[HN Gopher] Apple, Epic, and the App Store
___________________________________________________________________
Apple, Epic, and the App Store
Author : kaboro
Score : 311 points
Date : 2020-08-17 17:02 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| cromwellian wrote:
| "But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment
| processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in
| comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store
| in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are
| miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER
| YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue.
|
| Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per
| year would cost $2 billion.
|
| Sorry, I'm not buying this excuse. OSX/iOS is free for every
| piece of HW, and it surely has much much larger costs to staff.
|
| A $1250 iPhone had a $450 cost to make, giving Apple a staggering
| 64% gross margin, and $800 gross profit.
|
| The costs to run the Apple store should be _included_ as a sunk
| platform cost of the phone just like OSX. The cost to run the
| store is _marginal_. The cost to serve up an additional developer
| app, to review an additional app, and to let someone buy one, is
| an insignificant fraction.
|
| It should be _free_ like the Web, or some extremely low cost to
| cover CC processing fees (~3%) and electricity to keep the lights
| on.
|
| I'm shocked at the number of apologists who think this 30% cut is
| somehow necessary for poor little Apple, with a hole in the
| pocket, with living on their spare change. It's egregious and
| unnecessary, and exists for one reason only: rent-seeking
| behavior. iPhones are reaching saturation, and Apple can either
| find ways to raise the price of the phone even more, lower the
| costs more, or increase service revenues, in order to keep their
| stock going up.
|
| That's why you see focus on service revenues, because they can't
| really lower costs much to make the devices, and they can't
| really increase the price much more.
| pwthornton wrote:
| It doesn't cost $450 to make an iPhone. That's insane. It may
| cost that in parts, but there are many, many highly paid
| engineers, designers, product managers, etc. who worked on
| those products. Those people's salaries must be accounted for
| somehow.
|
| This is something that a commenter on Hacker News should
| understand!
|
| All of those dumb cost breakdowns for what it "costs" to make
| iPhones or whatever always miss the fact that you actually have
| to design and build the software, hardware, and services that
| makes it all work. Not to mention shipping and other retail
| costs.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The $450 is the marginal cost of an iPhone.
|
| That's typically the normal number cited for the
| "manufacturing cost" of a product, regardless of the level of
| R&D and marketing that goes into it.
| Terretta wrote:
| GP claimed iOS was "free". Can't be both free, and the
| phone only costs its parts.
|
| GP also said to cover cost of app store in the phone,
| despite only costing its parts.
| Spivak wrote:
| I don't really think it's about the number. I try not to think
| about these kinds of things in terms of what different
| companies "deserve." Apple can get away with demanding a 30%
| cut on their platform and they do so without much arm twisting.
| Nobody has to support macOS or iOS, and both developers and
| customers can completely ignore their existence. They'll be
| missing out on a lucrative customer base but that's true of
| realestate in high-traffic areas as well.
|
| Apple being able to pull off such huge margins in markets where
| they have competition on every front I think paints a picture
| of just how ahead they are. The fact that the gap is so big and
| nobody has been able to step up and close it is mind-boggling
| to me. You can only blame so much on slick marketing because
| for 64% gross margins I think other companies would be happy to
| put up the marketing cash.
| ngold wrote:
| A purse is a purse, do you think some purses are so ahead of
| the curve that people pay thousands of dollars for one, or do
| you think they are buying a brand name despite the cost?
| Spivak wrote:
| Like I get what you're saying but there's also lots of
| luxury designer brands. The competition in that space isn't
| about the margin on individual items. Like the market
| thousand high-end bags, shoes, or even art is a whole other
| world. Like do you think a Rembrandt is overpriced because
| paint is only a few cents?
|
| But that's so different from the smartphone space. Like
| iPhones were really a status symbol like a decade ago but
| you can get one now at like every price point and flagship
| androids aren't much cheaper. You have threads full of
| people on HN arguing that Apple is actually the budget pick
| if you can afford to frontload the cost. I'm typing this on
| a used iPhone X that cost less than $400.
|
| Like have we all forgotten when Apple released FaceID and
| then Samsung responded with the lamest front camera picture
| match thing?
| cromwellian wrote:
| Is Nike so far ahead of every other shoe manufacturer? What's
| the margin on a pair of Nikes? How many young kids waste
| family money on a brand who makes the shoes for a fraction in
| Southeast Asia. How about Christian Louboutain?
|
| There's also the sunk cost for many people. If you've bought
| tons of content in the App Store, you'd have to rebuy
| everything if you switched to another ecosystem. For the same
| reason, if you own proprietary camera lens for Camera Body A,
| you are not likely to dump all your photo equipment even if a
| Camera Body B comes out that is cheaper and better.
|
| Path dependency. We learned this lesson once with the Wintel
| duopoly. Then with the Web, from about 1994 to 2007, we had
| broke the shackles. And now, people are happy to enslave
| themselves again, and vigorously defend their servitude.
|
| Apple makes great hardware and software. They don't need
| this.
| misnome wrote:
| I don't understand these arguments either. It's not illegal to
| have high product margins, right? Why can't they charge
| whatever they want? It comes across as pure moral "I don't like
| it" objection, which is fine, but don't use it as a legal
| argument.
| Jommi wrote:
| High product margins are usually signs of monopolistic powers
| used, otherwise profits would slowly move towards cost as
| time goes forward.
|
| This has not been the case with Apple.
| yokto wrote:
| It's about balancing the market. That's why anti-trust
| exists. Would you want an insulin monopoly to be able to have
| 95% margin? Probably not. That's why it's illegal.
|
| _Too_ many usinesses can 't live without access to iPhone
| users.
| kbutler wrote:
| Epi-pen approx 97% $8/injector, so $16/two-pack, selling
| for $700 in 2016
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/01/epipen-outrage-
| silico...
|
| Of course, software sales have much higher margin of
| production cost (every copy but the first is free-to-make).
| [deleted]
| bttrfl wrote:
| Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free
| since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison
| to 400M Epic made in April alone [0].
|
| [0] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-
| shareholders-s...
| [deleted]
| naikrovek wrote:
| You may not know how to follow logic.
|
| No one is saying that Epic are doing bad things in order to
| maintain their monopoly position.
|
| Epic doesn't _have_ a monopoly on any market.
|
| People ARE saying that Apple are doing bad things to maintain
| their monopoly position, and others are justifying that by
| saying that "running a business is expensive" as if that
| justifies a monopoly or monopolistic actions.
| czhiddy wrote:
| If Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store market, then
| it follows that Epic has a monopoly on the Fortnite add-on
| market, right?
| yuvalr1 wrote:
| The difference is that if Fortnite abuses its power, it
| is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. If
| Apple abuses its power, it's practically impossible to
| build another mobile platform to compete today. Even
| Microsoft failed with that.
|
| The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical
| competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or
| lower prices), while the iPhone only has Android as
| competition, which is taking the exact same 30% cut.
| outworlder wrote:
| > it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG
| competitor.
|
| Oh no it isn't. There are very few successful (and even
| fewer wildly successful) MMORPGs and countless failed
| attempts.
|
| Games are not really fungible. It's not like I'm going to
| go out of Fortnite to buy items in WoW instead and treat
| them as the same. They are two completely different
| markets.
|
| > The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical
| competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or
| lower prices)
|
| No, unless things change, you need to use the Epic store.
| sjy wrote:
| No! This is explained right at the beginning of the
| article:
|
| > the question as to what is anticompetitive and what is
| simply good business changes as a business scales. A
| small business can generally be as anticompetitive as it
| wants to be, while a much larger business is much more
| constrained in how anticompetitively it can act
|
| The word "monopolize" is used in a specialised way in
| antitrust; it doesn't encompass every exclusive right of
| sale, because that would disrupt many small businesses
| and law is intended to prevent huge businesses from
| dominating the economy.
| misnome wrote:
| > Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market.
|
| Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite.
|
| The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your
| definition of words to whatever supports your argument,
| then they become meaningless.
| LexGray wrote:
| It would be amusing if the outcome of this is that Epic
| has to allow outside sources of content in their games
| instead of having it in a vBuck walled garden. I'm sure
| many developers would be happy get a part of a billion
| dollar a year market without paying Epic a cut.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Players don't pay $500 just to play fortnite.
| naikrovek wrote:
| > Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite.
|
| No one is MAKING you play Fortnite. 3rd party artists
| can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite,
| neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it.
| There's no 3rd party "market" at all.
