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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

#521

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

mdoms wrote: post #393
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree that this app stores market abuse thing needs to end, and I am also really glad to see that at least one country is responding like this. > a reasonable (single percentage) fee for facilitating payments. I want to point out, though, that the service Apple provides is not merely payment processing. They offer total customer management. Which, when integrated with their entire developer offering (Test…

> They offer total customer management. No, they FORCE total customer management.

Yes, offer was the wrong word.

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

#522

Post by grishka »

monocularvision wrote: post #507
grishka wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So then they don’t market it is a general purpose computer? How would you solve for that?

Then it shouldn't have a publicly available SDK because appliances often don't have one.

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

#523

Post by simondotau »

ethbr0 wrote: post #224
simondotau wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, though here we're talking about developers literally including Apple proprietary code in their build process.

If Apple wants to license theur libraries and dev tools at FRAND rates, I'd have no problem with them charging for those. But pretending the current cut isn't supported only because of their platform control is crazy. Form an open market for app distribution, and then see what the market sets competitive rates at.

Apple is under no legal obligation to license their material at FRAND rates, nor are they under any legal obligation to make you happy. So let's table that.

What does the App Store fee cover?

• Credit card transactions (~3%)

• Gift card transactions (10–30%)

• Absorbing the costs of credit card fraud

• Running the App Store, bandwidth etc

• Performing app review[1]

• A license fee for use of Apple libraries and APIs

• Having your App receiving the residual goodwill of being available in a store where customers know that Apple is constantly breathing down the neck of developers to do the right thing[2] and pushing the envelope of policies such as not allowing third party tracking by Facebook.

• Having your App for sale in a store where customers feel comfortable generally need to fear credit card fraud, malicious code, where scams are less common (and can generally be refunded), etc etc.

Let's imagine that Apple said "okay, you can have an open market" and replaces their App Store fees with a license fee of 15 percent of gross revenues, similar to how Epic charges developers for use of Unreal Engine. Now you can have an open market for apps. Let's see how alternatives compete for the costs of running and marketing their stores.

[1] Just because something is imperfect, doesn't mean it's useless.

[2] This alone is worth 30% to me personally.

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

#524

Post by MiddleEndian »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #359
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…

The Mac App Store came after there was a thriving ecosystem for Mac apps online/organically and without a middle man, and it provided close to zero value for developers on top of that. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.

> The Mac App Store came after there was a thriving ecosystem for Mac apps online/organically and without a middle man, and it provided close to zero value for developers on top of that. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.

Perhaps the iOS and Android app stores are also middle men that provide close to zero value but forced themselves onto mobile phones.

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

#525

Post by simondotau »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #211
simondotau wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that regulators can force Apple to give away their stuff for free if they want to participate in that market? That doesn't sound right to me.

The thought that a government could force your favorite, richest, international megacorporation might feel not right to you, but that is actually how the world works. Apple does not get to dictate how its products are available, no matter how much they would like to. They are free, however to not come sell in places it feels the rules are unfair towards it.

You seem to be making a weird argument. Obviously Apple isn't allowed to sell a smartphone that contains a large chunk of plutonium, or that is fake and doesn't actually contain any electronics. There are limits to what corporations can do.

But they are free to choose the price. They can sell the next iPhone for $10,000 if they really wanted. Perfectly legal.

They are free to choose under which terms they license their intellectual property to third parties, so long as those terms are lawful.

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

#526

Post by simondotau »

howinteresting wrote: post #205
simondotau wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that regulators can force Apple to give away their stuff for free if they want to participate in that market? That doesn't sound right to me.

Yes, regulators can do that, and they would have pretty clear antitrust grounds to do it as well. The difference between random people using the GPL and Apple is that Apple is worth a trillion dollars. That matters quite a bit.

It matters if you're making an emotional argument, but I'm not sure it's relevant to any legal argument.

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

#527

Post by Steko »

rkangel wrote: post #126
pcr910303 wrote: post #103

It’s not usual for news on my country to be on top of HN. Very unexpected. I’m guessing though that the South Korean market is be significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out it’s business from South Korea and call it a day. I guess this is, in some kind, a victory against the huge companies. But… personally I do find sad that this would be detrimental to South Korean app UX. Stripe isn’t a thing here…

> I’m guessing though that the South Korean market is be significant enough for Apple and Google to not just pull out it’s business from South Korea and call it a day. I think that's right. The next step would be for a large enough market to have a similar law, and then they'll just have that as their policy globally. That probably means EU or US.

The next step is Apple completely disabling IAP in Korea with a message that pops up telling the user which law is responsible.

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

#528

Post by blago »

Joeri wrote: post #364
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…

Sometimes I try to imagine what the app store rules would look like if apple had to abide by those same rules for all of their own apps. I imagine the rules would be much more lenient, app review a lot less error prone, and developers would be chafed far less by those golden handcuffs. Pretty sure apple’s developer documentation would still be bad though.

Ban Apple from using internal APIs? I like that.

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

#529

Post by simondotau »

vbezhenar wrote: post #250
simondotau wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies, when I said "whatever terms they want" I was being somewhat hyperbolic, even if I do think the spirit of the sentence is clear when read in context. Obviously terms of any such license cannot violate law. Are you suggesting that Apple charging developers a percentage-based license fee for use of their work is unlawful anywhere, under any law current or proposed?

Microsoft Visual Studio was not free in the past. And even now free version is limited. I don’t see it different from hypothetical paid Apple library as long as there are other ways to write software for the given platform.

Is your argument that anyone who builds a device which runs software is required to ensure that an entirely free way to develop software for it exists? That makes no sense.

Tell that to Nintendo. Sony. Microsoft. Canon. Nikon. Garmin. Alpine. Pioneer. LG. Samsung. Volkswagen. Hyundai. The list goes on. Software is all around us. The traditional general purpose computer platforms are the exception, not the rule.

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

#530

Post by simondotau »

White_Wolf wrote: post #216
simondotau wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about restrictions placed upon the end user, but rather on the developer who is distributing an application which uses these libraries. If they're not willing to accept the license terms for those libraries, that is a license violation. Do you know who would agree with that? The FSF. They will argue that an application built against an API licensed under the GPL is a derivative work and therefore fall…

Would forcing Apple to make everything required to run linux on Apple hardware available to all devs be fine then? Just to keep things fair and allow for competitors and such. Maybe force all hardware manufacturers to allow OS selection when doing a factory reset? Libraries? I'm allowed to use them without selling/distributing as long as they are critical to run the hardware that I paid for(as long as they are only u…

Well we can't make laws that target Apple specifically, so let's table that for now. Requiring all computer devices sold to have a mechanism for running Linux? That sounds fine in theory, though I don't know that a law could compel a company to assist developers in understanding their hardware.
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