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Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

accc.gov.au

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Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#321

Post by sdeframond »

StopHammoTime wrote: post #316
thombles wrote: post #120

Incidentally, if you have a business registered for GST in Australia you have to submit a quarterly activity statement. The tax office website had bizarre authentication requirements but the browser plugin was at least cross-platform. They now require you to use the myGovID app, which is - you guessed it - available only on the App Store and Play Store. You can't even run a business without being part of the duopoly.…

Just responding to this comment because all the comments below it seem to be tone deaf and are just complaining about Governments. BAS (and all tax documents) can still be submitted via a Tax Agent or via Mail. There is no "lock in". Chances are if you own a computer, you own an android and an apple phone, who cares. Mountain meet molehill. Source: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Business-activity-statements...

This reason speaking.

However I am still worried that governments basically make us choose between 1/ buying in into this duopoly, or 2/ using slower, decade-old processes. It feels like if you want to stay up to date with society, you actually have no real choice.

I mean, those apps could certainly be open-source and distributed through F-Droid as well. In Republic, these are "public things" after all.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#322

Post by Mindwipe »

gonehome wrote: post #269
echelon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not about reducing risk or scam apps really - it's about Apple being able to incentivize user-benefiting behavior that ad-driven business models corrupt. Maybe we wouldn't need this in a world that had more CCPA laws with teeth, I'd be happy to live in that world, but we don't. Apple isn't doing this out of their own good heart! They've built one of the largest monopolies in the world. Is it okay for one megam…

I agree the 30% cut is wrong. But the control and leverage is good.

> But the control and leverage is good.

The control and leverage are fundamentally evil, and they get people discriminated against and killed.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#323

Post by JacobSeated »

This is just another clear example of Google refusing to fulfill their responsibilities.

Of course, if someone violated the rules they should also be entitled to know exactly which rules was violated, and exactly what is wrong with their implementation.

The fact that Google refuses to provide this information is a strong indication that Google is not acting with the best of intentions, and that is something that is worth looking into.

Preferably we should push towards more open systems that does not rely on centralized "app stores"; of course, be it Google Play store or Apple's App Store, the fact that they can just block apps they do not like is extremely problematic. There has to be other ways to install apps, without using these centralized mechanisms.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#324

Post by madeofpalk »

ehsankia wrote: post #201
madeofpalk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not pretend they do these things as charity. Chrome is open source because, as a fork of WebKit, it has to be. For other things, they use open source to drive adoption.

This kind of logic is so annoying. If it's so easy / good for profit / advantageous / smart business, then why doesn't Apple do it? The whole "they only do X for profit" is such a lazy argument, because it can be used to argue any side of the argument if you try hard enough.

  idk, Apple does have open source? Swift is *incredibly* open, but probably a outlier for Apple. It's operating systems aren'tt, but kernal is (right?).
None of these companies are open sourcing their core competencies. Google Search isn't open source.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#325

Post by robryan »

Mandatum wrote: post #85
simondotau wrote: post #70

This report is somewhat bipolar. On one hand it's arguing that Google and Apple exert too much control over smartphone app marketplaces. On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple exert even more control over these app marketplaces by stamping down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and scams. On the other other hand it proposes that Apple and Google should allow third party paym…

Agreed. It's "the stores are extracting too much money for the services they provide and the way they run" without any concrete asks. Likely because we're in unexplored territory, I expect ACCC is using this release as a form to push other agencies to move first to see what happens. Australia NEVER moves first on these things. They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works.

We were one of the first on having overseas companies signup and remit GST directly for low value personal imports.

NZ/UK have copied this model and the EU is following mid this year.

The scheme has a special definition for marketplaces so that they can rope in eBay and Amazon to collect for them rather than having to go after every little Chinese eBay seller.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#326

Post by modo_mario »

yossarian1408 wrote: post #131
echelon wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple needs the control to have the leverage that makes their ecosystem better. It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage and it requires that their 'store' is the only available store so app devs can't bypass their requirements. I don't understand this argument at all. You're almost certainly taking more risk driving in a car than downloading an app, yet you're probably willing to embr…

You don't have to do business on the App store. You don't have to launch a startup on the App store. You can buy any device you want, and if there isn't currently one sold that meets your specific criterion, society might be better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this demand rather than force a company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition. Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detrime…

>society might be better off if someone takes the initiative to meet this demand rather than force a company to roll out the red carpet for it's competition.

