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Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

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Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#321

Post by apatters »

nodamage wrote: post #270
apatters wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that they are. I did say that something smells rotten (products getting worse and prices going up), but this alone is not justification for punitive measures. The government playbook in this sort of situation is normally to start subpoena'ing emails, execs etc. and look for hard evidence of actual anti-competitive practices. They're not only interested in a business model as it's described in the media,…

Wouldn't an antitrust claim against Apple likely fail if the plaintiff cannot establish they actually have market power in the smartphone market?

IANAL, but if the lawsuit was about selling smartphones, then yes I think so.

If the lawsuit was about selling some popular class of app in which Apple leveraged its monopoly over app distribution, I think the plaintiff could have a pretty strong case.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#322

Post by romanoderoma »

parasubvert wrote: post #153

I find the group think here to be incredible, and you all will likely be very disappointed when the legal system winds up supporting Apple. Regulating retailers because you don’t like their cut is price controls, which is completely contrary to a free market, and ultimately undermines the end user experience of having a trusted, secure store. Perhaps Google or Apple’s power is so strong as to warrant regulation - but…

> Regulating retailers because you don’t like their cut is price controls

That's not the point though

The point is that if Apple Store (or Play Store) is the only way to ask for money to users, Apple cannot decide who's in and who's out on their whim, they have to allow anybody and only act post-facto on the apps that misbehaved

In real life you are not arrested for attempted homicide because you carry a knife with you 'cause knives can be used to kill people

They have two choices: relax the rules of the store or accept other stores that can apply different rules, giving more choice to developers, publishers and users

The other point is that Apple cannot control what's inside an app, if the developer wants to promote their own product, website, other ways of buying a subscription, they should be allowed, in the same exact way the manufacturer of the blood pressure monitor I bough on Amazon have put inside the box a 5 euros coupon to buy OTC drugs online on their e-store.

Amazon doesn't have a say on that.

> I could see Europe doing something more intrusive, as is their tendency.

As European I love that Europe protects me as citizen of Europe instead of Apple, which is not even European and evades taxes using tax heavens

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#323

Post by Terretta »

em-bee wrote: post #147
mortenjorck wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an allergy to tech analogies in general, but Apple's brick-and-mortar retail analogy is one of the worst. In any locality other than rural towns served by a single Dollar General, consumers have a choice between multiple retail outlets. If they don't like the choices at one store, they're free to shop at another. "But Android!" one might say, and once again, the analogy falls completely flat. The switching cos…

the equivalent would be that you can only use an apple car to go shopping in the apple store, and you can't use that apple car to go shopping anywhere else.

The equivalent would be that you can only use an apple console to go shopping in the apple store, much like only using an Xbox to shop in the Xbox store ... so the analogy does work and the marketplace is fine with it, and clear.

// FWIW, I wish I could play Horizon Zero Dawn on that Xbox, but it’s not in the Xbox store.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#324

Post by Terretta »

smnscu wrote: post #242
makecheck wrote: post #55

What ultimately made me pull out of the Mac App Store was the fact that publishing with Apple meant “app with customizations to accommodate stupid rules”, and $EVERYWHERE_ELSE meant “upload and be done with it”. If you haven’t checked lately, the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part. On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, a…

> the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part This definitely resonates with me. If you want to see what a good app store could look like, check out SetApp [0]. They charge a monthly fee for access to a curated list of paid apps, they offer a 7-day trial IIRC. I initially subscribed for their two email clients, then stopped using them as they were both shit (slow, glitchy, poor UX, etc.). I am still…

The ideal app store on the Mac is https://brew.sh/

“App” inventory: https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#325

Post by parasubvert »

rubber_duck wrote: post #5

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be r…

I am amazed at the default reach to legislative solutions as if this has been consistently successful in the past.

At one point not too long ago, Microsoft controlled everything. They didn’t control retailers, but they would put ISVs out of business regularly. You could charge what you wanted, but were always at the risk of a “predatory pricing” attack when Microsoft would clone your feature for free in the latest version of their products.

There was a consent decree formed about product tie-ins to stymie this activity circa 1994.

Then the Web Browser came along and threatened Microsoft’s regime. We had a way to run software anywhere without Microsoft’s involvement!

And of course they tried to tie their own Browser into Windows, because that’s how they competed in the past. They were found guilty of violating it with in their 1998 trial, forming a new consent decree with penalties in 2001.

Did this actually matter when mobile took over in 2007? Google Chrome also now has vast majority browser share. Did this help there too?

What Apple and Google are doing is nowhere close to this in terms anti-competitive behaviour, it’s not even in the same league. You throw terms around like “rent seeking” without understanding what that means. Rent seeking is about expanding one’s share of wealth without also broadening the base of wealth. A retail cut is ... not that.

But even more so... why are people so devoid of knowledge of tech history or imagination that we must reach for legislation rather than building a better mousetrap?

