EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by heavyset_go » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

danity wrote: post #530

paulpan wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the percentage of Apple's cut isn't the key part of this EU case. Certainly doesn't help that it's the current 30% but it being 15% won't change the fundamental issues being argued - whether Apple is abusing its market power and shutting competitors out of or subjecting them to unfair practices in its iOS ecosystem. E.g. unfairly favoring its own Music app. I think it's a fairly straightforward case similar to…

The main difference with Microsoft is that Apple does not have a monopoly in phones like Microsoft had with PCs. Apple phones make up only 13% of the phone market.

Colloquial definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[1]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

--

> Apple phones make up only 13% of the phone market.

iOS has 60% of the market in the US[2].

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

[2] https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-v-ios-market-share

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

#682

Post by bennysomething » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #262

f6v wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why build a platform then?

Don't build one, build good products that users want and not forced to use. But this is from the users point of view. From a capitalistic point of view I agree you need to screw the users and environment as much as legally possible.

How do apple "screw" users. Anyone buying Apple products is making choice: keep my money or spend on a thing I find beneficial. I think anyone would be forgiven for calling this a first world problem. Getting screwed usually means having money stolen. Here it just means demanding someone else's services cheaper.

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

#683

Post by bennysomething » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #634

bennysomething wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple aren't even close to a monopoly. If the app store wasn't useful to the public the public wouldn't use it.

> Apple aren't even close to a monopoly. Let's see if the EU says "No, it is" and shakes apple for some money.

So if the EU say it's s monopoly it is? Given there are multiple places to stream music I find it hard to think of it as a monopoly.

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

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Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #126

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is it being a mandatory offering, as opposed to alternative stores. And it's designed to make a profit, not to secure iOS in any meaningful way. (For instance, the requirement on IAPs, despite them not requiring additional software distribution services or app review costs for Apple.) If Apple wants to secure or curate their platform, fine, but it's now a general computing device, and alternative platforms…

I don’t understand why people say it’s a general computing device. It’s clearly not nor has it been advertised as such. If it actually was a general computing device you could just install an entirely different operating system onto it. If Apple allowed users to install Android on iPhones but didn’t change iOS would that be an acceptable solution? If so, what’s stopping someone from just getting an Android device now…

Apple plainly does so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI-iJcC9JUc

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

#685

Post by nodamage » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:03 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #607

sixstringtheory wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I contributed to some of the jailbreak app stores You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. > just look at AWS prices to see how much it costs to store and transfer a file on S3 Look, if it's so cheap and easy to do, why is everyone so hell bent on getting onto Apple's? They should just do…

> You really need to cool it with the condescension > But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance. > You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. That's some impressive cognitive dissonance ya got there, you might want…

> Which is exactly why Apple should open up iOS to other app stores, and in order to keep iOS users secure they should focus on more things like App Tracking and Transparency, not on monopolizing app stores.

This is self-contradictory. If Apple allows third-parties to distribute apps outside the App Store, they lose the ability to enforce their App Tracking and Transparency rules.

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

#686

Post by paulpan » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #537

tokyoseb wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card fees are already regulated the EU, i.e. card interchange fees are capped at 0.3%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union As to why it's not a fixed payment: I'm not sure if some of their costs/liabilities would scale with the size of the transactions?

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.

Interesting. But aren't the banks responsible for handling chargebacks and fraud, not the credit card processing companies?

My (albeit limited) understanding is that Visa and Mastercard ensure that the debit/credit transactions are securely and quickly occur, but if there are post-transaction issues like fraud or chargeback, then the credit card-issuing bank handles/resolves those issues.

Conversely there's probably a subset of transactions that don't need this sort of "insurance", such as buying groceries. Currently the merchant still has to pay the 2%+ fee in the U.S. but would be nice to have the option for a customer to waive the "insurance" part and benefit from a 2% savings. It's akin to many merchants offering a lower "cash-only" rate.

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

#687

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #399

alickz wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at what a mess this is on the PC where there are a million launchers Which has resulted in some much needed competition for Steam, particularly around dev cuts. Also just look at macOS, would anyone really prefer to only be able to install mac apps from the Mac App Store? Would the benefits of forcing users and devs through the Mac App Store outweigh the benefits of users being able to install whichever s…

Users sideloading apps on their phones is likely to be a benefit to like 5,000 people and an attack vector for 3 billion. As for Steam, you don't have to use it as a game publisher, as in you could always sell physical media (up until the past few years) or a download. As a consumer I'll pretty much always prefer buying a game through Steam. I hate all these other launchers that you have to now use for like one title…

> an attack vector for 3 billion

Apple can handle it. They could just put enough stringent protections at the OS layer against malicious apps. Not to mention, any sideloading feature would be well guarded from within the interface so that no one other than power users would actually find it and enable it.

