281–290 of 688 posts
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And Apple is forcing everyone to sell in their mall and no other. That's pretty much the point.
There are other malls available, across the world Apple's mall is quite small.
In the brick-and-mortar world, malls are fungible, and stores that sell the same goods are fungible. The iPhone is not fungible.
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> There's also no law against having a monopoly, Yes there is. It's called anti-trust law and a large part is about pure market share. It's also illegal to use your monopoly in a market to get advantages in that market. Most notably, you can't use your monopoly to keep your monopoly. (I.e. intel making a deal with dell where dell cannot use AMD processors)
Can I sue walmart for not letting me put my products on their shelves? I mean that’s basically them abusing their monopoly on Walmart stores right? Let’s get things straight. Apple does not have a monopoly on smartphones. Apple does not have a monopoly on smartphone app stores.
Walmart tells a manufacturer they have to pay a special Walmart surcharge every time a sale is made, and that they can't raise their prices only at Walmart (or give discounts at other stores) to make up for the difference.
And, in addition, after the sale is made, if the product allows the customer to buy add-ons after they bring the product home, the customer is required to go back to Walmart to purchase that add-on, and another Walmart surcharge is assessed; the manufacturer isn't allowed to sell add-ons directly to the customer without Walmart acting as middleman.
* Apple charges too much
* It's not worth it for apps to be in the App Store
* App Store selection drops
* Consumers stop buying iPhones
In practice though, Apple has such a foothold, and device purchase is so separate from App purchase, that most apps don't see a choice about being in the AppStore. Does that mean that Apple has a monopoly on iOS app distribution, and so should be regulated using anti-trust?
As an aside, the anti-trust section in this Money Stuff article is really interest: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-28/bank-s...
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And Apple is forcing everyone to sell in their mall and no other. That's pretty much the point.
There are other malls available, across the world Apple's mall is quite small.
> Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now they’re leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think that’s wrong. I think that's a very hypothetical claim. > Let’s be clear about what that means. Apple connects Spotify to our users. We provide the platform by which users download and update…
They’re not milking anything. Apple has, as far as I know, always charged 30%. What has changed is the way we buy and pay for apps and services. Everyone wants to move to the subscription service model and Apple has developed rules accordingly.
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Yes, currently Apple prohibits developers from linking to their websites subscription signup. I agree if Apple provides payment processing, they should get some cut (though not 30%). The issue is that Apple prohibits signing people up from anything but their IAP feature.
I think the % for processing/platform is justifiable and hard to argue against setting that % for them. The most likely outcome is that they will either remove the restriction from advertising alternative payment methods on signup, and in exchange Apple can do what it wants with in-app payments.
The problem is that you can't laugh Apple out of the market for payments on iOS devices, because they don't allow other entrants into that market.
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> With iOS consumers don't have the option of going to another App Store Correct, it's certainly unfair competition but what I'm saying is that it's still not a monopoly, not that it's "fair". When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package. Now if Apple controlled 90+% of the market this would fall under antitrust laws (MS+IE situation all over again). But they only co…
> it's certainly unfair competition but still not a monopoly I agree - which is why I specifically did NOT call it a monopoly. > When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package.... You're still missing my point: > And even Spotify has a choice. They can shaft Apple and become Android only, since Android has 85% of the market. The reason they're not doing it right now I…
I think this is an incorrect analogy. This is why Apple only charges for physical goods, not digital ones. The rationale is they distributed your product to customers you would never have had access to without them:
- they spend marketing dollars to get those customers;
- they develop and maintain a platform so you can run your business on it.
By simply publishing their app on the App Store, Spotify gets access to 15% richest customers of the smartphone market. If you’re charging customers for something they consume on that device, then I think it’s fair to pay a share.
That being said, I have no idea how this will play out in court. Intuitively, 30% the first year sounds like a lot of money for a distribution fee.
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Apple has ~15% market share (fluctuating) so it's not really a monopoly situation. Google will give you access to the exact same Spotify service. Whether what Apple is doing is legal or not I guess the courts will decide. But it's certainly factually incorrect to imply that you're not free to buy from anywhere else.
The Apple Store has 100% market share on all iPhones, iPads and iWatches. I really don't see this being that much different from the famous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . EDIT: comments have made clear that Windows had a monopoly on the personal computer space, whereas Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone or tablet space.
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> You cannot make any moral assumptions here I'm not making any moral assumptions. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions that they're making in their posting. > It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users. Windows, GNU/Linux, and in fact Mac OS X itself, are all doing fine. The real security problem is elsewhere, it is disingenuous to use this…
> hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions Apple's 'moral assumption' is that Spotify would like to 'freeload' off of their store. The App Store is provided with the intent that services which are based off of it contribute back to the App Store. Open-source software is not provided with the 'moral assumption' that users contribute back. There is no hypocrisy here. Apple is criticizing Spotify for trying to sidestep th…
No, the App Store is provided to drive iPhone sales. If you couldn't install third-party apps on iPhones, no one would buy one nowadays. The market has changed drastically since the iPhone's launch, when a public SDK was still unavailable.
> We have proof showing that the App Store has provided an objectively more secure environment for the average user than Windows or even the repository model.
I'm not convinced that's true. Apple has also invested heavily into app/process isolation on iOS itself, and a permissions model that keeps apps away from sensitive data without the user's consent.
Not to mention the fact that it's more the review process that keeps malicious apps off the phone. Google Play Store is also an app store, but they don't review apps anywhere nearly as closely.
Either way, an app store is not a prerequisite for a review process.
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> Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work Moreover, that's the pot calling the kettle black. That's the app store in a nutshell -- Apple supplies the marketplace, but is also making a substantial chunk of money off of others’ work.
Yep. > Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And Apple's aim is to make more money off that more money. It's such an obviously, laughably stupid argument they're doing there.
Although growing on the pie seems a more apt metaphor. Defending 15% fees on second-year subscription is pretty difficult. There's no marketing, very little fraud risk. It's really rent-seeking behaviour – which of course is the commercial point of the walled garden approach.
This is Apple exploiting a very lucrative market position, one that they did invest quite a lot of money in – and took quite a gamble – to create.