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

#571

Post by concinds » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #556

concinds wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Google apps are going to be strongly accelerating Blink/Chrome hegemony

Because they give the user choice?

Again, this isn't just a problem with the "default browser settings pane". The first time an iOS user clicks a link, the OS should give them a list of all major browsers (like Windows XP was forced to by the EU) so that no browser is favored over another. That would be fair.

Google's browser menu isn't a response to Apple's unfair default browser setting practices, but to Apple bundling Safari with iOS and unfairly advantaging it. Platform owners' browsers should ideally not be inherently favored, regardless of the platform's marketshare.

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

#572

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #431

laserlight wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is a fair amount? Who decides that and how?

The market, through competition.

That already happened when the consumer bought an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Is there supposed to be fractal competition all the way down?

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

#573

Post by NovemberWhiskey » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #420

Nasrudith wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shrinkage is called chargeback and processing fees.

Great so that's 3.5% Where is the other 26.5% coming from?

How many people do you think Apple employees whose job is solely or primarily-centered around iOS developer relations, tools, support, store infrastructure etc. etc?

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

#574

Post by enragedcacti » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #384

enragedcacti wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's App store revenue is very substantial and likely has very low overall costs and microscopic per-unit costs relative to a hardware business like iPhone or Mac. Apple paid out $45 billion to developers in 2020 with $64 billion gross, which means they had as high as $19 billion in revenue from the app store commission alone.[1] Unfortunately Apple doesn't break out profit per category but we know that their net…

Apple annual gross profit for 2021 was $152 billion. That ~19B in 2020 is before CC fees on 64B or internal expenses. App stores have a lot of customer service and charge backs on relatively tiny purchases. Actually reviewing apps isn’t cheap either, and all the relevant IT adds even more expense. Further they upped the developers cut to between 70% and 85% from the flat 70% in 2020. So sure they might make 3-5 billi…

Net income is, imo, a better number to use given the sheer amount of R&D that goes into developing Apple hardware that is necessary but unaccounted for in gross profit. further, if we are looking at 2021 their App Store gross revenue went to $85 billion.

> That ~19B in 2020 is before CC fees on 64B or internal expenses. App stores have a lot of customer service and charge backs on relatively tiny purchases. Actually reviewing apps isn’t cheap either, and all the relevant IT adds even more expense.

I don't disagree with any of that, but I don't think its anywhere near 2/3 of revenue after developer split. I don't have any evidence for that because Apple is very secretive about those numbers, but I think level with which they protect that information is evidence on its own. if Apple were making a piddly 3-5 billion on $65 billion in gross revenue they would be screaming it from the rooftops to (rightfully) justify their 30% cut as being reasonable.

> Further they upped the developers cut to between 70% and 85% from the flat 70% in 2020.

the app store is extremely top heavy with top devs being responsible for a huge amount of the revenue. The policy is great for small devs but the aggregate split is probably still much closer to 30% than it is to 15%.

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

#575

Post by yazaddaruvala » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

ko27 wrote: post #458

n8cpdx wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> People don’t choose iPhone because they want those things Your argument is ridiculous. People didn't choose iPhone because they wanted to deprive themself of an option to switch browsers engines or payment vendors either. People actually chose iPhones for a thousand other reasons.

I choose iPhone because of the additional privacy. I had Androids for years, got fed up with the setting and the choices that all seemed to result in poor experiences.

I chose to buy an iPhone because I only have Safari (it’s a feature - keeping the browser engine market diverse - otherwise welcome to Chromium). With only Safari on iPhones my default iPhone keychain is used, I get Hide my Email by default, etc.

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

#576

Post by exabrial » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

Instead of more regulation, I wish they'd just break them up. I'd prefer to have less regulation and no monopolies, then a bunch of regulation and monopolies.

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

#577

Post by shaman1 » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

While most of the things here are desirable to a user I imagine the cost of compliance would be enormous for Apple, not to mention that it will take years.

Even if they do comply, I wouldn't imagine them enabling these for NON-EU countries. They might do a fork and provide slow updates to EU customers or some other way of punishing the users.

On the side of the EU, the legislation is a bit too targeted causing a bit of concern to wheather they found the right balance between user rights and stifling private companies.

Some of EU legislation has had disastrous side effects like GDPR, this might as well bring unexpected consequences.

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

#578

Post by kitsunesoba » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #571

kitsunesoba wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Google apps are going to be strongly accelerating Blink/Chrome hegemony Because they give the user choice? Again, this isn't just a problem with the "default browser settings pane". The first time an iOS user clicks a link, the OS should give them a list of all major browsers (like Windows XP was forced to by the EU) so that no browser is favored over another. That would be fair. Google's browser menu isn't a respo…

If they're pushing a browser that the user doesn't have installed, it's more than giving the user choice, it's blatant cross-promotion.

As I said, the UI iOS provides should be fixed (including a selector when the user taps a link) but at the same time, Google should not be able to use the install base of its various other apps to bolster adoption of Chrome.

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

#579

Post by shapefrog » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #347

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "will make their proprietary video and messaging platforms "interoperable" Because it's Europe, and also FaceTime and such aren't anywhere near as popular over there, it is possible that Apple will just pull them from the market there. You can't be forced to provide interoperability with a service you aren't operating. Whatever the result, this does mean iOS 16 is going to have many "features" that Apple didn't ann…

> it is possible that Apple will just pull them from the market there. It's also possible that pigs will sprout wings and fly away from manure piles everywhere. Apple is the same company that backdoored iCloud for China so they could operate domestically and make money from the CCP, though. The idea that they'd stop serving the entirety of Europe because of some evil legislation is a complete joke.

> The idea that they'd stop serving the entirety of Europe because of some evil legislation is a complete joke.

I think the idea comes from a US understanding of what exists beyond the border.

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

#580

Post by Vespasian » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #150

ericmay wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If consumers are unlikely to come and major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores, then what kind of companies are going to need to have a third-party app store that's uncontrolled by Apple? Do you think these companies have spent this much money on marketing and bankrolling lobbyists in the US and EU for no reason?

> major corporations aren't going to open their own app stores or migrate to third-party app stores The major corporations will try, but consumers are just burnt out by managing all of the user accounts and dealing with different ecosystems. Not to mention even casual users are vaguely aware that these companies are out to take their data and sell them ads now. I foresee that any attempt to put their apps exclusively…

And we mustn't forget that Big Tech companies neither pay many taxes in Europe nor do they employ a lot of people either. Most of their development and production happens elsewhere.

(Relative to their size).

They have therefore little political pull on European legislator's (beside flat out bribing them which, despite everything, isn't helping them).

The cherry on top is that all those regulations can be used in negotiations with the US in the future (e.g. to provide EU law enforcement with equal access to the data of American citizens)