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Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

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Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#301

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mrep wrote: post #287
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right, and WalMart has a “monopoly” on WalMarts, but that’s not actually a monopoly. If they had a monopoly on supermarket, that would be a legal issue. Which is likewise why Apple doesn't have a monopoly on phones . > Apps is the space for competition, and Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on apps, or phones. In fact you can almost always get the same apps on multiple platforms. The market isn't the app market itself,…

This is why I think we need a new way of identifying market abuse because you can make anyone a/not a monopoly based on what definition you use. IOS device software distribution -> apple has a monopoly High end phones -> apple probably has a monopoly Total revenue of phones sold -> apple probably has a monopoly Number of phones (in use?) by OS -> android has a monopoly Number of computers by OS -> nobody has a monopo…

> This is why I think we need a new way of identifying market abuse because you can make anyone a/not a monopoly based on what definition you use.

Which is why it matters if there are close substitutes or not.

> IOS device software distribution -> apple has a monopoly

There are no good substitutes for this. There is no viable alternative for distributing apps to the people with iOS devices. Distributing apps to people with Android devices isn't a substitute because they're different people, in the same way that distribution in the Northeast is not a substitute for distribution in the Southwest.

> High end phones -> apple probably has a monopoly

There are high end Android phones that are probably adequate substitutes. But if there weren't (or you think they aren't adequate substitutes) then sure.

> Total revenue of phones sold -> apple probably has a monopoly

The market you've specified is "phones" which is obviously not something Apple has a monopoly on. Whole Foods doesn't have a monopoly on food just because they have high margins. There are tons of non-Apple phones if all you need to satisfy to be part of the market is to be a phone.

It may even be a weak market definition because it's too broad -- a feature phone isn't a very good substitute for an iPhone. A better market definition might be smartphones, but even then they still don't have a monopoly. It's not about revenue or margins, it's a question of whether the consumer has a reasonable alternative supplier of something sufficiently equivalent.

> Number of phones (in use?) by OS -> android has a monopoly

The market in that case is would be "phone OS" but then Android has the obvious competition from iOS. Also, Android isn't a company, it's a product. It's nearly impossible for a piece of open source software to have "a monopoly" when literally everyone is allowed to supply it and anyone can do so at trivial cost. All the Android phone manufacturers are each independent suppliers of it.

> Number of computers by OS -> nobody has a monopoly

The market in that case is "computer OS" which is a poor market definition because desktop and phone operating systems are poor substitutes for each other.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#302

Post by tjr225 »

eisa01 wrote: post #258
baby wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good chinese restaurants in London (like my old place) end up having less than 4 stars because of service. I find that raging since the food is the only thing that should matter.

Why should only the food matter? If I have to wait one hour to get the food, that is detrimental to the experience in my opinion

There are restaurants across the globe that people wait for over an hour to eat at because the food is simply that good.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#303

Post by sonnyblarney »

scarface74 wrote: post #243
sonnyblarney wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it’s impossible to make real money selling either Android phones or Windows computers" No. 99% (well not quite, but most) of the economy works this way. It's almost an entirely thin margin business world. Very, very few companies are making sweet margins unless there is some sneaky reason i.e. political patronage, niche markets, etc. etc.. Drugs and Healthcare work on high margins depending on how you look at it. Bu…

If I look at my largest purchases, it's not about the cost it took to make it. Homes - homes sell based on location, school zoning, demographic make up (sad but true), etc. and new home builders can often sell at a premium based on services and customization Cars - sell based on brand more than costs Furniture -- One word - Ikea Exercise equipment - Peleton vs NordicTrack Even upscale restaurants have higher margins…

Aside from real-estate (an asset, not a product or consumable), about everything you mentioned is hyper-competitive and low-margin.

'Brand' does not guarantee margin, in most cases, it simply provides a means to exist.

Peleton might make a hefty gross margin on their bikes, but they're also probably losing money due to huge marketing, R&D and operating costs, and they may never make a dime.

IKEA makes a solid profit, but only because they have a massive business at scale, at which point those thin margins add up to something big. Same thing for Walmart, Amazon, and any large Grocery store chain.

Those are all vicious businesses.

High operating costs, huge working capital requirements. It's ugly and cut-throat.

I'm making a hardware product right now, even if we're successful, our net margin per unit will be a tiny fraction of the MSRP. Of MSRP about 60% goes to retailer, about 25% cost to manufacture, about 5% marketing on the unit level, and then we have 10% to pay all our fixed and regular operating costs, brand marketing, R&D etc. and then taxes.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#304

Post by jsjohnst »

cgriswald wrote: post #232
dkonofalski wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely ignoring the hit to both the brand and experience that something like that would cause. There's a big reason why iOS users tend to spend more money on the platform than Android users do on the Google platform and a huge part of that is the trust built by Apple with their users. You can go into the Google Play store (which most people would think was the "official" and "safe" method of getting apps)…

You seem to be suggesting the only alternative to the App Store is a janky Apple-run Open App Store. All Apple has to do to offer an alternative is let people install Apps on their phones outside the App Store just like they can do on their Macs. People will still trust the App Store, but maybe a competitor comes along and maybe Netflix/Amazon etc use them or maybe they don’t.

> All Apple has to do to offer an alternative is let people install Apps on their phones outside the App Store

This exists now and is free. I’m not saying it’s a good user experience (especially the one week limitation), but it’s definitely possible and legit / legal / free.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#305

Post by jasonlotito »

baby wrote: post #247
michaelchisari wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Los Angeles has serious grade inflation across the board wrt social ratings. Their yelp reviews are completely unreliable, everything is 4 or 5 stars. I'm used to Chicago where even a great restaurant can have 3 stars because everyone is so picky, and the 4 or 5 stars are reserved for the truly extraordinary.

