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Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

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Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#471

Post by 8ytecoder »

mikehearn wrote: post #404

I have a question about monopolies and market abuses. Apple released their phone in 2007, the App Store in 2008, and in-app payments in 2009. During that time their marketshare was fairly small, and it didn't start to really grow until they expanded availability to the Verizon network in 2011. Right at launch of the App Store, Apple announced its sales commission would be 30%. Then they extended that same fee to in-a…

Ask yourself - is there a difference between a small company acquiring another competitor and a large monopoly acquiring a competitor? They’re both acquisitions. Same event at two different market conditions attract two different reactions by regulators.

To answer your question - when developing for Apple went from being a choice to a necessity to run your business.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#472

Post by 10000truths »

threeseed wrote: post #449
bloppe wrote: post #411

This is going in the wrong direction. Government shouldn't be imposing regulations on monopolistic app stores when competition can naturally break the monopolies and bring them in line with developer and consumer needs. Let there be multiple app stores, charging developers competitive fees and implementing competitive security and convenience features. Don't let the platform favor any particular app store, or raise b…

> See how long 30% fees and hostile policies last And then see how the ecosystem degrades to the lowest common denominator and we re-enter the Windows 95 era. Race to build malware apps, virus and malware checker apps to prevent the malware etc.

That lowest common denominator already exists in official app stores. There are huge swathes of garbage apps that try to scam you with expensive subscriptions/MTX, use shady ad networks that push more garbage apps on you, ask for every permission under the sun for no other reason than to collect data on you, etc.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#473

Post by dwaite »

kmonsen wrote: post #368
makecheck wrote: post #316

The Mac App Store gives a hint at what would happen if there was any choice. The amount of software actually available for the Mac is far, far greater than what’s listed in the store. Furthermore, while some quality and notable apps are still in the Mac App Store, many well-known apps are not there. The number of lousy apps is also extremely high every time I go to search or just look at the front page, to the point…

Isn't this mostly due to burdensome requirements which means most apps would have to remove features and the fact that they don't support upgrades? At least those are the arguments I have seen to not put the apps in the mac store.

For many apps the issue isn't feature removal but sandboxing.

https://panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/

MAS requires sandboxing, distribution outside the store does not. That said, Apple turns the 'default sandboxing' screw another half turn with every release.

In addition to subscription revenue, upgrades are possible by releasing a new product version (e.g. "OmniGraffle 7" in MAS) with a free tier ("read-only mode") and in-app purchases for new users as well as upgrades from OG 6.

I believe you can read purchase receipts within your developer team to determine upgrades.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#475

Post by kryptozinc »

grishka wrote: post #389
cletus wrote: post #209

Good. I've been saying this awhile, most notably when Apple (of course followed by Google) introduced a discount on commission for smaller developers. This is completely backwards. I know why they did it. They wanted some positive PR that didn't cost them anything. Thing is, it's the larger publishers who are going to lobby regulators and challenge things in court. It's those same publishers who already have their ow…

No. This would entrench their monopolies even further. It should be legally required that any device that is marketed as a general-purpose computer, whether pocketable or not, and is shipped in a locked state, is fully unlockable by the end user. Without a single network packet sent to manufacturer's servers. That's the only way we as a society could fix this dire situation. In other words, if I buy a phone from Appl…

Sure, though they may chose to wipe iOS from your device if you unlock it. Then you are free to build your own os and execute root level code if you wish.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#476

Post by kbenson »

simonh wrote: post #435
yholio wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are framing this as if there is a magical "growth curve" that must take you from an inovative startup to a 800 pound gorilla that has a complete chokehold over the market. No, if regulators do their job, nobody gets to ask that question because there is continuous competition. Getting to that monopoly or oligopoly requires sustained effort from would be monopolists, it's a strategy they have been executing for mo…

Not at all, there was nothing inevitable about Apple's success, many analysts, pundits and their competitors have been adamant Apple would fail for the first decade or so of the iPhone. After that these claims started looking a bit thin. You're presuming that market abuse has occurred and that market abuse is the only way to get popular, but I don't see that's a given. Maybe people simply genuinely like iPhones just…

They've expressed anti-competitive behavior from the beginning, but it's advanced over time. It's the confluence of factors that makes it particularly bad in Apple's case. You can't chance the software (OS) on the device. You can't run iOS on a different set of hardware. You can't run any store but the App Store on iOS. You can't deliver software to customers without using the App Store (or jumping through hoops for very limited methods of getting it on there otherwise). It's not that 30% was ever good or bad, but that initially there was no competition, and at every step Apple has taken steps to make sure competing is extremely hard to do, by tying you to an entire ecosystem.

