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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

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Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#151

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

realusername wrote: post #55
elpool2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As described in the ruling, Apple hired a consulting group to estimate how much value developers get from the iphone platform, which found that (1) Apple’s platform technology is worth up to 30% of a developer’s revenue. (2) Apple’s developer tools and services are worth approximately 3%–16%. (3) Apple’s distribution services are worth approximately 4%–14%. (4) Apple’s discovery services are worth approximately 5%–14…

It made me laugh, if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup), you better really invest in those developer tools to show it off because the sad state of xcode really isn't showing that. I don't know where this money is going but certainly not in the developer tooling because it's absolutely terrible

> if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup)

Back in 2008, if you were an indie dev then their 30% ask was more than reasonable because the cost-of-doing-business on other platforms (like Windows Mobile) was much higher due to the lack of any central App Store; for example, you'd often need to partner with a company like Digital River, and pay more for marketing/advertising and overcome the significant friction involved in convincing punters to register/buy from your website, download the app *.cab files to their PC, install the app onto your device, and hope no-one uploads a copy to a filesharing network because this was before the days when an OS itself would employ DRM to enforce a license for third-party software.

...then one day Apple comes along and says: "We can manage all of that for you, for far less than what you'd pay for e-commerce and digital distribution, and our customers have lots of disposable income".

Ostensibly, competition should have come from the Android and (lol) Windows App Stores: "surely if Android's Play Store offers devs better rates then devs will simply not target iOS anymore and Apple will reduce their % to stay competitive" - but Apple's secret-sauce of a markedly more affluent customer base with already saved credit-card details meant that Android apps leant more on ad-supported apps while more iOS apps could charge an up-front amount, not have ads, and result in iOS devs still making far more money on Apple's platform.

--------

There exists an argument that Apple should not be forced to open-up the iOS platform because Apple is selling a closed platform on the merits of it being a closed platform, and Apple's customers want a closed platform (even if they don't realize it) because having a closed platform looks like the only way to enforce a minimum standard of quality and to keep malware out precisely because normal-human-users (i.e. our collective mothers) will install malware because the installation instructions for "Facebook_Gold_App1_100%_Real_honest.app" tell them to disable system protections.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#152

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

echelon wrote: post #35
autobodie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About time for what? Another company to get charged with something that they don't get punished for? The fines are always less than the companies' net gains from the practice. Gains are often indirect, risk-related, and/or part of a larger strategy, so they cannot be calculated. Everything short of prison is a waste of time, waste of tax dollars, and spits in the face of decent citizens.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

It's also insane how what was considered dystopia for desktop computing silently happened for mobile devices: a corporation controlling the software stack and using cryptography against the users to control precisely what software they are allowed to run on their "own" devices. Yes, in principle Android phones can be rooted, but in practice this breaks Play Integrity and you are now locked out from a huge range of apps.

Google and Apple have silently achieved Microsoft's wet dream from the "trusted platform" era of effectively making it impossible for free and open source operating systems to compete with their own.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#153

Post by jamessinghal »

elpool2 wrote: post #28
mrcwinn wrote: post #13

The heart of Apple's hypocrisy is this: they claim their 30% is necessary to support the developer ecosystem and fund its operations. But of course if that were true, they could easily charge a high enough platform membership fee directly to developers. Instead they opt for a structural tax to cover what are mostly completely opaque and secret operational costs. They're opaque and secret for obvious reasons: those ex…

As described in the ruling, Apple hired a consulting group to estimate how much value developers get from the iphone platform, which found that (1) Apple’s platform technology is worth up to 30% of a developer’s revenue. (2) Apple’s developer tools and services are worth approximately 3%–16%. (3) Apple’s distribution services are worth approximately 4%–14%. (4) Apple’s discovery services are worth approximately 5%–14…

The funny thing is that the companies that stand to benefit the most from this and that move the most money (Netflix, Spotify, Fortnite) need Apple's platform, marketing, and distribution the least.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#154

Post by jonny_eh »

leptons wrote: post #141
echelon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I'm fine with Google and Apple having App stores, so long as I'm not forced to use them. They should compete like everyone else. The walls of the walled garden have to be torn down. They still get to have a garden, they just can't lock unwitting people inside of it.

