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

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

#671

Post by pessimizer »

sircastor wrote: post #669
arvinsim wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that old people who have difficulty figuring a phone will suddenly become a techie that can find an obscure setting? Complete FUD. Stop fearmongering.

No, they don't just "Find an obscure setting". A website tells them exactly where to look, exactly what to do, and they have motive to do it because they want whatever this app is promising. These kinds of scams are all over the place. Open up your browser's developer console while on Facebook and you'll see FB's desperate attempt to get you to not start typing in commands. When Epic got up in arms about Google's fee…

That's why it's FUD. It's happening today. There will never be a perfect circumstance where a determined enough attacker cannot get a determined enough sucker to give them their savings.

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

#672

Post by smoldesu »

filoleg wrote: post #265
eklavya wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exclusively Apple user here, couldn’t be more happier for the announcement. Keeps my favoured platform alive and innovative. Btw, you can keep using App Store so I don’t understand the issue here.

>you can keep using app store, so I don't understand the issue Apps with massive following that are into the idea of violating privacy rights will leave App Store and its restrictions, and will be available only on third party app stores where they can do whatever they want. Imagine Facebook leaving App Store and becoming available only on Meta Store (or whatever they would call it). Oh, and they dont have to abide b…

I can't for the life of me figure out why everyone cites Facebook here. Nobody is forcing you to download the Facebook app. It's perfectly usable inside a web browser, nevermind the fact that a sideloaded version of Facebook could still leverage the same security benefits provided by iOS' sandboxing model. At this point you're basically arguing that Apple should be the one who dictates what privacy should look like... which isn't the case. If you feel strongly that Facebook's data collection should be regulated more closely, you should take it up with local legislation. That's how systematic improvements like this EU bill get drafted, and it's how we force big companies to play fair instead of expecting other privately held businesses to hold them in check. That's not how antitrust action works.

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

#673

Post by smoldesu »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #630
efields wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Newpipe is amazing, if iOS users had access to it then YouTube might actually be forced to improve their mobile app. Out-of-the-box, you get video downloading, PiP, background playback, and so much more. No need to pay Google a dime for the best YouTube features on the market.

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

#674

Post by efields »

idle_zealot wrote: post #301
annexrichmond wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may allow for some healthy competition and ultimately better UX on that front in the long term, but in the short term it could also take away dev time for Apple to improve iOS in other ways.

> take away dev time for Apple to improve iOS in other ways The mobile phone platform has been "complete" for years now. There are little niggles to work out here and there, but the single most meaningful change that could come is the switch to an open platform. Consider the abundance of tools on desktop platforms like macOS that hook into the system to augment the UX for the better. Imagine having to use macOS witho…

I use none of those tools mentioned but have tried different flavors of them. macOS has also felt pretty baked for years. I mostly use a mac today the same way I have for the last 15 years. Every improvement in productivity or moment of delight has largely been around search: I type a word into spotlight, or Photos.app, or a web browser and get what I want pretty much instantly.

Then there’s stock utilities that are under-hyped to this day. Measure.app is fairly accurate for “how big is my shed” or “what’s the area of this rectangle”. I point my phone at the world and receive data I want now in seconds; why bother with window management?

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

#675

Post by sircastor »

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…

>This wouldn't happen if Apple decided to cut their Apple tax to 15% or something.

They did [0]. 18 months ago they reduced the App Store commission to 15% for developers doing less than $1m in revenue. Clearly that didn't make a difference.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/18/21572302/apple-app-store...

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

#676

Post by efields »

smoldesu wrote: post #673
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Newpipe is amazing, if iOS users had access to it then YouTube might actually be forced to improve their mobile app. Out-of-the-box, you get video downloading, PiP, background playback, and so much more. No need to pay Google a dime for the best YouTube features on the market.

Sure. Just violate the TOS of YouTube and you can do all kinds of fun.

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

#677

Post by Retric »

enragedcacti wrote: post #574
Retric wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Defending their cut based on expenses is a losing strategy because if they 2 billion dollars or 20 Billion anyone would love to have that income stream. Further stating their actual costs simply invite the idea of competition lowering prices.

Apple clearly wants to profit from the App Store, but just as important to them is maintaining the ecosystem and the mountains of cash iOS provides when change means risk.

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

#679

Post by assetlabel »

While I would love many of those changes to happen, I won't be holding my breath.

Seems to me the odds Apple will pull out of Europe based on this are pretty high. The compliance cost of these changes must be astoundingly high.

Fines based on worldwide revenue.. to fine them more if they make more sales in the USA... seems morally repugnant and abusive to me. So does this one: "Share data and metrics with developers and competitors, including marketing and advertising performance data."

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

#680

Post by tikiman163 »

hyperpape wrote: post #175

There's several very good provisions in this legislation (3rd party payment processors, non-preferential treatment for 1st party apps), there are several that have a mix of upsides and downsides (sideloading is one--I personally like knowing that Facebook can't ask people to sideload some privacy destroying crap on iOS). Then there's: - Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those…

Interoperability means that hardware and hardware related OS capabilities have to be accessible to third-party developers. End to end encryption isn't a hardware capability, it's software. Also, they only have to give them a mechanism to access it, they don't have to remove the already existing security mechanisms like notifying the user that an app has requested access to things user contacts or bluetooth. If users don't want to grant an app permissions that's not the fault of the platform developer.
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