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EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

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Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#401

Post by judge2020 »

samatman wrote: post #373
hyperpape wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a company, and it’s interested in making profits. Right now, its methods of making profits are slightly more aligned with what privacy conscious users desire than some other companies’, and that’s good. Apple absolutely needs to be checked in other ways—-the fact that it’s selling advertising while setting policies that hurt other advertisers stinks to high heaven. Let antitrust rake them over the coals for…

I don't agree with the second paragraph at all. Apple sets a restrictive and privacy-centric set of rules for advertisers, which it then follows. The fact that this is a problem for other advertising companies is an indictment of those companies and their bleak surveillance-enabling business model. Contrast this with the "use WebKit or go home" rule, which, like it or not, is favoring Apple's product over others. It'…

Exactly. This is the popup for app store personalized ads[0], which is a full-screen popup that forces you to choose one or the other before you can access the app. It's super transparent and easy to decline the personalization.

0: https://videoweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Apple-permi...

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#403

Post by stale2002 »

baxtr wrote: post #371
Negitivefrags wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick Google suggests Apple made 64 billion from the App Store in 2021 of the 378 billion in total revenue. Some fairly large peanuts! And that revenue is basically pure profit as it doesn’t require the creation of any actual physical hardware either.

Is this pre 30% or after? Also: how much does it cost to run the App Store globally? Do have the numbers?

> how much does it cost to run the App Store globally? Do have the numbers?

I think that anyone who thought about this for even a second would come to the conclusion of "It almost certainly doesn't cost anywhere near the amount of revenue that comes from it".

So the answer is, probably not a lot, compared to revenue.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#404

Post by stjohnswarts »

krzyk wrote: post #387
hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

All that already exists on Android and the negatives didn't happen (with modern android versions), on the contrary. My phone supports multiple payment vendors using nfc. I can have Tasker do magic with my phone etc.

And that's great! but why force apple to do it when it doesn't have a monopoly status in the phone market?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#405

Post by laserlight »

vorpalhex wrote: post #260
chris_st wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this, and it just makes me think that if they had, we'd be seeing posts that say, "Apple's greed (in maintaining the egregious 10% commission for so long) is going to undermine their entire ecosystem. If Apple moved voluntarily to 5% or 3% for all, ...".

30% is an insane amount.

How much is a fair amount? Who decides that and how?

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#406

Post by samatman »

caramelcustard wrote: post #297
Jcowell wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. “Trivially easy” must be set in common sense to the average consumer. It must be something that they can do easily without any guides or tutorials. Changing my name on Xbox is trivially easy. This[1] is not. [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-apps/devki...

Disagreeing with your disagreement. How "easy" a tech-related task is to accomplish is determined by the users skills and experience, as well as software/hardware usage patterns that they've learned over the years. Official guides/tutorials for enabling/disabling various functions exist for Google Play/AppStore too. Does that mean that one of the easiest ways to acquire apps that have ever existed is...not easy? Beca…

I'm 100% confident that if Apple told EU they were complying with the new law, with a system where you either have to run only sideloaded apps or only official App Store apps at any given time, but could reboot from one to the other, the EU would say "very funny, here's your fine".

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#407

Post by judge2020 »

baxtr wrote: post #371
Negitivefrags wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick Google suggests Apple made 64 billion from the App Store in 2021 of the 378 billion in total revenue. Some fairly large peanuts! And that revenue is basically pure profit as it doesn’t require the creation of any actual physical hardware either.

Is this pre 30% or after? Also: how much does it cost to run the App Store globally? Do have the numbers?

Ya, maybe they meant this article[0]? If so, then it's 60B going to developers, and some quick math there indicates Apple only made 15B from their cut.

> Apple said Monday that it paid developers $60 billion in 2021, a figure that suggests that App Store sales continue to grow at a rapid clip.

0: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r...

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#408

Post by InitialLastName »

dijit wrote: post #274
criddell wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a PS5 cost that much? Has there ever been a console where, over the life of the console, the hardware was sold for a loss?

> Has there ever been a console where, over the life of the console, the hardware was sold for a loss? All of them. Speaking about PS5 specifically: there's quite a few advancements in there that you're not thinking about, the kraken decompressor that can run at native NVME speed in hardware and load assets directly into video memory has no PC equivalent. Though PC vendors are trying to do NVME GPUMem these days, it…

The differences between the PS5 and an equivalent PC build from components account for substantial improvements in price/unit; your article doesn't include an actual price breakdown so it is difficult to call out exactly where the costs come from, but:

- Tightly integrated motherboard, designed and built in-house, including the CPU, GPU (integrated to CPU), RAM and comms removes a bunch of middlemen, with all of their testing, development and integration costs (which add substantial overhead on a home-built PC).

- Thanks to the above, thermal and power management get a lot easier, which reduces power and cooling costs.

- Economies of scale and long life-cycle planning let you make large orders of parts (at Sony's scale, economies where the manufacturer is producing to your demand) at lower unit costs, including manufacturing large numbers of custom parts (such as the case and power supply) with design features that minimize cost (rather than allowing home assembly). I wouldn't be shocked if any given part for the PS-5 were getting manufactured in quantities an order of magnitude greater than any of the SKUs in the comparison PC.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#409

Post by robonerd »

samatman wrote: post #373
hyperpape wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a company, and it’s interested in making profits. Right now, its methods of making profits are slightly more aligned with what privacy conscious users desire than some other companies’, and that’s good. Apple absolutely needs to be checked in other ways—-the fact that it’s selling advertising while setting policies that hurt other advertisers stinks to high heaven. Let antitrust rake them over the coals for…

I don't agree with the second paragraph at all. Apple sets a restrictive and privacy-centric set of rules for advertisers, which it then follows. The fact that this is a problem for other advertising companies is an indictment of those companies and their bleak surveillance-enabling business model. Contrast this with the "use WebKit or go home" rule, which, like it or not, is favoring Apple's product over others. It'…

It's easy to play by the rules when you're the one writing them.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#410

Post by [deleted] »

caramelcustard wrote: post #392
smoldesu wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple only made that change after incredible pushback from their community, and it still doesn't address the real problem: Apple could be charging 2% and they would still have a monopoly on app distribution that deserves to be broken up. Steam isn't comparable, since it charges that 30% fee and competes against other distributors. Despite that, developers continue to choose Steam over alternative platforms like Itch.…

More like "after Tim Sweeney suddenly became obsessed with Apple and started demanding things". "...they would still have a monopoly on app distribution..." on the platform that they've created, supported and maintained over the years, in the market that already has alternatives. "Steam isn't comparable..." ah, so Steam charging the same percentage is a whole different thing...i see. "...competes against other distri…

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