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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

#341

Post by simondotau »

inopinatus wrote: post #313
simondotau wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The release does not say these things I'm sorry, but it does. Just because they chose not to phrase it exactly as I did doesn't mean they didn't invoke these logical conflicts. But please, there's no need to take my word for it—I invite anyone to read the press release and form their own conclusion. > it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power. I agree that it's "wrong" to equate…

> they chose not to phrase it exactly as I did Quite so. Let's emphasise that: they chose not to phrase it exactly as you did . And by my reading, significantly so. > I invite anyone to read the press release How about going one better: read the report that the media release accompanies. > equating them is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems That's by…

> Well, yes, this is their job

And we all know that people always do what their job title says they should do.

> what is the equivalent of ad hominem

Sigh. It seems 2021 is the year of calling things ad hominem which aren't. It's not ad hominem to accuse the ACCC of being untrustworthy because of prior bad actions in a recent, comparable matter. It would have been ad hominem if I said that the ACCC is untrustworthy because everyone who works there is very ugly.

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

#342

Post by jbverschoor »

madeofpalk wrote: post #324
ehsankia wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of logic is so annoying. If it's so easy / good for profit / advantageous / smart business, then why doesn't Apple do it? The whole "they only do X for profit" is such a lazy argument, because it can be used to argue any side of the argument if you try hard enough.

idk, Apple does have open source? Swift is *incredibly* open, but probably a outlier for Apple. It's operating systems aren'tt, but kernal is (right?). None of these companies are open sourcing their core competencies. Google Search isn't open source.

LLVM has been pretty import for Apple. Webkit has been important. BSD has been important, but afaik they don't really contribute a lot back anymore, although Darwin is open source.

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

#343

Post by marticode »

MINPOOL wrote: post #334
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.

Sure, but at least you have that option of installing what you want on the hardware you paid for.

In contrast, Apple retain full control of the phone. You buy it, but you don't control it.

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

#344

Post by jbverschoor »

Aunche wrote: post #182
gonehome wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>That's obnoxious and anti-competitive, particularly in cases like Spotify where they directly compete and undercut them in the same market. How many Spotify users paid through their App though? I'd imagine it would only be a tiny fraction.

I used to pay in the app. Someone I know was unable to cancel his Spotify, because it was linked to his facebook account. Because of that he was fined. Spotify is a toxic company.

The only thing I really like about Spotify is spotify connect. I don't understand why none of the competitors have anything competing. It's the key selling point for Sonos

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

#345

Post by dwaite »

echelon wrote: post #248
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…

> You don't have to do business on the App store. Yes, you do. If you want to reach 50% of Americans, you're forced to build and distribute an app on the App Store. Try building Netflix without an iOS app. Try writing a new social media app and not building for iPhone. Pick any modern vertical without an iPhone app. You just can't do it. Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks. You immediately surrender 30% to reach…

There are competing video services to Netflix which are accessible through the web browser on iOS. Also keep in mind that Netflix does not manage subscriptions through in-app purchases (anymore).

Several people (including me) access social media sites through the browser rather than having a native app, in part because of the abuses done by social networks in device profiling in the past.

> Apple is the new AOL for a lot of folks.

So the same sort of companies who made a marketing decision to invest in AOL keywords are now willing to write an app and give money to apple so that users can find their service through a search in the app store?

> You immediately surrender 30% to reach 50% of your customer base

I assume you do not realize that it is well documented all of the ways you can pay less (e.g. subscriptions, small business program) or nothing (external payments and subscriptions - you are only limited by your ability to advertise those as alternatives to offering in-app purchases, and can raise your in-app price if you prefer to cover the difference).

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

#346

Post by marticode »

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.

Your data on iPhone aren't safe from Apple though, a company that relies increasingly on selling subscription and content. As long as you use cloud-hosted service, you trust a company to store your data.

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

#347

Post by amelius »

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.

The 30% is like an inverse volume discount.

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

#348

Post by roody15 »

hugi wrote: post #231
roody15 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy from whom? Apple fully complies with all law enforcement requests and turns over all icloud data from a valid warrant. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin... Some it seems thinks Apple keeps data private and anonymous. In fact they do the opposite and encourage using an icloud account over and over (after ever update). All of this data is easily acquired via a warrant at any law enfor…

Are you seriously equating a legal warrant with the realtime harvesting of user data by applications (such as Google/Facebook and others)?

Not really, I am pointing out data privacy means different things to different people. From my experience many are surprised how easily a users data can be obtained. There appears to be a misconception with some that Apple fights legal battles and refuses to comply with law enforcement because Apple believes so strongly in data privacy.

One example: There was a person harassing people on facebook in a small local community. Sending obscene images and making threats. To solve the crime local law enforcement ended up compiling a list of just under 20 possible suspects.

Hoping to match an iCloud photo to a post on facebook a warrant was issued for all 20 users data. Apple sends an. encrypted file with all the data and then another email with the passwords

Long story short the offender was caught however almost 20 people’s data was looked through by local law enforcement. I stress local because this is not some federal agent solving a major crime but just a neighbor police officer who sends his own kids to the same schools as these other innocent people.

Disclaimer: I assisted law enforcement on this case and a couple of others.

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

#349

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

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.…

In India, 3 major tax departments force you into proprietary software via 1. Gst department makes json data which enables third party devs to prepare stuff but government utilities are in "excel" format only. 2. Income tax department had return utilities in "excel" form and also a "Java" which never worked outside of windows. Now they have made a sleek electron app and guess what, windows only. 3. MCA, companies registrar forces users to upload forms in "adobe PDF" because it has inbuilt forms and validation and such. Absolutely no way to use other than windows.

Now, there are around 50 mil taxpayers in India and if the government wanted, they can switch them to Foss products in an instant but Microsoft lobby is huge. Not that it benefits Microsoft, I for one have never paid for a Microsoft product, thanks to keygens. Still,

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

#350

Post by protomyth »

simonh wrote: post #265
gonehome wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Spotify is $10/month and paying $3 to Apple they get $7/month. If Apple enters with Apple Music and charges $10/month - they're undercutting Spotify while charging the same.

How many billions of dollars, over how many decades did Spotify spend developing that platform, OS and app distribution system? How many times did they almost go to the wall over the commercial risks that took? Anyway as I already pointed out it’s effectively 15%, not 30%. Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I looked it up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing because they use it add supported and all the…

Also the vast majority, over 99% (literally, I looked it up) of Spotify app users earn Apple nothing because they use it add supported and all the add revenue goes to Spotify.

They bought the phone from Apple, so Apple made their money.

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