|
| Apple _has_ a market where third parties can market their
| apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through
| that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also
| requires that you sell your app and any in-app purchases
| _only_ in their marketplace. That 's the monopolistic
| part.
|
| This situation does not exist for Fortnite on PC,
| Android, or Mac.
|
| This situation does not exist in whatever Fortnite calls
| their in-game store.
| [deleted]
| xuki wrote:
| You can also buy vbucks outside of the App Store and use
| them on your iOS devices. I'm not sure what's the
| distinction here.
| misnome wrote:
| Ah, but that's outside of Fortnite. Inside Fortnite they
| have a monopoly on selling items, right?
| siruncledrew wrote:
| Epic is not putting up some legal crusade for the "little
| guy" competitors. Epic is putting up a fight for Epic.
|
| It all comes down to money.
|
| If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties
| didn't want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give
| those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the
| same as Apple.
|
| Each is trying to grab as much profit as they can while
| running into the issue of other hands grabbing from the
| same basket.
|
| The classic case of one's greed versus another's desire to
| be greedy.
| cromwellian wrote:
| Games have a limited shelf life. I don't really care about
| Epic. Fortnite won't be around much longer when the next big
| game du jour comes out.
|
| Whether or not Epic charges for their store is immaterial to
| whether one of the largest and most important general purpose
| computing platforms in the world is performing highway
| robbery.
| cromwellian wrote:
| Not really sure why people are voting this down. It's self
| evident that Fortnite's "platform" is far more ephemeral
| than iOS. Team Fortress 2 is probably an example of a skins
| market that has been around the longest (since 2007), but
| very few games last this long and run a market that is
| still selling a lot.
| myhf wrote:
| V-bucks should be banned completely, along with all other
| illegal gambling.
| acomjean wrote:
| I don't follow. The game is free, "V-bucks" you buy, I
| think you just get character/weapon skins that aren't
| required. I don't love the setup, but since kids are
| hanging out on fortnite having it free lets everyone who
| wants into that world.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| I think they're referring to swapping in funny money to
| obfuscate customer ability to estimate the costs.
|
| It's similar to how slot machines require tokens, but I
| don't think that's quite gambling. The gambling part
| comes in with loot boxes, where you're essentially paying
| to roll the dice to get something of value.
| atom-morgan wrote:
| Unlike CS:GO, Fortnite skins aren't gambling.
| myhf wrote:
| It takes work to implement an ingame premium currency.
| The only reason to perform that work is because some
| business person thinks they have discovered a new way to
| claim that what they are doing "isn't gambling."
| Jonnax wrote:
| It's a currency. There's no lootboxes. There's premium
| items you buy with that currency.
|
| A microtransaction isn't gambling by default.
| WWLink wrote:
| I agree with the sunk cost - besides, who is the customer and
| who is the product here?
|
| The customer is supposed to be the one who bought the phone and
| is using the OS in their best interest. Right?
|
| This whole thing feels all wrong. Both Apple for "gatekeeping
| OUR customers" and Epic for "Apple's stealing OUR money" (or
| "Apple is making us pay 30% so we're going to charge you 30%
| more")
|
| Besides, it's not as if the Apple App Store is full of quality
| apps. It's full of a lot of garbage. It's so full of garbage
| that I have a hard time finding anything worth buying - because
| almost all of it is ad-laden junk that tries to nickle and dime
| you with in-app purchases. lol.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| >Apple is making us pay 30% so we're going to charge you 30%
| more
|
| You would have to charge $142.86 for something you otherwise
| could sell for $100 if it wasn't for Apple taking a 30 % cut.
| So ~43 % more, not 30 % more. Apple sure is milking iOS users
| for alot of money, without users knowing.
| harryf wrote:
| This is a great picking apart of Apples justification but I
| think the issue that most irks everyone who's not apologizing
| for Apple is where did this magic number 30% come from? Which
| market forces created it?
|
| Here on HN most of us probably feel that product manager at
| Apple licked their finger, felt the wind and said "Yeah 30%
| seems about the most we can get away with"
|
| And what irks even more is once Apple set the precedent, as
| their we're no outcries Google was like "Let's copy that!".
| Let's hope there was no collusion ...
| MobileVet wrote:
| It is interesting that few people are recognizing that the
| 30% buys you distribution on a billion devices.
|
| Yes, I know, the web is free...and the App Store search is
| broken so discovery isn't what it was... but still. Market
| access is VERY significant and worth something and the
| incremental cost to Apple has no bearing on what it is worth.
|
| As discussed, prior mobile cuts were far more one sided. We
| payed the carrier 50% and then Qualcomm 20% of what was left.
| Bottom line, we walked away with 40% and we were happy.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| There is precedent; the rate was actually much higher in
| previous mobile app stores (e.g. Symbian and ring tone
| stores).
|
| Additionally, there is related precedent in areas like
| publishing (ebook stores usually charge 30% or more
| commission).
|
| I don't think 30% is outlandish, though I do think it would
| be nice if Apple reduced that cut, especially if they wanted
| to consider some form of graduated rate.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Don't forget that software publishers were an entire
| industry previously.
| zepto wrote:
| Epic has billions of dollars and a lot of customers. Microsoft
| has billions of dollars.
|
| There are a wide range of other parties that dislike Apple's
| policies.
|
| Why don't they build their own platform with their own exclusive
| and attractive content?
|
| I can see two options:
|
| 1. A full blown phone. Hard to do? Perhaps, but if Apple and a
| Google really aren't competitive, then it should be possible to
| take customers away from Apple over the next few years,
| especially if your device has the games that teens want and can't
| get from Apple.
|
| 2. Don't start when a phone. Make a gaming handheld with
| exclusive content - Epic's super popular titles, plus XBox
| streaming. Sell it for $200. Basically an iPod for games, done
| right. If Nintendo can sell handheld consoles it's obvious Epic
| and Microsoft can.
|
| Then just build this out with phone functions, and a great
| browser for SPA's etc, leveraging flutter, and eat Apple's lunch
| from the bottom up in classic low-end disruption style.
|
| Bonus: have an open bootloader - bootcamp style so that
| enthusiasts can hack the thing.
|
| #2 seems like they could have a product on the market next year
| if they wanted.
|
| I could see this strategy easily forking the market into iPhones
| for productivity and Epic devices for fun, and causing both
| segments to improve at a greater pace.
|
| Apple simply isn't unassailable if people are willing to put in
| the sustained effort needed to compete with them, but to do so
| will take a similar sustained effort over a similar time period
| to what it took them to obtain their position.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Why don't they build their own platform with their own
| exclusive and attractive content?
|
| They don't want to spend their cash to do the R&D, and build up
| the network of stores and customer support required to be able
| to compete with Apple.
| hesarenu wrote:
| A Nintendo like gaming device with decent phone can be a viable
| alternative. Gaming i think generates a huge revenue for both
| iOS and Play Store. Those powerful cpu/gpu are simply getting
| wasted with current mobile games.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Its interesting if Epic's and Xbox's long term plan should be to
| enable cloud gaming support via the browser. Basically the Google
| Stadia approach (cloud based rendering and only
| controls/decompression of the rendering down on the device).
|
| Basically figure out how to make mobile gaming available via
| Mobile Safari, Mobile Edge or Mobile Chrome browsers.
| enra wrote:
| While I don't like Apple's 30% cut on multiplatform/subscription
| products, I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own
| App Store, build a bigger moat and get the profits themselves
| (they take 12% cut, 5% if you use Unreal Engine, from developers
| in their store). They also make exclusive deals, bribing
| developers with funding/marketing support, so that the games can
| only bought in their store for 6-12mo. Clearly they are not
| welcoming to competition themselves.
|
| Buying games on PC now means that you have to install 5 different
| app stores which are usually slow, buggy and not that well
| written cross-platform code (pretty much like Fortnite itself).
|
| Tencent is also 40% shareholder in Epic, and there has been
| criticism on Epic sending user data back to China.
|
| > In early December 2018, Epic Games announced that it would open
| a digital storefront to challenge Steam by using a 12% revenue
| split rather than Steam's 30%.[20] Epic also said that it would
| not impose digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on games
| sold through its platform.[20] The store opened days later, on
| December 6, 2018, as part of the Game Awards, with a handful of
| games and a short list of upcoming titles.[21][22] The store was
| open for macOS and Windows platforms before expanding to Android
| and other platforms.[20] Epic aims to release a storefront for
| Android devices, bypassing the Google Play Store, where it will
| similarly only take a 12% cut compared to Google's 30%. While
| Apple, Inc.'s monopoly on iOS currently makes it impossible for
| Epic to release an App Store there, analysts believe that if
| Google reacts to Epic's App Store by reducing their cut, Apple
| will be pressured to follow suit.
