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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

#251

Post by saurik »

parasubvert wrote: post #105
twitch-chat wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By consumers do you mean the loud but very small minority that defend Apple in comment sections of online articles? Because if you ask me, my guess is that the average Apple consumer couldn't care less if the platform is opened up or not.

By consumers I mean the people that vote with their wallets by buying iOS devices. If it helps you sleep at night, keep thinking it’s a very small minority. It’s really not.

I'm glad you realized the connection with voting, because it is the same issue in a real sense: no one gets to vote for an open or a closed system, they only get to vote for an iPhone or a Samsung (which is pretty locked down) or some random third-party phone that will probably suck; you are acting as if the people who voted for an iPhone are agreeing with every single decision made about that platform instead of merely wanting it "on the balance". I honestly mostly use Apple devices because I think their touch screens and trackpads are so good as to be "evil magic"... I thereby own a zillion of them and even use them as my personal devices despite also currently suing them over this very anti-competitive App Store issue, and yet my "vote"--and the votes of everyone like me (and I imagine there are many many such people)--are being counted by you as "voting with my wallet" for a closed system. The reality is that I am simply making the best of a shitty situation with buying an iPhone, and the fact that Apple is able to get away with having a closed system because of some other key benefit doesn't mean they should get to do so :/. Hell: at this point, it would be extremely expensive to switch platforms, because Apple and Google have conspired to build a massive wall preventing people from importing purchases of apps from one platform to the other. I would even lose easy access to all of the music and movies I had gotten on iTunes (which is another reason a lot of people get Apple devices: because they are tied into a vertical content monopoly and a lot of the content I want is effectively only available from Apple). ...and like, I hope you realize that the ridiculously large number of people who bought and iPhone and then--despite it being extremely difficult to do so with requiring the usage of often scary software from annoyingly people from random websites--jailbreak it so they can fix this one key flaw they see in this product... a number that is already stupid high--we tended to get like 12% of users at steady state--but which would obviously be extremely high if only it could have been easier to do!

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

#252

Post by withinboredom »

A friend of mine got a system76 computer and was shopping for speakers. Their partner had used iOS since they were a teen and never used anything non-apple. Their partner was so confused that you could buy any speaker, it just works, and freaked out at the choices. It was very interesting.

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

#253

Post by Gaelan »

Barrin92 wrote: post #245
havernator wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand that's what you want, I want to know why you want that. Apple being able to exercise market power is bad for you , it means that Apple can command higher prices that are being passed on to you. It's like saying you only want Walmart in your neighborhood, because that means Walmart can coerce its vendors. The only one who benefits from this is the platform owner. Competition is good (for you, the consumer…

That's the thing: Apple's exercising market power does bring all sorts of benefits to users. Obvious examples include the new privacy rules they're imposing, in-app purchases allowing any subscriptions to be cancelled with zero hassle. If Apple allowed other app stores, Facebook would almost certainly move to one that let them produce a far more invasive app. And the vast majority of the users will just download Facebook from the new store, because most people (myself included, tbh) value convenience over any absolutist stances about the software they use—see the past several decades of the free software movement.

The net result: Apple losing their monopoly means a huge influx of user-hostile behavior in apps.

Now, you're not wrong either—Apple does, in some cases, abuse their monopoly, and probably takes more of a cut than is fair from IAPs. (Although, quite frankly, I'd be shocked if the money from cheaper IAPs went to reducing prices and not increasing profits.) So yes, Apple's behavior here is harmful in some ways, but it does good in others. Like pretty much everything in this world, it ain't black and white.

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

#254

Post by simion314 »

havernator wrote: post #193
Barrin92 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but can you take a short pause and parse what you say:

"I personally love it how Apple is taking my freedom, I love it so much that I want to force Apple rules on everyone else."

