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Apple has locked me out of my developer account

rambo.codes

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Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#441

Post by chipotle_coyote »

205guy wrote: post #426
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all respect, I don't think FussyZeus makes a convincing realpolitik argument for Apple's approach here. Rambo hasn't, AFAICT, even had it confirmed that his account is suspended at all. The argument isn't that Apple is obligated to spend hours of employee time in back-and-forth arguments with people they kick out of the developer program, merely that they should be clear that that's what they're actually doing a…

> Rambo hasn't, AFAICT, even had it confirmed that his account is suspended at all. In the original article, Rambo is complaining that his dev account has been limited in some way. Anyway, how is that relevant when no one in this thread is contesting that the OP's account was (or was not) suspended/disabled in some way? > they should be clear that that's what they're actually doing and offer at least a sentence or tw…

> FussyZeus had a whole explanation for his/her opinion backed by his/her experience and a certain attitude towards the whole situation. Your only argument is that Amazon, Twitter, and FB do manage to give explanations. Yes, but not always, and Google that you don't mention is notorious for not giving explanations and not being able to speak to a human about it.

FZ's only cited experience is "I've done moderation for communities before." As I noted, I've done moderation for communities before. I've also worked closely with professional community managers in other positions. And as I noted elsewhere, I can't quite shake the feeling that neither FZ's experience nor mine is directly comparable to this -- being kicked off a forum is not generally going to destroy your business. "Other companies give explanations" isn't my only argument; my main argument, I'd say, is that when it's reasonable to assume cancelling someone's account will screw with their livelihood, a company should maintain a certain standard of care and communication that exceeds the standard of care a forum community manager has. Is that really such a crazy argument for me to make? (And, yes, I'll also stand by my assertion that even the forum community manager should probably meet the "we're telling you why you're banned" standard of care.)

So, anyway, I guess I agree with this:

> I have the feeling that this is not a minor violation and there is credible speculation the OP seems to have behaved in ways that might merit what happened.

I just have trouble with this:

> So I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that Apple can and should be more forthcoming in this case.

Unless saying "we've cancelled your development account because you keep digging through private frameworks and publishing crap you know we don't want revealed" would somehow compromise an ongoing investigation (unlikely, unless there's genuine criminal activity here), I just don't think getting to that conclusion requires much of a jump.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#442

Post by repiret »

Keats wrote: post #304
repiret wrote: post #90

Since day one of the app store, there has been a persistent stream of complaints of terrible customer service to developers. Apps being rejected for reasons nobody can figure out, app reviews taking an egregiously long time, account lockouts like this. On the one hand, when a developer account is only $99/yr and there is a strong incentive for some developers to try to get away with things, what choice do you have bu…

They already take 30% of all sales through the app, isn't that enough?

They make that as a commission for separating end users from their money, and Apple has made that a really seamless process.

But while developer support certainly is correlated with that income, it's not tied to it closely enough to make it a priority. If they were to spend an extra $20M/year on developer support, would it really lead to the extra $67M/year in app purchases needed to just break even? Whereas if they just directly charged for premium developer support, they could set the price to whatever it needed to be for that business unit to make a profit.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#443

Post by chipotle_coyote »

dmatech wrote: post #389
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether or not Apple's control over iOS counts as a monopoly for this purpose -- do you look at iOS products as their own self-contained market, or do you look at them as "the mobile device market" that includes Android (and, at least on tablets, Windows and ChromeOS)? You can make an argument for that either way. (Personally, I wouldn't be heartbroken if Apple was forced to allow apps to be installed…

One might argue that forcing you to use their app store constitutes illegal tying. The iPhone could easily be made to run apps from competing stores (as is possible with Android). Don't think about competitors that do exist on other platforms (like Play Store), but instead think of competitors that were never allowed to exist on iOS.

It's not an implausible argument! It's already been successfully argued that "jailbreaking" is legal. I just don't know how easy the argument would be to make, and what the counterarguments would be; it's hard to think of any very good precedent for this. (Nintendo's old "lockout chips" are the closest I can think of, maybe?)

