Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#131

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #84

jessriedel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I'm familiar with the distinction between common and civil law, but that does not seem sufficiently specific to my question to be very helpful. The link to judicial estoppel is helpful, but seems much less broad than the gamblor956's claim. Judicial estoppel involves a party presenting contradictory arguments in separate court cases , not just hypocritical behavior by the party. (gamblor956: "if you take a po…

Judicial estoppel is a lot broader than the 3 paragraph Wikipedia page. It applies to the same court case, to separate court cases, and to actions occurring outside of a courtroom that would affect a court case if such actions have the effect of contradicting a legal position a party is taking in court.

Sure, but it's not as broad as hypocrisy in general. Hypocrisy is not against the law.

Apple is clearly being hypocritical by trying to do to Google what they try to stop other companies from doing to them. But that is a basic sort of hypocrisy common to markets--e.g. I want to get paid a lot for my work but I don't want to pay someone else a lot to do work for me.

If you look at any contractual relationship--which is what app stores are--you can be sure that each party is trying to get the most and give the least. That's not judicial estoppel.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#132

Post by jamil7 » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

Slight thread hijack. I believe Apple deserves all the developer backlash it's currently receiving, I hope it helps them turn themselves around. I say that as someone who actually enjoys using and developing for the platform(s). What would it take to get them to take notice of these issues? Mass app store strike? Can a sizable group of developers push app store updates with a blank screen and some demands laid out? It doesn't (and won't) even need to get past app store review for someone to take notice, get some high profile players on board who have a beef with Apple already (Basecamp, Spotify)... Or pull their apps altogether?

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#133

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #84

jessriedel wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I'm familiar with the distinction between common and civil law, but that does not seem sufficiently specific to my question to be very helpful. The link to judicial estoppel is helpful, but seems much less broad than the gamblor956's claim. Judicial estoppel involves a party presenting contradictory arguments in separate court cases , not just hypocritical behavior by the party. (gamblor956: "if you take a po…

Judicial estoppel is a lot broader than the 3 paragraph Wikipedia page. It applies to the same court case, to separate court cases, and to actions occurring outside of a courtroom that would affect a court case if such actions have the effect of contradicting a legal position a party is taking in court.

But even when I look at other sources that emphasize how broad it is, they do not seem to think it applies to general hypocritical behavior. First, it seems restricted to statements (arguments, testimony, etc.). Second, those statements seem to need to relate to communication where there is a notion of "taking a public stand", e.g., your account of an event to your insurance company, or your explanation to a government auditor.

> Courts have held, for example, that the timing of the inconsistent statements is not necessarily determinative. Therefore, both statements need not have been made during the course of the same pending lawsuit. Nor is it absolutely necessary for both statements to have been made in court proceedings. For example, prior statements made to local, state, and federal agencies, or to insurance companies, if sufficiently inconsistent with a later position being taken before a court, can give rise to a judicial estoppel.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a2c93368-28d7...

From everything I've read, just behaving hypocritically is not enough.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#134

Post by fredfjohnsen » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #70

snowwrestler wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously if Apple owns one platform, and Google owns the other platform, it is not actually the same situation. The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google's store the same way they choose to run their own store. In fact it's arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet cu…

Analogous != same. It means its very similar factually. The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google's store the same way they choose to run their own store. That's correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a…

Every Apple ID requires a form of payment associated unless you specifically set it up without one.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034

An Apple ID has nothing to do with Apple Pay. Apple Pay is a separate service you can turn on if you want to, or, not.

The crazy ideas people have about Apple & anti-trust mostly have to do with pretty much everyone not really understanding Apple service offerings.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#135

Post by Despegar » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #113

Despegar wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant/monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market). The reason why everyone has to narrowly define the market to "Apple has monopo…

Apple does not have a monopoly in the smartphone market, but it does have a dominant position there and a monopoly in the tablet segment where it does the same thing.

"Monopoly power" and "dominance" mean the same thing. One is used in the US, the other in the EU. You're going to have a tough time getting a court to agree that Apple is dominant in smartphones in the EU.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#136

Post by szhu » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #124

Spivak wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're choosing a definition of the world that's too narrow -- "if you've already decided to go to Walmart then Walmart is the only store that can sell at Walmart." Why isn't "the world" the smartphone market where there are plenty of options?

> plenty of options There are two options, and one of them is provided free of charge by the world's largest advertising company. The state of the smartphone OS market is so wildly different from the general-merchandise retail market as to render any comparisons meaningless.

Not only are there only two options, there is a high entry fee to each option, and you can only choose one at a time even if you wanted to pay this entry fee twice. What percent of consumers are willing to carry two phones in their pockets?

So you can compare this to if you could only buy things at two different stores, each store has a hefty membership fee, and you were effectively locked into your decision for at least a year at a time.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#137

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

tracerbulletx wrote: post #13

People keep writing about businesses like they are surprised they aren't moral entities with consistent moral logic. Businesses take whatever action or position they can to maximize their results. The more power the business has, the more they can leverage that power to get what they want. This should just be the default assumption at this point and we should talk about if that is ok for society, not keep feigning su…

Indeed they are compelled to maximise profit (the business leadership), else the shareholders will replace them. In fact I believe there’s even a US law to this effect.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#138

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

hellcow wrote: post #76

reagank wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the second doesn’t apply - you can’t listen to Apple Music with a different app, you have to use their app.

You can listen to it in a browser. You can use an iPad. There are many ways to use Apple Music that do not involve an Android app.

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Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#139

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #94

gamblor956 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judicial estoppel is a lot broader than the 3 paragraph Wikipedia page. It applies to the same court case, to separate court cases, and to actions occurring outside of a courtroom that would affect a court case if such actions have the effect of contradicting a legal position a party is taking in court.

Yes; I was answering the "give me a google term" question (which is a good question I fully support; it sure as heck isn't obvious the answer is "estoppel" to an English speaker), not "here's a full explanation of the concept" not-asked question. I'm not competent to give the latter. Further edit: I was also showing this is a principle in common law. It seems to be pretty rare for a case to be resolved with an explic…

I do appreciate it. Your comment definitely advanced the discussion.

Re: Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut

#140

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #55

jessriedel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to something that goes into more details about this principle, or give us some search terms? Stated as broadly as you have done, it doesn't sound right to me.

Judicial estoppel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_estoppel or the alternate name the article give, "estoppel by inconsistent positions". More generally, the thing known as "common law": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law Note that "common law" does not mean "law that is common", at least not on an international scale; it is a specific legal system. As the Wikipedia article says, there are several others…

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