581–590 of 688 posts
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But Spotify can’t even tell users how to upgrade to premium according to Apple’s rules. The best they can say is “You can’t upgrade to Premium in the app. We know, it’s not ideal.”
How do Netflix and Hulu get around this?
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> With iOS consumers don't have the option of going to another App Store Correct, it's certainly unfair competition but what I'm saying is that it's still not a monopoly, not that it's "fair". When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package. Now if Apple controlled 90+% of the market this would fall under antitrust laws (MS+IE situation all over again). But they only co…
> it's certainly unfair competition but still not a monopoly I agree - which is why I specifically did NOT call it a monopoly. > When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package.... You're still missing my point: > And even Spotify has a choice. They can shaft Apple and become Android only, since Android has 85% of the market. The reason they're not doing it right now I…
The App Store is a service rendered to its customers, the likes of Spotify. In the form of the hosting of the app, and all the backend behind that like in-app storage (iCloud). The code review and ‘security guarantee’ that Apple holds over Google and other rivals is also a cost.
IMHO this boils down to subsidy, on the part of digital services companies, publishing apps, subsidise the free and “real world” goods and services company’s that go unlevied for their participation.
It’s a bit like at carnivals, when food trucks pay to get a place, and are often expected to pay a commission on their profits too. But the charity stands, and free ‘workshops’ for kids etc. don’t pay to be their, because their providing a different service.
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It's anticompetitive, but is it illegal? Is it unethical? Does Apple's favoritism of its own products on its platform mean competing products cannot exist on the platform, or that they're less capable/visible? There are many platforms which rigidly control what's allowed on it. For example, is Netflix comparable? Netflix can control which providers are represented on its platform.
To my understanding this is not illegal, and the ethics are debatable. I don't think Netflix is comparable. The App Store is a market place, where things are bought and sold. Netflix is not a consumer marketplace.
Netflix shows a wide variety of content to the buyer, the buyer pays and consumes certain (but not all) of the content. The content owners are ultimately paid in a way that reflects the demand for their product relative to the others available in that marketplace. (It's not per-unit pricing with a rev share, but you still get paid more to license big blockbuster content than little-watched niche stuff.)
Also similar to App Store, Netflix has certain "blessed" in-house products that it pays to create itself, and lists along side the externally-created products.
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Instead of having Xcode be available on PCs, which we all know are free to own. Yeah, right.
I guess the point is you might already own a PC, and you could use that for developing Android apps, for example. But if you also want to use Xcode and develop iOS apps as well then you have to buy a Mac.
You might already own a Mac.
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> they've had proprietary cables and adapters for as long as I can remember. Apart from Lightning, which was created when no better alternative existed, I cannot remember a proprietary Apple connector in at least the past 10 years.
>Apart from Lightning, which was created when no better alternative existed Gotcha, then why does new iPhone not have USB-C while new MacBooks only have USB-C?
As far as whether Apple should now migrate from lightning to USB-C, that's a separate question with tradeoffs on both sides.
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> it's certainly unfair competition but still not a monopoly I agree - which is why I specifically did NOT call it a monopoly. > When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package.... You're still missing my point: > And even Spotify has a choice. They can shaft Apple and become Android only, since Android has 85% of the market. The reason they're not doing it right now I…
> Since you like car metaphors: it's like a taxi driver buying a car and the the dealer expecting to take a cut from all the taxi fairs even though the dealer's involvement ended the moment the car rolled off their forecourt. I think this is an incorrect analogy. This is why Apple only charges for physical goods, not digital ones. The rationale is they distributed your product to customers you would never have had ac…
The 30% is interesting, but so is the Verge article I read about Google lowering their fees from 30% forever to 15% forever: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16502152/google-play-sto...
I’m sure no one is in the right here, morally speaking. But as far as I can tell, big business is as far as you get from morals.
> Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters. Uh, I seem to recall Apple being forced to reverse some brazenly greedy policies for their music service when a high-profile artist called them out and withheld content in protest. For Apple to characterize itself as a champion…
I think you may want to refresh your memory on that. The subject was Apple paying artists during the trial period—when Apple itself isn't being paid. Which isn't brazenly greedy, since (a) they're not making any money during that time, and (b) that was and is still the standard. What was different about Apple was that their trial period—the period where users could subscribe to Apple Music without paying Apple anything—was 3 months, instead of the industry standard 1 month.
Swift had a legitimate complaint about not getting paid for 3 months of listening, but to describe "2 more months where listeners don't have to pay Apple a dime" as "some brazenly greedy policies" misses the mark by quite a bit.
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> Spotify wants a lower $ charge. Apple owns the platform and controls that access and $ charge. That's it. I think that's an oversimplification. When you control the platform and then use that control to favor your own products on that platform, that's anti-competitive.
Antitrust law in the US bans monopoly "tying": using a monopoly you have in one market to try to control a separate market. I believe Spotify is claiming Apple is doing this with Apple Music vs Spotify and I didn't see this issue addressed by Apple's message. I am not sure I agree with Spotify's claim, and US antitrust is in a parlous state, but this approach may get traction in the EU. However Apple's market share i…
"We're a duopoly not a monopoly" is not a particularly compelling argument.
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>Apart from Lightning, which was created when no better alternative existed Gotcha, then why does new iPhone not have USB-C while new MacBooks only have USB-C?
According to wikipedia, the USB-C spec was finalized in 2014, while lighting was introduced in 2012. So GP's point was correct that USB-C was not an option when lightning was created. As far as whether Apple should now migrate from lightning to USB-C, that's a separate question with tradeoffs on both sides.
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To go to one grocery instead of another in suburban America means driving a few more minutes with a cost of some time, a bit of gas, and a minute amount of wear and tear on a car. To change app stores, it requires spending several hundred dollars on replacement hardware, not including having to repurchase applications, accessories, etc.
That applies as much to Android, or any other phone, as it does to Apple though. It’s just the nature of the market, not some perfidious Apple plot. There’s just nothing substantive here.
On Android you can side-load APKs, have alternative app stores like F-Droid and even install custom operating systems. So no, that is again not comparable.
> It’s (…) not some perfidious Apple plot
Sure
> just the nature of the market
Dammit, NO. The market is a human-made artificial construct, not some natural freaking law like gravity that is inevitable and unavoidable. And given that it is human-made we can change it, and make choices on what we demand from it.