EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by emn13 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #527

robonerd wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to play by the rules when you're the one writing them.

This is only a criticism if you enumerate the deficiencies with the rules you believe are only justified by self-interest.

The linked article lists a bunch of those. Most of that bullet-point list of required or conversely prohibited behaviors apply to Apple. And all of those are justified only by self-interest.

Incidentally, that doesn't mean the alternative has to be the wild west - that's a false dichotomy. Controlling access is fine; it's simply not fine that it's the platform that holds exclusive sway, especially if the answer is "only if we're the ones providing that app."

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

#552

Post by username_my1 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

ceeplusplus wrote: post #501

superb-owl wrote: post #5

This is huge. Forcing Apple to allow app side-loading, third-party payments, etc is going to wrest away control of the iOS ecosystem (and eat pretty heavily into their revenues [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/10/apple-implies-it-generated-r... I hope some of these regulations spill over into the U.S. and the rest of the world.

It won't eat into any revenues. In the Netherlands Apple charges 27% commission on any revenues paid into external payment systems [1]. And what is the EU exactly going to do - ban Apple from charging for access to their software APIs [2]? That seems like one step from banning charging for software as a whole. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/4/22917582/apple-netherlands... [2] Yes, APIs themselves are not copyrig…

Lol shit loads of psps have super simple native SDKs: PayPal, stripe, adyen….

They’re all waiting for the day developers switch to their apis. And developers usually work with them over the web, they just didn’t do so on ios because of apple policy

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

#553

Post by Hamuko » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

trollied wrote: post #195

warning26 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every single app creator out there will now want their own "app store" and it's going to be a mess. This is such an oft-repeated argument, yet overlooks that Android already allows sideloading and alternative app stores. If everyone-creating-their-own-app-store hasn't happened on Android, why would iOS be different?

Counter argument: The millions of different game launchers on Windows. What a complete and utter mess.

You mean like twelve and most of the games with custom launchers are still on Steam?

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

#554

Post by Hamuko » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #253

Karunamon wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full devils advocate here, but the argument I've always heard is that the play store is a lot less arbitrary and restrictive than the App Store, so there's less reason to want to go outside of it. Apple locks out so many useful kinds of software that there actually may be enough momentum for real alternate app stores to proliferate.

Apple locks out so many useful kinds of software For someone who doesn't have a personal Android phone, what useful software is out there that I can get on an iPhone? Related: What mass-market software is out there that isn't available on the iPhone? I don't mean *nix tools and niche game emulators. Things that would make many people actually care about alt stores?

Call recorders.

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

#555

Post by vivegi » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

n8cpdx wrote: post #417

vivegi wrote: post #365

I love this just for these three rules: > Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet. > Allow developers to offer third-party payment systems in apps and promote offers outside the gatekeeper's platforms. > Ensure that all apps are uninstallable and give users the ability to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription. and restr…

People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things, they choose iPhone because they want to be protected from them. Look at the Lumenate app that was just on hacker news yesterday: - Android users are complaining about having to create an account to use it - iOS users just pushed a button and didn’t even have to share their email or make a password - iOS users who subscribe have one place to manage their subsc…

1. Lets say I already have a payment service provider I have negotiated with for my app. In India, for example, we have Unified Payment Interface that has zero fees for upto ~$1500 (USD) per transaction. Why should I be forced to use Apple's service? I am looking at this move by EU to push for change in Apple's behavior globally.

2. No one is forcing thirdparty app stores on users. You can continue to roam within the Apple walled garden appstore for eternity and no one is stopping you. It is only Apple that is forcing out thirdparty app stores from their rent-seeking monopoly and restricting consumer choice and developers' freedom in the garb of protecting users.

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

#556

Post by kitsunesoba » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #548

kitsunesoba wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's good. Choosing a default iOS browser is completely undiscoverable to average users, and unlike on Mac, can't be done within the browser itself. Try installing Chrome/Brave/Edge on iOS. They'll suggest setting them as default, and kick you to the Settings app. It's supposed to bring you to the Chrome/Brave/Edge app settings within Settings.app, where you can set the default browser; but 50% of the time, it'll f…

It's bad because it means that the moment that third party engines are allowed on iOS, Google apps are going to be strongly accelerating Blink/Chrome hegemony. Apple should be required to fix problems with the default browser settings pane while Google should be barred from promoting or favoring Chrome with its other apps and services.

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

#557

Post by username_my1 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

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.

With “electrification” Germans shouldn’t have unique hardware advantages when it comes to the car industry

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

#558

Post by anonymousDan » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

The game is up for the tech monopolies, happy days.

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

#559

Post by concinds » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #310

j-pb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that we didn't get our apps. I'm still waiting to be able to use my iPad to write code. To be able to use the iPad as a platform for tools that contain their own WASM ecosystem of user purchase-able plugins. To use a browser on iPhone and iPad that is actually secure. iPhone and iPad are little addiction machines, with little value for productive work that goes beyond email and powerpoint. These legislations g…

To be perfectly fair here, you're responding as if "productivity" means "Code" and that's not exactly true. For the overwhelming majority of people: coding is not productivity. What is? Checking email, jotting down notes, recording meetings and transcribing/dictating them, joining meetings and having reliable video/audio. Being able to respond to an email with a little drawing is _absolutely_ a killer feature for pro…

This misses the problem.

Countless, countless, countless iOS devs, even extremely high-profile ones like Marco Arment, can talk all day long about problems they've had with App Review and the capriciousness of the App Store. Tons of high-profile, reputable devs can talk about specific apps they were making or wanted to make, never saw the light of day, not because the apps violate App Store policy, but because App Review is such a minefield that they didn't want to bother.

Apple literally publicly said that devs criticising the App Store, or App Review practices, could expect retaliation.

It's insane that devs are expected to only provide apps through a single storefront, that operates at such a huge scale that moderation is necessarily arbitrary, mostly algorithmic, and inconsistent. The App Store monopoly is indefensible.

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

#560

Post by dmitriid » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #539

colinmhayes wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what people are saying though. Whether or not apple cares about its users is completely irrelevant. The question is whether apples incentives align with its users better than other tech companies. The answer pretty clearly seems to be yes, apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, their incentive is to make a product people enjoy. Competitors make most of their money selling ads, their incentive i…

> their incentive is to lock users All good apart from this. Apple does this magnificently, ie closed hardware protocols. For example there are significantly better earphones than airpads pro (and some cost +-same), but good luck getting same level of integration over apple's proprietary protocols. While rest of whole universe at least tries to adhere to open things so we users have freedom in how we design & evolve…

> Thunderbolt vs USB. Again whole world vs Apple.

WAT.

Maybe you mean Lightning vs. USB? Well, it turns out that while a whole committee was designing 15 different and confusing standards over the past 20 years, Apple designed two, and they work.

Now it's suddenly "Apple vs. the world" because the USB committee managed to spit out a semi-functional spec that ... Apple was the first to actually go full in with their desktop offerings, pissing so many people off.