Would you say the same if the car market suddenly coalesced into a duopoly and the car companies become very restrictive? Would you defend only them being allowed to do basic repairs in the interest of safety? One going as far as saying you need to buy their tires or tires from companies that pay them tribute or the car won't start, their seat covers unless you manage disable some weird detection, etc The other allowing such stuff just making it a pain. Would you then say a company just needs to pop up and meet this demand? Despite all the stuff involved and the size of cars would be a lot lot easier. Because at least cars don't necessarily need an ecosystem, userbase and developer community outside of the company to get of the ground and get sales.

As soon as you apply these things the other industries they start sounding ridiculous and hilariously anticompetitive but with phones people for some reason have come to accept it.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#327

Post by pessimizer »

StopHammoTime wrote: post #316
thombles wrote: post #120

Incidentally, if you have a business registered for GST in Australia you have to submit a quarterly activity statement. The tax office website had bizarre authentication requirements but the browser plugin was at least cross-platform. They now require you to use the myGovID app, which is - you guessed it - available only on the App Store and Play Store. You can't even run a business without being part of the duopoly.…

Just responding to this comment because all the comments below it seem to be tone deaf and are just complaining about Governments. BAS (and all tax documents) can still be submitted via a Tax Agent or via Mail. There is no "lock in". Chances are if you own a computer, you own an android and an apple phone, who cares. Mountain meet molehill. Source: https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Business-activity-statements...

> Chances are if you own a computer, you own an android and an apple phone, who cares.

You're in this thread and you can't find anyone who cares about locking in a duopoly?

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#328

Post by arvinsim »

mulmen wrote: post #9
ent101 wrote: post #6

I feel like we keep getting these inquiries/lawsuits/press releases every year but, literally, nothing gets any better at all. Every developer KNOWS that Google is extremely abusive towards them solely because of their position in the market yet nothing ever improves. If these are not illegal monopolies, what is?!

Well, the problem is that they aren't monopolies. They may be problematic but we don't have laws or regulations to deal with this specific situation. And when we call it a "monopoly" because that seems to be the closest thing then the defenders of these organizations can say "but it's not a monopoly!" and they are right. So if you think it is problematic to have two players in a market even when they are on equal foo…

I agree. Our current laws were not made in the time when these technologies were widespread. Legislation of a new law would be the better solution than trying to classify them as a monopoly.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#329

Post by Mindwipe »

gonehome wrote: post #140
FpUser wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"It's in the interest of their customers for them to have this leverage" Most likely it is in the interest of majority of consumers conditioned to this type of control. I realize that it is a benefit for older computer illiterate people. It completely sucks for people like myself. >"10 different game distributors all with their own shitty incentives" That's one classy way of describing business approach. Yes they're…

> "I realize that it is a benefit for older computer illiterate people." It's a benefit for computer literate people too. - IAP allows easy tracking of subscriptions and cancellation. You don't have to call and argue with a retentions rep for an hour to cancel a service. - Apple restrictions on tracking limit abuse from ad driven business models. - Apple can require features like Apple ID to be implemented alongside…

> If they lose that leverage we as Apple users will lose these benefits, and for what?

Because you literally don't get people in autocratic regimes killed because the single choke point of software that might enable them to escape detection is removed. Because you remove Apple's rampant discrimination against some kinds of speech and the people that effects. Because Apple attacks businesses with any involvement in sex whatsoever.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#330

Post by meepmorp »

8note wrote: post #185
meepmorp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is quickly gaining a monopoly on not-shitty hardware By "quickly gaining a monopoly", do you mean they've somehow made it impossible for another multi-billion dollar company to do a decent job on designing and building a phone?

Specifically the building gets quite hard when apple has purchased the chip making capacity

Nonsense. Samsung has its own chip fabs.
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