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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

#341

Post by pjmlp »

DagAgren wrote: post #336
pjmlp wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come it wasn't open to the public? Send SMS, get download link, done. Use the Web store from the phone provider, done.

Open for publishing, not buying.

Easy, one just had to have a business and apply to it.

They even had contests for apps. I did apply to one at Vodafone when the Sharp GX20 was released, to show off the device capabilities.

https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/166989-vodafone-javatm-...

> Vodafone is pleased to annouce the Vodafone Java(tm) Games Challenge 2003 - a competition for J2ME games developers. The top three winners will receive: - A Sharp-GX20 - The new Vodafone live! handset with QVGA screen resolution - A commercial contract with Vodafone to deploy the winning games onto Vodafone live! in several countries Vodafone live! currently attracts 1.5 million customers across 13 countries. Register at www.via.vodafone.com and submit your games by August, 1st !

And while they had lots of trash, the gatekeeping kept it lower than current store offerings full of copy-cats.

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

#342

Post by simonh »

ajscanlan wrote: post #152
simonh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes no distinction between companies on it's platform that compete with it and those that do not, they are all treated the same, so it's hard to see an argument that this is mainly targeted at their competitors holding water. Furthermore e.g. Apple does compete with Amazon kindle store on the Apple platform, but Google doesn't compete with AMamzon yet imposes almost identical terms on the Amamzon kindle store…

> Apple makes no distinction between companies on it's platform that compete with it and those that do not, they are all treated the same, so it's hard to see an argument that this is mainly targeted at their competitors holding water. There was that story last year about them ranking their own apps above competing 3rd party apps when searching. https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-dominates-app-store-searc...

Yep that was pretty skeevey, I’m glad they were held to account and stopped that, but it’s actually nothing to do with the point about not treating individual third parties differently.

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

#343

Post by jp555 »

julianozen wrote: post #129
jp555 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"computers and especially mobile ones need to allow consumers to run whatever software they want period." I should expect to be able to run Windows on my coffee maker? That's a bit of an exaggeration of course, but I do not think this is an important "need". It's Utopian garbage. A top down "simple solution" that is appealing on the surface but deeply flawed in the complex interconnected systems of reality. You can a…

We can play this game for any appliance but we know that your mobile phone and laptop is uniquely special in this regard. When Apple gets to decide everything that runs on your device, it’s bad for you in the long term. As an iOS developer who loves my phone, I’ve worked on teams that have dealt with complete bs that I shouldn’t divulge here, trying to get Apple to approve our app. we werent doing onerous data collec…

The root of the problems with Apple's approvals (and I totally agree it's very messed up!) is in the top-down central management. The same kind of problems would inevitably arise from all top-down solutions like mandating all companies MUST act a certain way. I dont think we need more regulations, but LESS - and let markets decide.

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

#344

Post by fenomas »

DagAgren wrote: post #337
fenomas wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that were not generally open to anyone Apple's store isn't open to anyone. > and that took a much bigger cut than Apple. AFAIK Docomo (largest carrier in Japan) took 9%. Are you sure you know what you're talking about here?

I don't see a reasonable definition by which the Apple app store is not open to anyone to publish in.

It's open to anyone Apple certifies, and not to anyone else. How is that different from Docomo's model 5-6 years earlier?

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

#345

Post by scarface74 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #339
scarface74 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Apple is fully in its right to decide how to distribute its software. Just like an open source software license can dictate how their software is used. If you want to use MacOS you have to use a Mac.

You misunderstand. If you want to build a product for MacOS you have to use a Mac. That's what bugs me because it doesn't fit into typical auto-build arrangements, at least it was a needless, awkward pain to do that when I wanted to do it in 2012. There was no technical reason to have to jump through those hoops beyond the typical Apple "fuck you because I can".

How does that not fit in “auto build arrangements”? You have a Mac as a build server to build Mac software just like you need a Windows Build server to build a Windows app.

If your business can’t afford a $700 Mac Mini, you’re not running a business.

Besides, are you not doing any local testing in the simulator?

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

#346

Post by ubermonkey »

ShroudedNight wrote: post #306
ubermonkey wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't a problem, though. You're not entitled to dictate terms to the vendor here in any sense other than "I'll buy that" or "I won't buy that." Computer developers don't get to choose which computer their customers have, either. Seriously, I have no idea why people get so salty about this.

