Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#711

Post by amatecha » Mon, May 24, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

pretendgeneer wrote: post #646

mbesto wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet it’s apparently insecure for me to buy a Kindle book with the exact same mechanism in the exact same app? Get the fuck out of here. Gonna play the devil's advocate here. If I pay for a physical good, I have an expectation of continued use of that physical good absent of the use the technology medium I used to pay for it. If I buy a physical book and Amazon shut down, I can still read the book. If I pay for…

Why does a book reader app need yearly updates? I bought my ereader years ago still opens epubs fine without updates. If the epub worked when I bought it why does it need to keep updating? Why does an ebook only work on the certified™ app?

Right? Reading this discussion and posting this comment from an iBook G4 from 2005. It actually works great (other than many websites being inaccessible due to SSL compatibility issues). That said I'm only using it for the heck of it while the battery is charging… ;) Still, yes, I wish there wasn't such a constant expectation from tech companies to constantly update to the latest & greatest (complete with persistently-nagging update reminders, UX dark patterns, etc.) So much waste inherent to the industry IMO. Though people seem to just happily go along with it too…

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#712

Post by ViViDboarder » Mon, May 24, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #620

deergomoo wrote: post #56

> Cook used more privacy and safety claims to defend that system, saying it would be both insecure and inconvenient to let apps process payments separately This one is always funny to me, because sellers of physical goods are of course totally exempt from IAP rules, because it would be untenable otherwise. I can type my card number directly into the Amazon app and buy a paperback without any intervention from Apple.…

> And yet it’s apparently insecure for me to buy a Kindle book with the exact same mechanism in the exact same app? Get the fuck out of here. Gonna play the devil's advocate here. If I pay for a physical good, I have an expectation of continued use of that physical good absent of the use the technology medium I used to pay for it. If I buy a physical book and Amazon shut down, I can still read the book. If I pay for…

Your incentive seems particularly perverse to me.

How is taking money away from developers and giving it to apple somehow an incentive to the developers updating their apps? Apple creating arbitrary rules doesn’t cost Apple anything but costs the app developers a lot of time.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#713

Post by ViViDboarder » Mon, May 24, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

newsbinator wrote: post #632

nwallin wrote: post #629

I will not buy any device that does not give me control of the device. If I can't sideload apps, can't install a 3rd party store, do not have the ability to root my own device, I won't buy it. Apple has decided that's not allowed, fine, I won't buy their product. That's between Apple and their customers. But it is certifiably insane that Apple thinks they have the right to dictate to Epic what Epic charges for its ap…

It’s still unclear to me why Apple should have any limits in what rules they set for their store. Don’t publishers have the option to skip Apple’s store and sell in other ones? I mean this isn’t price gouging generators during a winter storm. This is video games and apps. What stops publishers from simply shrugging, walking away, and letting Apple users miss out?

Because it accounts for a huge portion of the mobile market. This is exactly what antitrust is for. When you have large swaths of a market controlled by so few, you don’t actually get proper free market dynamics. Antitrust cases like this put limits on few large players that abuse their positions and generally promote and incentivize further development in the market.

If Apple was forced to allow 3rd party stores or even forced to allow apps to be transparent to their users about pricing, it would allow room for more consumer choice.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#714

Post by fartcannon » Mon, May 24, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #565

fartcannon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretending to be ignorant of what is obvious to hold onto your power/money is pretty close to evil. If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show us.

> If he believes customers genuinely value his curated app store, let him show us. I think they consider the massive success of the iPhone and App Store proof of that.

And they can continue to think that after they're forced to permit other app stores. It changes nothing, except their bottom line.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#715

Post by josephcsible » Mon, May 24, 2021, 5:26 AM UTC

tmp231 wrote: post #693

josephcsible wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a Camry and then become an Uber driver, should you have to give Toyota a cut of your earnings?

If they tell you going then won’t buy that Camry. Get a Honda.