Good chinese restaurants in London (like my old place) end up having less than 4 stars because of service. I find that raging since the food is the only thing that should matter.

This is the problem with crowd sourced reviews. Everyone rates things on a different scale. Even grouped scores like Metacritic aren't great for specific people. Rotten Tomatoes suffers the same problems. While it works in general, you are better served by finding reviewers who have liked what you've liked, and following them and listening to their reviews. Everyone likes different things, and it's worth while to be discerning with who you listen to. I've seen 4-5 star restaurants on Yelp in San Francisco that don't deserve 4-5 stars. I've seen the same with highly-rated hotels, too (Sorry, but if you are charged for Wifi or $3.50 for an apple, it's not a good hotel).

Find people you trust. Follow their reviews. Use socially gathered reviews as indicators when all else fails, and understand that half of them are probably worthless.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#307

Post by mrep »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301
mrep wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I think we need a new way of identifying market abuse because you can make anyone a/not a monopoly based on what definition you use. IOS device software distribution -> apple has a monopoly High end phones -> apple probably has a monopoly Total revenue of phones sold -> apple probably has a monopoly Number of phones (in use?) by OS -> android has a monopoly Number of computers by OS -> nobody has a monopo…

> This is why I think we need a new way of identifying market abuse because you can make anyone a/not a monopoly based on what definition you use. Which is why it matters if there are close substitutes or not. > IOS device software distribution -> apple has a monopoly There are no good substitutes for this. There is no viable alternative for distributing apps to the people with iOS devices. Distributing apps to peopl…

I agree that there are substitutes for everything except the IOS distribution one. I also agree that most of these metrics are not true monopolies. However, I'm using the term "monopoly" in the way the EU sees it when enacting antitrust fines to curtail this type of behavior because what they basically use is >50% in some arbitrarily chosen metric (percent of of smartphones running an OS used for the EUs recent 5 billion dollar android fine on google) as that is what the EU is currently using to fine companies into "behaving" despite IOS being a much more abusive platform IMO.

This is why I think we need a new way of identifying market abuse.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#308

Post by notafraudster »

jolmg wrote: post #252
sp527 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We as a society need to start thinking about how we rate people. Right now we all shop for that 5-star rating and punish anyone with 4. We need to mature beyond that as it grows increasingly impossible to maintain perfect ratings. I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. The answer is not to intentionally sabotage competitive market forces that are driving better outcomes for consumers. That's the equivalent o…

I didn't downvote, but I think cptaj's point was to "unsabotage" the rating system. Ideally, the 5-star rating system should work like: - 1-star means Awful - 2-star means Bad - 3-star means OK - 4-star means Good - 5-star means Excellent That means no one should have any problem using something rated 3 or above. However, by "[shopping] for that 5-star rating and [punishing] anyone with a 4", the rating system ends u…

This does not follow. Even in a system where 3 stars means excellent, 4 stars means once in a lifetime, and 5 stars means Platonic Ideal, I'm still going to look for restaurants (or drivers or network routers or whatever the thing is) that are as close to 5* as possible. Do I subdivide between 4.45 and 4.47 stars? No. But in general I'm going to sort my results by some measure of quality. I'm also optimizing over other variables, but to the extent quality is one of those variables, there's no reason to settle for OK when Excellent is available.

I'm definitely not going to voluntarily get worse food so I can protest the idea of ratings.

And as long as that's the case, there will always be pressure for people and services that aren't "Excellent" to go for the 5 star anyway, and as long as they're going for it, there'll be a social pressure to provide it.

The problem isn't linguistic, it's game theoretic.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#309

Post by jsjohnst »

DerDangDerDang wrote: post #83
pitaj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play and the Apple App Store are completely different beasts. Unless you jailbreak your iOS device, there is no way to install apps outside the App Store. On Android, you can install entirely separate stores, like the Amazon one, and several OSS-focused stores.

That’s not completely true, as I understand it. You can (or could a couple of years ago) get an ‘enterprise’ developer account that allows you to sign and provision apps to be sideloaded via a web link. Though iirc it’s more hassle for the end user as they have to explicitly allow it on their device.

DINKDINK’s reply above is more relevant. If you try using an enterprise cert to allow general public users to install your app you’ll quickly lose your enterprise cert. The enterprise cert is only to be used for internal company apps.

Re: Apple and Google Face Growing Revolt Over App Store ‘Tax’

#310

Post by throwaway917100 »

dkonofalski wrote: post #253
cgriswald wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be suggesting the only alternative to the App Store is a janky Apple-run Open App Store. All Apple has to do to offer an alternative is let people install Apps on their phones outside the App Store just like they can do on their Macs. People will still trust the App Store, but maybe a competitor comes along and maybe Netflix/Amazon etc use them or maybe they don’t.

I didn't suggest that at all. I suggested that it was a possible alternative simply because that's the only way something like that would be considered "official" still while allowing for any apps to be published. There's no reason for Apple to offer that on their phones since it dilutes the customer experience. Anyone that would care about doing that can still do that via XCode by side-loading the apps. Case in poin…

Wait What. Steam is a "competitor" to Mac App Store. Homebrew is a sort of competitor to app store. Heck any website which has more that 1 Mac OS "app" is a sort of an "app store ".
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