| username3 wrote:
| Apple doesn't always get 30%. Retailers take a cut when they
| sell iTunes gift cards. 15% discounts are common.
|
| Epic should sell App Store gift cards.
| danShumway wrote:
| I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here.
|
| > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App
| Store
|
| Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want
| multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position
| had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough.
|
| For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS.
|
| > build a bigger moat and get the profits themselves
|
| You're worried that Epic's store is going to eventually overrun
| Apple's and then Epic will somehow prevent other stores from
| being installed on iOS devices? You're worried that we'll get a
| _bigger_ moat than literally not being able to run any code on
| the device that doesn 't pass through Apple's review process?
|
| What on earth would that theoretical bigger moat even look
| like?
|
| > and get the profits themselves (12% cut, 5% if you use Unreal
| Engine)
|
| I want to follow up on this in the context of your worry about
| moats. We live in a world where Apple has complete control over
| the app ecosystem, and you're frightened that another company
| might get control and... offer better terms than we have right
| now?
|
| What specifically is the horror scenario that you're frightened
| of?
|
| > They also make exclusive deals, where the games can only
| bought in their store for 6-12mo.
|
| I can only imagine how upset you're going to be when you learn
| about how Apple Arcade works.
|
| > Tencent is also 40% shareholder in Epic
|
| Apple _actively_ censors thousands of apps in China from the
| app store right now. You are worried about accidentally funding
| censorship through indirect means, and your response to that is
| to directly take the side of one of the censors.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >you're frightened that another company might get control
| and... offer better terms than we have right now?
|
| While some people here might fall for this simple propaganda,
| I doubt the courts will.
|
| It is totally expected of Epic that they will at the same
| time make the claim about "freedom" and "choice" while
| signing exclusive deals so that customers are required to
| install the Epic store if they wish to play certain games.
|
| If the real issue is _my_ freedom, then let me play Fortnite
| on the App store thanks. But it 's not about _my_ freedom. It
| 's about your $$$.
|
| You're certainly free to do so, and free to say whatever
| bullshit you think will help you, but you're not going to get
| a free pass from everybody here.
|
| >What specifically is the horror scenario that you're
| frightened of?
|
| Really? What sort of horror scenarios have happened with game
| installers on PCs and Android? Root kits. Spyware. Password
| capture. Camera activation.
|
| And you know this, so all you are doing is letting us know
| that you think we are stupid.
| danShumway wrote:
| > while signing exclusive deals so that customers are
| required to install the Epic store if they wish to play
| certain games.
|
| A surprising number of people on Hackernews don't
| understand how Apple Arcade works.
|
| This isn't just specific to the mobile market. As an Open
| advocate and critic of DRM, it's been frustrating to watch
| gamers suddenly get very concerned about store choice and
| exclusives over the past few years, after over a decade of
| watching them dismiss the same arguments against Steam.
|
| I'm not going to read too far into that inconsistency,
| because I feel like doing so would skirt HN policies. But I
| will say that if you're worried about exclusives, giving
| more platform control to users and developers _weakens_
| exclusives, it doesn 't strengthen them.
|
| > then let me play Fortnite on the App store thanks
|
| Epic didn't take Fortnite off of the App store. If it's
| about your freedom, then talk to the people who did take it
| off.
|
| > What sort of horror scenarios have happened with game
| installers on PCs and Android? Root kits. Spyware. Password
| capture. Camera activation.
|
| If you're going to try and argue to me that the games PC
| market would be _better_ if we had fewer stores, then I
| need to see some seriously better arguments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24153897
|
| I do not believe reality in any way backs up the argument
| that giving users control over what code runs on their
| devices has hurt the games market or made it worse for
| consumers -- even with the increased risk of bad actors.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > Epic didn't take Fortnite off of the App store. If it's
| about your freedom, then talk to the people who did take
| it off.
|
| This isn't a good argument. Epic did something with the
| _intention_ of getting removed from the store. Sure,
| Apple was the one who removed them, but Epic violates
| Apple's TOS.
| Spivak wrote:
| > If you're going to try and argue to me that the games
| PC market would be better if we had fewer stores.
|
| If you hang around gaming forums you'll see this echoed
| plenty. If I could buy every single game ever through
| Steam I would without hesitation. I don't want Origin or
| the Epic store but I don't get the choice.
|
| I mean this isn't a super uncommon sentiment. Everyone
| has a preference but not everyone agrees. But regardless
| fragmentation hurts everyone.
|
| I would be totally fine with multiple stores on iOS
| devices on the condition that every app is available on
| every store for the same price-ish (like you can't snub a
| store by making it 1000x because that effectively takes
| away choice).
| danShumway wrote:
| > If I could buy every single game ever through Steam I
| would without hesitation. I don't want Origin or the Epic
| store but I don't get the choice.
|
| I know that some gamers feel this way, but I
| wholeheartedly disagree. Epic's entry into the market has
| been good for the PC games industry[0]. We have more
| games now from more developers covering more diverse
| genres. We've even managed to pull a few exclusives off
| of consoles and back onto PC.
|
| As to your choice, I bring this up in another comment[1],
| but people should focus less on the percentage of the
| market they have access to, and more on the overall size
| of the market itself.
|
| You _do_ have a choice, you could buy all of your games
| through Steam and ignore the games on every other store.
| The only difference is that now you know what you 're
| missing. Before, you couldn't see the games that weren't
| being made or ported.
|
| Yes, it stinks to have some games exclusive to one
| storefront. I understand that, as someone who refuses to
| install DRM on my computers, I have been struggling to
| deal with Steam-exclusive games for a long time. I know
| the pain.
|
| But having a diverse market of storefronts means that
| there are a ton of new games that exist that wouldn't
| otherwise exist. And even if you only get access to
| _some_ of those games, that 's still better than having
| none of them.
|
| Now, if you want to talk about ending exclusives
| entirely, I'm game to have that conversation. But a
| diverse market is a prerequisite for a federated market.
| How do you feel today about the Android games that don't
| come to iOS specifically because of Apple's terms? How do
| you feel about the exclusives Apple is signing for the
| Apple Arcade right now? Having one storefront doesn't get
| rid of exclusives; it just means you've traded an
| exclusive storefront problem for an exclusive market
| problem.
|
| [0]: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3487735/a-year-in-
| the-epic-g...
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24192204
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >Epic didn't take Fortnite off of the App store. If it's
| about your freedom, then talk to the people who did take
| it off.
|
| Lol. Ok. Thanks for sharing your opinion of us, once
| again.
| enra wrote:
| I think Apple clearly has their moat, but it's not the App
| Store. The whole stack, from hardware and OS, is their moat
| and one that makes them unique. Maybe I'm a fan, but the moat
| actually makes the user experience better. Epic's Store moat
| likely won't make anything better for anyone, expect for
| Epic.
|
| I personally don't enjoy the experience of managing my PC
| games in 5 different libraries which all log out almost every
| day, need to be updated every week, push ads, newsletters,
| free stuff, crashes etc. So I'm not worried how Epic store
| would somehow overrun App Store, I'm worried how it would
| degrade the user experience. If people want to side load
| apps, they can use Android. But even on Android, most people
| are happy using the Google Play. As a consumer there isn't
| much benefit for multiple app stores, since every app store
| will be essentially exclusive to another, so don't really
| have more choice, just more app stores to manage and get the
| apps from.
|
| My point was that Epic tries to make this some kind of
| crusade of freedom and developer rights, while their clear
| intention is actually get in to kingmaker position themselves
| that they can strong arm developers and competition to play
| by their rules (which they're already trying to do on the PC
| market). This fight is different from Hey's fight, who just
| wanted to have their app in the store and criticized the
| rules and way Apple manages the store. So I have very little
| sympathy for Epic in this and I hope the fail.
| danShumway wrote:
| > I personally don't enjoy the experience of managing my PC
| games in 5 different libraries which all log out almost
| every day, need to be updated every week, push ads,
| newsletters, free stuff, crashes etc.
|
| But, do you enjoy having 5 times as many games? Do you
| enjoy having a ton of games from GoG updated and running on
| modern Windows? Do you enjoy having DRM-free options for
| many indie titles? Do you enjoy that it's at least
| _possible_ now to buy some console-exclusive games like
| Journey for the PC?