I don't quite understand your first sentence, but by your second one it sounds like your answer is basically "yes". That seems like a rather extreme position to take. Are you also opposed to the First Sale Doctrine?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#716

Post by anothernewdude » Mon, May 24, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #620

deergomoo wrote: post #56

> Cook used more privacy and safety claims to defend that system, saying it would be both insecure and inconvenient to let apps process payments separately This one is always funny to me, because sellers of physical goods are of course totally exempt from IAP rules, because it would be untenable otherwise. I can type my card number directly into the Amazon app and buy a paperback without any intervention from Apple.…

> And yet it’s apparently insecure for me to buy a Kindle book with the exact same mechanism in the exact same app? Get the fuck out of here. Gonna play the devil's advocate here. If I pay for a physical good, I have an expectation of continued use of that physical good absent of the use the technology medium I used to pay for it. If I buy a physical book and Amazon shut down, I can still read the book. If I pay for…

That's the most irrelevant argument I've ever heard.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#717

Post by patd » Mon, May 24, 2021, 6:31 AM UTC

jorams wrote: post #16

> “IAP helps Apple efficiently collect a commission” — for payment processing, but also customer service and the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Without in-app purchases, “we would have to come up with another system to invoice developers, which I think would be a mess.” If Apple let developers tell users about other payment methods, Cook said later, “we would in essence give up our total return on our IP.” App…

For the customer service part, I suppose that if the user has any issue, they'll likely go to Apple first which can't do anything and make the user experience less ideal. As of today, they can refund the user which keeps them happy.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#718

Post by Lazare » Mon, May 24, 2021, 6:49 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #653

Lazare wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really can't agree more. It's clear that the App Store offers significant value for many vendors, and charging for it is fine . Epic apparently generates $500m of revenue per year from the iPhone, and they're doing so using platforms, tools, and APIs that Apple built to help developers do that. It's reasonable that Apple would get a slice of that. The company I work for makes, well, a lot less revenue that Epic, but…

> Apple's stance here is a little like if AWS tried to force people who use any AWS service to use their overpriced egress bandwidth for everything, and sued customers found to be using Cloudflare to reduce their costs. Is that a good example? I think that's how it works. Egress out to cloudflare is billed at the full rate last I checked. GCP gives you a discount, but not AWS.

I meant using it as a cacheing layer, yes. Perhaps not the best example, but still!

AWS doesn't care if you try and offload some processing to cheap Hetzner servers; Stripe doesn't care if you offer Paypal as a second option. Apple very much cares about anything you do which might reduce the amount of money routed through the app store.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#719

Post by truth_ » Mon, May 24, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #542

tmp231 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what standard you are appealing to? Who cares if Apple only lets whatever they want on their own store? It’s their store. I hope Microsoft or Amazon would get back in the phone game and allow alternate stores.

> It’s their store. But once you buy a phone from them, it's your phone, not theirs. You shouldn't have to use their store exclusively on your phone, but since you do, it should be subject to way stricter rules regarding anticompetitiveness and unfairness than non-exclusive stores that other platforms have.

Moreover, once AWS has sold storage, their duty isn't over. They must provide the compute and traffic. That's why they deserve more rent than Apple.

When someone uses an app downloaded from the App Store, the compute is provided by the device owned and paid for by the user. Apple does not own it or maintain it anymore.

And the compute is either completely provided by the device or is shared by the app vendor.

Apple does not give anything in this scenario. They only take.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#720

Post by reader_mode » Mon, May 24, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

Someone wrote: post #611

reader_mode wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, if someone is able to maintain above market level profits for so long it's usually a sign of monopolistic pricing. That's not necessarily bad, but in Apples case it's just double dipping on their monopolistic position and is clearly a drain on the market with no benefit. They have the same incentives to invest in R&D and support the ecosystem on the insane HW margins alone, I'd be willing to bet their dev budget…

But how do you know 12% is about right, and not 10%, 2%, … Also, Apple will claim they have a better product that warrants higher margins. Data from independent parties shows that they attract more users willing to pay for apps, and developers aren’t leaving en masse for Android.

>Also, Apple will claim they have a better product that warrants higher margins.

And this argument is fine in the hardware market because they have competition, it's efficiency monopoly - that's why I said it's not always bad.

However their app store controlls access to 50% of US market (even more by revenue) simply because it comes as the only option and the consumers can't unbundle it. If they had competition on the platform (different stores/distribution methods) - you wouldn't have to say what % is right, the market would decide the value added by their app store/payment methods.