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Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

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Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#861

Post by bertil »

bartwe wrote: post #725
acdha wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll get no argument from me that Apple's system is pretty good from a consumer standpoint — that's the primary reason why I predicted that it'd remain popular. It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it. On the other hand, it's really easy to imagine that you'd see something like “$9.99 IAP; $7.99 direct from Epic/Amazon/Google/Netflix/…

They're not allowed to offer it lower price direct.

I’m very curious if that clause would be challenged by this judge or another one — because that’s the linchpin.

That decision changes register my Netflix account, that I don‘t remember doing, nor do I remember what interface I used to do it ––it was three computers and two phones ago–– but if another decision says I could save 20% every month, I’d munster the energy to get off the couch.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#862

Post by bertil »

dylan604 wrote: post #463
layer8 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One drawback of the current situation is that for example you can’t purchase ebooks through the iOS Kindle app (because Amazon can’t/won’t let Apple take their 30% cut there), and the app can’t even link to the corresponding product page on Amazon. If the new ruling enables such purchases and linking, then as a consumer I’m very much in favor of it.

But yet you can by directly from Amazon in their app without using Apple. How can Apple say that they cannot sell eBooks directly on Kindle app, but allow direct sells from the retail store?

Apple doesn’t ban sales of eBook, but claims that those are software and would apply a 30% processing fee to them like on all virtual goods. They also demand the price to be comparable to other sources, so Amazon has to decide between

1. taking a 30% hit on its iOS sales, 2. forgoing them, or 3. raise its prices of eBook by 30% on its main app.

There are enough few enough iOS sales, and free sample downloads lead to enough conversion on the website later to go for 2.

Apple doesn’t make the same claim on physical goods.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#863

Post by stale2002 »

mrtksn wrote: post #858
stale2002 wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large corporations not paying taxes is bad, because it means society has less money to pay for things. That is very different from companies paying less money to a multi trillion dollar company. Companies paying less to a multi trillion dollar company is a good thing. It is dishonest to equate that to necessary government services being underfunded. Lower costs are good. So no, I reject that this is bad for small dev…

How hard it is to understand that I am talking about small business potentially getting disadvantaged by all this? It’s so frustrating.

They are not disadvantaged by it, as they get access to the same deals that they had in the past.

The only different is that now, some companies, have the ability of no longer having to pay large amounts of money to a multi-trillion dollar company (apple).

That is a win.

The fact that less companies have to pay many millions and millions of dollars, to one of the most valuable companies in the world, is a win.

And small companies, still have access to the same exact programs that they had before.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#864

Post by bertil »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #616
eropple wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies will want it, but I'm not sure users will. Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever.

> Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever. So then we have two possibilities. One, you're an outlier and nobody else cares. Two, many use…

> a market for another payment system that has easy cancellations but charges ~5% instead of 30%.

I’d happily pay for such a system if I could *trust* them to continue acting in my interest by not leaking my details or interest and actually cancelling subscriptions without pushback from the provider (say, will the free version still grant access to my files).

I don’t know many players that I would trust with that and that are big enough to not be intimidated by providers.

That trust can be misplaced: God knows I trusted the NYTimes for being a nice company, but their unsubscription process was horrific, demanding to call from a US phone number (guess what: it’s really hard when you are not based in the US) and then refusing to cancel a non-US subscription if you do…

After dealing with that too much, I genuinely only trust Apple to do it consistently. I might trust Google too; I’m hoping that data scientist at Facebook know to model the brand impact on retention to argue it’s financially preferable to let people cancel… Even companies where I lead the analytics team and where I made the case passionate for instant cancellations, it was such an uphill battle. And it was lost again as soon as they thought I turned my back, because of some middle-manager obsessed with their short-term number.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#865

Post by bertil »

pronlover723 wrote: post #837
eropple wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies will want it, but I'm not sure users will. Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever.

I know I'm in the minority but Apple does a shitty job on subscriptions. I frequent 2 countries. As such I need apps that are only available in one country's store (banking apps). In order to download needed updates have to switch stores. Switching stores cancels all subscriptions. Another example of place Apple is failing (though I know of no alternatives), I went to a restaurant, the waiter told me I could pay by s…

I would blame the developper who built the payment system — although, I’m sure if they don’t include that, they loose the sale of their solutions to restaurants.

