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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

#801

Post by f6v »

bennysomething wrote: post #683
f6v wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’m not an economist so my naïve reasoning is:

1. Is Apple using their platform to promote their services? Yes.

2. Is Apple making it harder for competition to compete on their platform? Yes. Someone mentioned Apple Music is not a subject to 15-30% fees while Spotify is.

3. Are companies building platforms to do exactly that? Also yes. There’s no point in building platform and not using the benefits of controlling it.

So where does that leave us? Apple is doing exactly as you’d expect it to do. Government will try to restrict that, that’s what it’s for. What I don’t get is why people are so emotional about it. It’s all out in the open, why pretend Apple isn’t using their platform ownership to undermine completion? Why get upset that they do? People perceive this situation as black and white, nothing in between.

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

#802

Post by simion314 »

dmitriid wrote: post #782
simion314 wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the grandma is the Apple fanboys defense of why shit should be locked and approved by Apple. You are mentioning location APIs and I shown you that is not different then camera APIs and then you still show me the bluttoh/usb stuff. https://www.safari-is-the-new-ie.com You are trying to defend something I did not ask you about, I don't care is f Safari will never implement JavaScript at all, or if they decide…

> You are trying to defend something I did not ask you about > so try fucking focusing Says the person who completely ignores everything I say, and only goes "Apple bad, Apple bad, Apple bad" > I don't care Indeed. --- I will not engage in this conversation further.

Yeah, Apple is perfect , Google Siri search for all the times Apple lost in justice class lawsuits and practice on those cases how Apple was not screwing those guys and the justice was wrong and "Apple goog, Apple good ..."

btw are you a Trump fanboy, you are talking a lot in his style.

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

#803

Post by jquery »

tokyoseb wrote: post #519
paulpan wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, though the same could be argued for credit card payment processors like Visa and Mastercard taking a 2-2.5% cut of every transaction. Shouldn't they also just be regulated to only accept a fixed amount instead? I'm genuinely curious why this example isn't brought up more often and is just assumed to be the norm. The irony in this % discussion is that Apple tried to use the same rationale against Qualcomm in t…

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?

The services credit card companies provide was just pushed a layer deeper to the issuing banks. The EU didn’t magically make the costs of running a payment system disappear, it’s just sleight of hand. They also pushed costs onto consumers in the form of assumed risk consumers take on when making a purchase (thus all the 2fa etc to reduce this burden).

Oh and it goes without saying that rewards programs disappeared entirely (I am not opposed to outlawing “rewards” programs)

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

#804

Post by notSupplied »

jpttsn wrote: post #785
eloff wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is, if you don't like it you can leave the restaurant and choose any other. You have no lock in. Once you've bought an iOS device, you can't buy apps anywhere else. Even if you forget the sunk cost you just have two providers to choose from.

I can always get my next phone from Samsung, just as I can always get my next meal from McDonalds. But this meal is locked in. If I don’t like the pickles on my whopper, they don’t provide McDonald’s pickles, do they? The don’t allow me to get a McFlurry with my Chicken Sandwich? Bundling is allowed in every other instance and is key to many great products. Apple can do it too.

You are significantly more locked in to your phone than your meal. There are also more choices for where to eat that what phone OS you want to have. Your phone OS is also a gateway to many different industries. Transactions made on a smart phone make up an ever expanding portion of economic activity, whereas eating-at-restaurant generally remains a constant portion of consumer spend.

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

#805

Post by notSupplied »

perfobotto wrote: post #763
indigochill wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Overall, Apple has not been a good steward of the App Store. But the question on my mind is: what precedent are we setting by legally mandating what a corporation can do on a platform they solely built? And are we pulling up the ladder after the incumbents have climbed it? It's one thing to mandate how much pollution a factory may leak into a shared water supply. But the Apple app store is not a utility or natural…

What about Microsoft and Windows then. People complained to death back in the day for anticompetitive behavior (and were right). The iPhone success is not only Apple’s success. Apple has to thank all the devs that supported its platform with their apps (yeah Facebook and google included) and without which the iPhone would be a gimmick. We can’t just ignore this and tell every developer after they get Sherlock ed to “…

Totally, the flow of value goes BOTH ways. The Mac in the 90s was on the verge a death, because you’d pay a premium for a platform with far fewer apps available for it than Windows 98. If Microsoft didn’t bring Office to the Mac, it would have been even more irrelevant.

Apps are the difference between “A phone with extra tricks” and “A computer in your pocket.”

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

#806

Post by ksec »

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…

>It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway.

And the same Apple sued Qualcomm for charging them percentage of iPhone.

Although I do think the percentage is a good way to ensure fair distribution ( with a Cap on maximum ). The idea is that the higher grossing Apps ( or Phones ) would be subsidising the lower cost Apps ( or Phones ) for those innovation.

And again, I still think the money part is besides the point. Why do Apple gets to pull an App down simply because they dont like their world views.

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

#807

Post by ksec »

jpttsn wrote: post #787
perfobotto wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about. A restaurant doesn’t have the power to steer an economy of billions of dollars worldwide (the phone app market) . Apple and google do. Do you understand the risk for countries to allow one single private company to have complete control over the life/jobs of hundreds of thousands of citizens (app developers) that could be just destroyed by the whim of one of these two companies? It’s the p…

I don’t feel entitled to controlling any company unless I own stock. If I build my career on a supplier company I don’t control, that’s my problem. EU politicians seem to disagree. Mostly (I bet) to protect their own.

When you are the only two Restaurant in town that offers dinning services and somehow these restaurant has a high barrier of entry so other restaurant cant compete, then yes. How much and what silverware you use could then be a problem.

And I could force you to buy silverware made in X.

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

#808

Post by boublepop »

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).

Same is true for Walmart. If you own shelf space in a store front you get to dictate the terms for people who want to get onto those shelves.

The major difference is only that for other phones, the stores decided to let everyone go and put up diy shelves in their stores and now people are demanding the ability to do it in Apple stores too.

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

#809

Post by breakfastduck »

Sakos wrote: post #250
breakfastduck wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple holds a gigantic market in their grasp and by controlling it so tightly and by forcing everyone to use their billing, they give the customers what they want . If iOS becomes the android wild west it'll kill the entire selling point of the iPhone. To me, the iPhone is the equivalent of buying a games console instead of a gaming PC. Less flexibility, less to worry about. 'Its just a phone'.

> Apple holds a gigantic market in their grasp and by controlling it so tightly and by forcing everyone to use their billing, they give the customers what they want. Sorry, this is irrelevant. If people want a monopoly, that doesn't change the effects of that monopoly existing.

It's not even close to a monopoly

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

#810

Post by anoncake »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #699
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.

>Alternative stores cannot provide auto updates. That sounds nice to me. Want me to update? Provide an appealing update! Although I am still not a fan of having any sort of app store in the first place.

You can always disable updates if you want. And what alternative stores specifically cannot do is install/update apps without having Android itself ask for confirmation again. So even if you manually order the store to install/update one or more apps, Android will pop up another prompt for each.
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