|
| People get really bent out of shape about the idea that
| sticking to one storefront means they might need to skip
| games. But getting rid of the storefronts doesn't mean
| you'll get all of the games. It means those games that were
| made possible because of the other storefronts won't exist.
|
| You are already skipping games on iOS, because those games
| aren't being made.
|
| > Epic tries to make this some kind of crusade of freedom
| and developer rights, while their clear intention is
| actually get in to kingmaker position
|
| Correct, and my point was that these are not exclusive
| goals. Allowing multiple stores to fight over users is
| _explicitly the outcome that we want._
|
| It's not a surprise to anyone advocating for developer
| rights that Epic wants to make a store and compete with
| Apple, because that is what we want them to do. None of us
| care about whether or not Epic is going to make any money
| in the process.
|
| > which they're already trying to do on the PC market
|
| I know that gamers hate Epic right now, but understand that
| when you look at the overall market and you talk to the
| developers themselves, Epic has been unambiguously good for
| the PC games market.
|
| You want to talk about kingmakers -- it is good that the
| entire success or failure of a PC game doesn't need to rely
| on Steam's decisions. It is good that Steam is being forced
| to negotiate better terms for developers right now. It is
| good that Epic is funding indie games that otherwise would
| not have been made.
|
| I don't like the exclusives either, neither as a developer
| nor as a gamer. But the exclusives are nothing compared to
| the amount of good Epic is doing right now for the PC
| game's market. If you're an indie developer and suddenly
| you can _halve_ the cut that storefronts are taking from
| you? That 's huge.
|
| But, to circle back around to my main point:
|
| > So I have very little sympathy for Epic
|
| You don't need to have sympathy, you need to have self-
| preservation instincts. You don't get the luxury of
| choosing who the champion is to take on Apple, nobody who
| fits your moral criteria is powerful enough to do the work.
| mstolpm wrote:
| > For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on
| iOS.
|
| Who is ,,we"? I know a lot of users that don't want or don't
| feel a need for other app stores. Of course, most developers
| would be glad to get alternatives or make more money.
|
| > You're worried that Epic's store is going to eventually
| overrun Apple's and then Epic will somehow prevent other
| stores from being installed on iOS devices?
|
| Not the original poster, but I would be worried that
| alternate app stores would as well lead to even more apps not
| honoring the user rights, spying on Location all the time,
| selling and monetizing user data and pushing even more IAP
| crap. Epic isn't really known as the Robin Hood of user
| rights and promptly, Spotify and Facebook, two other big
| players with black spots on their vests, called for the same.
| I have a hard time believing that everything Epic wants is
| just beneficial for the users.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We
| want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this
| position had been really clear, maybe we haven't been clear
| enough though.
|
| Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't
| want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You
| want another option of App Stores because you want don't want
| to pay for the user base that Apple created and maintains.
| You want to embed permanent location tracking in your apps,
| abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy practices
| out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition scorecard"
| for your app.
|
| That's not what I want on my iPhone. If your app doesn't
| conform to the App Store, then that's your problem, not mine.
| I'll vote with my dollars here. I want the iPhone just the
| way it is, even if that means fewer apps from bad actors.
|
| > We live in a world where Apple has complete control over
| the app ecosystem, and you're frightened that another company
| might get control and... offer better terms than we have
| right now?
|
| Yes that's exactly what I want. I want Apple to have complete
| control over the ecosystem. They've earned my complete trust.
| emsy wrote:
| You're certainly not speaking for me and the many many devs
| that were harmed by Apple's arbitrary application of rules.
| I also want so see people get wild and creative with apps.
| This doesn't happen if you're pre-censoring because you're
| unsure if Apple would allow the app.
| danShumway wrote:
| To be charitable:
|
| If the only people arguing about this lawsuit fell into
| either my camp or yours (ericmay's), I'd be a lot less
| irritated about this whole debate.
|
| I fundamentally disagree with you, but at least your
| arguments are relatively internally consistent. At least I
| understand where you're coming from.
|
| Give me a hundred people saying, "I like Apple being a
| dictator", just get rid of all the awful arguments about
| how, "there is no right side, and both of them are in the
| wrong."
|
| I couldn't care less whether or not people _like_ Epic in
| particular. If you spend all of your time getting picky
| about who can and can 't advocate for you, then eventually
| people will stop advocating for you altogether.
| archagon wrote:
| For someone who has a massive Steam library, why wouldn't
| they want their Steam games to be available on iOS as well?
| (For those games that have ports.) I think there's a huge
| number of people in this boat.
| dwild wrote:
| And how does having multiple app store would stop anything
| that you want? It wouldn't stop the Apple app store from
| existing with theses restrictions, they would still be
| there. You would still have access to the apps that Apple
| consider fine for their stores, without installing another
| app store. Win-win for everyone.
|
| > You want to embed permanent location tracking in your
| apps, abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy
| practices out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition
| scorecard" for your app.
|
| How about stopping theses practice on the OS side of the
| device? Apple already do that there... I agree completely
| that it's crazy when an OS allow stuff that we don't want
| to allow, it's not curation that solve this, it's actually
| a secure system that does.
| Slartie wrote:
| > Right, and the rest of us don't want that
|
| Please stop speaking for others. I would certainly like to
| have the ability to install other sources for apps. Since I
| am part of "the rest of us", for any kind of "us" that came
| to my mind while reading your posting ("iPhone users" or
| "Apple customers" or "HN readers"), your statement is
| patently false.
|
| > That's not what I want on my iPhone.
|
| Then don't install additional stores. I also don't want
| most of the apps currently available in Apple's app store
| on my iPhone, but I'm far from demanding that they are to
| be banned and other people who want to use them should be
| prevented from doing so.
|
| Also it's too sad you conspicuously skipped over
| danShumways question regarding the "bigger moat" - because
| I indeed would be interested in what moat you are imagining
| there, too.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Please stop speaking for others.
|
| Same to you and the GP here. And last I checked there
| aren't a lot of customers really complaining about the
| App Store. It's just big companies who, although they
| could have done this years ago, are now going against
| Apple's customer protection because it degrades their
| crappy business practices.
|
| > Then don't install additional stores
|
| Then buy a different phone?
|
| I want any app that doesn't follow Apple's guidelines to
| be completely banned. Goodbye Epic. Nice knowing you.
| Don't care. I don't want apps spying on me, engaging in
| shitty business practices, scamming customers, and doing
| bad things. Apple is working to protect my privacy and
| safety. They're not perfect, but that's why I buy an
| iPhone and I want it to stay that way. If I wanted
| another App Store I'd buy a different phone, like you
| should.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| A world where you have to buy a different phone just to
| use a different app store sounds pretty terrible.
|
| It would be like having to buy a different laptop to use
| Amazon or Ebay.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Are you incapable of self control to the point of not
| being able to stop yourself from using a different app
| store? Or is it that you know Apple's cut is onerous
| enough that given competition, most the apps would leave?
| It feels like you want other users to suffer on the basis
| that your values happen to align with Apple's avenue for
| generating profit. If Apple were in it for your privacy
| and safety they could drop their cut substantially and
| kneecap most of the controversy.
| rndgermandude wrote:
| >Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also
| don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's
| rules.
|
| Then don't install them? But I fail to see why you (or
| Apple) should be in a position to tell other users what
| they can install or not.
|
| >You want another option of App Stores because you want
| don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and
| maintains.
|
| lolwat Honestly, I don't even know what this is supposed to
| mean.
|
| >You want to embed permanent location tracking in your
| apps, abuse user data, and not have to have your crappy
| practices out in the open when Apple shows the "nutrition
| scorecard" for your app.
|
| This is a typical "think of the children" argument once
| more. Nobody forces you to install that tracking shit.
| You're free to not use apps that do that - e.g. get your
| apps from the Apple App Store, or make your own app if
| there is no such tracking free alternative. But those Apple
| App Store approved apps you seem to be so fond of... they
| do track you already ;)
|
| >That's not what I want on my iPhone.
|
| Then don't put use it on your iPhone.
|
| >Yes that's exactly what I want. I want Apple to have
| complete control over the ecosystem. They've earned my
| complete trust.
|
| Good for you. Nobody is stopping you from exercising your
| trust and only use Apple and/or Apple-approved software in
| the future.
