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Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

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Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#651

Post by cma »

mjthompson wrote: post #634
erikpukinskis wrote: post #613

The only aspect of the Apple App Store that strikes me as truly anticompetitive is their prohibition on adjusting prices to include Apple’s fees, or even to tell the user what they are. I can accept that Apple can demand a 30% fee for billing customers on their devices. And I can accept that they would prohibit installation/sales of software any other way. But I should be allowed to mark up the price by 30% and then…

Apple's use of its own market power on its store to regulate conduct on other markets is deeply concerning. Another example is Apple ID. If I use Google or Facebook SSO in my app, I have to offer Apple SSO alongside it. That is okay. However Apple will refuse the app into the App Store if I don't also offer Apple ID login on desktop and Android platforms. Apple should keep its nose in its own business.

Apple also tried to delete all of Epic's Apple ID users, with no way for Epic to contact them, affecting users on non-Apple platforms who just happened to sign up with Apple ID. They ended up backing down to avoid judicial scrutiny, but now everyone knows the threat. If Apple comes out of the antitrust stuff on top, they can push ahead with this later to see how far they can take it.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#652

Post by pkd »

cmorgan31 wrote: post #635
nwallin wrote: post #629

I will not buy any device that does not give me control of the device. If I can't sideload apps, can't install a 3rd party store, do not have the ability to root my own device, I won't buy it. Apple has decided that's not allowed, fine, I won't buy their product. That's between Apple and their customers. But it is certifiably insane that Apple thinks they have the right to dictate to Epic what Epic charges for its ap…

So they don’t get to be on iOS. I’d leave ethics and morals out of this convo since neither side has anyone’s interest but their own. Sounds like you already found a solution to this court case - don’t buy Apple if you want to tinker with your hardware. I’m shocked that is news to anyone. I’m shocked so many of us want to dictate what the rest of us have as the status quo because it doesn’t align with your feelings a…

I think it's fine for Apple to demand more as long as the end users know that they are paying more everywhere because of it.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#653

Post by eloff »

Lazare wrote: post #640
ajkjk wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dystopian is the word for it. It's fucking insane that you can't talk about why it's priced that way. Of course, if you include the fee explicitly then people will think to look elsewhere and realize they can avoid it. But that's fine, taking a cut is stupid anyway. Really just seems like the app should be paying more to Apple (like a physical store paying rent on real estate) up front and getting the full price of t…

Really can't agree more. It's clear that the App Store offers significant value for many vendors, and charging for it is fine . Epic apparently generates $500m of revenue per year from the iPhone, and they're doing so using platforms, tools, and APIs that Apple built to help developers do that. It's reasonable that Apple would get a slice of that. The company I work for makes, well, a lot less revenue that Epic, but…

> Apple's stance here is a little like if AWS tried to force people who use any AWS service to use their overpriced egress bandwidth for everything, and sued customers found to be using Cloudflare to reduce their costs.

Is that a good example? I think that's how it works. Egress out to cloudflare is billed at the full rate last I checked. GCP gives you a discount, but not AWS.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#654

Post by notamy »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #283
tomp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making Tim Cook sound stupid and/or evil, but he does have a point. > If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs), people should still go to a pharmacy? > It seems like a decision that they shouldn't have to make. > Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and fake unsafe drugs? > They've never had to do it before.

This is my take on what Tim Cook should have answered > If customers really value real, safe drugs, even if there's multiple drug suppliers (some offering fake, unsafe drugs), people should still go to a pharmacy? That shouldn't be Apple problem, we have governments for that. > Will people not be able to distinguish between safe drugs and fake unsafe drugs That shouldn't be our concern, we as the supplier of the mark…

> That shouldn't be Apple problem, we have governments for that.