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#444

Post by Reelin »

pdonis wrote: post #430
Reelin wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with essentially your entire post. My (current) point isn't about Apple banning individual consumers, but rather about Apple (or Google) banning companies from distributing via their infrastructure. From the perspective of the affected company, this is in fact roughly equivalent to an ISP blocking access to their website. > But app developers can still reach customers in other ways. Not in a commercially v…

> Any company possessing such unilateral control over effectively unrelated segments of the market Um, what? How is "mobile app developers" an unrelated segment of the market from "mobile phone manufacturers"? > is a completely unacceptable situation and needs to be remedied by lawmakers. No, remedy by lawmakers is exactly what you do not want. Basically, the situation is that a bunch of businesses made bad business…

I think my position can be succinctly summarized as mobile devices having become essential infrastructure. Access to essential infrastructure ought to be neutral and any regulation surrounding it transparent, regardless of who manufactured it; that's all I'm really arguing here.

My impression is that your position is one of preventing over regulation and preserving a free marketplace. I generally agree, but think that it's essential to maintain the stability and openness of the market by preventing large players from abusing their market dominance. I can't see how allowing Apple (or anyone else) to install themselves as sole gatekeeper of their very large service and then make arbitrary and opaque decisions about who gets to participate in it is in any way a good idea. It seems easily abused and detrimental to the market as a whole - consumers and smaller businesses alike.

Responses to various points from both your comments below, but I suspect any differences in the above is likely to lead to differences in the below being largely irrelevant to each of us.

Re unrelated market segments: I'm pointing out that, for example, Tesla's car app is expected by consumers to work with both Android and iOS. I don't think anyone is arguing that Tesla and Apple are in competition (or even remotely related) though. It seems silly to me to suggest that if Apple terminated business with Tesla that Tesla should simply roll their own infrastructure and expect consumers to switch away from iOS. That's an absolutely enormous barrier to entry, and easily abused. DJI provides an app for their drones (https://www.dji.com/goapp). Should it really be legal for Apple to decide to remove that from their app store without some sort of justification? Shouldn't the barrier to doing so be reasonably high (ex intentional abuse, illegal behavior, etc)? Is it reasonable if someone purchases a device, but later the associated app is removed by Apple and they lose functionality that they paid for?

Re government regulation: In fact it is exactly what I do want. I want general open access, neutrality, and transparency laws that apply to both ISPs and closed marketplaces. I'd also like a law requiring that users be allowed to configure roots of trust in _all cases_ for devices that they legally own, but I'm not holding out hope for that one.

Re my ISP analogy not holding: Sure, Apple can't force consumers to purchase their devices. Neither can an ISP force you to purchase a house in a particular area. So what? It doesn't follow that either of them should be permitted to arbitrarily regulate how I engage with a third party. This is why I compared a mobile device to a house and a user to a resident in my analogy - in both cases it is costly and difficult for most consumers to change who they do business with.

Re Apple not caring what you or I think because we're small, they built the infra, they own the infra, they were upfront with their ToS, etc: I'm arguing that things need to be changed. They ought to be legally required to do business with you unless they can provide documented justification that includes evidence of serious abuse on your part. This is conceptually the same (to me at least) as requiring net neutrality and open access of all ISPs.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#445

Post by qtplatypus »

fjabre wrote: post #309
pdonis wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government needs to get involved. I don't see how this would improve the situation, and it would most likely make it worse. > Devs have absolutely no recourse against this monopoly. Devs have no right to demand that Apple let them into their ecosystem. It belongs to Apple. The ultimate dev recourse is not to go complaining to the government but to build their own ecosystem that out-competes Apple's. Good luck.

Out compete Apple? You cant be serious. Unless you have a phone that uses quantum entanglement to communicate at FTL no one is out competing Apple anytime soon.

So all the android phones I can see are what?

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#446

Post by marcus_holmes »

bsder wrote: post #350
marcus_holmes wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll bite. So in this case, a dev has (we think) broken the ToS of his agreement with Apple by publishing information before launch. What do you think the government should do about this?

