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Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

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Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#81

Post by kelthuzad »

cedws wrote: post #73
kadoban wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants. And if new entrants can't enter the market because the existing monopolies make it impractical, then what?

This is the actual problem to be solved. The bureaucracy of forcing the hand of tech companies every time consumers scream loud enough is a shitty solution.

And that is exactly the problem that is being solved. It's not about "consumers screaming", but companies, consumers and governments realizing that anti-competitive behavior is harming everybody except the gatekeeper. The solution is competition. Since Apple is such a great and innovative company, they surely won't be afraid of competing on merit.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#82

Post by tomasphan »

raincole wrote: post #22
crims0n wrote: post #11

Honest question, what do people think is a fair percentage? The platform development, app hosting, payment processing, and quality control is surely worth something .

The honest answer is that Apple shouldn't own iOS and its main app store at the same time. But there is not legal / regulation framework to prevent that. Case in point: Steam is taking 30% too. But you've heard much less fuss over it, right? Why? Is it because of players' cult-like behavior around Steam? (probably partially) But more importantly it's because Valve doesn't own Windows and Steam Deck is a far smaller f…

Steam feels like a partnership with developers where Apple is a gatekeeper. I publish free games on Steam and all it costs is a $100 one time fee per game. I get human review and feedback on my marketing material and store page assets.

Apple is incredibly strict with the content they allow to the point that it feels like a they exclusively cater to children. It’s easier to vibe code the apps that I want under my own developer account because at least I can side load those.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#83

Post by foolswisdom »

cedws wrote: post #60
bitpush wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you plug in a non-Apple USB cable to charge your iPhone, or use a third-party phone case, or use Anker power bank .. do you wish you had none of these choices, but only use whatever Apple branded cables, and phonecase and power banks existed? If you want to buy Apple cables because you think it is better, sure - that's great. But preventing ugreen cables from working makes no sense. You shouldnt say 'buy a diffe…

Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market. If you don’t like the charging options of an iPhone, don’t buy an iPhone. If you don’t like the OS of a Pixel, don’t buy a Pixel. If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants.

The nature of a free market is that someone wins the competition, and the winner is then happy to figure out ways to prevent anyone from competing at all (this kind of action doesn't require a complete winner either, but I'm focusing on a thought experiment here).

Ergo, if you care about maintaining a free market, then you care about limiting what kind of moves you can make in the free market, in order to preserve a free market. A truly free market with no rules has an end state where it is not a free market, more like a much more sophisticated version of the nobles of the land owning everything. So we declare many activities that make it difficult for others to compete that are not simply about manking a better product, "anti-competitive" and illegal.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#84

Post by [deleted] »

cedws wrote: post #60
bitpush wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you plug in a non-Apple USB cable to charge your iPhone, or use a third-party phone case, or use Anker power bank .. do you wish you had none of these choices, but only use whatever Apple branded cables, and phonecase and power banks existed? If you want to buy Apple cables because you think it is better, sure - that's great. But preventing ugreen cables from working makes no sense. You shouldnt say 'buy a diffe…

Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market. If you don’t like the charging options of an iPhone, don’t buy an iPhone. If you don’t like the OS of a Pixel, don’t buy a Pixel. If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants.

[deleted]

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#85

Post by furyofantares »

cedws wrote: post #46
gpm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as Apple requires they make use of those services for me to install software on the computer I bought, and they prevent others from producing equivalent competing devices via patents (i.e. government granted monopolies), zero. It's not that it's not worth something, it's that they're abusing their patents and monopoly to extract further compensation after I already bought the device.

You had the choice to buy another phone.

We also have the choice to make different laws.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#86

Post by dialup_sounds »

gpm wrote: post #62
cedws wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equivalent in what way? A Samsung, a Xiaomi, a Google phone have all of the necessary capabilities to live a modern life.

Equivalent in the way of having the numerous features small and large that Apple has patents on. Whether that's being a rectangle with rounded corners (yes they have a patent on that, or at least did, and successfully defended it in court. Not sure what's happened in the meantime), or whatever random patents Apple has on making blood oxygen sensor technology just that little bit better. If Apple believes their portfo…

You seem to be confusing Masimo's patent infringement case against Apple over Apple Watch with the notion that Apple has some kind of a patented blood oxygen sensor in the iPhone.

I don't think that supports your case that Apple's patent keeps other phones from being equivalent given that the sensor isn't in the iPhone and it's not even Apple's patent.

For what it's worth, I'm typing this on a Pixel which is also a rounded rectangle, so I'm skeptical that patent is really holding other phones back, either

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#87

Post by cedws »

kelthuzad wrote: post #81
cedws wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the actual problem to be solved. The bureaucracy of forcing the hand of tech companies every time consumers scream loud enough is a shitty solution.

And that is exactly the problem that is being solved. It's not about "consumers screaming", but companies, consumers and governments realizing that anti-competitive behavior is harming everybody except the gatekeeper. The solution is competition. Since Apple is such a great and innovative company, they surely won't be afraid of competing on merit.

It just props up the monopoly. Appeased consumers have no reason to buy other products. There is no financial motive for Apple to do good because they can do bad until government forces their hand, and they have no reason to fear competition. It’s an admission we’re all at the mercy of Apple until daddy government steps in.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#88

Post by joomla199 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #31
stavros wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but Apple always required signing, and Google is moving to that too, so they can simply charge you an exorbitant amount to get your app signed, moving the money maker from the store to the dev environment.

Now that the regulators are actually saying this is a problem I suspect these schemes will be addressed much faster. I'm pretty stunned Google announced that just after losing the case, because it's so remarkably stupid. Judges do not like being screwed with.

The police does not like being screwed with either. These aren’t good things. People with significant authority perform a duty and ought to act independently of their personal feeling.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#89

Post by Aloisius »

jen729w wrote: post #38
crims0n wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in this scenario would Epic then need to develop and maintain their own toolchain and SDK for their app store? The development tools and education are also worth something, Epic shouldn’t get that for free.

Dystopian story plot: Apple completely opens up the iOS platform. Do whatever you like. Also, an XCode license is now $20,000/year. Don’t like it? Build your own.

Why stop at xcode?

Add a licensing fee for UIKit, Core Data, Core Text, Core Audio, Core Graphics, Metal, Network, SwiftUI, Quartz and all the other libraries apps use constantly.

Heck, why not for the OS itself? If you don't want to pay, they could conceivably dump you into an isolated VM and force you to write your own OS and userspace device drivers.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#90

Post by 1oooqooq »

stavros wrote: post #24
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both third party app stores (without aggressive scare screens) and third party payments will be globally available on both platforms in the next few years. But it will take some time for enough piecemeal jurisdictions to require it for it to become burdensome for the companies to have different options in different regulatory regimes, and to make it no longer worth blocking in jurisdictions which haven't rule…

Yeah but Apple always required signing, and Google is moving to that too, so they can simply charge you an exorbitant amount to get your app signed, moving the money maker from the store to the dev environment.

https://github.com/deckerst/aves/issues/1802

and google is surreptitiously flagging several of the top alternatives to their spyware bloatware on android, as a prelude to the change.

this is clearly an action that can be easily attributed to incompetence, but is a thinly veiled way to ensure a flood of verified open source joining early on the ransom for signing whitelist.

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