| LexGray wrote:
| I think a good option here would be for Apple to sell
| jailbroken developer phones for say an additional 30% cut
| up front and a nice DEV brand on the back for bragging
| rights. The additional fee hurdle would discourage those
| who just want a cheap way to get paid software and
| whatever additional expenses from helping with malware.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| > But I fail to see why you (or Apple) should be in a
| position to tell other users what they can install or
| not.
|
| Because it's their platform, they created it, they grew
| it, they paid for its development out of their pocket,
| and they offered it as a unique market proposition that
| satisfies millions of users around the world. Apple
| doesn't force anyone into their platform, everyone
| involved are there voluntarily and solely because they
| know that it's beneficial for them to be on the platform.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't own an iPhone in large part because I cannot
| install an alternative app store or install non-Apple
| approved apps.
|
| > _Right, and the rest of us don 't want that, and I also
| don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's
| rules._
|
| Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party
| app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store
| will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want
| that curation, you still get it.
|
| > _They 've earned my complete trust._
|
| This blind devotion to the Apple Way is baffling,
| especially considering how Apple-approved apps are not free
| of the tracking and user-data abuse you (correctly!) rail
| against.
| rched wrote:
| > If you don't want to install a third-party app store,
| then don't
|
| I've been seeing this argument a lot and it makes the
| assumption that allowing alternative app stores has no
| impact on people who choose not to use them. I don't
| think this is true.
|
| An app developer may decide to only list their app on an
| alternative store because they pay lower fees and they
| can handle payments themselves. As a user you now need to
| choose between not using the app or giving your credit
| card information to the app developer you may not trust.
|
| If you get value out of the current App Store rules, like
| the person you replied to, then there is absolutely a
| cost to allowing alternative stores.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _An app developer may decide to only list their app on
| an alternative store because they pay lower fees and they
| can handle payments themselves._
|
| This is literally the point of allowing healthy
| competition. If Apple wants these games on their app
| store, they should offer terms that are competitive with
| the hypothetical third-party app stores.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > An app developer may decide to only list their app on
| an alternative store because they pay lower fees and they
| can handle payments themselves. As a user you now need to
| choose between not using the app or giving your credit
| card information to the app developer you may not trust.
|
| But then this is competitive pressure for Apple to charge
| lower fees and allow apps to handle payments themselves,
| at which point the app would be back in Apple's store
| because the customer prefers to buy it from there.
| Everyone benefits (except Apple).
|
| Meanwhile if you don't want to give the app your credit
| card number, you still don't have to. Refuse until they
| use Apple's payment method. If most users share your
| unwillingness then developers will still have to use a
| payment method you do trust. If they don't, what right do
| you have to constrain the choices of the other users?
| ghostwriter wrote:
| > But then this is competitive pressure for Apple to
| charge lower fees and allow apps to handle payments
| themselves, at which point the app would be back in
| Apple's store because the customer prefers to buy it from
| there. Everyone benefits (except Apple).
|
| No it isn't. The next moment Apple significantly lowers
| its comission, the same people will start whining about
| Apple "dumping the market" "to sink its competitors", and
| that it should be prosecuted under the same flawed anti-
| trust legislation. Been there, seen that: if your rates
| are too high you are a monopolist; if your rates are low
| you are dumping; and if your rates are the same as of
| your competitors then there's a "collusion".
| enragedcacti wrote:
| This view is equally flawed in my opinion. How many apps
| do you not have access to because their business model
| doesn't align with giving 30% of the revenue away, or is
| entirely banned a la XCloud?
| 8note wrote:
| You already have that problem: some apps only support
| android and some only support iOS.
|
| You need to choose between not using the app, or buying a
| new phone and giving a developer you may not trust your
| credit card information
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-
| party app store, then don't. The games available on
| Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules,
| and if you want that curation, you still get it.
|
| Apple users care because if non-App Store distribution
| methods are banned, then developers are forced to go
| through Apple's process to get access to them. You can
| see complaints around this thread about how bad Epic's
| store on PC is. On iOS, they're forced to use Apple's
| purchase UI, subscription rules, privacy rules, etc.
| kelnos wrote:
| If Apple doesn't want competition, maybe they should
| address the reasons why people _want_ that competition.
| If the App Store 's terms and review policies were
| attractive to these kinds of developers, they wouldn't
| push so hard to have their own store.
|
| And if the only policies that these developers had to
| legitimately complain about were the ones that protect
| users, they'd be laughed out of town. But that doesn't
| seem to be the case.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| If it provides that much consumer value then people
| shouldn't be worried about a little bit of competition.
| This feels more to me like a certain subset of users
| siding with Apple because their values happen to align
| with Apple's avenue for generating profit from the App
| Store.
|
| If Apple's goal was protecting their consumers, they
| could easily roll back the contested parts of their
| policy while protecting consumers AND still make a
| profit.
| immigrantsheep wrote:
| Instagram and TikTok have been found guilty on collecting
| an absurd amount of data against user's wishes. How did
| Apple's policy prevent that? Also I don't see Apple banning
| TikTok or Instagram.
| MR4D wrote:
| Let's go with this for a start:
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/07/30/facebook-says-
| app...
|
| Also, notice that FB has done everything possible to
| gather information. Frankly, the NSA should just hire FB
| to do their work - it'b be faster and cheaper.
|
| Locking stuff down is hard. Doing it with multiple app
| stores will be impossible.
| sprafa wrote:
| Isn't PRISM basically using FB to do NSA work for them
| anyhow?
| MR4D wrote:
| Probably. Which was kinda my point - monitoring these
| rule breakers is hard.
| martin8412 wrote:
| I can only say I agree. I don't want more actors in the
| appstore market. I prefer quality over quantity.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| ...just don't use other app stores?
|
| Honest question, what do you lose by other people having
| the option?
| [deleted]
| y7 wrote:
| Because it leads to fragmentation.
|
| If developers have a choice of app stores, then users
| have to install ALL app stores if they want access to the
| entire market. This happened with streaming services as
| well: when Netflix was the only prominent one, only that
| subscription was enough. Now you also need Amazon, Hulu,
| etc.
| tveita wrote:
| Apple could easily offer good enough terms on their app
| store that app developers would use them by free choice.
|
| Then you could personally keep using a single app store
| and enjoy the non-monopolistic prices.
| Spivak wrote:
| That would never happen because there will always be a
| market for other gatekeepers who want to try and build
| their own lock-in even if Apple charged nothing.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| If enough users agree with the parent comment that the
| app store is the best way get software then companies can
| weigh that user base against the 30% cut. Why should we
| force the users who don't like the App Store (or want
| apps that are incompatible with Apple's business model)
| to suffer on behalf of the users who don't?
| ghostwriter wrote:
| Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Apple
| ecosystem. People want to get onto App Store because they
| know they can benefit from it, financially big. And they
| subscribe voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by
| trading their money in exchange for the service under the
| rules that are mentioned prior the transaction takes
| place.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| By omitting details and framing each transaction as an
| isolated incident, you can make almost any monopoly or
| anti-consumer practice sound like just another business.
|
| Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Carnegie
| Steel. People want to use their steel because they know
| they can benefit from it, financially big. And they
| purchase it voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by
| trading their money in exchange for the steel under the
| rules that are mentioned prior the transaction takes
| place.
| danShumway wrote:
| > then users have to install ALL app stores if they want
| access to the entire market
|
| You didn't have access to the entire market when Netflix
| was the only store. You had access to Netflix's market,
| and all of the other shows that are currently being
| funded by competitors didn't exist.
|
| You could still use only Netflix today if you wanted to.
| The only difference is that now you are aware of what you
| are missing.
|
| How many developers have consciously chosen to abandon
| the entire mobile market because of how toxic it is,
| because of how tailored the market is to a very specific
| sub-genre of mass-market apps and games? How many
| developers have abandoned iOS because their games touched
| on political or serious topics that Apple decided weren't
| suitable for their store? Many of us are not interested
| in creating the types of apps that thrive on the current
| mobile app stores, so we've abandoned the mobile market
| entirely.
|
| When you can only see a tiny part of the world, you think
| that you have access to all of it. Once the walls get
| taken down and you realize how big the world is, then you
| realize how much of it you didn't have.
|
| I completely sympathize with the frustration of not being
| able to get access to some of this stuff. I won't sign up
| for Netflix because of their DRM and anti-consumer
| practices. There are some shows I _can 't_ watch because
| of that. Trust me, I get the pain.