I’m surprised that Apple didn‘t mandate the hashed email solution that they advertised when introducing Apple Pay. That felt an effective solution to your concern. It’s likely that the developper had to include that copy (honestly, that cantor is almost fresh these days) but forgot to mention that this could be hashed if you chose to do so in your Apple Pay settings.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#866

Post by gambiting »

FDSGSG wrote: post #854
nixass wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's actually how I made sure my gym subscription was terminated for good. If for nothing else, the angry Americans downvoted you to hell for this

Very likely that doing this will still mess up your credit ratings and result in calls from debt collectors, even if you're in Europe.

Over a 10 euro/month subscription? Zero chance. Even in Europe.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#867

Post by skohan »

endisneigh wrote: post #694
skohan wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A toaster is clearly not a general purpose computer. Should a car manufacturer be able to dictate which destinations you're allowed to reach with it?

Why isn’t a toaster a general purpose computer? There are toasters with wifi, touchscreens and other functionality. As for your car question - why not? No one would buy such a crippled device. The problem would resolve itself. If a car manufacturer sold a car without a steering wheel that self drove, perhaps people would buy the car in spite of the limitations. What they shouldn’t do, is buy a car advertised without…

Come on, to assert that a "smart toaster" is not categorically different than a laptop or a smartphone is a bad faith argument.

I think market forces don't work well in cases where you have a lot of vertical integration, and increasing consolidation.

The "just don't buy it" argument only works in a competitive market with lots of offerings. What we have in the world of computers is more of a lesser-of-a-few-evils choice in virtually every technology choice.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#868

Post by majani »

woko wrote: post #650
dev_tty01 wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It also allows the judge to slap them without agreeing with the other side. Epic didn't get anything they really wanted. This change will not make much difference. No change to single app store model. As far as I can tell, Apple will have to allow communication in the app about payment through other means. That's it. I think it is likely that Apple will require apps to offer Apple payment as an option alongs…

> I would rather use Apple payment system. The price would be higher if you used Apple payment system. That is how companies would get consumers to be enticed to use other payment systems. That is what Epic did with their V-bucks: either use Apple system at the usual cost, or use Epic payment system at a permanently decreased cost (20% cheaper in August 2020).

They will simply force developers to only put payment options at the last step of the checkout process, which prevents any discount offer for one certain payment system

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#869

Post by paulmd »

015a wrote: post #749
sudhirj wrote: post #223

Think Apple has already seen the writing on the wall - both S. Korea & the US are now probably going to push back against the IAP restrictions, and they can / should do a couple of things, which might actually increase revenue. 1. Cut down the IAP commission to 15% for everyone. 2. Cut down the commission to 5% for those who pay for a Business Account, say at $5,000 a year. The thing is no customer wants to use any c…

If you could choose between 30% of a billion dollars, or 15% of twenty billion, which would you pick? There are externalities to each choice, of course, but the correct answer is, actually, the obvious one. Apple is not in the right on this one, from any perspective. If they care about their users and developers: they'd drop the commission. If they cared about their revenue and investors: they'd drop the commission.…

I actually think it’s the exact opposite and Epic would have picked a fight with Apple even if the fees were 15%.

This isn’t about fees and it’s not even (just) about Apple - Apple is just a relatively unsympathetic defendant for them to fire their opening shot. As noted, Microsoft fees are 30%, Google fees are 30%, etc, and yet Apple was singled out (with those companies actually jumping onto the lawsuit against Apple too).

This is, more generally, about prying the Apple platform open, and other similar platforms like it. Remember, Epic didn’t start this suit over anti-steering clauses, the real goal here was epic getting their own third party store, which means they don’t have to pass an Apple review before being able to request permissions that let them mine data/etc. Thats a way bigger prize than (checks notes) 30% of 12 million dollars.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#870

Post by motogpjimbo »

baxtr wrote: post #572
acdha wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll get no argument from me that Apple's system is pretty good from a consumer standpoint — that's the primary reason why I predicted that it'd remain popular. It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it. On the other hand, it's really easy to imagine that you'd see something like “$9.99 IAP; $7.99 direct from Epic/Amazon/Google/Netflix/…

I had a WSJ subscription which I couldn’t cancel online. You have to call them, wait in line and then let them talk you into another free month and stuff. A bad experience. It was so annoying I just gave up until my CC was locked. This experience was definitely more expensive than using Apple’s services.

How does this work for deaf or hearing impaired users? Surely even in the US there must be a way to cancel a subscription without having to speak to someone on the phone?
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