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Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

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Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#311

Post by irrationalactor »

teekert wrote: post #97
joefourier wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only heard of this happening in the US and Canada. Outside of North America, everyone uses Whatsapp, which supports group messaging on every platform. I'd be curious to know why it hasn't penetrated into those countries.

I think it has to do with the fact that the US (and Canada) very early on had unlimited texting plans, and iMessage would make use of that (iPhones just send texts for iMessages in absence of a data connection). WhatsApp can only use data, which is cheaper and used to be unlimited (that's gone) in the EU. In contrast, texting was and still is insanely expensive in the EU (per byte it is staggering even, compared to n…

Whatsapp's dominance everywhere outside the US has nothing to do with the generous texting plans here. These were common all over Europe as well. The reason the US has been slower to transition to data-based texting is due to our size and the rarity of Americans traveling internationally.

Imagine if every state in the US was a different country. That's basically Europe. Say you got charged roaming fees every time you traveled from New York to Connecticut. This was true in Europe until they passed regulation that mandated compatibility.

Wi-fi had no roaming upcharge. Hence why texting that works over wi-fi became the default.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#312

Post by simion314 »

scarface74 wrote: post #303
simion314 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should let me decide or maybe review Thunderbird and Firefox and allow them. I am wondering how can you bring this argument and at the same time you install random apps on your computer that are not made or restricted by Apple.

That’s kind of my point. I’m very careful about what I install on my computer. I don’t install random crap on my computer from untrusted sources because of the lack of a sandbox. I install any random crap on my phone and tablet because I know they can’t do too much damage between the better permission model and sandboxing.

>I install any random crap on my phone and tablet because I know they can’t do too much damage between the better permission model and sandboxing.

And how say allowing a reviewed and sandboxed Firefox or a side loaded version that I would enable using some convoluted steps affects you personally? I don't demand Apple to make you less secure just want competition and no restriction, if I need say a power tool like a firewall or to run some custom scripts as root let me as a power user do that in a way you won't be affected - there must be such a solution because I do not see OSX user getting hacked left and right.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#314

Post by ShroudedNight »

simonh wrote: post #114
keawade wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform in this case would be iOS, not Mac OS. But you can't work with iOS without a Mac OS machine which are particularly expensive. In comparison, Android allows a lot more flexibility of cost when picking a development machine by allowing you to develop from Linux, Windows, or Mac OS.

They're both Apple products running Apple code, which you are free to buy if you so wish.

This is not my area of expertise, but from what I can gather, to develop apps for iOS devices one requires:

- iOS device for testing

=> iPhone hardware

=> iOS

- macOS device for compiling

=> Apple PC hardware

=> macOS

- Apple developer account

- Selling exclusively via the iOS App Store, yielding a 30% cut to Apple

If each aspect sold on its own merits without further restrictions, one could easily imagine (at the very least) building iOS apps using a Linux tool-chain, before uploading them to the App store.

That's not an option. Apple is using the perceived value of reaching iOS customers to 'strengthen' the offering of its mac line. This would tend to indicate that it believes the value of having access to its iOS marketplace is large enough to compel developers to purchase its mac hardware at a premium. Apple is using its market power in iOS to bias PC purchases in its favour.

The open question is whether Apple's use of its acquired market power is harmful to the broader economic ecosystem, and if it is indeed harmful, is it harmful enough that the state should intervene (which is a harmful process in itself).

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#315

Post by [deleted] »

olliej wrote: post #30
m463 wrote: post #2

so: - monopoly: the only seller - monopsony: the only buyer So app store customers can only buy from apple. And the app developers can only sell to apple.

PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, sega, ... are the same: You can only sell for those devices with manufacturer licensing (that includes profit sharing and mandatory annoyances like “achievements”), and consumers can only buy games licensed by those manufacturers. The only difference is that PC developers haven’t experienced that before. It seems like this would have been established in the 80s/90s, so I’m surprised we’re…

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#316

Post by scarface74 »

Karunamon wrote: post #186
scarface74 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for most of the history of the consoles you had to have overpriced developer machines. Are you proposing that Apple be forced to port XCode to Windows?