I think ToS that say "We can screw you and you can't do anything about it." need to get ripped up once you reach monopoly status. At the very least, Apple and Google should have to appoint a "public ombudsman" overseen by the government that handles these kinds of complaints/problems that people can actually contact . And if they don't seem to be handling them very well, they need to get fined increasingly severely u…

So the government should create a taxpayer-paid ombudsman, who will accept complaints from developers about tech companies with, say, >20% market share. And that ombudsman will arbitrate between the tech companies and the developers, with the power to impose fines on the tech companies if they think the developer was treated unfairly. OK. That works in other industries, so could work here.

But in this case, where the developer (we think) has clearly broken the ToS of the agreement, which was basically "we will provide you with privileged access to information so that you can develop for upcoming products, but please don't share that with the public". What do you think the ombudsman should do?

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#447

Post by qtplatypus »

anoncake wrote: post #182
dkonofalski wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free" speech only applies to governments limiting the free expression of their citizens. Private companies have no obligation to continue doing business with someone for any reason, especially when that individual is acting in bad faith by disparaging their business relationship.

No. Free speech (and other rights) isn't about governments but about people. Your rights aren't less violated because the violator has no democratic legitimation, that just makes it worse. The only way in which companies infringing your rights is less relevant is that companies having that ability shouldn't even exist, so making them behave is merely a band-aid.

Your idea would compel companies to support speech that they don’t believe in. This is tantamount to forced speech.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#448

Post by anoncake »

qtplatypus wrote: post #447
anoncake wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Free speech (and other rights) isn't about governments but about people. Your rights aren't less violated because the violator has no democratic legitimation, that just makes it worse. The only way in which companies infringing your rights is less relevant is that companies having that ability shouldn't even exist, so making them behave is merely a band-aid.

Your idea would compel companies to support speech that they don’t believe in. This is tantamount to forced speech.

The point of free speech is to make democracy work. There's no reason to grant it to companies.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#449

Post by anoncake »

dkonofalski wrote: post #395
anoncake wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you have a right to use the services companies provide! That's the whole point of allowing them to exist. Your approach just gives power to capitalists they shouldn't have. It's obviously not quite as clear-cut when it comes to relationships between individuals that have rights.

So, let me get this straight... You think that "free speech" protections provide a mechanism that forces companies to maintain relationships with people that they don't want to do business with? So, if someone is harassing employees, being damaging, or any litany of other inappropriate behaviors, that company is still required to provide service to that person because that person has a right to service? You have not…

Rights are not absolute. Having a right does not entail having the right to abuse that right to violate the rights of someone else. Employees have the right not to be harassed. If a company stops doing business with you for that it defends its employee which is legitimate.

What is Apple defending here? Not their right not to be criticized because that doesn't exist. Their NDAs? That would be legitimate but locking Rambo out of his account won't achieve that aim.

So the only reason to disable his account is to punish him. That's the job of the state, its courts and executive. Not of a for-profit company that does not even allow him to know why he is being punished, let alone a hearing or an appeal court.

Re: Apple has locked me out of my developer account

#450

Post by fjabre »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #433
fjabre wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal definitions change all the time and laws are updated. Monopoly means whatever the decision of the high court says it means and that is squared with the legislative. There are no hard and fast rules in litigation or civil law.

> Monopoly means whatever the decision of the high court says it means and that is squared with the legislative. Monopoly has a very specific definition in US law, in fact. https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/monopoly/ The legislature might conceivably change that definition in the future, but that's not relevant to the law as it stands today, which is what we're talking about. Microsoft came much closer to that defini…

Even those hard and fast rules leave a lot of room for interpretation hence why many cases are decided in months and years and not days.

Laws change and are updated all the time.

I stand by my original assertion.

Apple with its App store most certainly is a monopoly/oligarch with unchecked power in the mobile space to destroy entire companies on a whim, companies like Uber would be irreparably damaged for example if removed from Apple’s platform. I believe this fact to be self evident and indisputable - Apple clearly has monopolistic power in this space.

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