Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#291

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #285

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I agree, especially when original source is completely lacking in context. So basically I think the better article should be submitted. But in this case I think Appleworld is a poor choice. 9to5[1] are generally much better. Avoid Macrumors and Appleinsider unless it is absolute necessary. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/06/app-store-pricing-changes-dev...

Ok, changed to that from https://appleworld.today/archives/101157. Thanks!

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#292

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

jil wrote: post #173

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

https://9to5mac.com/2022/12/06/app-store-pricing-changes-dev... might be a better URL, perhaps?

Ok, changed to that from https://appleworld.today/archives/101157. Thanks!

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#293

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:31 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #208

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I think this was the wrong move. The original source is better in this case and you are letting your anti-corporate bias and personal opinion affect your decision making as a moderator. What makes this so awful to read to you?

Anti-corporate bias is a pretty good bias for the editor of HN to be accusable of. It's a lot more common to hear the opposite and I know which one I prefer (and makes my life easier).

I don't mean to be flippant—you're right that personal opinion is affecting my judgment. I plead that (1) this is inevitable; (2) I do my best to make calls that are good for the community as a whole; and (3) there are vastly more times when I squash my personal preference in favor of #2.

The basic point here is that corporate press releases are their own genre and that that genre goes against HN's mandate at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#294

Post by black3r » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:34 PM UTC

lzaaz wrote: post #254

sofixa wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OTOH, you have the single European market (the EU forces games, apps, hardware, etc to be sold at the same price everywhere in the EU in practical terms), That's not true, where are you imagining this from? Hardware certainly doesn't cost the same, at the very least there are different VAT levels, but also pricing is adapted to the local market (literally just checked, i can get an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 for 300€ le…

You can buy it directly from Bulgaria to save 300€ then. It would be illegal for the shop to tell you you have to pay more for buying from another country. >Software I'm unsure how to check, but Netflix costs varies by county. If it does (I don't think so, the minimal differences are because of VAT) you can subscribe from another European country (using a VPN or whatever) and Netflix can't ban you or block you from u…

Netflix is kind of an exception to this because you're not buying the exact same service in each country, Show/Movie availability differs per country, but also some regional audio/subtitles availability differs per country (there's a language setting in your account settings but it doesn't have all the audio/subtitle languages netflix supports, even though the number of options has grown since last time I checked it...)

And thanks to another EU law if you subscribe to Netflix in one EU country, you get that country's Netflix Library everywhere in EU. So we can talk about "Swedish Netflix" and "Bulgarian Netflix" as two different services..

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#295

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:39 PM UTC

JamesSwift wrote: post #247

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

What could a third party add to a primary-source's press release other than speculation? Sure in some cases there could be some "sources say..." or "when reached for comment Apple clarified that..." but in general I think its going to be a rehashing and speculation in general.

Very often the PR is designed to bury the lede. Third party sources typically highlight whatever is in the company's interest to bury.

I'm not saying that was the case here, because I didn't read the articles. However, the pattern is so close to universal that it wouldn't be surprising.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#296

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:41 PM UTC

armchairhacker wrote: post #252

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I see your reasoning but I disagree. HN articles don’t need to be unbiased. The reason being, if you want a more neutral take, just take a look at the HN comments. HN submissions are usually primary sources, and the HN comments are where you have the discussion. Sometimes even the top voted comment is just a summary of the actual submission, but rephrased to be less biased or more clear. If HN can’t point out the bur…

For sure HN articles don't need to be unbiased, but corporate press releases are particularly soggy and misleading. I'm sure there are exceptions but boy are they rare, especially as company size grows.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#297

Post by ipaddr » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

greiskul wrote: post #258

not_a_shill wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, you could call it subsidizing in that there are probably products that wouldn't be brought to market without the NA market to pay for them, but that's not really "subsidizing". That's every product ever made for profit by a developer in a 1st world country. It's still essentially subsidizing even if you don't like the optics of the word.

From popular internet knowledge, games are more expensive in Australia then NA (Including digital distribution). Would you say that Australia is subsidizing games for Americans?

If there were more Australians or if part of the money didn't go into government taxes

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#298

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #243

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I think that in general the third party articles you find soon after the press release will just be copy-pastes of the press release (no time for real analysis) with bits removed. So it depends on whether you're optimizing for more information (the PR) or less misreading skimreading/headline reading. Do you want to cater to the most thorough commentators or the masses?

That is true, and it definitely makes the solution suboptimal. I mean here I am defending the sort of websites that in HN's context mostly count as crap. That's bound to have downsides. The defense is extremely targeted to this one scenario though.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#299

Post by dang » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

LocalPCGuy wrote: post #218

dang wrote: post #165

We changed the URL from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-announces-bigge... to a third party article I just googled. If there's a better third-party article, we can change it again. Yes, HN has the rule "*Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ), but corporate press releases are so awful…

I don't know the mechanics of this or if it would just be manual, but when there is aggregation of submitted links (which I would assume is the case for a story like this), it does seem like the main PR link should be the title URL, but could other links all just be collected in a single comment? I really prefer the actual PR links myself, corporate BS or not, because that gives me the language I need to then search…

You make an excellent point: the long-term solution here is a proper way to aggregate links. This is on our list and we'll get there eventually.

Re: Apple announces ‘upgrade’ to App Store pricing, adding 700 new price points

#300

Post by ipaddr » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

jonasdegendt wrote: post #187

alexandre_m wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of all of that seem sketchy to me. It sounds like the main North American market is subsidizing the apps being produced and sold worldwide. Does the same logic apply for other virtual good such as digital music elsewhere?

Entire reseller websites (e.g. g2a) of games and software alike have popped up trying to profit from this arbitrage opportunity. You buy games in Russia and an American scoops up the license key for a little more, it’s all automated too nowadays. On the same note, why are Levi’s jeans $100 bucks in Europe, but $40 in the USA? They’re probably coming out of the same Asian factory. Not an economist but different value…

EU and the USA doesn't have free trade in the pants category