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Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

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Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#181

Post by braythwayt »

braythwayt wrote: post #67

Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. Which one is is? Apple is like T…

On reflection, I will say one thing:

I consider Apple's restrictions on monetizing apps to be shenanigans. It feels normal to me for them to insist on a cut from app sales and in-app purchases.

It feels like shenanigans for them to try to block developers having revenue side-channels. I know this is very uneven, for example, I can download an Amazon Prime app and use it, even though I pay for Amazon prime elsewhere.

But in the Amazon app, there are certain things I can't buy in the app, nor is the app allowed to link me to a web page where I can buy it.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#182

Post by scarface74 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #166
braythwayt wrote: post #67

Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. Which one is is? Apple is like T…

> They don’t tell developers that apps must be iOS-exclusive to be in the app store. They do force us to build the package on their devices though. Which is a wholly arbitrary demand which is frustrating to map into a build process that is already automated on the cloud. Prior to services that rent out Apple devices its an awkward fit. They're very aggressive with their posturing and they ruthlessly exploit the power…

And for most of the history of the consoles you had to have overpriced developer machines. Are you proposing that Apple be forced to port XCode to Windows?

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#183

Post by logfromblammo »

scarface74 wrote: post #173
simion314 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a big city/country with only 2 stores, half of the population uses store A and half store B. Store A and B are happy with the profits and are not competing on the margins, both will take 30% of your products, both will ban your product if they judge they don't like it, maybe store A will block you if you compete with them and store B will block you because some algorithm. So basically you have 2 big pile of s…

I hope you’re not implying the old wives tale about Apple nit allowing apps that compete with it on the store. If so, there are plenty of existence proofs that that isn’t true.

What applications in the Apple store are able to function as the default SMS app or the default web browser engine? On Android, I can use Signal for SMS and Firefox for browser engine. On my spouse's iPhone, the iOS applications with the same names are severely restricted in their functionality. Blocking ads, scripts, and tracking is significantly more difficult.

If you believe these are core OS functions, and therefore not subject to competition, Microsoft has a old story to tell you about Internet Explorer web browser and Windows 95 OS.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#184

Post by wheelie_boy »

simion314 wrote: post #50
olliej wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, sega, ... are the same: You can only sell for those devices with manufacturer licensing (that includes profit sharing and mandatory annoyances like “achievements”), and consumers can only buy games licensed by those manufacturers. The only difference is that PC developers haven’t experienced that before. It seems like this would have been established in the 80s/90s, so I’m surprised we’re…

Or maybe we could get side loading on console.

The fixed hardware that is long-lived and affordable is possible because the hardware manufacturer subsidizes it, especially at the beginning. If they were not able to rely on money from game sales, the hardware would be much more expensive.

An alternative way for companies to make money manufacturing gaming hardware is to keep the prices low until there are a lot of great games for the system, and then jack up the hardware prices later on.

So you might want a hardware standard that multiple companies could produce, which games could interface with and be portable between..

Eventually it just turns back into PC gaming.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#185

Post by george_perez »

untog wrote: post #158
Spivak wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that SMS group messages suck isn't something that Apple can really fix without an oob protocol which would basically be iMessage again.

They could open up iMessage, which they originally said they were going to do, then stopped talking about it entirely. Even if they didn’t want to open it up they could make an iMessage Android app, like their Apple Music app.

They were going to open FaceTime, not iMessage.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#186

Post by Karunamon »

scarface74 wrote: post #182
Quarrelsome wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don’t tell developers that apps must be iOS-exclusive to be in the app store. They do force us to build the package on their devices though. Which is a wholly arbitrary demand which is frustrating to map into a build process that is already automated on the cloud. Prior to services that rent out Apple devices its an awkward fit. They're very aggressive with their posturing and they ruthlessly exploit the power…

And for most of the history of the consoles you had to have overpriced developer machines. Are you proposing that Apple be forced to port XCode to Windows?

They could make the signing APIs available to something like Jetbrains' AppCode. No porting necessary.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#187

Post by ksec »

GeekyBear wrote: post #14

Next up: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's game consoles?

I think that is a different to business model. Game consoles are sold at break even or loss leader. That is why EPIC wasn't against the 30% cut from Games on Consoles.

Although it is likely Apple has started to "subsidise" some of its iPhone margin in 2019 with its Services Revenue. And likely continue to do so in 2020 and onwards.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#188

Post by Quarrelsome »

scarface74 wrote: post #182
Quarrelsome wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don’t tell developers that apps must be iOS-exclusive to be in the app store. They do force us to build the package on their devices though. Which is a wholly arbitrary demand which is frustrating to map into a build process that is already automated on the cloud. Prior to services that rent out Apple devices its an awkward fit. They're very aggressive with their posturing and they ruthlessly exploit the power…

And for most of the history of the consoles you had to have overpriced developer machines. Are you proposing that Apple be forced to port XCode to Windows?

Yes or Linux. Either that or change licensing so people can create Apple VMs and I can spin one up online. At the time I was looking at this problem (2012) the only viable solution was to buy a piece of Apple hardware and install it in the office and have the auto-build system call back into the office from the cloud to build the package as a particular step in the build.

So I have to worry about power, about the safety, about hardware, about updates, all because I can't use an arbitrary x86 processor to build an executable targeting an x86 processor. It made me so fucking cross.

Let us not forget that other platforms don't have this mandatory requirement.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#189

Post by scarface74 »

ernesth wrote: post #113
Razengan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies to game consoles too, since the 1980s.

In the 80s, the game console makers did not operate the store where you were buying games. Even, you could buy second-hand games without Atari or Nintendo receiving any part of the fee!

Even back in the 80s, the console makers “controlled distribution”. Nintendo forced third parties to use their manufacturing facilities and they all force third parties to distribute their haves with a license key.

Console makers have always forced third parties to pay a fee to distribute their games.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#190

Post by scarface74 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #188
scarface74 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for most of the history of the consoles you had to have overpriced developer machines. Are you proposing that Apple be forced to port XCode to Windows?

Yes or Linux. Either that or change licensing so people can create Apple VMs and I can spin one up online. At the time I was looking at this problem (2012) the only viable solution was to buy a piece of Apple hardware and install it in the office and have the auto-build system call back into the office from the cloud to build the package as a particular step in the build. So I have to worry about power, about the saf…

Microsoft offers Mac build servers as part of Azure Devops. And there is Mac Mini Colo.

And you want to force a company to release a product for other operating systems?

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