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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

#311

Post by worble »

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.

> It’s not like they have to buy an iPhone.

I'm so sick of hearing this, the current smartphone market is an american megacorp duopoly, both of whom are locking down their phones to such a degree that you cannot even claim you own the hardware anymore. There is essentially no choice.

And not buying a smartphone is not a choice either, if you want to actually exist in the modern world.

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

#312

Post by ben_w »

londons_explore wrote: post #279
pacifika wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the response if the uk tried to break up apple

I'd love it if a government would decide that the hardware side of the company needs to split from the software side. Suddenly we could buy macos to run in a VM. Or we could buy iPhones running android.

We'd have to pay for iOS upgrades.

Which, given my feelings about iOS 26, might be a good thing. I mean, if their revenue depends on the OS actually being good rather than inevitable…

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

#313

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jeroenhd wrote: post #305
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every Samsung phone comes with the Samsung Store. My Xiaomi phone came with a Xiaomi store. Google got caught withholding search revenue from vendors who installed third party stores and punishing them in various other ways. The phone vendor stores are all useless specifically because they're from the phone vendors, which means they'll be terrible because hardware vendors are notoriously bad at software, and on top…

> Google got caught withholding search revenue from vendors who installed third party stores and punishing them in various other ways. Interesting, do you have a link for that? > Those are the phone vendor stores. Nobody wants those. They have the same problem Apple's app store has: they lock you into a particular brand if you decide to spend money. Annoying, I agree, but 99% of app downloads are free anyway. The rea…

> Interesting, do you have a link for that?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632806/google-epic-prem...

They adopt the Google framing that they were "being paid" to exclude third party stores, but that's a subjective description. If you get paid X for search revenue and you get Y less if you include third party app stores, that's a penalty.

> The network effect never existed on desktop and Steam is doing just fine competing with the Microsoft Store.

Stores inherently have a network effect. To get users you need apps; to get apps you need users. That's a network effect. Which is why, if you can keep alternate stores off of most devices, you can suppress them.

Microsoft, for all their other faults, wasn't doing that, which is why Steam on Windows is a thing but Steam on Android is conspicuously lacking.

> F-Droid is widely used

No it isn't. It's good, but it has ~0% market share.

> convincing developers/publishers to use your app store is.

This is exactly the issue. Google put up barriers to getting people to use them.

> Then things like localisation, payment, distribution, and in-app purchases pop up, which are technical challenges that are much harder to solve.

None of these are that hard. Payments are the most difficult and every company that sells something still manages it somehow.

> There's a reason Steam and GOG are essentially the only independent software stores left for video games other than buying games from publishers directly.

Video games weren't traditionally sold through "software stores" to begin with. You'd just buy them directly from the publisher. Which is the other thing Google suppresses on Android. Try downloading an Android app directly from the publisher's website the same as people do with games on Windows and see how many hoops you have to jump through.

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

#314

Post by ben_w »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #281
pacifika wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the response if the uk tried to break up apple

> Imagine the response if the uk tried to break up apple This right here is why they need to be broken up. Are we supposed to have a company more powerful than a country?

I get the argument, but "country" spans many orders of magnitude in size. I mean, deliberately extreme example, but I'm fairly sure the smallest of the discount supermarket chains near me is more powerful than the country of Tuvalu:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_(supermarket)

Also, one party being stronger doesn't mean fighting them is worthwhile, e.g. Iceland threatening to withdraw from NATO to win the Cod Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars

And and, also why the People's Republic of China hasn't taken control of the Republic of China after all this time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

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

#316

Post by basisword »

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.

Anything framed in terms of revenue is pointless. Profit is what we need.

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

#317

Post by heavyset_go »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #306
heavyset_go wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never claimed you couldn't, try distributing that unsigned code and see if your users can figure out how to run it, or if their OS will gaslight them into thinking they just downloaded a virus, or if they get past that, if they can get past the additional warning window that purposely doesn't show[1] the "Run anyway" button that lets you run what you want. Running signed apps doesn't require you to know a cursed arca…

Well you did claim that, but thank you for correcting. So that warning is bad for a developer because of confused and annoyed users, but in terms of actual user restriction it's not super bad. If defender is set to be too aggressive, that's a one time change, so about on par with Android. And for the normal (I think? Did the default change?) setting you just use run anyway. That's far away from how iOS makes it impos…

No, this is what I claimed:

> I'd be okay giving Microsoft whatever they wanted on the Windows app store as long as they loosened their grip on being able to run what you want, from where you want, without their explicit blessing.

I am talking about their grip on what you're allowed to run with or without their blessing, not that you "can't run unsigned binaries at all". They have a tightened grip, in that without their blessing, running what you want is an exercise in futility for 99% of users.

> Edit: Everything I can find says that taking away the "run anyway" button is not default. If a user or their sysadmin changes that setting I don't really blame Microsoft.

It's exactly what I experienced when running an unsigned binary in a fresh Windows 11 VM with the default Defender settings, which are all on by default. This is how SmartScreen works by default with binaries it doesn't like.

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

#318

Post by ben_w »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #297
immibis wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? In feudalism, kings control everything. In capitalism, investors control everything. It's what the system is named after - kinda hard to miss.

Investors don't control Apple, the CEO of Apple does. The investors are random people holding shares of it in their 401k. The company being so big is also they reason they can't control it effectively, because the people holding it are so diffuse that they have significant coordination costs.

In the same way, one could say that the president, prime minister, or similarly titled person controls a democracy.

Investors are "one share, one vote", rather than democracy "one person, one vote". The recent thing with Musk/Tesla and his trillion dollar options is being voted on, and Apple face campaigns and have votes, too: https://apnews.com/article/apple-dei-shareholder-proposal-an...

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

#319

Post by [deleted] »

wkat4242 wrote: post #296
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!" I feel like fines aren't even an appropriate remedy for this. They're both inherently arbitrary and not something that actually fixes it. And that combination gives governments a perverse incentive, because they get $2B to put in their own pockets…

You can't jail a company. And breaking one up is pretty much impossible considering the geopolitical pressures on huge companies like this.

[deleted]

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

#320

Post by RobotToaster »

wkat4242 wrote: post #296
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!" I feel like fines aren't even an appropriate remedy for this. They're both inherently arbitrary and not something that actually fixes it. And that combination gives governments a perverse incentive, because they get $2B to put in their own pockets…

You can't jail a company. And breaking one up is pretty much impossible considering the geopolitical pressures on huge companies like this.

> You can't jail a company.

You can, however, use the death penalty. I imagine a fine equivalent to twice their market cap should suffice.

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