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

#621

Post by sealeck » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:05 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #512

vorpalhex wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is an insane amount.

Did you research Apple's costs for running the App Store, screening apps for security, etc., before making this blanket statement? I'd wager not.

But they're not billing on the basis of how much it technically costs them to provide these services. If we had a competitive ecosystem then we would expect Apple's prices for payment processing to be at least within an order of magnitude of (for example) Stripe's.

Of course security screening is expensive, but it's also not that expensive (e.g. a typical software company might have a 10-30% profit margin, so in some cases apple accounts for roughly half the operational expenses of a company – i.e. the company pays as much, or more, money to apple as it does to its entire payroll)

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

#622

Post by oblio » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #573

vorpalhex wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Random guess? Maybe N employees, paid $5-10bn per year. Maybe $5-10bn in all the other expenses.

In 2020 Apple made $60bn from the AppStore.

Apple makes outrageous amounts of money from first mover advantage and a humongous moat but I guess we're ok with that.

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

#623

Post by sealeck » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #573

vorpalhex wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This isn't the point – the point is that because Apple has a monopolistic position they are not forced to compete and provide better service.

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

#624

Post by svnt » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #585

shuckles wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ad system? Their programmatic ad inventory does not support tracking, as anyone who has access to developer ads can confirm.

Forgive my ignorance, but how do we know that Apple doesn't track more data than they provide to developers?

This is a great point. You could probably sum up Apple’s strategy as “capture the most lucrative market through initial quality/vanity, learn more about it than anyone else, then ring-fence it and protect it.”

They aren’t a monopoly as long as you don’t consider income demographics.

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

#625

Post by svnt » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

caramelcustard wrote: post #374

Closi wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to be the market majority for your actions to be anti-competitive.

That's not the point. "Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market.". The point of me mentioning that Apple is not the market majority was to emphasize that even with their current positions, Apple isn't capable of effectively reducing competition in the market of electronic devices, as is already proven not by legislative bodies but the market.

They don’t want to reduce competition in the market of electronic devices. They are in the business of service relationships with people with lots of disposable income.

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

#626

Post by oblio » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:12 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #518

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.

I have never, in 15 years on iOS, run into a single "kind of software" that Apple has supposedly "locked out" that I actually wanted or needed.

Your needs are limited and "anecdote" is not the plural form of "data".

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

#627

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

The items they listed in this article sound mostly good. (Some of them will also make it harder to protect users from malicious apps, but the restrictions are likely unfortunately necessary to protect them from malicious gatekeepers).

What I'm worried about is the stuff they didn't list. Each previous iteration of this was full to the brim with surveillance and censorship provisions, mixed with the good ideas and changed so often that organized pushback from civil society was impossible.

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

#628

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

strulovich wrote: post #351

summerlight wrote: post #340

This wouldn't happen if Apple decided to cut their Apple tax to 15% or something. They already knew that this 30% is not sustainable. 15% would be still considerably higher than usual payment processors' but something justifiable given their massive investment into the platform. But instead of taking this path, Apple decided to exploit this 30% tax for competition against other service providers. This is obviously un…

It’s very likely this would have happened even if Apple would have cut it to 15%. There’s still about 12% on the table, and the rest of the gate keeping issues would still be there. History is full of precedents where a powerful party gave some of its power only to have it not stop and even accelerate the attacks against it. Apple could not stay the biggest company in the world without attracting attention such as th…

15% is low enough that the increased convenience and number of users who are payment-ready is worth it.

And that's as it should be. Apple should compete based on what they actually provide (a user friendly platform with a network effect), which is profitable enough, not from artificially gatekeeping their users.

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

#629

Post by sedatk » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

martimarkov wrote: post #467

DavideNL wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps will use near-field communication technology and other mechanisms to track us So, then do not allow any apps the NFC permission... problem solved. The point is, Apple should not be the one dictating what users can and can not use; Example: on macOS you can disable SIP. 99% of the people i know do not even know what SIP is, nor that this possibility exists. However, if we/Developers/researchers/etc. want it, th…

The main problem is that users can be tricked to do it. Used to happen to my parents all the time on Android. They'd install random apps and the website will "guide" them how to install this app by going to settings and enabling "untrusted developers". This is my issue with all these devs screaming at apple. Your customers chose a product for whatever reason. Don't like it? I don't care - respect their choices. It sp…

Apple has a harsher review process for such practices.

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

#630

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

efields wrote: post #236

synu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular user I’m looking forward to all the same!

As a regular user, I have no intention of side loading anything! Don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything! Enlighten me.

There are some edge cases where the app stores don't allow desirable applications to be distributed.

One example would be e.g. NewPipe (an open source third party ad-free YouTube client) on Android. Another would be alternative browsers or programming language interpreters on iOS (the rules on the latter changed repeatedly).

Termux is also being distributed outside of the Play store due to some restriction and IIRC not feasible on iOS due to the App store restrictions.