Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#161

Post by Apocryphon » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

Okay, so what’s wrong with Basecamp, Tile, or Protonmail? What’s nefarious about Prepear?

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#162

Post by izacus » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

karpierz wrote: post #115

grahamburger wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot of grey area between "legally mandated to make it easy " and "legally mandated to not make it impossibly difficult."

I agree, but the fundamental question is do you want the government to regulate what kind of OS interface should be legal?

Sure, but that's not new. Here in our EU country, governmennt dictates the railroad owner to allow other railroad companies to drive freight on it (although it fought tooth and nails to continue fleecing everyone by noncompetitive prices).

Competition is the basis of functional free market - and forces which prevent it are driving it to be abusive and not force of progress anymore.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#163

Post by manigandham » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

The standards are already a train wreck, that's the entire issue, along with consumers not having any other choice in how they install apps so popularity can't be measured in the first place.

Also Apple has plenty of supply chain problems and anti-consumer practices that equal and exceed those other issues you named.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#164

Post by bluecalm » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

I am sorry but this is nonsense. App store is "popular" because it's the only option. We can try to imagine if it would still be popular with cheaper competition but right now there is one reason for its popularity: there is nothing else.

If trust is indeed lost than people will just use Apple app store knowing full well other ones are unsafe/offer worse experience.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#165

Post by onewhonknocks » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #86

From https://appfairness.org/our-vision/ > No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them. I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5? Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?

I think that if you own a store, you should be able to make the decision regarding which products you want to stock on your shelves.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#166

Post by fhood » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #116

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

Interesting how there's so many posts here attacking the companies behind the action (ad hominem style) by specifying actions that have nothing to do with the abuses Apple and AppStore do. Is this targeted?

Not trying to take a side here, but Epic especially is not the company I want leading the charge here. I am vehemently opposed to their (and Tencent's) primary business model.

Edit: It isn't like there aren't policies that Apple has in place that should be pushed back against. But, Epic seems to have zero qualms about targeting children misleading and manipulative in game transactions, and I think that Epic having their way is far more nightmarish than Apple's equivalent, based on my current understanding of the two companies business models.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#167

Post by echelon » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

Your perspective makes me sad. I'm honestly depressed because people rush to defend bad behavior of their favorite monopoly. Like, physically holding back tears. Serious.

What is wrong with us?

Our computers and technology have been locked down by anti-competitive juggernauts. Our legislators have written laws that cede more of our liberties and privacy. This modern internet sucks so much and I want to go back to when it was free.

I want a world where we're free to install whatever we want on our devices or distribute our hard work to others without having to implement it 5 different ways.

I don't want to be taxed by entities worth trillions. Before they stood up the walls, I could reach all the people I wanted for free. Now they've turned us into poor serfs.

The last bastion, the web, is even under attack by the forces of embrace, extend, extinguish. Mozilla is dying, meanwhile Google is removing support for adblock, removing the URL, promoting web bundles with baked in DRM, ads, and tracking.

These rent-seeking companies took all of the goodwill and amazing technology we developed in the open and they corrupted it. They saw the amazing capabilities we built, and realized exactly how they could adopt it, take control of it, and steer the public into their arms instead.

2020 doesn't suck. Everything since 2010 sucks. And it's getting worse.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#168

Post by untog » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #116

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

Interesting how there's so many posts here attacking the companies behind the action (ad hominem style) by specifying actions that have nothing to do with the abuses Apple and AppStore do. Is this targeted?

If you're asking "is it possible for multiple people to be so annoyed by the business practises of tech giants that they complain about it online even when not directly related to the topic at hand"... yeah, yeah it is. No need to look for a conspiracy here.

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#169

Post by izacus » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

karpierz wrote: post #107

onion2k wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you should be legally mandated to make it easy , but if you sell a product to someone you shouldn't be allowed to stop them using it in the way they want to. If you do choose to retain control over how they can use the device then you should accept there might need to be regulation over what limits you can put in place in order to stop you doing things that are anti-competitive.

If users want to jailbreak their devices, that's up to them. Apple doesn't stop you from doing anything with your device, Apple thugs won't break your kneecaps if you subvert their restrictions.

> Apple doesn't stop you from doing anything with your device, Apple thugs won't break your kneecaps if you subvert their restrictions.

Apple has added code that's explicitly built just to prevent running code without their approval. They even add code that prevents usage of compatible periphelas that don't have their own DRM chip. They've built dedicated hardware just to lock you out of doing "anything" with your device.

That's a really really bizarre definition of "doesn't stop you".

Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes

#170

Post by ghostwriter » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

return1 wrote: post #119

temp667 wrote: post #97

Haha - this illustrates WHY the app store is so popular. You've got Match.com (owns tinder). Repeat FTC offender (most scammmers never get the FTC slap on the wrist). "Match Group also allegedly makes it too difficult to cancel a subscription through “confusing and cumbersome cancellation practices.” The FTC claims users must click through two pages of survey questions and cites a 2015 internal presentation that note…

That s pure whataboutsm. Nothing stops apple from vetting apps without charging an extortionate 30% tax. They have plenty of money to do that. Or do you imply that apple’s tax deters scammers? Then , how are these companies accepted in the app store?

I was told in other threads that taxes, especially if they are progressive, are a good thing and that they help the society and the government to function, and that we pay them because we receive services in exchange, and that it doesn't matter how satisfied we are with those services. If you call Apple charges taxes, be consistent and respect them as any other tax in your life. Or denounce all of them. Or stop calling them taxes.