S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance • Hacker News Board

Re: S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance

#111

Post by fragileone » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 12:25 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #29

NonContro wrote: post #5

What about Steam? They control 90% of PC gaming and even charge regressive commissions, with higher rates for smaller developers.

What about Amazon? Or any other dominant player in any market? Steam does not come pre-installed on nearly every device unlike Apple's and Googles offering. Future Steam Deck not withstanding, but that will be miniscule player. They don't prevent any other store from operating. So I don't see how they are comparable to anything Google or Apple does. Windows Store might qualify if they forced themselves on Windows in…

Even the Steam Deck is just a Arch Linux device, so you can install any games store like Epic or Origin or GOG on there if you want.

Unlike the Google Play Store which gets special access to APIs that other app stores cannot use.

Re: S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance

#112

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #109

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at Standard Oil. Yes, it lowered prices and increased access. And it did things that were clearly blatantly unfair competition. For one example, it demanded kickbacks from railroads on oil shipments - all oil shipments, including competitors'. It's pretty hard for a competitor to be able to compete in that environment.

If you're referring to drawbacks - then you have to ask, why did the railroads grant them? Why would other oil shipments pay a higher rate? Is it because the volume and stability standard oil offered, as well as ownership of tankers and other critical infrastructure needed to be compensated for? Once again, their market share was falling while these programs were going on so clearly it didn't hamper competition.

Why did the railroads grant them? Because Standard Oil was a huge amount of business. And back then, railroads had other railroads that competed with them. The railroads granted them under the threat of Standard Oil taking a huge amount of business to the competition.

Was it for the ownership of the tanks? No, I don't think so... but I can't prove it.

Re: S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance

#113

Post by sagarm » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

yuvalr1 wrote: post #19

This is a move on the right direction, and is better than nothing. However, I think that a better move is to force HW platforms (maybe starting at a certain magnitude) to let the users use any software market they desire. This way Apple and Google can continue forcing the apps on their own markets to use their payment systems and "keep the users safe", while the other markets can do whatever they like

Android already supports installing third party apps that can install other apps. For example, the Humble Bundle installer.

Re: S.Korea parliament committee votes to curb Google, Apple commission dominance

#114

Post by ericmay » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #108

ericmay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that there's a vocal minority (looks around here) and the vast majority of people couldn't give a shit less. Not once in my life has my dad, my grandma, or some random friend I met up with at a bar gone "jeez, Apple and Google sure do have a monopoly on pricing in their respective app stores and this harms me as a consumer". Nobody cares. In fact, most people probably think everything is amazing how it…

>Not once in my life has my dad, my grandma, o Neither did any consumer complain to EU about credit card processing fees. Because they dont know. But EU business did. Just the same as App business in other country that are complaining now. And EU took action on Visa and MasterCard processing fees. And is the same argument, It is Apple's App Store, they can do what ever they want with it. Fine. Perfectly valid argumen…

> Neither did any consumer complain to EU about credit card processing fees. Because they dont know. But EU business did. Just the same as App business in other country that are complaining now.

Sure but that's not a great comparison. The experience for users is the same, you're just shuffling around who gets paid. A better comparison would be a business that only accepts cash who then has to accept credit cards so they raise prices for everyone.

Either way, in the case of Apple and the iPhone it changes the user experience and the ability of Apple to collectively bargain against developers for the interest of consumers (where we are aligned). With 3rd-party App Stores you can now take a company like Facebook with abusive privacy rules, or manipulative and scammy apps and they basically get back into the ecosystem. So you're going to lose a lot of good things for not much value.

I think the writing is probably on the wall for Apple, but hopefully the experience isn't destroyed too much. Sucks that we're going to a worse future.

> And EU took action on Visa and MasterCard processing fees.

And did those businesses lower prices or keep the prices the same but pocket the extra margin they were padding on for the fees?

I'm not saying it wasn't a good move, Visa and MasterCard are useful middle people but middle all the same, but it seems to me to just be shuffling around who is getting paid. Where this affects small businesses, great! Where it affects large companies? Meh.

> And is the same argument, It is Apple's App Store, they can do what ever they want with it. Fine. Perfectly valid argument. But it is also EU's Market ( or in this case South Korean Market ), if Apple dont like it, do what the MacRumors comments have been telling Apple to do, Pull out of the EU and South Korean market to retaliate.

I mean yea I'm not disputing that. The EU can pass whatever laws it wants, as can Korea. I just think it's anti-consumer. I don't think Apple will leave the markets though, they'll likely implement it and it'll just be a worse experience for EU citizens and South Koreans who have iPhones. I'm against it, personally.