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

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

#531

Post by rpdillon »

al_borland wrote: post #521
rpdillon wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is on my Android phone, I use F-Droid, and I sideload using Obtainium, and on my Steam Deck, I install Heroic Launcher and install games from GOG.

Proton also offers subscriptions through the Play Store. If the issue is the 30% cut hurting non-ad-funded businesses, shouldn’t this be against all these companies charging 30%, not just Apple? Or not have subscriptions in the Play Store, if Google doesn’t have the same requirements against linking out to other payment options? The outrage against Apple in this regard has never felt consistently applied based.

You didn't address anything I wrote. The issue is not the 30%, it's the lack of choice. Apple locks businesses into having to support Apple Pay to access the user base of Apple users. Google doesn't do this: apps can be distributed via F-Droid or just downloaded from the net. Steam doesn't do this: you can just run apps you bought years ago, or bought from GOG, even on devices built by Valve.

I'll say the same thing, another way: Apple is the only smartphone manufacturer that forces you to install apps through their services only.

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

#532

Post by al_borland »

Cyph0n wrote: post #494
al_borland wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam and Android charge a similar 30% fee in their stores. When I hear about a 3% fee, I think of the interchange fees for a credit card. That doesn’t have the same overhead as hosting the software, handling the updates, managing the front end, reviews, etc. I can only assume that 2-3% of the 30% are going to Visa, as I’m sure Apple is paying interchange fees to process the payments. 30% probably still creates a ver…

I really despise the analogy with Steam. And this is not the first time I hear it. People somehow fail to understand that the core problem with the App Store is that it is operated by the platform owner. To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation o…

So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform? What if the App Store was free, would people still have an issue, because Apple is controlling the platform and software distribution? If so, why keep going after the 30% fee? It just seems like a convenient headline to use for the attacks.

Valve also makes the Steam Deck. In that case they do own the platform, but if the user wants they can install whatever OS they want… but as designed, and used by most consumers, it’s Valve hardware, running SteamOS from Valve, where people can run games they buy from Steam, Vavle’s game marketplace… where Valve takes 30% of the sales.

The only difference between the Steam Deck and an iPad is that the user can wipe SteamOS off it and use it as a generic system, likely killing most of the reason why they bought the hardware in the first place.

So if the issue is how open the platform is, that seems like an issue for the free market. A lot of people buy Apple stuff because it’s a closed platform that spends a lot of time dialing in the user experience, which is something that often seems lacking on more open platforms, because there are an infinite number of edge cases to cover. If customers want the closed platform, forcing it open end up reducing customer choice, as the closed, tightly knit, ecosystem option no longer exists.

Apple’s business model has also historically been about selling hardware to run their software. “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Forcing them into a Microsoft-style business model is a fundamental change to their core business. There should be room in the market for different ideas. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have very different business models which serve different types of customers. This is a good thing. I wish there was room for more business models to let the little guy move up, but forcing Apple to be Microsoft, Google, or whomever else doesn’t seem like a win, and it has little to do with the 30% App Store fee.

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

#533

Post by dcow »

parineum wrote: post #512
onion2k wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. The problem right now is that Apple is 'abusing' the fact that privacy-aware consumers are drawn to their platform to charge onerous fees to app developers. They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly on high-end mobile privacy-aware devices to restrict competition in mobile app fee charging. It's tha…

> They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly If it's necessary to put a qualifier on the word "monopoly", it's a great indication that it's not a monopoly.

I don’t think the qualifier was necessary. I think it was used to describe the obvious nature of anyone owning the sole software distribution means on their platform, it gives them a de facto monopoly on that means as opposed to a natural? monopoly where they just got so big they fell into it.

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

#535

Post by benreesman »

Ray20 wrote: post #523
benreesman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also breaking sharply on this issue in what was once a fairly high-compatibility regime of US/EU common-ish values. So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis…

>pick two And if you pick wrong, you get nothing. >Rich people buy laws. A totalitarian government does not need to buy laws. Imposing punitive taxes on wealth - it's like express line to what you want to avoid with it. Breaking the backs of rich people and megacorporations or not, is not a choice about your chances of being wealthy, it is a choice about will you die from starvation or not. People choose not to break…

Look at marginal tax brackets at the top from WW2 to the present and say that again with a straight face.

Real wages and purchasing power at the median are so strongly correlated with 90℅ income tax at the top that the causality digression is a waste of time we don't have. Unchecked executive power via a lockstep legislative apparatus and meek courts is not some unprecedented thing, its a totally predictable response to privatizing the commons and selling it off to oligarchs.

It was a fucking disaster in Russia in 1992 and its shaping up no better here now.

Conficistory taxes at the top work, they keep real assets broadly distributed throughout society which gives everyone a stake in democratic institutions which creates stability and growth. That's recent, robustly researched history.

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

#536

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

m463 wrote: post #63
Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

Actually, iMessage happily harms apple customers all the time. I know many MANY people who have lost chats with their loved ones (especially deceased ones) because there is no way to export and save their conversations. I think this should be as easy as saving photos, which apple makes (somewhat) easier to export. Back to email, it is pretty horrible to set up my local email server on an apple device. You have to go…

FWIW, on a Mac you can just query the iMessage database — it's just a plain old sqlite file sitting somewhere on disk.

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

#537

Post by red_admiral »

rkrisztian2 wrote: post #440
red_admiral wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd be ok with one app store if the criteria for being included are transparent, reasonable and not biased towards less strict rules for big players.

Patreon was told to change its whole billing model until a court found in their favor: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1878206.html That's the kind of thing I think we'd both find unacceptable.

But I'd still be ok with "one store, resonable rules, respect user privacy".

Meanwhile on google's lawn, there's hundreds of things like this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.falnesc.to... a torch app that contains ads and shares your location with selected third parties. At least they don't require permission to read your contacts. (You can buy an ad-free "secure" version for $0.99, or you can just ... turn on your phone's LED for free because that's provided by the OS.)

Technically firefox extensions are "one app store" too - you can't sideload unless you install from the dev/nightly channel and fiddle with the settings. But at least it's a not-for-profit store. Chrome and even Edge allow you to sideload.

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

#538

Post by swat535 »

Validark wrote: post #529

I'm still stuck on the whole 30% tax. How is that considered even remotely reasonable?

How is the 30% tax different than other platforms?

Further, how much do you think should this be (20%? 10%? 5%?) and if zero, why?

Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering, if so, what other strategies do you recommend that they deploy to make everyone happy?

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

#539

Post by dcow »

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…

Imagine how quickly we’d answer the question of whether consumers actually prefer Apple’s walled garden and are voting with their wallets, or if they’re just locked in and being taken advantage of, if 3rd party app stores with much lower overhead were allowed. If your monthly subscription cost $10 on the Apple app store but $7 on the other one, for the same product, I think we’d get an answer rather efficiently.

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

#540

Post by pjc50 »

mysteria wrote: post #491
ClaraForm wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not. 1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out. 2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market pen…

> If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. A smartphone from Google or Apple is also pretty much required for certain government apps, banking…

South Korea managed to tie their government ID system to ActiveX for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...

Entire country was stuck on IE6 for far too long.

The UK e-visa system worries me for similar reasons: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/online-immigration-status-evisa

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