391–400 of 653 posts
Very depressing to see y’all cheering when the state gains more power. We should cheer when the state is kept in check. You have the choice to buy a Samsung phone instead of an Apple phone; most people don’t have the choice to switch governments.
Some had a nice childhood or brain cells and recognize the difference between a dictatorship and a government working in their favor to protect them from big duopols disrupting competition
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I don't think monopoly is the right word here.
Right; I think the correct frame is, major operating systems are utilities . They must be regulated the same way that all systemically important utilities are regulated; heavily. Monopolies are natural, and arguably desirable, with utilities; but they need to be subject to extremely strong regulation to maintain the right balance. The DMA was always phrased from the wrong perspective (which is just classic EU, they l…
It is Apple who decided that third-party software distributers must comply with certain restrictions, and must sign a contract with them.
And it was Apple which tried to prevent Epic from signing that contract, and who's now backtracking… before it's forced to do so by the EU.
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Yeah we get to choose between google and apple. Lucky us...
Would you rather have no choice? I get the sentiment, but it's nice to finally have lawmakers and regulators standing for what's right - for once.
It’s funny how when Apple threatens a European company the EC can act within days, but when a German company is violating the GDPR, it takes 4 years for them to act. What a strange coincidence.
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Other titans tried, they all failed to capture. Blackberry lagged for too long and Microsoft simply lacked the network effects since early advertisement was based on how large the app stores were. The only solace is that you can modify Android to the point where there's almost no Google interference whatsoever. But of course some apps choose to rely on that (e.g. Banking).maybe one day Apple will begrudgingly get to…
> Microsoft simply lacked the network effects Microsoft execs had their heads buried too deep in their own asses to be able to understand what was needed at the time. They pushed a platform (Windows phone) that lacked interesting features out of the box, lacked cloud services integration to fill the gap left by the lacking base features, and required Windows as a development platform (and, iirc, C# as well?). It didn…
Seriously, the original iPhone had little going for it technically. No GPS, poor data bandwidth, no apps, and minimal ability to make phone calls. (It took the combined efforts of Apple and AT&T a couple generations before you could reliably place a call.)
But it had a touch screen that felt nice, and you could watch videos and play music! The web browser actually performed well despite the low bandwidth. It could zoom. And Steve Jobs marketed it well, whereas Steve Ballmer was terrible at marketing.
IMO the iPhone was considerably worse for business use than Windows Mobile, and neither one held a candle to the BlackBerry. But it didn’t matter.
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This needs to be higher up. Apple didn't budge, or cave, and regulators did not get involved. Epic could have avoided all this by just responding to Apple and signing the EU Addendum affirming they would stick to the laws. Instead they wanted to get into the news cycle. This is the policy they have to agree to: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/download/alterna...
Yes, the EU immediately stepped in and explained them what the consequences of breaking the law would be, and Apple budged, caved, backed down. Not getting out of this one.
My guess is that they saw that all happening but Epic provided them a letter saying they double pinky promised, cross their hearts, will obey by the rules this time, which Apple will later try to use in court later on. Otherwise it doesn’t seem worth the risk prompting clearly foreseeable regulator action.
I’m so tired of this Apple tax, I think nobody would be this annoyed if Apple were saying 10% or something around that. 30% is more than most companies pay in tax on profits and this is a tax on revenue. I don’t think abusing your market position like some kind of protection racket should be allowed and if you don’t like it we’ll delete your App is quite frankly just as bad as the mafia smashing in shop windows. I do…
> I think nobody would be this annoyed if Apple were saying 10% or something around that. 30% is more than most companies pay in tax on profits Almost every developer pays 15%. You only pay 30% if you earn more than a million dollars a year from the App Store.
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More likely that the request for more information on this case from the EU commission to Apple triggered the walk back. At least the EU Commissioner for the internal market is happy about the reverse: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1766167580497117464
While the outcome as it stands might be okay, they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with. What's to prevent them from changing their mind and blocking Epic again? What if Tim Sweeney says something else to hurt Apple's feelings in the future? Apple has too much free rein over removing access to this marke…
They almost certainly are, which is why the reasoning of EU’s predictable involvement was what triggered Apple’s reinstatement of Epic’s account seems dubious to me.
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Then buy 51% of shares, do a hostile takeover and stop their anti-competitive madness before it is too late. You don't need to do radical changes, just small actions like do not steal the tips students send to teachers. Going full-goblin mode and demanding 30% of all the money that moves through a phone is what is destroying Apple.
Students are tipping teachers now? Tipping culture really has gone off the rails.
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> Since, ultimately, his duty as a CEO is to prioritize the financial wealth of shareholders. I feel like the whole fiduciary responsibility bit is always the foundation of terrible arguments. As if every individual choice that earns a dollar is therefore forced. Earning multiple billion dollar fines is not serving shareholders. Sabotaging the future is not serving shareholders. Destroying goodwill is not serving sha…
I also hate fiduciary responsibility as a foundation for arguments, but it is a responsibility that will be 100% utilized by any of the shareholders who feel strongly enough that Cook didn't do everything in his power to generate more money. So it's still something that has to be taken into consideration. > Earning multiple billion-dollar fines is not serving shareholders. Correct, and until Apple is threatened with…
Commission fines Apple over €1.8 billion over abusive App store rules for music streaming providers.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
Maybe tripping up the same entity that's already on to you with other fines for similar behavior is not that smart.