The fact you like current Apple rules and you got scared by some FUD should not make you entitled to ask other to stop fighting for more freedom(my family have Android phones and they did not installed any other store, side loaded apps or got hacked). Apple could give the iPhone locked and give you a code on a paper you can use to unlock, you can FUD your parents to never use the code, you can burn the code, you can also not side load applications. You could also demand dear Apple to implement some safe sandboxing/jail where you can be safe to run anything, I heard they have enough money so maybe they could pay better those security engineers that keep finding bugs in their shit.

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

#255

Post by shawnz »

simondotau wrote: post #250
shawnz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. But the limited selection of alternatives certainly adds to the pain of switching platforms. Therefore it's not so simple to "just buy another phone".

I wholeheartedly agree with that. I just find it difficult to blame Apple when the accusation is that the competition sucks.

That's not the accusation. The accusation is that disallowing sideloading and forcing all customers to observe a single philosophy is especially big of a risk to the user considering that there's little competition. The fix isn't for Apple to create better competition, it's to allow sideloading. I am not saying it's their "fault" for having a lack of competition, that is just a reality of the market they are in.

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

#256

Post by Gaelan »

efraim wrote: post #104
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.

You could very easily not install any other store or use any other payment system if you don't want them. You can keep your device 100 % Apple approved even if there exist alternatives. Why take that choice away from others?

> You could very easily not install any other store

But in practice, there are apps we need to use—people who we mostly communicate with over Facebook, movies we want to want that are only on Netflix, etc. In the status quo, we can use those apps, and they're beholden to Apple's guidelines, hopefully reducing the privacy, etc abuses. I can use Facebook and still have some amount of privacy.

In the world where alternate stores exist, I have to choose between using Facebook or having some amount of privacy. Sure, I could not use Facebook, but I'm a real human living in the real world, and that means I miss out on social opportunities that I would rather not miss out on. I—and the vast majority of iOS users, who aren't particularly interested in 3rd party stores—lose a less-terrible Facebook app.

(Not that I'm too happy with Apple here either. Some of Apple's policies are bizarre and abusive, and there are apps I'd like to run that aren't allowed. But I'm not entirely sure it's worth the tradeoff.)

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

#257

Post by Gaelan »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #195
orangeoxidation wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The top 10 free apps on the App Store, at time of writing, are TikTok, HBO Max, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat, Zoom, Gmail, and Google Maps. Until Gmail, every single one of those provides access to content that can't be accessed thorough another app—a more ethical Snapchat doesn't have any of my Snapchat-using friends, and a more ethical HBO Max doesn't have the movie I want to watch. So no, in practice, the option is to get the app, wherever it's available, or decide to do without whatever it's offering.

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

#258

Post by Gaelan »

ryukafalz wrote: post #141
madeofpalk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chrome is not open source.

Sure, but Chromium, which is ~identical, is.

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

#259

Post by Gaelan »

paxys wrote: post #149
numair wrote: post #61

There is no reason Apple and Google couldn’t set up an App Store Certification framework which would allow trusted third parties to operate their own app stores that were regularly audited and liable for breaches of security. In fact, this would be far better than the current approach, where these business units are largely unaccountable and hidden behind layers of corporate complexity (which eventually leads to dysf…

Funny thing is, both companies do exactly this to operate in China. The government does not allow companies to run their own app stores, so Apple and Google (and others who have similar kinds of online stores) have to hand over all operations – including app submission, storage, approvals, install etc. to another local government-approved company completely outside their control. They do all this willingly because th…

Citation needed?

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

#260

Post by echelon »

gonehome wrote: post #151
echelon wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don't understand this argument at all. You're almost certainly taking more risk driving in a car than downloading an app, yet you're probably willing to embr…

The web exists, android exists, etc. I like local control, I think urbit is cool and hope they succeed. I'm a little disturbed by the need for mighty and how we've ended up in a such a messy state of things with modern computing. It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we wouldn't need this in…

> It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we don't.

Apple isn't doing this out of their own good heart! They've built one of the largest monopolies in the world.

Is it okay for one megamonopoly to tax everyone else simply because they reached market penetration first?

Let's fix our laws. This is utterly unfair.

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