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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

#331

Post by pessimizer »

inopinatus wrote: post #281
simondotau wrote: post #70

This report is somewhat bipolar. On one hand it's arguing that Google and Apple exert too much control over smartphone app marketplaces. On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple exert even more control over these app marketplaces by stamping down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and scams. On the other other hand it proposes that Apple and Google should allow third party paym…

The release does not say these things, and it is misleading to intentionally paraphrase as to invent logical conflicts that aren't present. In particular, it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power. Examples: Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer. Obliging service providers to mislead the consumer about their subscription options is an ab…

> Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer.

But in a world that was taking consumer choice seriously would be primarily a job for law enforcement. We don't delegate traffic enforcement to the people who build and maintain roads.

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

#332

Post by yossarian1408 »

Mindwipe wrote: post #320
yossarian1408 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to do business on the App store. You don't have to launch a startup on the App store. You can buy any device you want, and if there isn't currently one sold that meets your specific criterion, society might be better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this demand rather than force a company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition. Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detrime…

> Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment to your quality of life really. Yes it is. iOS controls a sufficient part of US revenue that wider ecosystem effects on what is permitted speech come directly from the app store terms, or at least in some cases about trying to second guess the inconsistently applied, arbitrary and vague as hell App Store rules. We've got direct testimony from all sorts of ap…

Except there are no negative rights being infringed upon here. You can hardly appeal to natural law for the right to publish what you want on someone else's platform. Liberty is defined as being 'free from', not 'free to'.

> We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to their death.

This seems very flimsy but I would be genuinely interested in reading up on this, if you could provide a source/reference. Either way, this is a great reason not to use and publish on the iOS platform. But the irony of suggesting government overreach as a cure for the ails of extreme government overreach in another country is not lost on me.

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

#333

Post by h0nd »

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.…

This is ridiculous. I start ignoring services and platforms that are limited to mobile OSes.

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

#334

Post by MINPOOL »

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

It's just completely unrealistic that a classic consumer will install any other app store on their device, they just use what is there and that's for the majority of Android phones the Play Store.

If Google would truly be open for competition, they would let the consumer choose the app store, the search engine and everything else when they first turn on the device.

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

#335

Post by ehnto »

stanislavb wrote: post #209
partomniscient wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 slo…

"Governments are incapable of doing sensible things involving ever changing technology." - I moved to Australia about 4 years ago. I'm pretty convinced that the Australian Gov is much ahead in regards to tech adoption compared to most places in EU and US. In my 4+ years in Oz, I had to visit an offline institution exactly 3 times (you can do almost everything online). Everything's been flawless, super easy and very w…

The most important aspect for me is that most services can be accessed via a web browser, and I see no reason why an app would be a smart choice for a government to deploy going forward. Web apps can achieve everything a native app can for the purposes of government administration.

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

#336

Post by notsureaboutpg »

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.

It's not true for anyone outside of Hacker News. Most people have no idea that this is even true about Apple/Google (that one disallows third party apps and the other does not).

People here always say the walled garden is good (maybe they are right) but most users don't know it even exists and to act otherwise is to forget the actual users of such software who use what they do because they have to and don't know any alternative (and can't afford the time and money to switch)

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

#337

Post by jbverschoor »

gonehome wrote: post #244
ngokevin wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 15% now for most developers, right?

Not really - it's 15% if you register as a small business and it changes to 30% once you hit $1M in revenue. That's probably technically 'most', but it's not the large sector that matters. Also 15% is still quite high.

And it's been 15% for recurring revenue after the first year.

That 15% includes the 1-3% creditcard processing fee. They also take care of VAT and multi currency for your customers.

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

#338

Post by amelius »

gonehome wrote: post #54
Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better.

You and Apple are conflating "App Store" and "Content Filter".

We can have multiple App Stores and multiple types of content filters. It doesn't need to be like the current situation, with Apple in full control over everything.

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

#339

Post by oblio »

edrxty wrote: post #55
Elidrake24 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> By the same logic we should just eliminate free will because it's dangerous sometimes.

In moments of fear, hardship and crisis a decent percentage of people everywhere (30? maybe more) ask for the reassuring hand of a dictator.

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

#340

Post by jbverschoor »

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.

Apple was a big contributor to webkit waay before Chrome even existed.

I don't really understand the love for Android (and sometimes Google) and hate for Apple. The first versions of Android were a clone of blackberry until Apple unveiled the iPhone.

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