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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

#581

Post by dcow »

strogonoff wrote: post #562
mock-possum wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s weird for me is that users can effectively vote with their wallets - they can refuse to engage with ‘freemium’ or ad-supported media - and they can refuse to consume ads when presented, refuse to engage with calls to action, refuse to pay for products advertised to them in this way. Have you ever been shown a mobile ad, and thought to yourself, “this is a good thing, this is an honest description of a product…

Some of it is more specific to social media, where it is a vicious circle. I wouldn’t latch to voting with your wallet, it’s merely one symptom of a complex issue. For social it’s key to communicate with others, so as long as you use it you kind of have to be where everybody is, and everybody is where the free stuff is. If you can’t easily leave and continue communicating, because the platform attracts advertisers by…

I think if there ever was an indicator that some function should be owned by the public, it’s when the public has come to expect it exists for free, when the social expectation is this thing is so fundamental and necessary that paying for it is absurd and creates equity of access problems.

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

#582

Post by bloppe »

karel-3d wrote: post #560
Validark wrote: post #529

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

Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft have similar taxes for their game stores where they have monopoly. Nintendo for example has NDA where you cannot even share online how much they take.

If that's true, sounds like a slam dunk lawsuit waiting to happen for Nintendo

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

#583

Post by bloppe »

s_dev wrote: post #569
someperson wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't Apple set whatever pricing they want? Unless you're arguing that Apple has a monopoly. Also it's not a tax, though arguably it can be termed an "economic rent" (a technical term) that can be considered excessive, but I'm not sure about that.

>Why can't Apple set whatever pricing they want? Same reason any company can't set whatever they want. Vast majority of companies aren't deemed monopolies so this doesn't apply to them but this restriction holds over them once they grow to a certain size nonetheless. Even the most ardent capitalists/free market advocates agree that monopolies have to be regulated by the government. The real questions are what makes c…

This is a misunderstanding of free market advocacy. The status quo for mobile apps is not a free market. Free markets are defined by meaningful choice. If there are undue restrictions on switching providers for any service -- it doesn't matter whether the restrictions come from the government or from private companies -- it's not a free market.

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

#584

Post by acd »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #20

I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate. If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built? If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-…

No the US Sherman anti trust law prohibit monopolies. Its not a corporate right but right by citizens not to be affected by monopoly by rule of law or until tried.

"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

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

#585

Post by kevincox »

pjc50 wrote: post #389
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…

Exactly. All the free market logic assumes that barriers to entry are low. They are incredibly high and the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution. There's basically room for two smartphone ecosystems. Microsoft/Nokia couldn't sustain a third. Android-adjacent things like Amazon Fire and Tizen have little market share. > factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing Ironic…

> the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution

Not only that it is "naturally prone" to it (with thinks like bulk efficiencies) but also that it is economically prone to it. A free market with no monopolies drives profit towards zero. No company wants this so the logical response is to become a monopoly (or as close as possible) by putting up barriers to entry and competition.

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

#586

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

gruez wrote: post #567
bigyabai wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is the 30% tax different than other platforms? Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS? The App Store on MacOS is almost entirely empty, every real developer abandoned it years ago. It's almost impossible to buy professional Mac software on the App Store, because real developers like Avid or Adobe or Affinity don't think Apple's deal is fair either. > Finally, do you believe…

>Because it doesn't have to compete with third-party distributors like MacOS? Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox? >They already are, through their developer fees. It's $100/developer. Considering Microsoft used to charge thousands for Visual Studio, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low. >If Apple can't compensate themselves without forcing people to use the…

> Who are the third party distributors for the playstation or xbox?

This is a whataboutism. People can discuss Apple's anti-competitive business policies separately from Sony's and Microsoft's. (Does it matter that Playstation and Xbox ecosystems are potentially similarly anti-competitive? That just means the circumstances around their policies should also be scrutinized for the same reasons.)

> it doesn't seem too unreasonable to claim that $100/year is too low

It doesn't seem too unreasonable to tell them tough shit. They can improve their business model themselves; that's their responsibility. It is also their responsibility to avoid anti-competitive business practices.

> What's wrong with royalty fee based business models?

This is a disingenuous question in reply to the pull quote you included from the parent comment. They wrote "without forcing people to use their services". That is the primary anti-competitive thing that people complain about with Apple.

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

#587

Post by shwaj »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #549
SkiFire13 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store Which is also the only allowed way to run software on 58% of US smartphones? > Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon I could agree with Google, but how are Meta and Amazon gatekeepers of the internet? Especially _more than Apple_

So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties. Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-p…

The Internet and the Web are not the same thing. Apple absolutely gatekeeps the ability to run non-HTTP internet connected apps. Your statement that Apple is not a “gatekeeper to any part of the Internet” is simply false.

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

#588

Post by DidYaWipe »

reginald78 wrote: post #574
immibis wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Safari skins any better? If they opened it, you could run Firefox.

In practice I think he is right unfortunately. Most people would just run Chrome and more websites would require Chrome since they could just tell Apple users to deal with it, making the mono-culture even worse.

Yep. We're going right back to "This site works best on Internet Explorer."

Sad to see supposedly technically-knowledgeable people cheerleading for regression.

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

#589

Post by DidYaWipe »

shwaj wrote: post #587
DidYaWipe wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties. Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-p…

The Internet and the Web are not the same thing. Apple absolutely gatekeeps the ability to run non-HTTP internet connected apps. Your statement that Apple is not a “gatekeeper to any part of the Internet” is simply false.

Oh really? Because this app seems to have good reviews: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/udp-tcp-network-utility/id6569...

So, since UDP is allowed, I'm curious as to what non-HTTP traffic Apple bans apps from using.

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

#590

Post by Cyph0n »

al_borland wrote: post #532
Cyph0n wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform?

No, the issue is that they have both a 30% cut of every software sale and a closed platform. Steam has a 30% cut, but not a closed platform, hence the bad analogy.

Not sure why you're bringing the Steam Deck into this discussion. Is the only way to play Steam games via Deck? No, so it's completely irrelevant.

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