|
| But having only one streaming platform forever would have
| been worse. So much of the original content that's coming
| out on Netflix only exists because Netflix had to
| compete. There are really good shows that are
| HBO/Hulu/Disney+ originals. I want that media to exist,
| even if I can't personally get at it right now.
| strictnein wrote:
| No corporation should ever have your "complete trust",
| because they do not value you above themselves.
| earhart wrote:
| The problem is not that Epic would be able to prevent other
| stores from being installed.
|
| The problem is that if there are multiple app stores, it
| encourages a race-to-the-bottom for the app stores -- why go
| through Apple's store with all its vetting if you can release
| to the Epic store instead?
|
| So, yes, the worry is exactly that another company might
| offer better terms to developers -- because sometimes, those
| terms don't matter to users (e.g. the cut between the app
| store and the developer), but other times, those terms are
| absolutely at a cost to the users.
|
| If Epic has a way of offering multiple stores, while
| preventing that race-to-the-bottom from impacting the user
| experience, it'd be wonderful. But that doesn't seem to be
| what Epic is pushing for; Epic seems to be pushing for their
| own profit at a cost to Apple (which is fine, IMHO -- it's
| just business) and to the iOS ecosystem (which is much less
| fine, IMHO).
| MR4D wrote:
| > We want multiple stores on iOS.
|
| No no no no no no!!!!!!
|
| It's this type of thinking that has caused me to have more
| freaking messaging and video apps on my phone so I can talk
| to everyone: Zoom, Skype, Meet, Meetings, Facetime,
| Messenger, Chime,...etc, etc. etc.
|
| NO. I ABSOLUTELY do not want that. Freaking nightmare.
|
| When that happens I ditch my iPhone and buy a flip phone.
|
| Seriously - stop the insanity. There is no "choice" when we
| need to have every alternative installed in order to do the
| things we need to do. That's not choice - it's insanity.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > NO. I ABSOLUTELY do not want that. Freaking nightmare.
|
| That's a bit extreme. It's less of a nightmare, and more of
| an annoyance, that is paid in exchange for competition and
| innovation.
| MR4D wrote:
| So, do you have a wallet with a dozen store credit cards
| or a wallet with a visa and/or MasterCard.
|
| Imagine the former. No thanks.
| izacus wrote:
| Are you also living in a crippling fear because you have
| the ability to buy things in multiple stores in your city?
| Is that a nightmare as well?
| MR4D wrote:
| Ha! That was pretty funny. :)
|
| But actually, there is a big difference - I can buy jeans
| anywhere. I can buy Levi jeans anywhere.
|
| If I had to go to Macy's so that I could get a shirt
| (with no alternative), and then had to go to Nordstrom to
| get socks (with no alternative), and then..... then yeah,
| that would be crippling.
|
| There is a reason amazon and Walmart are so powerful -
| you can get anything in one stop.
|
| Bundling is important. It's why people buy Comcast
| xfinity cable + internet or have all their family on one
| cell phone plan - it's reduces effort, stress, and
| cognitive load.
|
| Apple vs Android is good choice. Having to go to ten app
| stores to get my apps is not - it's just a pain in the
| butt masquerading as "choice".
| cycloptic wrote:
| >it's just a pain in the butt masquerading as "choice".
|
| It's not when they actually have to compete on price.
| Then you pick the one which offers you the lowest price
| for what you're looking for.
| MR4D wrote:
| So when a friend of yours wants to message you and you
| don't have the same app, what happens?
|
| Both apps are free. Now you have to download another App
| Store to download the messaging app.
|
| Price has no bearing here whatsoever.
| cycloptic wrote:
| >So when a friend of yours wants to message you and you
| don't have the same app, what happens?
|
| I tell the friend to call, text or email me. Price
| doesn't have any bearing because the market on messaging
| apps has bottomed out, in part due to Apple's app store
| policies.
| ghostwriter wrote:
| We want a few more families to move into your house. We don't
| like the fact that you have a complete control over your
| home, and I think you're just frightened that other families
| could run your house better than you. And by the way, you've
| never invited us for a party, so it is extremely rude and
| unfair, and just shows your monopolistic stance, so we expect
| that other families will open the doors for anyone who needs
| a full access to your fridge and amenities. But don't be
| afraid, it's for the benefit of your neighbours that we all
| care about, and eventually you will get used to it too.
| danShumway wrote:
| And if there were only two livable houses in the entire
| world, then that would be a completely reasonable position
| for someone to take.
|
| Apple is one half of a duopoly. People keep on bringing up
| these 'gotcha' arguments about, "how would you feel if
| Walmart was forced to stock everybody's stuff?" And that
| ignores the fact that it would be a serious problem if
| there were only two supermarkets that I could buy from. I
| would feel exactly the same way if one to two companies had
| the kind of stranglehold over physical supermarket goods as
| Apple has over the mobile app ecosystem.
|
| A physical duopoly of that scale would very clearly call
| for either breaking up the owners or regulating them to
| ensure that everyone had equal access to the market.
| Scenarios like that are why we have antitrust in the first
| place, particularly around the kind of vertical integration
| that Apple advocates hold in such high regard.
|
| I don't think the people who put forward these arguments
| have really thought them through. A duopoly is different
| from a house.
|
| If we could travel back 35-40 years through history, I have
| no doubt there'd be no shortage of people arguing that
| Bell's vertical integration of the Internet was the very
| reason why their service was so good, and that allowing
| people to hook their own 'unapproved' answering machines to
| their phone lines would just ruin the entire network, and
| that allowing one company to own all of the railroads would
| just mean that shipping became that much simpler and
| reliable for consumers.
|
| So be careful about making analogies to the physical world
| when you're supporting Apple, because people might just
| take them at face value.
| mdoms wrote:
| > While I don't like Apple's 30% cut on
| multiplatform/subscription products, I think Epic's real
| motivation here is to run their own App Store, build a bigger
| moat and get the profits themselves (they take 12% cut, 5% if
| you use Unreal Engine, from developers in their store). They
| also make exclusive deals, bribing developers with
| funding/marketing support, so that the games can only bought in
| their store for 6-12mo.
|
| Sounds great to me. Truly. Who loses here, other than Apple,
| one of the biggest, wealthiest companies on the planet?
|
| > Buying games on PC now means that you have to install 5
| different app stores which are usually slow, buggy and not that
| well written cross-platform code (pretty much like Fortnite
| itself).
|
| It sucks that there's so much slow buggy software (with Steam
| being, by far, the biggest offender), isn't it great that we
| have such a thriving competitive market on PC? I think it's
| awesome. I think the PC gaming market has never been better.
| kartayyar wrote:
| I don't get the whole objection to mutiple app stores.
|
| Instead of clicking icon A, I click icon B and if I get a
| cheaper game, all power to Epic.
|
| I don't spend time in an app store. I spend time playing the
| game.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| So I recently built a living room gaming PC. Installed Steam,
| Epic Store, GOG, Origin, XBOX, Rockstar Social Club, even
| Twitch. Pretty much anything where I have a library of games.
| And let me tell you, what a pain in the ass it is!
|
| I keep all the games organized in Playnite. If I try to
| launch Epic games from Playnite, most of the time nothing
| happens. So I start the epic client and... oh look, it logged
| me out again. So now to play Maneater or whatever I have to
| log into my password manager with its complicated passphrase
| from a tiny HTPC keyboard, grab the password, paste it into
| Epic, wait for Epic to update, click the game icon _again_ ,
| and now it launches. Heaven forbid I actually set up 2FA,
| cause then I'd have to go through that too!
|
| To say nothing of the fact that the Epic store runs like ass
| on a brand new third-gen six-core Ryzen CPU with an current-
| gen GPU and 16gigs of RAM.
|
| Some of the other game stores behave just as bad as this...
| the only ones that actually seem to work reliably are Steam
| and GOG, and they've been around a while. Origin constantly
| nags about updates and "you logged in from another PC"
| bullshit, Rockstar can't seem to hold on to a session cookie
| to save its life, and the Twitch client is just a mess all
| around. XBOX kind of sucked in Beta but they finally fixed
| the worst issues there.
|
| Multiple launchers is _NOT_ ideal. We all have this fantasy
| idea that competition will make everything better but really
| what it results in is now we have a bunch of garbage
| launchers running on startup (and if you don 't have fun
| waiting for them to update _every time you launch them_ ).
| Just like with streaming... competition is making everything
| worse
|
| If you "don't spend time in an app store" you're either only
| using one or two of those launchers or you're lying. The last
| time things "just worked" was when Steam reigned supreme and
| unchallenged. (And that's not necessarily a good thing,
| nearly everyone knows that Valve is a good citizen solely
| because of management, and I have no doubt that one day that
| will change and Steam will suck.)
