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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

#211

Post by murphyslab »

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.…

When I was in grad school, the university's Student Union provided an extended health insurance plan. To get a reimbursement, you had two options for submitting a claim: (1) Paper forms submitted via the student union or (2) the insurance company's app which was only for Apple devices. The app's only functionality was to facilitate taking a photo (of a receipt) and uploading that photo, along with the user's details. While I've heard that they now have a Google Play app, I still have zero understanding of why they don't simply have a website where one can upload a photo and associated details.

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

#212

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

hugi wrote: post #208
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is that legal? You are forgetting the number of democratic countries which forced their COVID app from Appstore/Playstore on their citizens. They came short of calling it mandatory download but mandated the app as entry pass for several services. You don't use a monopoly powered smartphone? You cannot afford a phone at all? Tough luck buddy(/s). Only reason these COVID pass apps didn't stick around in the democ…

What countries were that?

Not going to name countries and trigger a slugfest. But will include the List of countries with official contact tracing apps[1] and you can search for which services those apps were mandated. EFF commentary on these apps[2].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_apps#List_of_countrie...

[2]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/covid-19-tracking-tech...

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

#213

Post by encryptluks2 »

bogwog wrote: post #188
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.

This is a bad take. Google is just as guilty of anti-competitive behavior as Apple. Sure, a third party store can exist in the Android ecosystem, but what are the chances that it can be commercially viable? It's practically impossible. * Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who even think about installing a third party store. Any competitor trying to run an alternative store needs to somehow educate…

> Google shows countless scary warning dialogs to users who even think about installing a third party store. Any competitor trying to run an alternative store needs to somehow educate potential consumers on the process of enabling "unknown sources", and convincing them that doing so won't actually kill you (translates directly into higher business expenses, and is probably an impossible obstacle to overcome to reach the majority of consumers)

It is a single setting/message about allowing you to install apps from unknown sources that you can grant for that specific app. You can enable/disable anytime.

> Google regularly monitors apps installed outside of the Play store with their "Play Protect" thing, which is an opt-in virus scanner, except not really. When you install an APK, they ask you for permission to enable Play Protect. If you decline, they'll just keep asking you again and again until you accept either by accident, or do it so they stop annoying you. Through Play Protect, Google is able to arbitrarily block any app they consider to be "potentially harmful". Consider that they regularly ban apps by accident on the Play Store using their broken AI, and that those registered developers struggle to get those erroneous bans reversed. I'd imagine getting a ban from Play Protect reversed is nearly impossible.

I have multiple apps installed from F-Droid and I have never got a single message from Play Protect warning me of anything.

> Google has a full time hit squad of penetration testers called "Project Zero" which goes around checking competitors for vulnerabilities so they can make big scary press releases about how unsafe the competition is (even though Google Play itself is riddled with malware).

I've never seen Project Zero act unethical or unprofessional to gain a market advantage.

> Yes, Android is open source. The operating system on your Android phone is not open source.

Depending on the phone you get. Many people specifically pick manufacturers that are more friendly to open source.

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

#214

Post by encryptluks2 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #138
joshuamorton wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their thing. Apple makes money by (among other things) appealing to a certain set of privacy conscious consumers. That's different than "making money off of privacy".

only if you think consumers are idiots.

I thought by making the argument that users shouldn't be allowed to install apps themselves you were making that insinuation and that people supporting Apple's anti-competitive behavior are willfully ignorant.

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

#215

Post by asdfaoeu »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #206
hugi wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> How is that legal? You are forgetting the number of democratic countries which forced their COVID app from Appstore/Playstore on their citizens. They came short of calling it mandatory download but mandated the app as entry pass for several services. You don't use a monopoly powered smartphone? You cannot afford a phone at all? Tough luck buddy(/s). Only reason these COVID pass apps didn't stick around in the democ…

NSW (Australian state) actually has mandatory contract tracing[1] though you can use a web or physical form.

[1]: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/covid-safe-check

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

#216

Post by hugi »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #212
hugi wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What countries were that?

Not going to name countries and trigger a slugfest. But will include the List of countries with official contact tracing apps[1] and you can search for which services those apps were mandated. EFF commentary on these apps[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_apps#List_of_countrie... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/covid-19-tracking-tech...

My country (Iceland) has an official contact tracing app listed there. It was developed by volunteers and contributed to the government and the source is open on github. Nothing you said applies to it.

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

#218

Post by simondotau »

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?

Those very few ultra-premium models are exceptions which prove the rule; a few ultra-expensive, ultra-premium halo products for price-insensitive customers. Android phones are almost always superior value for money.

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

#219

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

asdfaoeu wrote: post #215
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is that legal? You are forgetting the number of democratic countries which forced their COVID app from Appstore/Playstore on their citizens. They came short of calling it mandatory download but mandated the app as entry pass for several services. You don't use a monopoly powered smartphone? You cannot afford a phone at all? Tough luck buddy(/s). Only reason these COVID pass apps didn't stick around in the democ…

NSW (Australian state) actually has mandatory contract tracing[1] though you can use a web or physical form. [1]: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/covid-safe-check

Having a web app as well would have been slightly better, especially if it works in feature phones(In several developing countries feature phone usage is lot higher than smartphones even then they didn't publish a web app) but still doesn't help those who doesn't use a phone at all(whatever the reason might be).

Distribute free phones which is capable of running these COVID apps and then the issue comes down to just privacy.

Alternate physical form seems reasonable.

*just : Not to reduce the importance of privacy(EFF commentary in my other comment).

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

#220

Post by simondotau »

fredophile wrote: post #190
simondotau wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fragmentation means that many apps I want would no longer be available through a vendor that I trust. No, that trust isn't blind or absolute. Yes, I recognise that Apple's review process is patchy at best—but most developers also fear getting on the wrong side of them and THAT alone has been pretty damn effective at keeping most apps under control.

I'm not convinced this is as big a problem as you think it is. If I chose iOS over Android specifically for privacy reasons I'd be interested in knowing what companies avoid the app store to bypass their privacy restrictions. Do you really want to use a product from a company that would do that as soon as they have the chance or would you rather label them as untrustworthy and find an alternative?

If the dominant reason to bypass the Apple App Store was to avoid their privacy controls, I'd wholeheartedly agree with that argument.
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