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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

#121

Post by Sophistifunk »

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 .

Thing is that's a question for the market to decide. Which is why we have anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws in the first place. We don't want the state setting "fair" prices for anything, it always backfires. We want them ensuring the market is free to set prices. Monopolies granted by the state (trademarks, copyright, patents) are specific and limited, and ideally we want monopolies that arise naturally to be similarly limited, or broken up if they are being weaponised against the public.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #101
cedws wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had the choice to buy another phone.

There are two phones on the market. Android and iPhone. The Government needs to break up this duopoly. Mobile should have hundreds of choices, three or four OS options, and free web-based installs without a gatekeeper or taxation. Mobile providers shouldn't be able tyrannically set defaults for search, payments, or anything else either.

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by Rohansi »

gortok wrote: post #51
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 .

“Quality Control”? Outside of the absolute bare minimum to check this box for a plurality of observers, I can’t imagine anyone actually saying the App Store has a quality control process with a straight face, especially not one that would be championed as acceptable as a market practice.

The App Store "quality control" does its job (or tries to) to make sure developers aren't breaking their arbitrary rules. They would never actually do quality control because they benefit from all the junk being pushed to the App Store through their cut, search ads, etc.

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

#125

Post by flomo »

anonymous908213 wrote: post #106
chongli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as you open the door to side-loading, you'll have scammers and data-siphoners force all their users to side-load so that they can completely bypass Apple's privacy controls and security features. The entire iOS ecosystem is built on the App Store review process as a gatekeeper for entitlements and the capabilities they grant (through API access). How do you solve that problem for side-loaded apps?

Sideloading, AKA "installing software on your device", is something PCs have been handling just fine for decades. It's fine to warn the user when they're going off the beaten trail, but do not lock them in a cage to prevent them from doing so. If they ignore the warnings and get scammed because they are unable to identify reputable software from disreputable software, they learn a life lesson. Life goes on. There sho…

There was some point around 15 years ago when it was nearly impossible to download and install Windows software without getting some extra adware and etc. This was true even for 'legit' vendors like Sun and Adobe. (Plus Google would offer up wrapped installers for Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.) Honestly if you thought "things were fine", you were ignoring the Linux/Mac people laughing about it.

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

#126

Post by bloppe »

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 .

Someone asks this every time, and the answer is always the same. Fair pricing can only be discovered in a competitive market. The problem is that Apple moves heaven and earth to prevent competitive markets from doing their thing.

That being said, this is the UK, where even in a reasonably competitive job market people can still sue their employer for "unfair pay" [1], so maybe the thinking here is a bit different than my silly classical liberal brain

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0817jd9dqo

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

#127

Post by nomel »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #102
chongli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as you open the door to side-loading, you'll have scammers and data-siphoners force all their users to side-load so that they can completely bypass Apple's privacy controls and security features. The entire iOS ecosystem is built on the App Store review process as a gatekeeper for entitlements and the capabilities they grant (through API access). How do you solve that problem for side-loaded apps?

How is it that I can load MacOS apps from anywhere, and yet they don't "completely bypass Apple's privacy controls and security features"?

The context here is mobile. Everyone understands that you're free to break/install things as you wish, in macOS, if you disable the "dumb user" safeguards.

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

#128

Post by userbinator »

1oooqooq wrote: post #90
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.

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.

Scare people enough times without reason, and they'll stop listening. An increasing number of people already have. It'll be amusing if the word "security" becomes meaningless soon, or is perceived negatively by the majority of the population. Only then can freedom win.

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

#129

Post by Rohansi »

chongli wrote: post #69
Deathmax wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if the App Store had any sort of those guarantees. I know of people have been scammed via WebView wrappers that purported to be some benign app to pass app store review, which were then pointed at fake exchange websites afterwards. GitLab which was hosting their C&C mechanism took action faster than Apple or Google did to take down multiple scam apps across multiple different developer identities, but the scammers…

WebView wrappers don't have any more ability to siphon data out of the phone than any other app. Scammers can always scam users if they can trick them into entering data into a website. There's nothing anyone can do about that (besides blocking web access).

The point is Apple isn't really helping with the problem because the weakest link is people. If you can get someone to install malicious software how much more difficult is it to have them willingly give it via phishing?

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

#130

Post by anonymous908213 »

flomo wrote: post #125
anonymous908213 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sideloading, AKA "installing software on your device", is something PCs have been handling just fine for decades. It's fine to warn the user when they're going off the beaten trail, but do not lock them in a cage to prevent them from doing so. If they ignore the warnings and get scammed because they are unable to identify reputable software from disreputable software, they learn a life lesson. Life goes on. There sho…

There was some point around 15 years ago when it was nearly impossible to download and install Windows software without getting some extra adware and etc. This was true even for 'legit' vendors like Sun and Adobe. (Plus Google would offer up wrapped installers for Firefox, OpenOffice, etc.) Honestly if you thought "things were fine", you were ignoring the Linux/Mac people laughing about it.

"Nearly impossible" is quite a stretch. While it was certainly shameful that it ever became as mainstream as it did, it was a matter of unticking checkboxes in the adware installers, and there was plenty of software out there that did not engage in that behaviour to begin with. At any rate, I didn't say anything about operating systems. You can also install software of your choice on Linux or Mac. I'm not really sure what point you were driving at there.
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