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Multiple launchers is NOT ideal._
|
| Absolutely agreed, but consider what would happen if only
| one of those game stores you mention were allowed to be
| installed on your gaming PC. Then you'd have to go through
| a single gatekeeper, and I bet you a bunch of the games you
| like just wouldn't be available at all, because they'd
| either have been capriciously rejected, or because their
| developers can't make the terms work to their satisfaction.
| But because this mythical single game store is the only
| game in town (heh), there's no recourse.
|
| Or maybe most, or even all, of those games you play might
| be available on this single app store. But expect them to
| be worse, because their developers have to pay a middleman
| a larger fee for distribution, which leaves less money to
| build the game itself. Expect them to be missing features,
| because this gatekeeper makes it harder to build some
| features, even if it's through well-meaning policies.
|
| It absolutely floors me that people on a site called Hacker
| News are praising the role of a gatekeeping corporation
| that locks down devices they own to the point that they
| don't even really own them.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Absolutely agreed, but consider what would happen if
| only one of those game stores you mention were allowed to
| be installed on your gaming PC.
|
| That is how it was several years back with Steam and
| everything was just fine. The new stores that popped up
| are, with the exception of GoG and Itch.io, in the
| service of large companies.
|
| PC gaming wasn't a dystopia 5 years ago.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| > PC gaming wasn't a dystopia 5 years ago.
|
| Indeed, it was glorious. Another golden age suffocated by
| business interests
| tomc1985 wrote:
| You phrase this as an either/or proposition... either 1
| app store with its gatekeepers and rules (and frankly,
| the Steam supremacy was a good king to live under...)
|
| The real answer is neither. Fuck all these proprietary
| launchers and app stores. There are other answers....
| personally I feel like these platforms need to be run and
| controlled by a nonprofit, with a charter that holds
| customers' and business' needs equally without a primary
| duty to greedy shareholders. Either that or sideloading
|
| edit- and I think most folks are OK with living under a
| good , just king. Steam is this, and many argue that
| Apple was this at some point in their past. Since we are
| all apparently too stupid to handle a truly distributed
| method of installing software like sideloading or old-
| school brick and mortar retail, we have to learn to live
| with a store of some kind, with all that entails. And in
| that case, we're OK if the platform is fair and just
|
| > because they'd either have been capriciously rejected,
| or because their developers can't make the terms work to
| their satisfaction
|
| edit2- this never really happened with Steam, amazingly
| enough. Surely there are edge cases, and there are
| certainly reports of Steam staff working with devs to
| ensure a positive release (which is a nice way of saying
| they have probably forced developers to alter their
| product), and Valve has certainly made some bad decisions
| (which they thankfully backed down on). But Steam was
| such an improvement over the old distribution model that
| its downsides were almost unfairly outweighed by its
| upsides. And now they own the market with such a large
| competitive moat that Epic has to give away boatloads of
| free games (and good ones too!) and a PR campaign of
| trashing competitors just to seed their userbase.
| kelnos wrote:
| With Apple's ecosystem, it _is_ an either /or
| proposition. Thy don't allow third-party stores, period,
| so I don't see how my comparison is inadequate.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| You're not taking into account the differences in how App
| Store and Steam _behaved_
|
| App Store has a natural monopoly on the iDevices. (And I
| would love to see this broken, a jailbroken iPhone in the
| old days was a wondrous thing) This is because Apple owns
| the platform and are heavily incentivized to use that
| integration to maximize their own profit and growth.
|
| There are no such incentives on an open platform like
| Windows. Steam had to be better than the status quo and
| it seems they took that to heart, so much that entire
| ecosystems have built up around Valve's generosity --
| ecosystems that compete with Steam itself -- and that
| Valve could pull the plug on tomorrow. But I bet they
| won't, because they seem to be interested in a vibrant
| and healthy ecosystem, and because their attitude of good
| stewardship is apparently quite rare these days, giving
| them a significant competitive advantage with mindshare.
|
| It's a totally different ballgame. Google uses
| anticompetitive dealmaking and sheer force of will to try
| and achieve a semblance of what App Store does, and up
| until recently their success in that area was mixed at
| best. Google Play is closer to Steam in that regard, but
| their execution sucks.
|
| But even if Steam was as vertically integrated as Apple
| something tells me they would be a lot more permissive
| and generous in how others sell on their platform. Steam
| offers a _ton_ of value-add and, while I don 't hang out
| in gamedev circles, the only bitching about price and
| Steam's 30% cut I've seen comes from Tim Sweeney and
| noone else
| jonny_eh wrote:
| No one wants multiple launchers, people want multiple
| stores. They're very different.
|
| Once the app is installed, it should be easy to start the
| app.
| abc-xyz wrote:
| Having everything locked behind a single App Store is the
| perfect way for the government to enforce bans without
| building a "great firewall". It's no coincidence that a few
| days after Trump signed an executive order to ban
| TikTok/WeChat then Epic (heavily backed by Tencent) engaged
| in a PR-focused lawsuit that would encourage Apple to allow
| side-loading apps, which, if implemented, would allow Chinese
| companies to easily bypass the ban. It's also worth noting
| that apps are already violating people's privacy in so many
| ways (the latest example is copying clipboard text while
| running in the background) - without the App Store then
| there's no doubt that the privacy violations would become
| even worse.
| earhart wrote:
| It creates a race-to-the-bottom for app stores.
| calcifer wrote:
| > there has been criticism on Epic sending user data back to
| China.
|
| This sounds like one of those tinfoil conspiracy theories. Has
| there been _any evidence whatsoever_ that confirms this?
| caiobegotti wrote:
| Unfortunately the App Store 30% cut is Apple's revenue cocaine
| and it will be really hard for the rest of us to stop such
| addiction without multi-national governments help.
| ryantgtg wrote:
| > Moreover, Amazon couldn't even tell users to visit Amazon.com,
| much less offer a link or, as Android allows, a webview of the
| store.
|
| I was recently baffled by this on the Bandcamp app. You can't
| purchase music through their iOS app, and there isn't even a link
| to the website where you can purchase it. Instead there's just a
| "purchasing music is not supported on this device" message.
|
| Likewise, on my own app, I had a blog post (webview) about our
| patreon (with a link, of course). And Apple flagged it during a
| random bug fix app update. So I had to edit the blog post and
| remove the link to our Patreon. And from what I could tell, there
| isn't even a way to use the proper Apple Pay/whatever system with
| Patreon subscriptions.
| pier25 wrote:
| Essentially, it's a win-win for Epic.
|
| If they win the lawsuit they will (probably) be able to have more
| control over how they want to distribute their iOS apps.
|
| If they lose, they won't have to deal with iOS anymore. Free
| players cost money too, and it's possible iOS is not so
| interesting to Epic with the %30 Apple cut.
|
| Also, since their business model is based on microtransactions,
| most of their revenue must come from whales. These are committed
| players who will most likely go get their Fornite fix somewhere
| else. Specially if Apple wins. Most gamers will always side with
| Epic here.
| emsy wrote:
| They made several million dollars daily. I think you severely
| underestimate the gaming market.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yes, but those millions come from whales which will most
| likely follow Fortnite to other platforms.
|
| You think Epic would start a lawsuit without having done
| their math and willingly decide to lose millions daily plus
| the legal fees?
| Despegar wrote:
| >That means, for example, allowing purchases via webviews,
| particularly for products and experiences that are not zero
| marginal costs. Sure, that could mean less App Store revenue in
| the short run, but Apple would be well-served having to build
| more and better products to win developers over. At the end of
| the day, squeezing businesses that can stomach the cost of Apple
| development, both in terms of implementing in-app purchase and
| that 30%, by definition has less ultimate upside than growing the
| pie for everyone.
|
| Apple shouldn't have to enable you to undermine their business
| with their own property. And no court would ever require them to.
|
| The fact is that Apple hasn't changed the terms. It's been the
| same since the App Store began (technically it's become more
| generous to developers with the reduction in the fee for
| subscriptions after the first year). Meanwhile the iPhone
| installed base is magnitudes larger than it was in 2008, making
| it more lucrative for developers than ever. Apple would be well
| within their right to _raise_ the fee, but the fee has only ever
| gone down.