If it's good enough for Mac, it's good enough for iPhone.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#155

Post by numbsafari »

zik wrote: post #98
musicale wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath Well that sounds rather damning.

Surely he should receive a prison sentence for that alone?

With the referral to the US attorney’s office, he actually might.

Consider how painful that is going to be for Apple, and Roman, with how the current administration is abusing the DOJ.

The repercussions of this could be huge.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#156

Post by ocdtrekkie »

thealexliang wrote: post #44

"Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anti-competitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anti-competitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, the…

It's so good... but also it has taken so, so long to get here. The US should've done something about the app store tax a long time ago. People thought Apple won their case, but it... really just took time to get here. You get to try malicious compliance with judges exactly once, and then you're over.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#157

Post by gpm »

leptons wrote: post #141
echelon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I'm fine with Google and Apple having App stores, so long as I'm not forced to use them. They should compete like everyone else. The walls of the walled garden have to be torn down. They still get to have a garden, they just can't lock unwitting people inside of it.

Walls to keep apps out should be fine, but they should have to have gates to let the consumers out - i.e. a method to install other apps (not through the app store) that have every bit the same level of access as the device manufacturer's apps.

There should be two levers used to achieve this. One is anti-trust style legislation. The other is patent misuse legislation. If you try and prevent consumers from running software on hardware they bought from you to make a profit, you shouldn't be allowed to prevent consumers from buying the same hardware from someone else - that's what patents do - they create government enforced monopolies on the hardware. You should be required to invalidate (donate to the public domain) every patent on the hardware if you want to sell hardware where you get to profit off your monopoly on letting developers write software for the hardware.

These Epic rulings are better than nothing, but I can't help but feel that their solution of "make Apple distribute software they don't like in their app store" is the wrong one.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#158

Post by ocdtrekkie »

sensanaty wrote: post #58

Is there any hope of a non-joke fine here? Or are we just looking at another kiss of the wrists as them and Google and all the other big tech cos fuck literally everyone over?

A fine isn't even necessary: Apple's App Store business just ended. Between app sales and IAP it has a 30% tax. If an app developer swaps out for a Stripe portal they're paying 3% and probably at least doubling their own profit margin.

Only an idiot would still be selling apps through Apple's payments next week. The only way Apple will make any money at all on apps is if it drops it's fees to 10% or below.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#159

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

echelon wrote: post #35
autobodie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About time for what? Another company to get charged with something that they don't get punished for? The fines are always less than the companies' net gains from the practice. Gains are often indirect, risk-related, and/or part of a larger strategy, so they cannot be calculated. Everything short of prison is a waste of time, waste of tax dollars, and spits in the face of decent citizens.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

It does deserve a fine and/or criminal forfeiture of the revenue they made from the app store monopoly. If Apple had to repay let's say the difference between what they charged and what a reasonable fee would be (let's say 10%), for the entire time they've been doing it, that would put "a bit" of a dent into their pocketbook and serve as an effective deterrent.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#160

Post by Scaevolus »

realusername wrote: post #55
elpool2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As described in the ruling, Apple hired a consulting group to estimate how much value developers get from the iphone platform, which found that (1) Apple’s platform technology is worth up to 30% of a developer’s revenue. (2) Apple’s developer tools and services are worth approximately 3%–16%. (3) Apple’s distribution services are worth approximately 4%–14%. (4) Apple’s discovery services are worth approximately 5%–14…

It made me laugh, if you pretend to be worth 30% of revenue (an insane markup), you better really invest in those developer tools to show it off because the sad state of xcode really isn't showing that. I don't know where this money is going but certainly not in the developer tooling because it's absolutely terrible

Steam takes a 30% cut, but it's actually apparently worth it for discovery and low-friction sales alone, since developers still sell on Steam when the PC is an open platform with competing storefronts with lower cuts.
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