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Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

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Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#251

Post by ENGNR »

someNameIG wrote: post #154
jen729w wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dystopian story plot: Apple completely opens up the iOS platform. Do whatever you like. Also, an XCode license is now $20,000/year. Don’t like it? Build your own.

Say no one builds their own, and iPhones now only have first party apps. How many people are going to buy them now? How well did the Windows phone sell with no app support? How's the app support on the Apple Vision Pro? The idea that devs owe Apple for use of their SDKs and API development is absurd. Apple already profits from it as people by their phones due to the amount of third party app support. See how Apple's…

Vision Pro is an excellent example

What Apple really needs to do is mimic their old policy of no fees except for games. Let everyone develop for it, and then rug pull by making the fees apply to everything

But they can’t do it twice. So the Vision Pro ends up with no ecosystem

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#252

Post by Dylan16807 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #241
nandomrumber wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What software can’t run on Windows without Microsoft’s blessing?

Anything that isn't signed with certs from Microsoft-blessed CAs, anything that is signed with certs that were revoked either by Microsoft or their blessed CAs, and anything newly signed with old certs that weren't renewed for a $100+/yr fee. That, or you upload your app to Azure for cloud signing where Microsoft decides to bless it or not, and you might pay less than going with a full code signing cert from a CA. Ra…

Sorry you hit that bug but you can definitely run unsigned code on windows.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#253

Post by haute_cuisine »

throwaway-0001 wrote: post #205
somenameforme wrote: post #197

I find headlines like this much more appropriate when placed in terms of days of revenue: "Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near 2 days of revenue!" For somebody that makes the median income, of about $50k, this is a fine of $273 for years of largescale systematic abusive behavior, done for profit.

Yeah it’s good. Probably should be both days of revenue and days of profit to account for low profit margin companies. Or % of market cap would also be good.

Still cheaper than giving up the monopoly position.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#254

Post by bravetraveler »

johnfn wrote: post #206
somenameforme wrote: post #197

I find headlines like this much more appropriate when placed in terms of days of revenue: "Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near 2 days of revenue!" For somebody that makes the median income, of about $50k, this is a fine of $273 for years of largescale systematic abusive behavior, done for profit.

That's not really a meaningful comparison, either. If you assume every engineer makes ~300K at Apple, perhaps a more meaningful comparison is "Apple loses ~7K engineers for 1 year", which seems a bit more than a slap on the wrist as you are suggesting.

Assuming it's like every other large business, that's an optimization.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#255

Post by kataklasm »

laughing_man wrote: post #246
BrenBarn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as Apple requires they make use of those services for me to install software on the computer I bought, and they prevent others from producing equivalent competing devices via patents (i.e. government granted monopolies), zero. Right, that's the thing. And zero should also be their revenue and their asset value as long as they continue along that path. The fines should continue to escalate, and should also b…

That's a big enough number that the likely result is Apple would pull out of the UK altogether.

Does it matter? Apple paid around 300 million pounds of corporation tax in 2024. If the UK poses a landmark penalty of say 50 or 100 billion pounds, thats 167x or 333x the annual corporation tax paid by Apple in the UK.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#256

Post by stale2002 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #232
thisislife2 wrote: post #216

> “developers were overcharged by the difference between a 17.5% commission for app purchases and the commission Apple charged, which Kent’s lawyers said was usually 30%.” > “The CAT also ruled that app developers passed on 50% of the overcharge to consumers.” And that's why I stopped buying Apple products - ultimately it is the end user that pays for everything. Apple exploits both developers and its consumers.

In which situation does the end user not pay for everything? Even a fine or a tax on a company ends rolled up in the price paid by the end user. Same thing with programs paid for by the government. It’s the taxpayers who foot the bill. I’m kinda split on the whole Apple situation. I’m firmly in the camp of “monopoly bad”, but apparently people are fine with apple’s practices. It’s not like they have to buy an iPhone.

> In which situation does the end user not pay for everything?

If you want to get technical about it the field of economics addresses this question. Its called Tax Incidence. The short story is that the side of the market that has the least elasticity of demand (IE, they respond to price changes the least, and don't buy more or less because of price changes) is the entity that suffers the costs of taxes and gets the benefits of subsidies.

Intuitively this makes sense. Imagine if there is a luxury good that you don't need. If taxes increase significant on it, you may just choose not to buy it. That has a high elasticity of demand. Meaning that the tax incidence isn't going to be on the consumer and will instead be on the produce.

Whereas, think about food. People don't eat much more or less based on how much it cost. You can't physically eat more than like twice as much, and if you don't have any you die. Meaning that its a low elasticity of demand, meaning that the consumer pays the taxes.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#257

Post by stale2002 »

cedws wrote: post #60
bitpush wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you plug in a non-Apple USB cable to charge your iPhone, or use a third-party phone case, or use Anker power bank .. do you wish you had none of these choices, but only use whatever Apple branded cables, and phonecase and power banks existed? If you want to buy Apple cables because you think it is better, sure - that's great. But preventing ugreen cables from working makes no sense. You shouldnt say 'buy a diffe…

Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market. If you don’t like the charging options of an iPhone, don’t buy an iPhone. If you don’t like the OS of a Pixel, don’t buy a Pixel. If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants.

Or, instead of that, the consumer will have the choice to do whatever they want with their own phone and you won't be able to stop them. The free market wins if you give the freedom to the user to control their own phones.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#258

Post by daveoc64 »

crims0n wrote: post #11

Honest question, what do people think is a fair percentage? The platform development, app hosting, payment processing, and quality control is surely worth something .

Free apps pay nothing, so Apple has already shown that everything other than payments can be done for free.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#259

Post by stale2002 »

cedws wrote: post #52
gpm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not have a choice to buy another equivalent phone because patents legally forbid other companies from producing equivalent phones. If Apple wants to take that defence, they should be required to have abandoned every patent they own on iPhones prior to my purchase of the device.

Equivalent in what way? A Samsung, a Xiaomi, a Google phone have all of the necessary capabilities to live a modern life.

> Equivalent in what way?

Equivalent as in a literal exact copy of an iPhone. Lots of factories can produce those, seeing as Apple contracts out production. If we get rid of those patents and give free choice to those factories and consumers, well they would be glad to produce a modified "Open" iPhone.

Lets make a free market by stopping this government intervention of the patent system that supports monopolies.

Re: Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near $2B

#260

Post by [deleted] »

isodev wrote: post #223
scarab92 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the profit for the App Store specifically, in the UK specifically? If not, you’re comparing apples to oranges.

Why the UK specifically? The App Store monopoly is driven by its world-wide presence, I think it should be global revenue, and a fine to match.

[deleted]
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