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EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

cnbc.com

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Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#491

Post by frereubu »

whomst wrote: post #412
frereubu wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that can be right. On the surface you're suggesting that if a company worked in a particular area before another company then the first company is entitled to use anti-competitive practices, which clearly isn't true.

I think the main point the (grand?) parent is saying is that "Apple is in the phone business" isn't a reasonable description of Apple. I agree that Apple hosting itself on its own platform is an abuse of market position (especially for something as peripheral as music), but to claim that music/audio isn't a/hasn't been core part of Apple's business model is ridiculous.

Ah, gotcha. Yes, that does make more sense, thanks. But I still don't think it really addresses the second point, which is the crux of the argument as far as I can see.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#492

Post by rickdeveloper »

nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

~This is a really bad idea in my opinion because the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps, which hurts small developers and benefits big corporations disproportionately. An app like Facebook, which is downloaded billions of times, does cost Apple significantly more than a small indie app used by, say, thousands. You can't get around that. Having the small indie app paying for Facebook (indirectly) is a lot worse than the current system. Worse, Apple is unlikely to decrease its profit margin. This would mean small developers and big corps pay an equal share in the profits Apple is going to make.~

~A better idea would be to have a free tier and take a percentage above that. The first $1000 are a lot more valuable to the creator than everything beyond that.~

edit: OP said per download, misread it. That makes sense.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#493

Post by balls187 »

nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

AWS bills their services on usage. If AWS ever offered billing as a service (ala Stripe) they would most definitely charge you a % of the transaction amount, along with a flat rate per transaction.

Apple doesn't charge developers 30% of revenue; they charge 30% of revenue made from purchasing from the app store, and in-app purchases.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#494

Post by tolmasky »

Evan__ wrote: post #473
nolok wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming an…

You’re “not forced to use them” in exactly the same way you’re not forced to use Apple.

There's a fairly big difference between a duopoly, which, for the record, major government services rely on (if you want the COVID tracking app its either iOS or Android, if you want an app that your senator will use, you probably have to make it for iOS, etc.), and services that you can actually wholesale replace in your product like a payment processor. Not to mention certain school courses that are taught with iOS, etc. Apple has worked very hard to position themselves as one of the only players in the space, and they've succeeded! There is certainly an argument that the duopoly situation is fine, but it is in absolutely no way the "exact same" as with Apple and the AppStore.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#496

Post by halostatue »

georgyo wrote: post #161
anoncake wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the situation is better on Android, not using the Play Store isn't a real option in most cases. Alternative stores cannot provide auto updates.

The bigger difference is that the play store does not mandate using Google as the payment processor for transactions and subscriptions. Spotify would have no reason to look for an alternative app distribution mechanism on Android.

Fortnite was kicked out of the Google Play store for the very same violation of rules and consumer trust that they pulled with Apple. Epic are also suing Google under the same concocted story.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#497

Post by nolok »

rickdeveloper wrote: post #492
nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

~This is a really bad idea in my opinion because the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps, which hurts small developers and benefits big corporations disproportionately. An app like Facebook, which is downloaded billions of times, does cost Apple significantly more than a small indie app used by, say, thousands. You can't get around that. Having the small indie app payin…

> the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps

No it would not, it would be distributed by usage. If you wonder "would that possibly work ?", welcome to the internet, it works that way.

And it doesn't stop apple from offering special terms you can opt in for a flat 30% fee or entirely free if your app is entirely free (or ad supported) too.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#498

Post by malka »

simondotau wrote: post #436
gcthomas wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has built itself up into a vertical monopoly, which used to be illegal. There is no good reason to allow anti-competitive behaviours. They shouldn't be allowed to host the platform and compete with applications at the same time.

And yet vertical integration is a big part of why Apple products are so loved. By denying the option of vertical integration, you’re forcing the totality of products we use to be incrementally a little bit more crap.

you can have vertical integration. But having an advantage at one layer should no be leveraged as advantage to another layer.

Apple is free to make a music player. But its music player should abide by the same rules as other players in the market.

Either Apple Music has its income cut by 30%, or no one does.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#499

Post by shuckles »

jonplackett wrote: post #485
shuckles wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble reconciling complaints like this with the argument that Apple should charge for App Store something based on the cost of operating the store. How do you price the engineering hours and strategy risk that go into opening an Apple feature like Siri to 3rd parties? Should it only be users who pay for those costs through their hardware purchase? Certainly not, since it’s impossible to predict those costs o…

I’m paying for those costs with my £1300 iPhone. Now I want to set whatever app as default that I like. Also it isn’t like apple aren’t offering those features - I can play music on Spotify with Siri already. They are just putting deliberate annoying barriers in the way to make their own product appear better.

There’s no way you are paying for 5 years of software development and your hardware for $1300. Suppose half the cost of iPhone was to build the physical object (likely low, given Apple’s 35% overall gross margins), you’re effectively saying that iOS is worth $10/mo, which is a gross underestimate. It is at least as complex a piece of software as Creative Cloud which costs $30/mo. As another benchmark, premium Android phones cost about as much as iPhone, but all the development costs of Android are primarily borne by a different vendor than the device maker.

Developing a model for your voice assistant that can route requests to the right handler is non-trivial. I think in a forum of software developers, I shouldn’t have to argue that there are many good faith reasons for this.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#500

Post by austinkhale »

rickdeveloper wrote: post #492
nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

~This is a really bad idea in my opinion because the total cost of operating the App Store would be equally distributed amongst all apps, which hurts small developers and benefits big corporations disproportionately. An app like Facebook, which is downloaded billions of times, does cost Apple significantly more than a small indie app used by, say, thousands. You can't get around that. Having the small indie app payin…

This is a strange take considering Facebook is distributed for free in the App Store with the current model. Apps paying the 30% tax _already_ subsidize Facebook’s distribution.
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