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Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

proton.me

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Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#431

Post by ivan_gammel »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #419
ivan_gammel wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distribution via alternative stores does not mean there’s no review and moderation. Junk stores may have their fans, but competitive alternatives to App Store will inevitably introduce some controls to maintain reputation and remain compliant. Their advantage will be price, not presence of junk apps. That’s how free market with consumer protection laws works: regulation defines parameters of new equilibrium and event…

Price wouldn't be the only point of differentiation though. Say Google were to bring the Play Store to iOS. Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not. Wouldn't all apps that use an advertising based business model automatically gravitate towards the Play Store? If the goal is to make Apple open up their platform in a way that doesn't take away choices from users, we need a set of…

>Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not.

In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in, so this is a matter of law enforcement and not a long term competitive advantage.

The weakness of regulation is a problem of American users, which they can solve by voting for politicians who support better consumer protection. Of course they may choose otherwise and choose instead a quasi-monopoly of more expensive walled gardens. After all, America is democracy, isn’t it? :)

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#432

Post by maximus-decimus »

_benton wrote: post #102
bitpush wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you legally prevented from controlling your device The bar isnt whether it is legal or not. You know that no company can create laws, and either you're saying it out of ignorance, or willful ignorance. When Walmart drives away mom and pop shops, and dominate a certain town and then hikes the prices for groceries, you cant say "but it isnt illegal to go buy groceries from elsewhere, what did we - Walmart - do wr…

This analogy makes no sense because you are not prevented in any way from purchasing the many other devices that provide almost identical functionality. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices but ignoring the fact that the mom and pop stores still exist, at a higher number compared to walmarts, and are selling the same products for cheaper. You have incredible consumer choice for phones, you can't chos…

If every other teenager only uses the iMessage app, it does prevent you to purchase any other device since you'll be excluded otherwise.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#433

Post by red_admiral »

Nevermark wrote: post #418

Reply to a couple hundred comments: You don’t have to be a monopoly to be deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive manner. Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competi…

Besides the "One App Store" policy (that tbf keeps out the worst scams you can find on android), what bothers me most is that an app can be banned fors speech like "here's the FAQ on our HOMEPAGE".

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#434

Post by Zambyte »

socalgal2 wrote: post #233
andrewinardeer wrote: post #20

I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate. If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built? If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-…

> There are other options out there. This isn't about the a consumer's right to buy a different phone. It's about a business's right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle. And it's specifically about Apple's monopoly power over those businesses. No government is going to accept that some company, Apple, gets that kind of control.

Exactly. People talk all the time about "third party applications", but Apple is the "third party" in these transactions.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#435

Post by fauigerzigerk »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #431
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price wouldn't be the only point of differentiation though. Say Google were to bring the Play Store to iOS. Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not. Wouldn't all apps that use an advertising based business model automatically gravitate towards the Play Store? If the goal is to make Apple open up their platform in a way that doesn't take away choices from users, we need a set of…

>Apple's App Store allows users to opt out of tracking. The Play Store does not. In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in, so this is a matter of law enforcement and not a long term competitive advantage. The weakness of regulation is a problem of American users, which they can solve by voting for politicians who support better consumer protection. Of course they may choose otherwise and choose instead a qua…

>In EU the only legal way to do tracking is opt in

EU newspapers routinely make users choose between accepting tracking and buying a subscription. Apple does not allow that.

Anyway, what the EU does is sort of beside the point as the App Store issue is global and lawsuit that Proton joined was filed in California.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#436

Post by Nevermark »

DANmode wrote: post #403
Nevermark wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is.

iOS is not the Internet anymore than Jitterbug is telephones.

Nobody made such a claim.

If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers.

That’s called “gatekeeping”.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#437

Post by SkiFire13 »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #372
dcow wrote: post #270

> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process payments through the App Store. However, privacy-first companies that monetize through subscriptions are disproportionately hit by this fee, putting a major barrier toward the adoption of privacy-first business models. Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way an…

It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet." No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopol…

> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store

Which is also the only allowed way to run software on 58% of US smartphones?

> Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon

I could agree with Google, but how are Meta and Amazon gatekeepers of the internet? Especially _more than Apple_

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#438

Post by saubeidl »

_benton wrote: post #408
saubeidl wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not piggybacking off another company if they use alternative distribution networks. Should the construction company that built the grocery store be able to take a cut off grocery profits and have a say in what the store is selling?

Depends on the contract between the grocery store and the construction company.

I don't think a construction company, much less one that has a near-monopoly in a market, should be able to set insane terms like that.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#439

Post by gilfoy »

Nevermark wrote: post #398
DidYaWipe wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet." No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopol…

Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is.

I’m not convinced opening up the platform to Chrome skins is good for the web, we’ll just end up with one browser that much faster

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#440

Post by rkrisztian2 »

red_admiral wrote: post #433
Nevermark wrote: post #418

Reply to a couple hundred comments: You don’t have to be a monopoly to be deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive manner. Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competi…

Besides the "One App Store" policy (that tbf keeps out the worst scams you can find on android), what bothers me most is that an app can be banned fors speech like "here's the FAQ on our HOMEPAGE".

Huh? "One App Store" is bad, it forces you into a vendor lock-in, to have no choice but to accept whatever a store wants you to do. I'd rather have the freedom of choice rather than being limited to a monopoly.
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