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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

#481

Post by InitialLastName »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #60
amelius wrote: post #13

It will be interesting to see what dark patterns Apple will come up with to resist this. I imagine every time you open Firefox you will get a popup window saying "Do you want to use Safari instead?"

Google already does this in its iOS apps. When tapping a link in e.g. Gmail, it won’t just open your default browser, but instead open a menu asking you to choose your default browser or Chrome. It has a “remember this choice” toggle but it shouldn’t be there at all… just obey the OS default browser setting.

FWIW, Google apps also ignore the default browser setting on Android in favor of their embedded Chrome instance, and consistently "conveniently reset" the internal setting that would make it use the default browser.

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

#482

Post by threeseed »

IshKebab wrote: post #428
pavlov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that App Store revenue is also generated in the EU. Let's assume that 15% of App Store revenue is from the EU. That would leave an additional $12.7 billion hole in Apple's pocket. Worse, it would mean Apple's third-party developers lose about $30 billion in revenue. (Apple takes a 30% cut, so the total App Store sales volume is about $283B). Those developers would also lose all access to their existing users…

And more importantly it would further erode their market share. It would be an absolutely insane move. Much more likely they'll go the route of malicious compliance. You can side load apps but you can't add them to your home screen. You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps. Etc. Will be very interesting to see how this plays out!

> You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps

Facebook and Google are going to love this.

They can build a voice assistant app which will provide them with all of the apps people use the most, people they contact, places they visit, searches they do etc.

It's going to be a privacy nightmare.

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

#483

Post by checkurprivlege »

mritun wrote: post #470

I think California should add legislation to check the power of the European car makers. Make sure that the German cars interoperate with the Ford components and can be serviced by other independent car dealerships as well. BMW and Porsche should also share their advertising numbers.

No post body was provided.

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

#484

Post by gamblor956 »

wmf wrote: post #447
criddell wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony gets a cut of every new PS5 game sold through all those third party vendors. Do you think the same setup on the iPhone would satisfy regulators? Roughly, this would mean Epic (for example), could set up an app store but every program they sell would have to be signed by Apple and Apple would probably still get their 15-30% fee. If the regulators are fair, then soon you will be able to write a PS5 or iPhone game…

That's similar to what Apple is already proposing; they want 25% from any payment that goes thought a third-party payment processor.

No, it's quite different. With the consoles, publishers are paying for the right to use the console maker's commercial IP (i.e., the Playstation or Xbox logo on their marketing materials) and technical IP (access to software APIs for using the hardware functionality). They do not pay royalties to the console makers for each sale. (Source: I work for a video game company and deal with these contracts...)

Quite importantly, publishers don't have to pay the console makers if they want to (a) reverse engineer the console firmware so they can make use of the hardware (b) don't use the console maker's IP in their marketing materials (see Sega v. Accord, still good law), and (c) sell through retailers other than the console storefront. However, consoles are now complex enough that reverse engineering would take longer than the commercial life of the console, so it's cheaper and quicker to just pay the console maker the platform fee.

With Apple, you aren't allowed to use their commercial IP for marketing your app, period, but you can use the APIs without paying for inhouse apps. However, there are no alternative marketplaces for apps; even in-house apps must go through the AppStore.

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

#485

Post by coffeefirst »

rootusrootus wrote: post #264
_the_inflator wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never underestimate the creative genius of Apple. They will come up with new solutions to keep their walled garden. "Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet" I bet this is going to be a horrible user experience. "Are you really sure?", "Apple takes no responsibility not warranty" whatsoever. What sound usually easy on paper...

I agree, it could be ugly. The GDPR is supposed to be great, but what practical impact did it have on most of us? Cookie consent dialogs everywhere .

This is also the IAB's fault by trying to be clever and decide "the user will just consent to everything" in order to continue business as usual.

It did not have to be this way.

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

#486

Post by checkurprivlege »

checkurprivlege wrote: post #483
mritun wrote: post #470

I think California should add legislation to check the power of the European car makers. Make sure that the German cars interoperate with the Ford components and can be serviced by other independent car dealerships as well. BMW and Porsche should also share their advertising numbers.

Quoted post unavailable.

Global companies don't love us, and neither does international capital. But we will take pride on our museums and the geography, even if they have nothing to do with our own decisions!

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

#487

Post by criddell »

dijit wrote: post #412
criddell wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Has there ever been a console where, over the life of the console, the hardware was sold for a loss? > All of them. Are you serious? The Wii has sold more than 100 million units over the past ten years and you think it's been a net loss for Nintendo? PS5-to-PC comparisons are hard to do in a meaningful way. It's like saying a Toyota Camry is sold at a loss because if you build one part-by-part it's going to cost $…

I mean, it's conventional wisdom that Consoles are the _poster child_ for what "Loss Leader" means. https://www.makeuseof.com/games-consoles-sold-at-loss/

The first run may very well be sold at a loss, but almost every console has eventually turned a profit.

I say almost because the XBox 360 may have been unprofitable over it's entire manufacturing run due to extraordinary warranty costs (red ring of death). I've read that it may have cost Microsoft more than a billion dollars, but I don't know if that's true or if that was enough to net Microsoft a loss over the 11 years it was sold.

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

#488

Post by bryanrasmussen »

caramelcustard wrote: post #374
Closi wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to be the market majority for your actions to be anti-competitive.

That's not the point. "Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market.". The point of me mentioning that Apple is not the market majority was to emphasize that even with their current positions, Apple isn't capable of effectively reducing competition in the market of electronic devices, as is already proven not by legislative bodies but the market.

I thought Apple was the more profitable platform however, also to develop for, which would imply that anti-competitive practices could deform the market because developers would be forced to bow to Apple since that is where the largest part of their profits would be coming from?

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

#489

Post by threeseed »

criddell wrote: post #367
dijit wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> Has there ever been a console where, over the life of the console, the hardware was sold for a loss? > All of them. Are you serious? The Wii has sold more than 100 million units over the past ten years and you think it's been a net loss for Nintendo? PS5-to-PC comparisons are hard to do in a meaningful way. It's like saying a Toyota Camry is sold at a loss because if you build one part-by-part it's going to cost $…

Sony in particular does this. For the first X years of its life, Playstation is sold as a loss.

They generate revenue through game sales and then a decade later as hardware components become cheaper and scale increases they start to make money on the consoles as well.

If they can't generate revenue through game sales the entire console model would be upended and hardware prices would rapidly increase. No company can take the risk to lose billions without a guarantee of future revenue.

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

#490

Post by nonrandomstring »

vorpalhex wrote: post #418
nonrandomstring wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice comforting story to believe in. I hope for you it's true. Over here the bailouts were a massive transfer of public to private wealth that led to a decade of "austerity", closed hospitals, collapsed pension schemes and general misery for the poorest people in society.

Belittling someone - especially over a fact that has a clear true/false outcome - is silly. At best it makes you look like a jerk. At least google the fact before doubting it.

I'll stick with my own lived experiences and first-hand observations thank you.
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