161–170 of 635 posts
> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases. To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx…
> Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation’s rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its "pay or consent" advertising model, > The procedural fines fall short of the two giant penalties issued by the EU executive under its antitrust laws last year: €1.8 billion to Apple for abusing its dominant position while distributing music streaming apps, and €797 million to Meta f…
Wait, so the EU has made it illegal to sell a paid service while also offering an alternative where the user pays via seeing ads?
I hope this will make Apple finally comply with EU law and allow app side loading on iOS. Real side loading, not the joke they implemented since iOS 17.
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The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted. It makes them hilariously prone to product dumping, where WhatsApp is "free" of course, except it isn't. They then mass adopt the "free" option and act surprised pikachu when it's not actually free. What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it preci…
> The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted. This seems to be a common issue for all countries, the US included. (See the Chrome spin-off talks currently taking place.) > What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it precisely because of what it is. Incorrect, users have chosen it for what it…
The US is much more resistant to it, which is a major factor in iOS share being higher and WhatsApp being an almost complete non event.
Similarly those same users bought into the iOS option entirely because of the better privacy enabled by not being "free" in the price sense. In a very real sense Apple are the regulators of their platform in that they define and execute the policies. People buy into it because they like that aspect of things, and prefer the Apple regulations to those created by their governments. The EU want to override the regulations of the platform, except being short sighted they don't appreciate the effects of their suggestions, and so they're being played particularly by Meta.
> This is not the case and we're going to slowly move to a place where the hardware is independent of the software and vice-versa for smartphones.
People have been saying this from the start, but if anything it's now diverging faster than before. If you launch a service today and have no native app presence you will not be regarded as credible in the marketplace.
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You can buy an android or huawei phone. Just because the ecosystem you like to use doesn't have certain features doesn't make it a monopoly.
Setting aside that this is looking at the wrong side of the market like often happens in these discussions, what do you as a consumer do when Android or Huawei do something else that's a deal breaker for you?
To use the sandbox analogy, there are two sandboxes. A lets you bring your own toys, B only lets you choose from the toys they provide. I choose to go to B because of the toys they provide and because I don’t want to deal with the toys other people bring. People from A like the look of my sandbox so the rules get changed, and now there’s two sandboxes with the same rules, you have two choices and my preference is gone.
> Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation’s rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its "pay or consent" advertising model, > The procedural fines fall short of the two giant penalties issued by the EU executive under its antitrust laws last year: €1.8 billion to Apple for abusing its dominant position while distributing music streaming apps, and €797 million to Meta f…
> "pay or consent" advertising model, Wait, so the EU has made it illegal to sell a paid service while also offering an alternative where the user pays via seeing ads?
You could have non-personalized, or contextual ads. But those are much less effective.
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> If you really insist on making an analogy that involves McDonalds: that's like arguing that McDonalds should not be allowed to prevent Coca-Cola from telling Coca-Cola customers that they can buy Coca-Cola in places other than McDonalds. Which, yeah, they're not allowed to. Neither the App Stores or McDonalds have any control over what you do outside of them. That's your problem, individually and collectively.
Except Apple tried to exert control over that, which is exactly what they got fined for, because it's illegal.
> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases. To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx…
Aren't Americans always going on about free speech?
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It's not completely unwarranted. According to the article, Facebook was fined for their model of asking for pay or accept tracking. Which is exactly what almost all publishers do, e.g. all big German newspapers. It's absolutely clear that this is against the law - they could show ads, but can't invade the users privacy for that, so no tracking ads - but they do it anyway and got away with it in various decisions. And…
I agree, except the DMA specifically only applies to companies over a specific size. I think if the German newspapers were at FB/Apple scale, in terms of number of users, then the DMA would apply (i.e. they would be designated gatekeepers or similar) and they could also be fined. Although I think pay for no ads is also a violation of GDPR maybe?
So it's not exactly the same regulation but pretty much the same situation. I'd also be pissed.