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

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

#561

Post by adwn »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #551
nolok wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vast oversimplification: it's because of chargebacks and fraud. It works kind of like an insurance, someone needs to take the loss at some point and fixed amount doesn't work for that (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales). That's why when EU capped the fee "so low" we also massively pushed for 3D secure deployment, so those lower fees would still easily cover it.

> (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales) I've come to the viewpoint that this would be a good thing. I think we've moved too far in the direction of never paying for anything with cash.

And why would that be?

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

#562

Post by tolmasky »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #536
tolmasky wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should take whatever percentage they want, even 100%, as long as they allow alternative ways to get apps onto the iPhone and to charge for in-app purchases. The problem isn’t that their price is too high, it’s that it’s the only game in town. Allow alternatives and then the price they choose can compete with the rest of them. We can see exactly how valuable of a service it really is.

People will always take the cheaper option, so might as well make that the only option instead of causing what will surely be claimed in the future as a decision trap for consumers. Hey, maybe 30% already was the cheaper option and they did just that? Allowing sideloading apps or alternative app stores will send the platform straight to hell, by opening up new exploit vectors in an already insanely complex system, an…

For starters, the AppStore is not "good" (from a customer perspective -- it sucks, the search is basically unusable except for exact string matches, and still then it shows you the competitor's ad for almost the whole screen before what you're actually looking for), and I don't even know what "fast" means in this context. Probably not review time, and definitely not "quickness of features" -- it took 5 years just to get demo videos. In reality, the fast/cheap/good thing (while for starters not being some actual "law"), is meant to apply to engineering and not market dynamics.

You seem to have a lot of faith in Apple having performed some secret formula 10 years ago to determine the cheapest price. I guess we don't need free markets for price signals at all! If we all had Apple's formula, we could have a completely government run system that determined the right price for everything. What a wonderful system that would be!

Anyways, I've covered in many other comments how Apple would be better off by allowing alternatives since they'd no longer be forced to balance this fine line of appearing "fair" while "strict":

From: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26796547

> This is one of the tricky parts about AppStore discussions, it's not about being for or against the AppStore. In fact, I wish the AppStore was MUCH pickier about the apps it let in, and I also wish there was an alternative to the AppStore to catch cases that didn't meet that strict bar. Then the AppStore could actually be about curation as opposed to fear-induced isolationism. Then Apple wouldn't have to inadvertently have political side-effects when it disallowed apps like HKMap.live.

> Being on the AppStore could still be advantageous beyond just "either that or you don't get to be on the iPhone at all.” Apple payment processing, iCloud integrations, Family-sharing, etc. could all be tied to being ON the AppStore, so there'd still be a huge incentive to try to ship that way. And side-loading doesn't have to be easy or even on by default.

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

#563

Post by Blikkentrekker »

It would be in the common good if antitrust control were far stronger than it actually is.

If it were up to me, Google would be compelled to provide clearly visible links to other search engines and other Android app stores just as Microsoft was compelled to allow for different browser selection in the past, and Apple would be compelled to do allow different app stores for iOs.

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

#564

Post by thaumasiotes »

adwn wrote: post #561
thaumasiotes wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (or would massively hike the fees for cheap sales) I've come to the viewpoint that this would be a good thing. I think we've moved too far in the direction of never paying for anything with cash.

And why would that be?

Paying for things using a payment card creates records associated with you and requires the permission of third parties.

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

#565

Post by makecheck »

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…

Especially since Apple hosts free apps that support themselves only through other means (e.g. ads). Thus, even a 100% fee would do nothing to cover App Store costs in those cases.

Worse, a lot of these “free” apps are made by huge companies like Facebook that really could afford to pay the huge sums it must cost to enable their apps.

People like to focus on the percentage fee while conveniently not mentioning a lot of other things that matter:

- Every developer that isn’t a huge company offering apps “for free” is subsidizing the cost of App Store upkeep for those big companies that do not lose any 30% fees.

- Apple basically won’t pay you for months unless you’ve passed a certain threshold. Thus, Apple “makes money” by being able to hold onto your money interest-free for awhile, multiplied by all the apps that are not making a lot of money.