> This same "me too" philosophy is ruining online content distribution where once Netflix was so good.

Ease of service does not justify monopoly.

> Just look at the difficulty in finding out if a given movie or TV show is on any of your services.

It is indeed annoying, but that's not so much an issue directly caused by competition between different streaming services, so much as the studios/networks hoarding their IP. Even if Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. never existed, you'd still see efforts like HBO Max, Peacock from NBC, Paramount Plus from CBS, etc. to try to monopolize their own IP by keeping it off of Netflix.

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

#688

Post by username90 » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #631

nolok wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are weirdly confused trying to compare two different things. Apple's financial results are public and you should check them because you will see that they make a massive amount of profit on their iphones, and they actively separates those numbers from their "services" (appstore and icloud) numbers. Apple themselves disagree with you in their financial statement.

It’s really unclear what your point is or how you are engaging with my question about accounting for the “costs” of running the 2nd most successful application platform in history, after the web. It is undoubtedly much higher than the cost of running a store, but how much? iPhone gross margins are about 35%. Even if it was a loss leader, $350 for five years of iOS is obviously underpriced, so I’m not sure what you me…

> $350 for five years of iOS is obviously underpriced

No it isn't, windows is much cheaper than that.

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

#689

Post by nodamage » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #267

ericmay wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the topic has been beat to death a million times, the danger is that adding additional app stores will result in decreases in the exact thing the OP likes the App Store for. All of the hard work fighting for privacy, security, etc., goes out the window. Facebook will put their app on a 3rd party store and now we’re back to them and others abusing privacy and tracking users and not sharing what and how they’re trac…

This is FUD. iOS will have the sandbox, if some shitty app ask "Do you want me to open the microphone now?" the user can still say NO, if the app asks "Please give me access to location!" the user can still say No, or Apple could even be clever and offer the user the ability to give fake location data, From your point of view iOS users are so stupid that they shold not be allowed to use a OSX device or a browser(not…

It's not quite that simple. There are many APIs that are necessary for legitimate purposes that can also be abused. Many of the APIs used for device fingerprinting fall under this category. The contacts APIs are another good example (just because I want to load my contacts so I can send my friend a message doesn't mean I want you to exfiltrate my contacts to your server so you can build a shadow graph of my social network.)

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

#690

Post by fastball » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #685

fastball wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really need to cool it with the condescension > But I doubt you even know the costs to run the service so my opinion is that you are speaking from a place of ignorance. > You didn't build or work on an app store. You played with one. Much easier to modify something that already exists than to create something where there once was nothing. That's some impressive cognitive dissonance ya got there, you might want…

> Which is exactly why Apple should open up iOS to other app stores, and in order to keep iOS users secure they should focus on more things like App Tracking and Transparency, not on monopolizing app stores. This is self-contradictory. If Apple allows third-parties to distribute apps outside the App Store, they lose the ability to enforce their App Tracking and Transparency rules.

With all due respect, have you ever developed an application for iOS? Because it doesn't sound like it, as this is not how it works.

Apps are sandboxed. In order to access certain features, they need to request permission from the operating system. e.g. there is a GPS chip in your iPhone. Apps, through the design of the OS (not the App Store), are unable to access the raw data coming from this unit themselves. Instead, they tell the OS "hey, I want access to location data", at which point the OS throws up a notification to the user asking if they want to allow the app access to that data. The user says yes, and the OS starts to provide the app with location data. At any point, the user can tell the OS "hey, stop giving this app access" and the OS will oblige. The App Store does not enforce this functionality at all, it is enforced at the OS level. Allowing 3rd party app stores would not change this. If Apple's App Store vetting process disappeared tomorrow, Spotify would not be able to get location data without the user's permission.

As a side note, I keep saying "at the OS level", but this is a simplification on my part. In more than a few places, Apple has gone further and done things like have the Secure Enclave which has complex interactions with the OS / kernel to make certain actions difficult even if you break out of the OS-level sandbox.