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Apple vs. the "Free Market"

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Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#51

Post by api »

brigadier132 wrote: post #47
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is the only big tech company left that even pretends to care about privacy and does even a half-assed job of it. If they're doing it in part for self-interested reasons, that's fine. It's better than nothing. Their cloud storage product even has on-device encryption. Nobody else offers that, and in fact AFAIK Google and some of the others even have it listed as against their ToS. They're also working on privacy…

Freedom to run the software you choose on your own device is the only way to have actual privacy. What you have right now is just a centralized store of all your data on Apple's servers.

iOS and macOS are not the same product. If you want a real computer you have to get a Mac, which is why I do not own an iPad. IMHO if you can't run anything you want on it it's not a real computer, it's a "console." This is how I think of phones.

The iPhone does everything I want a phone to do, but that's not much: web, a few apps, turn by turn directions, texting, e-mail, etc.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#52

Post by talldayo »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #49
areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not trying to justify anticompetitive behavior from Apple here, but tired to see people saying ‘do you own it?’ when they really mean ‘does the manufacturer help installing third parties apps on its default OS’.

> Aren’t you free to load any OS you like?

Not while the bootloader is locked.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#53

Post by detourdog »

Apple exists within the same free market as it’ customers and competitors.

The high customer satisfaction is the lock-in. High customer satisfaction can easily explain the success. The idea that lock-in breeds high customer satisfaction needs to be proven to me.

Considering Microsoft’s dominance was cheered on by the Microsoft ecosystem and derided in customer satisfaction is noteworthy to me.

Apple has high customer satisfaction and a vocal group that consider the happy customers lemmings. These vocalists believe if Apple got out of the way they could show the happy customers what good really is.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#54

Post by MangoCoffee »

adesanmi wrote: post #31

If Patreon doesn’t like Apple’s rules, they should just take their app off the App Store. All these companies moaning about Apple yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave. If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Apple’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Apple wants. I support creators on Patreon, what exactly is wrong with just doing everythi…

"If Netscape doesn’t like Microsoft’s bundled IE with Windows, they should just take their app off the Windows OS.

All these companies moaning about Microsoft yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave.

If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Microsoft’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Microsoft wants."

The irony is striking: Microsoft (Windows/IE) is often criticized for being a monopoly, while Apple, a behemoth with a trillion-dollar valuation and unlimited resources, is paradoxically seen as a humble, independent studio despite its questionable business practices on HN.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#55

Post by adesanmi »

tvink wrote: post #48
adesanmi wrote: post #31

If Patreon doesn’t like Apple’s rules, they should just take their app off the App Store. All these companies moaning about Apple yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave. If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Apple’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Apple wants. I support creators on Patreon, what exactly is wrong with just doing everythi…

Counterpoint, monopolization is not a good thing, and as long as Apple doesn't allow alternative app stores, we can talk about how the value they provide is artificially gatekeeping the devices of over a billion people from running the software they would like. There's not only business in this equation, and historically attacking tech monopolies through legislative power has been more effective than suggestion that…

But they’re not stopping me from supporting creators. I can go to Patreon.com on my iPhone right now and subscribe to any creator without Apple’s fees. If they took their app off the App Store tomorrow I will continue to be able to have all of the functionality because they have a functioning mobile website that allows me to do everything I want to do. The web is a perfectly suitable alternative here and it’s working, so why exactly do they need to be on a store with rules they don’t agree with?

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#56

Post by brigadier132 »

api wrote: post #51
brigadier132 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom to run the software you choose on your own device is the only way to have actual privacy. What you have right now is just a centralized store of all your data on Apple's servers.

iOS and macOS are not the same product. If you want a real computer you have to get a Mac, which is why I do not own an iPad. IMHO if you can't run anything you want on it it's not a real computer, it's a "console." This is how I think of phones. The iPhone does everything I want a phone to do, but that's not much: web, a few apps, turn by turn directions, texting, e-mail, etc.

I'm like you and my primary device is my laptop.

That being said: For the vast majority of people, their phone is their primary computing device.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#57

Post by jacobp100 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #2

What's the conceptual difference between Apple charging 30% for Patreon subcribers vs. charging 30% for purchases on Temu or the Amazon app? This distinction seems completely arbitrary to me. I suspect the only reason it exists is that adding a 30% Apple surcharge to every Amazon purchase would cause too much outrage. Disclaimer: I've never used Temu or the Amazon app, but I'm assuming they don't apply a 30% surcharg…

Digital goods and tips are required to use IAPs and pay the fee. Patreon is either one or the other, or maybe a mix of both. I suspect this has been published more than they anticipated, and they’ll have to allow tips to use external payment systems.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#58

Post by talldayo »

detourdog wrote: post #53

Apple exists within the same free market as it’ customers and competitors. The high customer satisfaction is the lock-in. High customer satisfaction can easily explain the success. The idea that lock-in breeds high customer satisfaction needs to be proven to me. Considering Microsoft’s dominance was cheered on by the Microsoft ecosystem and derided in customer satisfaction is noteworthy to me. Apple has high customer…

If you're right, what's stopping Apple from providing the same service while also granting fair access to third-parties?

If Apple's main product differentiation is customer satisfaction, then in-theory they won't suffer as much from exposure to competition. As we've seen with the App Store on MacOS and AppleTV though, Apple cannot rely on just their premium profile to push a service. If they don't force people through the App Store a-la iOS, they can't get developers to reliably use it.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#59

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

roenxi wrote: post #14
brigadier132 wrote: post #4

Apple's product is its users. All of the privacy changes are not to protect the privacy of their users, it's to ensure that there are no ways to access Apple device users without Apple being the middleman.

Which is a great pitch to use Apple devices. The software community seems to hate it but I have a theory that one of the reasons Apple commands such a premium is because regular users don't actually like the software people all that much. Apple protecting user privacy for selfish reasons is a wonderful thing . It means they are going to keep doing it for as long as they can manage until the legislators step in.

> Apple protecting user privacy

It's amazing how successful they are at virtue signaling about privacy while selling your traffic to Google, the progenitor and linchpin of surveillance capitalism, for tens of billions of dollars. Laundering the reputation through the slightest bit of indirection is all it takes.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#60

Post by Workaccount2 »

detourdog wrote: post #53

Apple exists within the same free market as it’ customers and competitors. The high customer satisfaction is the lock-in. High customer satisfaction can easily explain the success. The idea that lock-in breeds high customer satisfaction needs to be proven to me. Considering Microsoft’s dominance was cheered on by the Microsoft ecosystem and derided in customer satisfaction is noteworthy to me. Apple has high customer…

I think all that is needed is for customers to have the option to see "what good really is"
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