> You're not entitled to dictate terms to the vendor here in any sense other than "I'll buy that" or "I won't buy that." Society, as a collective, does reserve that right through anti-trust laws. > Computer developers don't get to choose which computer their customers have, either. Both Microsoft, and Steam monopoly powers have been called into question previously. Microsoft was specifically required to unbundle Inte…

Antitrust laws are applicable when one company controls an entire market.

As has been noted exhaustively, Apple is a MINORITY player in the smartphone market. Antitrust doesn't enter into it.

MSFT, OTOH, absolutely WAS in a monopolistic position when the browser wars were raging, and was found to have abused that monopoly power. Apple isn't even CLOSE to that level of dominance, unless you define the market as "people who use Apple devices," which is transparently risible.

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

#347

Post by ubermonkey »

nhumrich wrote: post #330
ubermonkey wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't lied. They've said that this is HOW they're keeping the platform secure. Perhaps there are other ways, but this is the path they've chosen. >We can have alternate App Stores run by other trusted/neutral entities or app side loading or certificates and tools like gatekeeper for iOS. You could, if Apple wanted. Apple doesn't want to. If you want that, use another platform. I'm 100% fine with the phone bein…

But you get to choose who to trust and who not to. If you dont trust "3rd party app store" then dont use it. The whole point of monopoly (or monopsoly) powers and why they are bad isnt because of now , its because of tomorrow. You buy a device, fully trusting apple. Its your device, you own it, you trust apple. Tomorrow, you find out that company-you-dont-trust is a partner with apple, and the entire app store is pot…

But there IS another option, so your argument falls apart.

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

#348

Post by chrisweekly »

filleduchaos wrote: post #309
chrisweekly wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Agrees, and ponders lack of macOS cloud offerings to address this use case.)

Is there a lack or have you simply never sought any out?

Fair question. Hadn't looked in several years. Underlying issue of licensing (macOs can only legally run on Apple hw) remains the same. Provisioning a mac mini for $79/mo isn't v appealing, but yeah options do exist.

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

#349

Post by Razengan »

naikrovek wrote: post #253
scarface74 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even back in the 80s, the console makers “controlled distribution”. Nintendo forced third parties to use their manufacturing facilities and they all force third parties to distribute their haves with a license key. Console makers have always forced third parties to pay a fee to distribute their games.

Yes, and for distribution, that's fine. The ruling is less about Apple forcing consumers to buy only through the AppStore, and more about only allowing sellers to sell through the AppStore. If I make a PS4 game, or a Nintendo Switch game, I can sell it on the PSN store and/or Nintendo e-Shop, sure, but I can also produce a physical copy that I can obtain outside of the store, and that is definitely not the case for A…

> If I make a PS4 game, or a Nintendo Switch game, I can sell it on the PSN store and/or Nintendo e-Shop, sure, but I can also produce a physical copy that I can obtain outside of the store, and that is definitely not the case for Apple software developers.

> Apple software developers MUST go through the AppStore and they MUST pay that fee, no matter what.

I think you also need to pay a fee to publish any PS4 or Switch game that would run on untampered consoles.

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

#350

Post by Quarrelsome »

scarface74 wrote: post #345
Quarrelsome wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand. If you want to build a product for MacOS you have to use a Mac. That's what bugs me because it doesn't fit into typical auto-build arrangements, at least it was a needless, awkward pain to do that when I wanted to do it in 2012. There was no technical reason to have to jump through those hoops beyond the typical Apple "fuck you because I can".

How does that not fit in “auto build arrangements”? You have a Mac as a build server to build Mac software just like you need a Windows Build server to build a Windows app. If your business can’t afford a $700 Mac Mini, you’re not running a business. Besides, are you not doing any local testing in the simulator?

You don't need a windows build server to build a windows app, its just an executable that targets a given cpu architecture or run-time.

Its not about affording a Mac Mini its about being forced to do IT on some build servers when the rest are visualised in the cloud. Having your cloud servers ping back into your physical office to do the Mac build is stupid. For context, this is an online service where we wanted to build two native apps for Android and IPhone. Android was easy (I didn't need a Google approved device to build it), IPhone was a fucking pain in the ass.

> Besides, are you not doing any local testing in the simulator?

You want to build the product on a dev box? That's not good CI. You want these environments to be clean and preferably spun up fresh each build.

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