Android is better in some respects, but is mostly happy to not actually compete on a lot of levels because that would possibly endanger the 30% industry standard. What we have is two extremely large players, so large and so establishes and in a market that takes so much money to enter that new competitors are at an extreme disadvantage agreeing, even if tacitly, that the fees for their stores are not something they will compete on.

That's not better than when they agreed they wouldn't hire each other's employees (which they were punished for). It benefits only themselves at the detriment of everyone else, and through market manipulation. If they actually cared to compete, we would see competition in store fees.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#477

Post by makecheck »

cactus2093 wrote: post #453
makecheck wrote: post #316

The Mac App Store gives a hint at what would happen if there was any choice. The amount of software actually available for the Mac is far, far greater than what’s listed in the store. Furthermore, while some quality and notable apps are still in the Mac App Store, many well-known apps are not there. The number of lousy apps is also extremely high every time I go to search or just look at the front page, to the point…

Not only that, but if you ever have the option of buying a software license directly from the developer or through the Mac App Store, you usually get much worse terms from the Mac App Store. You'll pay the same price, but instead of getting a license you can run on unlimited of your own machines, or sometimes a fixed number like you can register it to 3 machines at a time, you can only install it on other computers t…

And it’s such an incredibly good example of why anti-steering rules should be illegal. Apple basically refuses to let apps even tell the user that such alternate licenses are available!

I hate anti-steering so much that I hope any future legislation against it also enforces retroactive refunds for a significant period of time. Whatever money they have made is basically entirely due to pulling wool over users’ eyes, and they need to be losing millions from this as a punishment.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#478

Post by makecheck »

ipaddr wrote: post #396
makecheck wrote: post #316

The Mac App Store gives a hint at what would happen if there was any choice. The amount of software actually available for the Mac is far, far greater than what’s listed in the store. Furthermore, while some quality and notable apps are still in the Mac App Store, many well-known apps are not there. The number of lousy apps is also extremely high every time I go to search or just look at the front page, to the point…

You want Apple to pick 100 big apps and promote them? That would take away from the smaller person's chance. That list grows stale and complaints over who is on the list starts.

Well honestly they should just have links to all apps but that would require the search engine to not also suck (different discussion).

It’s just surprising to me that Apple didn’t take such a basic step to do this, when it seems it would so clearly increase the value of the platform. It is why it is difficult to believe anything they say about how much they “love” the Mac...every single action they take to “help” the Mac platform is just baffling.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#479

Post by kernoble »

novok wrote: post #410
haswell wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on a platform that provides its subscribers with a store for 1st and 3rd party apps/solutions built on that platform. Every app delivered on this store must go through the same review process whether it's internally built or not. This has led to healthy innovation on the app store and deep empathy for the 3rd party developer. To be fair, it is possible to ship components that are part of the core platform outs…

So what is the platform?

If I had to guess it would be something like Slack, Shopify, Squarespace or some other SaaS platform that needs to meet the needs of a hugely diverse customer base.

Re: Apple and Google must allow other in-app payment systems, Korean law declares

#480

Post by MrStonedOne »

mikehearn wrote: post #404

I have a question about monopolies and market abuses. Apple released their phone in 2007, the App Store in 2008, and in-app payments in 2009. During that time their marketshare was fairly small, and it didn't start to really grow until they expanded availability to the Verizon network in 2011. Right at launch of the App Store, Apple announced its sales commission would be 30%. Then they extended that same fee to in-a…

> I'm mentioning all of this history to make this point: Apple made these rules when they were not a monopoly by any definition.

They are a monopoly for getting your app on ios phones and in front of ios users.

This is why bundling is part of anti-trust law.

Bundling their app store as the only way to install applications on ios devices should have been stopped years ago.

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