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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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pretty sure 30% commission is not an Apple-exclusive thing. Google Play, consoles and Steam have the same rate.

Switch has 30% with a 5% rebate to consumers.

Steam has a regressive 20%/25%/30% tiered commission structure.

There are sweetheart deals we have no knowledge of, like Apple's deal with Amazon to get Prime Video onto their devices.

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

#242
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to leave the walled garden

Wait till must-have apps go for 3rd party stores and exploit that to no end. E.g. banking, transit, parking etc.

Can you point to examples where that has happened on Android (a comparable platform that has allowed sideloading since its inception)?

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

#243
Let’s start the list of UX that could be built if apple followed these rules starting tomorrow. What will be available to me that I don’t have now, and how will it benefit me, Joe P. Consumer? Keep in mind, I have no idea what a software developer does all day — I just want my email to work and these internet pop ups to be easier to close. What am I missing out on?

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

#244
This regulation is 5+ years overdue, but legislation always lags behind market conditions.

If the US/other countries follow suit there will probably be a big unintended effect though: the diminishing of open web standards and Google getting final say about what will work on "the web" and what won't.

With Firefox diminishing, Safari is the last bastion against a Chromium-only web.

There are lots of Chromium forks, but they own the project, and I doubt even Microsoft would take on any significant divergence from the upstream code base, considering the development velocity.

I would predict (native) Chrome graining a very sizeable market share on iOS within five years, driven in part by web app developers being happy to finally just focus on Chrom(ium) and add "works best Chrome" banners.

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

#245
post #98
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally happy to stay inside Apple's ecosystem I used to believe that I'd stay inside the Apple ecosystem if this ever happened, but the ecosystem has become a total dumpster fire in the last few years IMO. The App Store itself is riddled with 99% crap apps, there's a lot of advertisement that really puts me off, the macOS Store results are mostly copycat apps or very suspicious stuff (although most of the t…

I detest the App Store ads. They can't even be making that much money, but they completely undermine the reliability of the App Store.

>They can't even be making that much money

Apple's Search Ad made $2B a year in 2020. And estimated to be $2.5 to $3B in 2021.

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

#246

> Make messaging, voice-calling, and video-calling services interoperable with third-party services upon request. I hope this means WhatsApp will be somewhat interoperable with equivalent messaging platforms. But I suppose this is just designed to target iMessage. Or have I misunderstood? > Ensure that all apps are uninstallable. Finally I will be able to uninstall Microsoft Edge.

It appears to be possible to uninstall Edge using the command line [0][1]. Haven’t tried it myself though.

[0]: https://www.askvg.com/fix-how-to-uninstall-new-microsoft-edg...

[1]: https://www.askvg.com/windows-10-tip-block-or-prevent-automa...

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And it would be better if Microsoft had total control over what you're allowed to run? Give them that power in 1990, and the web never exists outside of a research project.

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

#248

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.

For many (most?) users, Apple's restrictions, especially sideloading, protect users from bad actor app owners (looking at you, Facebook). To me, allowing sideloading is like allowing chemical weapons to be used in war. Yes, it's a new tool and capability at your disposal, but it's also available to every powerful and unscrupulous participant.

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

#249

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.

Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...

"Wait 60 seconds to proceed"

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

#250

Let’s start the list of UX that could be built if apple followed these rules starting tomorrow. What will be available to me that I don’t have now, and how will it benefit me, Joe P. Consumer? Keep in mind, I have no idea what a software developer does all day — I just want my email to work and these internet pop ups to be easier to close. What am I missing out on?

It may allow for some healthy competition and ultimately better UX on that front in the long term, but in the short term it could also take away dev time for Apple to improve iOS in other ways.
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