Given the fast pace that technology moves at, and the comparatively-slow pace at which government / legislation works, this may not be the best move in terms of keeping progress going. Especially since governments are notoriously bad at understanding tech.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#655

Post by ratww »

hamandcheese wrote: post #641
kitsunesoba wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I fear is that as a reaction to Apple's recent moves on privacy (tracking transparency, requiring user consent prior to tracking, etc), Facebook is going to spin up its own App Store without such rules where user data is a free for all. This wouldn't be a threat in itself, but having control of heavy hitters like the Facebook app, Instagram, and WhatsApp among others, they could drive traffic levels that no thir…

Aren’t Apples policies enforced via app sandboxing though? Why would that be any different for third party apps?

Not really taking sides here, but sandboxing is not a panacea, unfortunately. There's also fingerprinting, abusing bugs in the system, faking system password fields, forcing the user to disable restrictions to the app so it works. There isn't much of a purely technological solution.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#657

Post by [deleted] »

hnlmorg wrote: post #597
afavour wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that the same logic? Amazon does not charge end users for allowing services they use to run on AWS.

Yes they do. They charge you compute time, data egress and storage costs. They charge you for premium support, DNS lookups, and even just having an unused IP reservation. AWS has an extensive and diverse model for charges. So much so that it's very difficult to accurately calculate the total cost of a new project ahead of deploying it due to all the hidden costs. If Apple adopted the same model as AWS, people would s…

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#658

Post by stale2002 »

cygx wrote: post #45
hpaavola wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I hope multiple App Stores don’t become a thing on iOS. The reason I like iPhone is that I am assured that apps I download from App Store are not shit and curated by Apple." Then dont install those other app stores and only rely on apples curated list, if other app stores ever become a thing on ios.

The counter-argument runs like this: Third party developers want to get their apps onto the iPhone, because the platform has a lot of users, and there's a lot of money to be made. However, they will be forced to play by Apple's rules, which (according to the argument) is good for the customer, as the custodian of the platform has a vested interest in keeping them happy. Now, if 3rd party stores were allowed, Apple's…

> Apple's bargaining power which allowed them to force 3rd parties

You are literally saying that you agree that Apple has very serious market power, and has the ability to force the rest of the market, to do what it wants, using its illegal, anticompetitive behavior.

Go ahead and say that you want this. But you are just straight up admitting that Apple has anti-trust level market power, and is using illegal anti-competitive behavior.

Therefore, they would lose the lawsuit, under your argument.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#659

Post by stale2002 »

cmorgan31 wrote: post #644
stale2002 wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is exactly what everyone wants to avoid. Then don't use those other apps stores. I think that people who care about all this stuff, can very easily just continue to use the Apple app store.

Okay, don’t use iOS. It’s very easy to just not engage with Apple entirely. Why do you even care? Money? Illusion of choice? The status quo should remain and you should find a different product to use with less restrictive rules.

> Why do you even care?

Well, because Apple's behavior is illegally anti-competitive, and it is possible for everyone to get what they want.

You can simply not install other app stores, and other people can get what they want, if Apple is forced to allow other people to install other app stores, because their illegal anti-competitive behavior is stopped.

You should not care, if other people install whatever they want, on the phone that they own.

Because you can simply choose to not use those app stores. Problem solved, and everyone wins.

> The status quo should remain

Actually, a better solution is for Apple's illegally anti-competitive behavior to be stopped, by allowing other people to install what they want on the iPhone if they choose to do so.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#660

Post by jay_kyburz »

azinman2 wrote: post #432
kmonsen wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would more be like if food safety inspections were optional, but only restaurants that opt in would be allowed to show a sign they were inspected either physically or on their web page. It would be trivial to be able to check for this. Door dash would show a sign saying which restaurant is safe to avoid being sued after an incident. If you think restaurants and food safety is a good analogy it’s not a good argumen…

Except now there isn’t just 1 inspector, but many. And you have to figure out which you trust. Now imagine there’s a very popular restaurant, but it uses an inspector you don’t know if you trust. But you want to eat the food because all your friends are already there… so you’ll go. This is exactly what would happen— various companies once they reach a certain size will just want to have their own store because either…

We'll I think now we are talking about the government reviewing apps for the app store. By the people for the people.
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