- Every developer of any size must pay $100 PER YEAR so “free apps” always make Apple money anyway. This fee does not go away even if you haven’t been paid by Apple in awhile.

- Despite $100 per year, developers can be mistreated by Apple (e.g. review time delays, bogus rejections, bugs left unfixed in developer tools). Yet it is abundantly clear that Apple does not treat developers equally.

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

#566

Post by echelon »

paulmd wrote: post #557
AlexandrB wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had a change of heart on this issue when the prevalence of fraudulent apps on the App Store was documented[1]. It's hard to argue that Apple is providing significant benefit to either consumers or developers for their 30% cut when they seem incapable of reigning in obvious fraud. In addition, I think Apple pushing subscriptions as a solution for long term app funding (instead of upgrade pricing or other op…

it's all relative - no system is perfect, some bad apps do slip through the cracks. compared to Android, though? far far better, Google literally doesn't even try to police that sort of stuff, they just list it all anyway and take their cut, when this stuff comes to light Apple delists it but Google is perfectly satisfied to keep raking in their cut. That's the difference.

> compared to Android, though? far far better

Where's your data to support this?

Both platforms host scams and malware, despite the fact that they claim operating an app store is a means of protecting consumers.

Microsoft does just fine allowing downloads from the web and presenting a permissions and security screen. They even have a database of signatures for apps that get flagged.

You don't see people screaming bloody murder that you can install software on your PC. We survived all this time just fine without the app store garbage.

Consumer protection is a gaslighting scheme to gain control and project into other verticals and industries. It's a type of monopolism we've never seen before.

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

#567

Post by sneak »

simonh wrote: post #32
zibzab wrote: post #2

Unpopular opinion: This was a no brainer. Apple wanted 30% (or was it less for subscriptions?) on any business that used apps, no matter if they used apple infrastructure or not. Just think about it: one company is in practice entitled to 30% of what any other business makes (in any industry)!! Also, I think apple brought this to themselves by picking a fight with Spotify (on Watch support).

It's 30% for the first year of subscriptions and 15% thereafter. According to Apple in 2019 Spotify didn't actually pay 30% on any of it's subscriptions at that time, and only paid the 15% on 0.5% of the App's users. The rest are ad supported and Apple gets 0% of the ad revenue. So for every Spotify app user Apple get's a 15% fee for, there are 199 Spotify app users Apple is distributing the App to for which they get…

Market rates for payment processing are closer to a tenth of that amount.

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

#568

Post by sneak »

adriancooney wrote: post #240
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #46

Since this is an EU case, that should mean it'll actually do something, and won't take a decade and a half to conclude. The penalty won't be the big deal here, it'll be what Apple is prohibited from doing. And it'll be really exciting if the precedent set blows back on the entire 30%-rent-seeking-platform-industry.

Is it fair to call Apple's platform rent-seeking? I think a 30% cut is certainly far too much but I wouldn't call it rent-seeking. The platform itself provides a lot of value and they are entitled to charge something for it.

They charge for it in the developer program membership fee already; that is all you have to pay to distribute free apps.

Everything else is just for payment processing, at 10x markup over market rates. Ten times!

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

#569

Post by ableal »

chrisandchris wrote: post #477
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? So you have to pay your Spotify subscription by cash or checks. How many people will still subscribe to Spotify? I haven‘t ever seen a check in my live besides in TV. In some sense you are „forced“ to use them. And in some sense it is ok, as long as one party does not has to much power.

> have to pay your Spotify subscription by cash or checks.

Not a good example - Spotify takes PayPal, which can be topped up from a bank account transfer, trivially done with the bank app or site.

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/payment-methods/ (just learned there's also "pay by mobile" which adds it to your phone bill ...)

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

#570

Post by kristiandupont »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #407
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…

But is the work of the app store flat fee for an app? I think if you have a massive userbase and drop an update etc. this requires way more of Apple's resources to keep up with, it should probably be a sliding scale right?

In that case, the Facebook app should be paying the highest premium. But as it stands they are charged $100 per year.
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