They could make the signing APIs available to something like Jetbrains' AppCode. No porting necessary.

Because most companies are willing to give out their signing keys willy nilly...

Would you expect the same from the console makers?

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#317

Post by scarface74 »

simion314 wrote: post #312
scarface74 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s kind of my point. I’m very careful about what I install on my computer. I don’t install random crap on my computer from untrusted sources because of the lack of a sandbox. I install any random crap on my phone and tablet because I know they can’t do too much damage between the better permission model and sandboxing.

>I install any random crap on my phone and tablet because I know they can’t do too much damage between the better permission model and sandboxing. And how say allowing a reviewed and sandboxed Firefox or a side loaded version that I would enable using some convoluted steps affects you personally? I don't demand Apple to make you less secure just want competition and no restriction, if I need say a power tool like a f…

I don't demand Apple to make you less secure just want competition and no restriction,

There is competition - you can choose the same mobile operating system that 85% of mobile users choose - Android.

there must be such a solution because I do not see OSX user getting hacked left and right.

A company you may have heard of corrupted user’s operating systems if they had system integrity protection turned off....

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/15235262?hl=en

Or another “trustworthy” company installed a web server surreptitiously on users computers so even when they uninstalled the software, it reinstalled itself.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/articl...

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#318

Post by mcv »

simonh wrote: post #249
mcv wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you need to have the hardware and OS you're developing for is not the issue. That you're not allowed to sell and distribute software for the platform without the permission of the creator of the platform is the real problem here. It's a kind of vendor lock-in. iPhone users aren't allowed to install apps on their own phones without permission from Apple. This gives Apple the power to make or break businesses. We…

It clearly is the issue raised in the comment I am replying to. Anyway we have always had this on games consoles, and had it on phones for many years before Apple even made a phone. We have it on some embedded platforms too. There is nothing at all novel or special about this business model, and braking it will kill the business model of a lot of companies, including all the console makers. In fact compared to them i…

I'm not big into consoles, but yeah, when I first heard that a developer needed to pay Nintendo to be allowed to make a game for their console, I thought that was stupid. The whole thing of consoles being sold at a loss because they make their money back on selling the right to make games for it, is a bad business model in my opinion, and I wouldn't mind seeing it die. Just sell your hardware for a fair price and let developers sell their software for a fair price.

Open platforms, open standards.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#319

Post by lilyball »

smilespray wrote: post #15
lilyball wrote: post #9

Something odd about this argument is the fact that 30% is pretty much an industry standard. Apple isn't jacking up the price.

I thought Apple was the originator of the 30% cut for app stores, and everybody else followed suit?

Game stores (e.g. consoles) always took at least 30%. Someone else already said they think Valve took (takes?) 30%. Carriers probably took more.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#320

Post by throwGuardian »

dwaite wrote: post #279
throwGuardian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, please omit webapps on iOS Safari as an alternative. Apple gives no explanations on why it cripples Safari's W3C compatibility, especially features around PWA, but everyone knows it's to drive developers, users and hence revenue/profits to the app store. Someone needs to sue Apple for this, and the truth will be revealed when the case enters discovery mode, when Apple internal communications on this are laid ba…

Progressive Web Apps aren't a standard but a Google web strategy term. Different browsers just have different priorities. For example, Apple prioritized service workers over web app manifests (which BTW are not yet a W3C recommendation). I can only assume this is partly because there have been so many failed attempts at static web app manifests in the past. Them prioritizing other features for earlier release doesn't…

Missing in iOS Safari:

1. Binary WebRtc data channel messages

2. Browser notifications that a PWA can use

3. Web App storage beyond 50MB, and guarantee that the OS won't whimsically delete storage, despite being below 50 MB

4. You've already cited Web App Manifest

There's probably a ton of other W3C standards not in compliance, but the above list is pretty damning.

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