post Office budgets in the UK from a few decades ago.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme

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