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Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

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Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#151

Post by tekkk »

labcomputer wrote: post #143
echelon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. The web. Without scare walls or hidden "enable downloads" menu settings. And apps should no longer have to use first party payment rails, first party authentication/sign in rails, or be forced to jump through review or upgrade hoops.

I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad for you. Happy because you have nobody in your life in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of the inevitable malware that will be installed on their device as a result of your wish. Or sad because those people are most likely to be grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles. Perhaps you never even got to know them.

What a stupid argument. Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro, and stop bringing the rest of us down. And it doesn't even hold water as my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#152

Post by jterrys »

rootusrootus wrote: post #65
dangus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac. It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

I don't think the Mac is a great counter example. It started as a fully open platform, so the expectations are different. The iPhone was never anything other than an appliance, Apple is not trying to turn an open garden into a walled one, because it started that way.

I think the problem is that the app store is perceived as a general computing platform compared to what it was originally birthed from: Built in immutable applications on a mobile phone.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#153

Post by labcomputer »

tekkk wrote: post #151
labcomputer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad for you. Happy because you have nobody in your life in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of the inevitable malware that will be installed on their device as a result of your wish. Or sad because those people are most likely to be grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles. Perhaps you never even got to know them.

What a stupid argument. Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro, and stop bringing the rest of us down. And it doesn't even hold water as my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

Or maybe the iPhone should be that phone and those who don’t like the closed ecosystem should get something else?

Why would buy a phone that doesn’t work the way you like when alternatives exist?

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#154

Post by JumpCrisscross »

anilgulecha wrote: post #141
earthnail wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not until alternative stores become competitive. Realistically they have such a monopoly thar you end up in a chiclen and egg situation. Their monopoly is so large that noone wants to distribute via small alt stores, meaning alt stores never get large.

A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the faste…

> Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp

Would note the trade off: this store will be a bastion of tracking, possibly with Meta requiring its bugs be installed for inclusion.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#155

Post by TulliusCicero »

samdoesnothing wrote: post #86
jmull wrote: post #45

I think Apple should mostly be allowed to run as crappy an App Store as they want. But people should also be able to get apps from whatever store they want. (Ground rules all app stored would have to follow based on technical, security, and legal concerns would be fine too, IMO.) Of course Apple would never go for that, so we'll end up with whatever mess legal processes can wring out of them.

People are allowed to get apps from whatever store they want. There is nothing stopping someone from purchasing a device that supports the google play store and downloading whatever they want from that store. I have no right to complain that I can't run Apple programs on a Windows computer, and Microsoft shouldn't be compelled to support MacOS software.

Ridiculous argument. Microsoft isn't stopping me from running Apple programs on my Windows PC.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#156

Post by ben_w »

tekkk wrote: post #151
labcomputer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad for you. Happy because you have nobody in your life in a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of the inevitable malware that will be installed on their device as a result of your wish. Or sad because those people are most likely to be grandparents or elderly aunts and uncles. Perhaps you never even got to know them.

What a stupid argument. Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro, and stop bringing the rest of us down. And it doesn't even hold water as my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

> Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro

They did, they got an iPhone.

> my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

Did it empty her bank balance by abusing the private NFC payment APIs that Apple are being ordered to open up?

Did it cryptolock all her files?

Did it activate the camera and mic to spy on her for blackmail?

These are things that we need to worry about with random things we download on desktop these days. It's not 2007 any more, I have an entire spare computer for untrusted software.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#157

Post by JumpCrisscross »

frollogaston wrote: post #68
athrun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about provisioning for credit losses. Roughly speaking, when a transaction needs to be unwound, if the merchant cannot cover the reversal (for example, because it has defaulted), then the payment processor needs to pony up instead. Note that this isn't an edge case, this is something that happens every day. If the payment processor defaults (gasp!), then the processor's sponsor bank needs to cover it. This is wh…

I wish there were a "the customer is always wrong" way of paying digitally, so that there's almost no fee. Right now the only way is cash.

> wish there were a "the customer is always wrong" way of paying digitally

People always manage to make it the processor’s fault. See the hysteria over people being scammed through Zelle.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#158

Post by JumpCrisscross »

frollogaston wrote: post #61
radley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the App Store had never existed? ...even though it lays golden eggs Why is the general rebuttal always binary? Be grateful that it exists at all! It lays golden eggs! No, they're just eggs. A few of us are lucky to sell a lot of eggs. That doesn't make them golden. The true gold eggs are grown despite the store (Netflix, YouTube, OpenAI). Imagine an App Store that only lets you make black and white apps, but the…

Apple invested so much in their platform because of the expectation that they'd get to run it the way they want, including taking a cut

> Apple invested so much in their platform because of the expectation that they'd get to run it the way they want, including taking a cut

Source? Jobs’ original vision included no App Store. Web apps would suffice. They sucked, and continue to suck, so he built an App Store to flesh out the iPhone’s feature set.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#159

Post by jajko »

epohs wrote: post #49
dangus wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say “they would never go for this” but they do it on the Mac. It’s funny how they are their own counter example. They have no leg to stand on.

Counter example to what? Why should they not be able to run both a relatively open ecosystem and a mostly closed one? I don’t think Apple is arguing that it is impossible to allow more open ways to install apps on iPhones. I think they’re saying that they don’t want to, and that they shouldn’t have to.

Luckily corporate greed it not the only thing that matters in this world. If they want to sell in half a billion rich market of EU, they will soon need to start behaving more morally. If not they can fuck off, write off 20-30% of company value and EU will have better products, (almost) everybody wins.

Given how low morally they are, the room for improvement is massive and easy to move into. As you write, they didn't do it so far because they were not forced, and waiting for some good moral behavior 'just because it would be nice from them' is rather dumb.

Re: Y Combinator files brief supporting Epic Games, says store fees stifle startups

#160

Post by anilgulecha »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154
anilgulecha wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chicken and egg problem is highly unlikely. Here's a few probable situations: 1) A fdroid equivalent pops up, which them becomes a collection of fantastic open source apps, and soon develops a strong user base. 2) Google launches play store for iPhone, which will on day 1 get millions of users. 3) Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp. This becomes the faste…

> Meta launches metaStore, which so the only way to get Facebook, threads, Instagram and WhatsApp Would note the trade off: this store will be a bastion of tracking, possibly with Meta requiring its bugs be installed for inclusion.

Highly probable.

This will rightly push Apple in the right direction - to bring the right OS controls at the operating system level / store API level, and not leave things up to apps. This is a better world, despite short term issues with metaStore.

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