How's this different than physical retail? https://www.entrepreneur.com/answer/222356
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EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
621–630 of 825 posts
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#622Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any percentage is accessible, Spotify just can't be forced to use it. Don't wanna use Spotify's own billing system? Don't use Spotify, there's Apple music. Voila. Competition.
I believe the flip side of it is that Spotify would not even give the user the option. So, to use Spotify, you have to use their billing system.
That isn't a problem.
I can count on my hand the number of merchants I haven't done business with because they weren't on Google Wallet, Apple Pay, or PayPal.
Zero.
The problem is one company controlling our entire industry.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#623How should Apple charge for the costs of building and maintaining SDKs for 3rd parties? There are plenty of UIKit SPI that undoubtedly took a lot of investment to turn into API. Apple also seems to spend considerable development resources building API which simply would not need to exist if there weren’t third parties on iOS (e.g. IDFA and its associated controls). Sometimes they likely have to develop new technology…
Ah yes, developing APIs wouldn't be possible if every software maker didn't give them a 30% rent on their revenue ! Except Windows had already proved it's false. Those APIs are investment, you factor their r&d costs into the cost of your product, so the buyers of ios devices are already paying for that.
You are arguing a straw man, and it’s quite obvious the price of hardware doesn’t cover the cost of iOS development because iPhones don’t cost much more than Android flagships, where the smartphone maker gets the OS for nearly free (and with little after-sales support!).
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#624Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…
> Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? ... > It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's…
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Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#625Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I'm not entirely sure I want Chrome anywhere near my phone There are more browsers that use Chromium engine and nobody forces you to install Google version. I understand the potential issue of a Chrome dominance but Apple could listen for actual developers want and implement those features then you will no longer be forced to use an inferior browser.
> but Apple could listen for actual developers want and implement those features Did you even visit the link? Developers may want the moon. And yet both Mozilla and Apple consider those (and not only those) harmful for a bunch of reasons, the primary of which is privacy.
Apple could be smart and implement what real developers need and not what advertisers want. But good performance, and better APIs would mean you could avoid using native apps.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#626Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s fixed components to the cost as well as variable ones. Storage/CDN distribution is relatively fixed. I would say so is access to developer tools and APIs. What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications, geolocation queries, iCloud access, and App Store approvals. More established companies tend to release new versions on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
> What’s variable are services that an app may take advantage of, such as push notifications Why are push notifications an Apple service? Wouldn't we be better off moving that into the apps?
So you can receive notifications even when the app is closed.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#627Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, developing APIs wouldn't be possible if every software maker didn't give them a 30% rent on their revenue ! Except Windows had already proved it's false. Those APIs are investment, you factor their r&d costs into the cost of your product, so the buyers of ios devices are already paying for that.
You are arguing a straw man, and it’s quite obvious the price of hardware doesn’t cover the cost of iOS development because iPhones don’t cost much more than Android flagships, where the smartphone maker gets the OS for nearly free (and with little after-sales support!).
You are weirdly confused trying to compare two different things. Apple's financial results are public and you should check them because you will see that they make a massive amount of profit on their iphones, and they actively separates those numbers from their "services" (appstore and icloud) numbers.
Apple themselves disagree with you in their financial statement.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any percentage is accessible, Spotify just can't be forced to use it. Don't wanna use Spotify's own billing system? Don't use Spotify, there's Apple music. Voila. Competition.
Spotify doesn’t have to be available on Apple devices at all. The competition you’re describing already exists no? There’s a contradiction in these arguments. Either Spotify benefits from Apple devices, in which case the fee is a cost of doing business that ultimately benefits them, or they don’t benefit from the arrangement in which case they leave the platform. It’s the same thing with the food delivery apps and ot…
> Either Spotify benefits from Apple devices [...] or they don’t benefit from the arrangement in which case they leave the platform.
Apple benefits from our society, and they've gamed their way into a Al Capone / Suez Canal / golden goose scenario. They've locked up everything under their control because they managed to weasel themselves into controlling 50% of the mobile phone market. This was, in retrospect, an illegal move.
Either Apple benefits from government-sanctioned commerce, or they don't. They can easily be broken up or fined into oblivion. The industry will move on regardless of what happens to Apple.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#629It's not clear to me from the article what remedy they're proposing. Seems like it could be any of: * Drop the 30% fee * Drop the 30% fee for apps the compete directly with Apple apps. * Allow users to install other app stores.
* Allow alternative payment options. The rest will follow. If supporting alt-monetized apps in AppStore will be too much for Apple, then they should allow AppStore alternatives or start charging hosting/processing fees. If paying through AppStore will be more expensive than paying in some other way, then Apple should lower the fees. Just needs some form of competitive pressure to get the ball rolling.
Would you be okay with allowing alternative payments methods if Apple still billed you 30% of your revenue rather than collecting it at the point of sale?
Because if no then it is about the fee and not the payment processing.
Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint
#630Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You don't think that it's a a good comparison to compare the only other large scale play store which implements the exact behavior I'm talking about? Well, I didn't it wasn't good, just that I wasn't sure it's comparable. Google is a software company, and has tons of apps (Youtube, Gmail, Maps, etc.) that are big-time heavy hitters that exist on both their App Store and the Apple one. And given that they own the Pl…
Just wanted to ditto everything you’ve said. I don’t think people realize how good we have it with Apple and how easily things could’ve gone in a completely different direction. Yes it’s a benevolent dictatorship, but right now it’s still benevolent. I get a lot of value out of the fact app makers have their oh-so-clever hands tied.
And do you think that if Apple offers 2 iPhones , say the "American Dream" and "The communist pirate dream for EU" , and you buy the "safe one" for you and your family, then what are the downsides? If the "American dream " version is popular then FB will still be on it so you won't lose your FB access, you will still be protected from porn or apps that are not Political Correct and some EU "Communists" would have fun will their GPL programs and their inferior choices they had the freedom to chose.
But if this to much for the Apple devs to implement they can stop selling in EU, focus more on China , they can increase the tax on that store a bit and not lose any money.