Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–29 of 29 posts

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#21

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

meepmorp wrote: post #20
pearjuice wrote: post #15

FYI, a massive hedge fund (Fortress) has employed this "huggable" tech nerd as PR-symbol to lead a claims lawsuit bandwagoning on the hatred for Big Tech. Ironically, the same guy (Alexander Klopping) ran a company which offered a subscription based magazine/newspaper aggregator also taxing all publishers 30%. edit: not sure why this is getting downvoted. This is a for-profit claim. Alexander describes himself as tec…

> not sure why this is getting downvoted. Because this is a thread for airing grievances about Apple, not the context behind the linked article or who's involved in a lawsuit.

> Because this is a thread for airing grievances about Apple

I'll start by expressing my disappointment in the lack of a deleted [Delete] button on MacBook Pro keyboards. I resent having to use Fn+Backspace on Macs when all of my Windows laptops (I It's another example of Apple valuing visual and aesthetic simplicity over user-needs.

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#22

Post by gjsman-1000 »

simion314 wrote: post #19
KerrAvon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing "Buy" with "Rent" is something you will never convince non-tech people to care about. That ship sailed when EULAs were deemed legal. Pushing it will just confuse people and I'd argue muddy the waters for the truly important things.

People can learn, you will need to make public stories like "Person X "bought" music/books from store X in value of 10K and now he can't access it because some bullshit EULA" "person Y "bought" 1 year subscription but was banned for 6 months by an algorithm, no right to appeal and no refunds" Person Z bought a device but after 1 month an update crippled it, W bought a device and the platform owner crippled the includ…

PlayStation 3 had OtherOS allowing Linux installation, then removed it with an update, settled years later for a paltry $55 for anyone who could prove they used the function and $9 for anyone who claimed to have purchased it based on the functionality or couldn't prove they used it.

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#23

Post by pjmlp »

KerrAvon wrote: post #13
simion314 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when do I accept that the writing is on the wall.. The giants will not stop if the bad behavior still makes profit, Apple will add one more exception for the narrow case in each country they lose, and when they lose again will add a new super narrow exception. This will continue until US force them to allow real choice for the users and be transparent about things(force them to replace "Buy" with "Rent", allow users…

Replacing "Buy" with "Rent" is something you will never convince non-tech people to care about. That ship sailed when EULAs were deemed legal. Pushing it will just confuse people and I'd argue muddy the waters for the truly important things.

They still aren't legal in many European countries.

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#25

Post by anonymousab »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

If I'm Apple, when do I accept that the writing is on the wall... It will be an interesting WWDC.

> when do I accept that the writing is on the wall... When the penalty becomes larger than the profit from noncompliance. It's simple math: As long as the penalties they are charged cost them less than 30% of all app sale revenue, it makes sense for them to continue to demand the 30% and fight any attempts to make them charge less. It's why I continue to think the solution is to put CEOs in jail: It changes the equat…

> It's why I continue to think the solution is to put CEOs in jail: It changes the equation, and noncompliance is no longer considered a possible option for the business.

Alternatively, jail the company itself; for some period of time (days? Weeks?) it is unable to conduct any business, run any services, transfer or process any money, etc. Let imprisonment be as potentially life-ruining for a company as it is for the average man.

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#28

Post by ocdtrekkie »

anonymousab wrote: post #25
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when do I accept that the writing is on the wall... When the penalty becomes larger than the profit from noncompliance. It's simple math: As long as the penalties they are charged cost them less than 30% of all app sale revenue, it makes sense for them to continue to demand the 30% and fight any attempts to make them charge less. It's why I continue to think the solution is to put CEOs in jail: It changes the equat…

> It's why I continue to think the solution is to put CEOs in jail: It changes the equation, and noncompliance is no longer considered a possible option for the business. Alternatively, jail the company itself; for some period of time (days? Weeks?) it is unable to conduct any business, run any services, transfer or process any money, etc. Let imprisonment be as potentially life-ruining for a company as it is for the…

Possibly, but if we're going to punish corporations, why not put capital punishment on the table? At what scale of massive recurring societal harm (Google, Facebook, etc.) should we confiscate all assets, disband the company, and auction off everything.

Re: Dutch foundation seeks consumer damages over Apple, Google app payments

#29

Post by dragonwriter »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #28
anonymousab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's why I continue to think the solution is to put CEOs in jail: It changes the equation, and noncompliance is no longer considered a possible option for the business. Alternatively, jail the company itself; for some period of time (days? Weeks?) it is unable to conduct any business, run any services, transfer or process any money, etc. Let imprisonment be as potentially life-ruining for a company as it is for the…

Possibly, but if we're going to punish corporations, why not put capital punishment on the table? At what scale of massive recurring societal harm (Google, Facebook, etc.) should we confiscate all assets, disband the company, and auction off everything.

There's two different things here with different answers:

> At what scale of massive recurring societal harm (Google, Facebook, etc.) should we confiscate all assets [...] and auction off anything.

At the point where criminal fines and civil damages and penalties exceed the value of assets of the firm.

> disband the company

This is less clear. A difference between a juridical and a natural person is that you can't simply swap out the decision-making apparatus of a natural person. You can, if need be, to a juridical person like a corporation, so its not clear what purpose disbanding the firm (whether assets not needed to be obligations are returned or seized—the former being more analogous to the death penalty) serves.

Post reply on HN