This isn’t about consumers, it’s about ISVs wanting higher margins without putting any of the work in. It’s not likely going to be successful.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#326

Post by romanoderoma »

parasubvert wrote: post #206
ardit33 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious? Historically you are on the wrong side of the argument. MSFT lost their case in the 90s, of 'other' but not that much different reasons... to their core they are anti-competitive. Also we have the break up of the original Bell system and several companies were formed out of it. GOOG and APL most likely will lose this one.

Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. This is completely different from the #1 and #2 smart phone marketshare players charging a 30% cut as the exclusive software reseller to their own platform. The original At&T was allowed to be a monopoly for 80+ years because it was in the public interest. The 1982 breakup was…

> Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows.

Nope, they have been accused and sentenced of abusing their dominant position by forcing OEMs to pre install IE on Windows, before the integration started.

The way MS force them was with restrictive licenses that practically threatened OEMs to do what MS ordered or face legal consequences and risk to go out of business.

The second accusation was that MS used internals secret API for their product not available to third parties giving MS an unfair advantage.

Those API were also shared among few OEMs that helped MS secure its dominant position.

> Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product”

The third of their anticompetitive behavior was to pay some OEMs to not install (or offer to customers) other operating systems on their hardware (including BeOS, for example)

"Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market."

Does it sound similar to what Apple does today?

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#327

Post by cma »

parasubvert wrote: post #153

I find the group think here to be incredible, and you all will likely be very disappointed when the legal system winds up supporting Apple. Regulating retailers because you don’t like their cut is price controls, which is completely contrary to a free market, and ultimately undermines the end user experience of having a trusted, secure store. Perhaps Google or Apple’s power is so strong as to warrant regulation - but…

It's closer to regulating the railroads' predatory excesses, which we did.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#328

Post by hn_check »

mortenjorck wrote: post #73
makecheck wrote: post #55

What ultimately made me pull out of the Mac App Store was the fact that publishing with Apple meant “app with customizations to accommodate stupid rules”, and $EVERYWHERE_ELSE meant “upload and be done with it”. If you haven’t checked lately, the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part. On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, a…

I have an allergy to tech analogies in general, but Apple's brick-and-mortar retail analogy is one of the worst. In any locality other than rural towns served by a single Dollar General, consumers have a choice between multiple retail outlets. If they don't like the choices at one store, they're free to shop at another. "But Android!" one might say, and once again, the analogy falls completely flat. The switching cos…

>When you move into iOS town, the only store within a thousand miles is the App Store.

A thousand miles?

I've switched between iOS and Android multiple times over my smartphone life (Android to iOS to Android to iOS). The switch is trivial. Yeah, it is like going between Walmart and Target, and not knowing the aisles layouts or having the loyalty card, but it's a pretty easy barrier and you'll figure it out quickly enough.

All of this moping and crying speaks as if Apple drew everyone in and then suddenly changed the rules of the game -- some master bait and switch -- and now everyone is finding the gates locked. Yet it has been the same rules for the entire ascent. Everyone who has bought an iPhone in the past decade+ knows that there is one app store, it's curated, etc. None of this is new. Every developer who made an app knew the way the store works, the rules, Apple's cut, etc.

Apple is on the wrong side of history with some of their current positions (cloud gaming as a big example of Apple being wrong), but this whole thread feel like people who want to force their way by grossly exaggerating their grievances and opposition. Many of these comments read like an absurd parody.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#329

Post by ShroudedNight »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #313
rubber_duck wrote: post #5

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be r…

> They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking as long as there are alternatives, it's the user choice to get into the walled ecosystem. people enjoy the ease of mind of it, and while I'm not among them, I can say I find the play store and the 'apk downloaded from somewhere' experiences both grating compared to the apple store. a curated store has it's appeal, and it…

> as long as there are alternatives, it's the user choice to get into the walled ecosystem.

Coercive bundling should warrant anti-trust scrutiny, whenever it occurs. It may only seldomly warrant action, but the very ability to coerce counter-parties appears to be a strong indicator that the traded good is not inherently fungible with another offering.

> that is for the customer to decide, not the legislator.

It's not clear to me what basis this claims factual authority beyond your personal understanding of the world.

Alternatively, and equally glib,

That is for society to decide, not the individual.

Re: Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

#330

Post by carolosf »

I would really love to see more open source applications on the app store like: scummvm Dosbox iSh

I imagine that app store issues prevent these publishers from publishing to this platform. That's pretty sad especially since there are working builds for iOS for these applications.

It would be nice if Apple supported open source a bit more than it has on these platforms.

iPads and iPhones are fairly powerful devices. My iPad would replace my laptop for many usecases if I could download a CSV file and edit it in a text editor without safari blocking the download and if I had a bash terminal and the ability to download and build source code without jumping through hoops.

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