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EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

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Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#191

Post by oellegaard »

It's fun how Android users are so excited on behalf of Apple users in terms of letting Apple users install custom apps from outside the App Store. Being an Apple user for more than 15 years, I couldn't be more happy with the fact that Apple has vetted the applications you find in App Store.

Also, naturally, App Developers are excited. Well, perhaps you should think about the users - we don't care about you having to pay a cut. However, we really appreciate the experience from the App Store. Want to cancel a subscription? Just navigate to the one and only place where you can browse everything and cancel with a single tap.

I once purchased an Android device so see what it was all about. I found most of the apps were completely crap and the once that were good, were essentially just a copy of the iOS app. To be fair, this was many years ago.

I really hope that somehow someone interacts at a high level and gets the part about the App Store removed.

IF the consumers of Apple - for instance me - would like this part changed, perhaps we could instead put our money elsewhere, rather than rely on politicians to pro-actively deal with this.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#192

Post by caramelcustard »

warning26 wrote: post #159
kinnth wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If iPhones had different app stores with 15% fees, then consumers would decide. I think the real issue here is consumers are gona get hyper confused and it wont be a better experience for anyone. Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. 30% fee initially to capture that market was what our company factored in and grew exponentially with. A 15% fee is nothing…

> Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. This is such an oft-repeated argument, yet overlooks that Android already allows sideloading and alternative app stores. If everyone-creating-their-own-app-store hasn't happened on Android, why would iOS be different?

"...hasn't happened on Android...", except it did but mostly in Asia. Not to mention the manufacturer-exclusive appstores.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#193

Post by Someone »

hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

I think (and hope) the platform will still be allowed to pop up a “do you want to give this app permission to do Foo?” dialog, as long as it does so the same for all apps, independent of developer or app store it was downloaded from.

I also would hope the platform can still restrict browsers in what they can do, as long as that’s applied uniformly across all browsers, but I’m less certain about that.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#194

Post by caramelcustard »

warning26 wrote: post #168
ReptileMan wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't - without root piracy will still be extremely hard.

I think the biggest change we would likely see is that classic-game-rereleases would evaporate, as it would become trivially easy to install emulators.

It already is on XBox, so no.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#195

Post by trollied »

warning26 wrote: post #159
kinnth wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If iPhones had different app stores with 15% fees, then consumers would decide. I think the real issue here is consumers are gona get hyper confused and it wont be a better experience for anyone. Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. 30% fee initially to capture that market was what our company factored in and grew exponentially with. A 15% fee is nothing…

> Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. This is such an oft-repeated argument, yet overlooks that Android already allows sideloading and alternative app stores. If everyone-creating-their-own-app-store hasn't happened on Android, why would iOS be different?

Counter argument: The millions of different game launchers on Windows. What a complete and utter mess.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#196

Post by ginko »

ericmay wrote: post #127
izacus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has completely forgotten their privacy bargains in China when their profits were threatened. They've also special-cased their own Ad data collection (a business that's growing in revenue) to be opt-out. So your trust in Apple collectively bargaining in your interest is misplaced because they ALREADY haven't proven themselves to be trustworthy (and they repeatedly lied and misled in their marketing and court hea…

> Apple has completely forgotten their privacy bargains in China when their profits were threatened. Couple of things here. First, I live in America so I don't really care and apparently the Chinese people for whatever reason want to live in that privacy hellscape. Second, Apple unfortunately (like many corporations) is not in a position to dictate privacy regulations to the Chinese government. The interactions here,…

>We are not talking about GDPR or "socialism" or whatever. We're talking about regulating Apple so that other mega corporations can create their own app stores on iOS and then do whatever they want.

So don't use those. Personally I'll mostly stick to Apple's app store along with some Free Software one where I download Firefox and some other open source apps.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#197

Post by eklavya »

oellegaard wrote: post #191

It's fun how Android users are so excited on behalf of Apple users in terms of letting Apple users install custom apps from outside the App Store. Being an Apple user for more than 15 years, I couldn't be more happy with the fact that Apple has vetted the applications you find in App Store. Also, naturally, App Developers are excited. Well, perhaps you should think about the users - we don't care about you having to…

Exclusively Apple user here, couldn’t be more happier for the announcement. Keeps my favoured platform alive and innovative.

Btw, you can keep using App Store so I don’t understand the issue here.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#198

Post by Someone »

superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

They still (rightfully, IMO) can charge third parties for getting access to their customers, just as super markets charge for getting stuff on their shelves, or as amusement parks take a cut for the right to sell ice cream.

Now, as to what’s reasonable there? That will be a separate discussion. So far, Apple has put the bar at over 20% for countries that have passed similar legislation, likely on the argument that payment processing need not cost more than credit card companies charge (a few percent, in the EU)

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#199

Post by oneoff786 »

izacus wrote: post #108
oneoff786 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might kill off consoles entirely tbh

Not even close.

If they don’t get a cut of third party game revenue then making a console is a huge, risky investment for what? The opportunity to sell first party games to a smaller audience?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#200

Post by deepGem »

ParksNet wrote: post #111
superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 30% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 10% or 15% for all, there never would have been the industry pressure for this sort of regulation. The EU would have been better to just mandate a maximum % commission for all digital marketplaces above a certain level of revenue. This new solution will get poked full of…

This is what beats the heck outta me. A company that is sitting on nearly 150B in cash somehow feels the need to pinch 30% commissions from developers till date. I understand this as an initial business model. I mean a 15% reduction in app revenues is not even a rounding error in Apple's P&L. What the hell are they thinking. The goodwill that they'd earn from devs will go a long long way and if they signal that their share will eventually go to zero over a period of 10+ years, that'll get more devs to embrace iOS. I fail to understand the current leadership at Apple.
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