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

#871

Post by laserlight » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #817

laserlight wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Apple pockets all 30% as profit. Who is to say Apple should or shouldn't profit that much from the App Store? Who decides how much they should profit? I find the discussion around commissions shallow and entitled. We should discuss the fundamentals: market definition, competition, abuse of power, etc. PS: In case I couldn't make it clear, my questions are not directed to parent comment.

> Let's say Apple pockets all 30% as profit. Who is to say Apple should or shouldn't profit that much from the App Store? All of us. The very same society that gave Apple exclusive control over their "intellectual property" in the first place which allows them to pocket that profit without having to compete for it. The same society that pays for enforcing that exclusivity. Corporations like Apple and their business m…

I don't think Apple rests on any intellectual property or exclusivity rights in regard to App Store, but I agree with the general idea that society should be free to exercise its right to change course. Still, I don't think it's right to decide to use this right based on a company's gross margin. The decision should be based on society's fundamental goals.

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

#872

Post by aljungberg » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #825

aljungberg wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly. Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard the…

> Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Can you honestly tell what exactly they voted on? I voted for the good hardware and privacy-aligned actions, which did overcome their closed, proprietary-only software’s problems. By your logic, my vote should count towards the latter as a goal.

I can’t tell what the buyers of Apple products voted for exactly, but neither can you tell me what EU voters voted for when choosing their rep.

I mean here we have a law proposed by an unelected body (the European Commission), now being ratified by the European Parliament. The EP is elected (with ~50% turnout) but decides numerous issues (thousands? Tens of thousands?) in an election cycle. When voters elected their representatives how much thought did they spare to walled garden app stores?

Although both are indirect expressions of opinion, buying an Apple product seems to be a clearer endorsement for their model than voting in EU elections by a long shot.

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

#873

Post by ericmay » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #857

ericmay wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook owns a few properties, including WhatsApp. But I think you are envisioning a high switching cost, whereas I think it would just be a simple download and install of the Meta store. You'll probably purchase products using a Libra derivative too. There wouldn't be very high switching cost for customers, and they'll rapidly click through privacy prompts (if they happen at all) with no Apple ostensibly looking ou…

It’s still having to sign up for another account- probably using Facebook login- but once you have the dang thing you have to manage payment options, privacy settings, email and push notifications, having the damn app store icon sit on your Home Screen, non-zero friction that comes with the current era where consumers already juggle multiple social networks, streaming services, e-commerce memberships, music or gaming…

Ok, so can you remind me what the point is then if users won't use third-party stores since they're inconvenient?

To me it just seems for a way to "get around" Apple's rules which tend to ban crypto scams, porn, and I guess sometimes legit apps. What are we trading and what do we gain?

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

#874

Post by laserlight » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #865

laserlight wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Apple pockets all 30% as profit. Who is to say Apple should or shouldn't profit that much from the App Store? Who decides how much they should profit? I find the discussion around commissions shallow and entitled. We should discuss the fundamentals: market definition, competition, abuse of power, etc. PS: In case I couldn't make it clear, my questions are not directed to parent comment.

Do you remember when Apple was engaged in price rigging for ebooks? https://www.nbcnews.com/businessmain/apple-faces-5-year-ban-... We already have rules about how much control a single company can have over a market and what defines a market. The app store is clearly a market. Apple has an aggressive chokehold on it that artificially inflates prices and prevents competition. As an obvious check - Amazon can't sell m…

> We already have rules about how much control a single company can have over a market and what defines a market.

I don't know of such rules. Can you point me to them?

To the contrary, there's Epic Games v. Apple case in which definition of the market is pretty narrow (digital mobile gaming transactions) compared to what you suggest (App Store in general) [0].

> That is market control and abuse.

In the same case, judge decided that Apple is not a monopoly, saying “Success is not illegal.” [1]

> Apple has an aggressive chokehold on it that artificially inflates prices and prevents competition.

Almost all apps are free. What inflated prices are you talking about?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Decision

[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/23/apple-versus-epic...

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

#875

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

cafed00d wrote: post #861

stale2002 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Institutionalized 3p developers should be treated like adversaries The weird part about your statement here, is that you bring up a statement about 3rd party developers doing bad things, and yet the solutions you gave do nothing except for take extra money from those 3rd parties and gives that money to Apple. If you actually cared about stopping all these bad actions, why didn't you suggest an action that gives App…

As a user, why do I care if apple makes money over 3p devs. They’re all screwing over users in the end anyways. But historical data shows Apple has been enormously better at strong-arming devs into behaving properly. That’s why I can safely assume that $0 needs to paid to that scummy dev making a flashlight app; I mean, I can safely assume there’s no app on the App Store adding noise by advertising $1 or $10 or whate…

> As a user, why do I care if apple makes money over 3p devs.

Well the purpose of anti-trust law, and pro competition laws, is usually to prevent companies from using their market power to artificially give themselves a larger cut of the profits.

That is one of the reasons why these new laws passed.

And all your complaints about security or whatever, ring completely hollow, if you then propose a solution that does nothing to address security, and instead just gives money to Apple.

> they’re all screwing over users in the end anyways.

If you actually cared about this, then you would have proposed a solution that prevents the bad things from happening to users. Instead, you didn't do that. You instead proposed a solution that just gives money to Apple.

> Apple needs to toughen up

The point being, that increasing the amount of money given to apple, does not toughen up the app store. Instead it just gives money to Apple.

If you cared about toughing up on user protections, you could have given a suggestion that actually does that. But you didn't, once again. You instead just thought of a solution that does nothing to protect users, and instead just gives money to Apple.

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

#876

Post by stale2002 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

stevewatson301 wrote: post #779

stale2002 wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. The current app store model requires giving Apple 15-30%. That is part of the reason why there is now a law, in the EU, that will force the app ecosystem open. And people are pretending like they care about things like privacy, and yet the solution that the person I was responding to gave does not solve the privacy issue, and instead just gives Apple money. The point here, is if you actuall…

You're missing the point too. The App store did have some enforcement of privacy and security, which can't exist in a decentralized system that has now been enforced. Sure, app developers would have more freedoms, but we're back to the OP's point - this is not a good thing as they too don't have the user's best interest in mind. Looking at the record of data breaches, I see it's Apple or Google who have held a high s…

> The App store did have some enforcement of privacy and security

Ok, thats fine. And if this is something that you care about, then presumably you should recommend a way to do that, while also making sure that Apple gets a 0% cut, so that one of the purposes of the DMA is also fulfilled.

> but we're back to the OP's point - this is not a good thing

The OP gave no recommendations that actually helped with privacy and security. Instead, they simply thought of a way to give Apple more money.

If you care about security, or whatever, fine. But the original proposed solution that the OP gave, was that Apple should charge more money to 3rd party developers.

Charging more money to 3rd party developers is not a solution that has much to do with anything related to security. Instead it does not help users, and just gives money to Apple.

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

#877

Post by criddell » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #752

criddell wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking forward to the consoles being forced to end some of their anti-consumer policies. It's about time people who buy a Switch or PS5 can use them for more than what Sony and Nintendo say they are allowed to.

Feel free to try and make a law doing that, if you can get support. But this current law is not going to be stopped just because there is some other industry that you claim has problems as well.

This legislation all covers systems with 45 million users. That covers the PS4 and Switch and within a year or two will cover the PS5 (that's assuming a conservative 1 console = 1 user).

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

#878

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #873

Apocryphon wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still having to sign up for another account- probably using Facebook login- but once you have the dang thing you have to manage payment options, privacy settings, email and push notifications, having the damn app store icon sit on your Home Screen, non-zero friction that comes with the current era where consumers already juggle multiple social networks, streaming services, e-commerce memberships, music or gaming…

Ok, so can you remind me what the point is then if users won't use third-party stores since they're inconvenient? To me it just seems for a way to "get around" Apple's rules which tend to ban crypto scams, porn, and I guess sometimes legit apps. What are we trading and what do we gain?

Speaking as someone on this community ostensibly for hackers, it would be nice simply to have an F-Droid for iOS. (Or the late XDA Labs.) It would be neat if Apple allowed such a community of tinkerers, tech-heads, FOSS enthusiasts, and hobbyists their own little platform to curate apps. Just having the option for such a subculture to exist on iOS would be nice, in this present where both web and native feel like big box stores.

For a long time now, the official App Store itself has been overrun not only by scammy apps, see Kosta Eleftheriou's excellent investigatory work into top-selling fraudulent apps, but also by poor discoverability with outdated UX and obtrusive search ads. If the platform was opened, just a little, one could imagine boutique third party specialized app stores hosting curated apps for curated purposes, which would help with app discoverability greatly. (Apple has banned app discovery tools from their App Store, see the 2013 removal of AppGratis.) It would be a little like the return to the web of GeoCities and Angelfire, when websites had more free expression and control, except on native. A legitimized Cydia, perhaps.

It didn't have to be like this, all regulatory pressure and billion dollar fines. Apple could have chosen to open up the App Store on its own terms, issuing a privacy-hardened AppStoreKit that third party app stores would use, providing mandatory security scan APIs a la macOS notarization, going through reliability processes that Apple approves, heading regulators off at the pass. Apple already has authorized third party resellers and service and repair providers, why not app stores? Apple could have allowed the flourishing of an ecosystem where they are still in control, but as delegated as the code in their apps. Instead they tried to do it all themselves, making themselves the singular point of failure.

> what do we gain?

The freedom of possibility.

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

#879

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

cmdli wrote: post #398

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here for iOS users in the US. Add some details and maybe we can compare better.

Here's a detail: iOS stopped apps from tracking you, and it worked so well that Facebook (an ad company) fought it tooth and nail and lost quite a bit of money because of it. Do you have any such details of similar things happening in Android?

It's coming:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/16/google-plans-android-privacy...

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

#880

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #812

gamblor956 wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't need Sony's blessing, unless you want to use Sony's software and marketing IP. Unlike Apple, you can reverse engineer the PS5 hardware if you want, and in fact, that is the whole reason that the console market is structured the way it is. See Sega v. Accolade for more information, but in a nutshell, the console maker can't prevent unlicensed games from running on the hardware. However, they don't have t…

Have you read the PS5 TOS[1]? It's pretty restrictive. You aren't allowed to run any unauthorized software on it nor can you reverse engineer the software. Even if you were to avoid touching the OS, there's still the firmware that's covered by this. What you are claiming can't practically be done and AFAIK, nobody is using the PS5 in this way. I don't think you can say with a straight face that the PS5 is more open t…

Yes, I have.

A TOS governs your use of the PS5 software, not the hardware, and there are a few decades of court cases on these points. Moreover, reverse engineering is a fair use issue that can't be prohibited with a TOS and there is a case exactly on point.