|
| That's addressing the moral argument of their business model.
| Legally, Epic has no case.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Apple lost track of their value exchange proposition and has now
| resorted to extortion. Yay 2020.
| cschneid wrote:
| The Hey saga emphasized that Apple has multiple products
| interacting in a single app store.
|
| * Screened apps - Apple only lets "safe" apps into the store. *
| Discoverability - Apple in theory lets users find apps that they
| didn't know about before. Customer Acquisition * Payments - Apple
| makes it easy to accept payments, for their 30% fee.
|
| One or all of those are useful and great. Where I have an issue
| is when they use one (the required screened apps aspect) for
| force you into the others.
|
| Hey wanted an app on the store, as an extension to their
| primarily web based experience. But they couldn't purchase just
| the rubber-stamp that says they're not malware and the app store
| hosting. They were being forced to buy into all 3.
|
| That feels like using an existing monopoly (actually a duopoly w/
| google's similar practices) to force developers to purchase
| products they don't want. Hey didn't want to accept payments via
| apple, but Apple's market power and decisions were focused on
| forcing them to.
|
| If Apple had a yearly fee of $1000 (arbitrary number, maybe pay
| per download or device or whatever), for an app to simply be
| reviewed & hosted, that would be reasonable. They provide a
| service, businesses can opt into that. But they're taking their
| core value prop of "closed app store helps customers" and forcing
| their way onto "and now you have to pay us a portion of revenue".
| jtsiskin wrote:
| A $1000 fee, or fees per download, gets rid of hobbyists,
| passion projects, and open source apps. For example
| [Bookplayer.](https://github.com/TortugaPower/BookPlayer)
|
| It should be worth it to Apple to review and host these apps
| just to benefit the platform which leads to users purchasing
| their products. The current $99 fee I imagine covers their
| costs to review and host most of these types.
| prvc wrote:
| >Screened apps
|
| Screened, primarily to be in agreement with Apple's business
| interests. The user's concerns (privacy, functionality,
| avoiding other types of malware) are given far less
| (inadequate) consideration. Worse, they are lulled into a false
| sense of security due to such memes.
| vageli wrote:
| > That feels like using an existing monopoly (actually a
| duopoly w/ google's similar practices) to force developers to
| purchase products they don't want. Hey didn't want to accept
| payments via apple, but Apple's market power and decisions were
| focused on forcing them to.
|
| In order to sell goods in a place like Walmart, a manufacturer
| is subject to onerous terms. Why is the app store different
| than a retailer limiting access to their shelf space? I
| personally feel they are different but I cannot put into words
| why.
| wmf wrote:
| Target is across the street from Walmart. But if someone has
| an iPhone they cannot shop at the Google Play store.
| treis wrote:
| And Android, the only other realistic option, has
| effectively the same policies. Technically you can side
| load or use an alternative app store, but that means you
| don't get Play Services. And it's pretty impractical to
| develop apps without using those services.
| the8472 wrote:
| Even a frequent walmart buyer can still order online. On the
| other hand most people only own 1 phone and thus are a
| captive audience which limits the ways developers can reach
| them.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| Because you can buy the same exact item on Zalando and put it
| on fire if you want to
|
| Imagine if you could buy shoes only at Walmart because you
| bought the shoe rack there.
| cvs268 wrote:
| That's some Ai-powered "Smart Shoe-Rack" with blockchain
| technology, running on some kubernetes clusters with 5G
| connectivity right there!
| x3c wrote:
| Because Walmart owns the physical space but apple doesn't own
| the physical device.... Apple has set up shop on the real-
| estate (the device) that it sold over to the user. I've seen
| this argument plenty of times and it rings hollow to me every
| time.
| Someone wrote:
| So, if they started renting the phone to you and everybody
| else, having a single Apple-controlled App Store would be
| acceptable?
|
| (That may not even be 100% hypothetical. They have lots of
| money, so can afford getting delayed payment for phones.
| They might even be able to become a global phone company,
| too, and rent you a phone and a network subscription)
| TACIXAT wrote:
| I don't own a Walmart. I do own a phone. I'm largely
| restricted with what I can do on my phone.
| SiVal wrote:
| Suppose Apple and Google started making cars and put every
| other car company out of business. Both made the rule that if
| you bought their car, _every_ product or service that went
| into the car also had to be purchased through them. You
| preferred the Apple car world to the Google car world. (All
| Google cars streamed your location and live video of you and
| your facially recognized passengers back to Google for
| analysis of who you did what with where and when, for your
| "convenience", and Google was the only alternative to Apple.)
|
| Avoiding Google surveillance meant you could only buy an
| Apple car. You could then only buy gasoline at Apple gas
| stations. People in your town who wanted to change your oil
| had to pay an annual fee to Apple to even be considered,
| would have to pay 30% of revenue to Apple if approved, and
| could be put out of business at any moment with no recourse
| by whatever happened in secret behind the Apple fortress
| walls.
|
| You as a car owner could not choose to buy tires or get
| "your" car painted or even get your car washed by anyone
| without going through Apple. You paid Apple for the car wash,
| because (no matter what you or the people washing your car
| would prefer) you were Apple's customer and the car you paid
| for was Apple's car.
|
| For your "safety", of course.
|
| A phone is as fundamental to the infrastructure of your life
| today as a car. Any company that could utterly control it
| would probably become a trillion-dollar company.
| jarvar wrote:
| I think apple's 30% cut of app purchases is too much and I think
| they know this. With that being said I think this is part of
| apple for a long-term plan.
|
| iPhones are getting more expensive to build considering all the
| tech their cramming into each iPhone and other products.
| eventually they might get so expensive that Apple would be forced
| to sell them at a price that will not work well wih consumers. If
| you think about how much apple has invested in services that only
| function on their devices, I think apple will start selling
| products at a loss, with the plan to make that money back and
| more through services they offer on devices. In the same way that
| Sony and Microsoft lose money with every console sold, but recoup
| those loses many times over with games purchase fees.
| modeless wrote:
| It's a common meme that "With a free service you're not the
| customer, you're the product." Well, you may be Apple's customer
| at the beginning when you pay for the phone, but immediately
| afterward you become their product. You're being sold for the 30%
| tax. And to enforce that tax Apple maintains ultimate control
| over the hardware you supposedly bought, blocking you from doing
| things that would threaten Apple's revenue streams.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > "...immediately afterward you become their product. You're
| being sold for the 30% tax."
|
| I don't understand the argument you're attempting. Apple
| doesn't sell my info "for the 30% tax." In fact, they charge
| app developers that 30% and then _keep my data away from those
| same developers._
| modeless wrote:
| Apple sells access to your wallet, not data, similarly to how
| ad-supported services sell access to your eyeballs, not data.
|
| To exclude other companies from accessing your wallet Apple
| must control the software running on your phone, which means
| blocking you from installing or modifying software on the
| device you supposedly own.
| unchar1 wrote:
| The same way that GMail isn't really "free", that 30% tax
| doesn't come from Apple or the Developer's pocket, it
| ultimately comes out of your pocket.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| But I don't pay for any Google product, so the comparison
| isn't apt.
| 627467 wrote:
| > My preferred outcome would see Apple maintaining its control of
| app installation. I treasure and depend on the openness of PCs
| and Macs, but I am also relieved that the iPhone is so dependable
| for those less technically savvy than me.
|
| I think people overestimate the importance/benefit of such level
| of control over instalation of apps. Yes, Wintel was plagued by
| malware viruses but Mac/Linux/Unix wasn't. I don't think the
| benefit (protecting users from threats) outweighs the drawbacks
| (not having control of device, not allowing ecosystem of paid
| thinkerers to help Muggles personalize their devices) of having
| such closed approach.
| haunter wrote:
| People don't get the console difference
|
| I have a PS4
|
| I can buy the game digitally from Sony
|
| I can buy the digital code which activates on PS4 from Amazon or
| sometimes even straight from the publisher
|
| I can buy a physical copy from countless retail stores both off
| and online from Walmart to BestBuy to Amazon to Gamestop
|
| I can sell my used physical copy on Facebook Marketplace, Ebay,
| or Craigslist
|
| This is the difference. And it's much bigger than people realize.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Every one of those other than the used physical copy involves a
| large cut to Sony.
|
| It is true, there is no physical media for Android or iOS
| purchases.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| I have a PS4
|
| I can pay Sony to take a cut from the developer.
|
| I can pay Amazon _and_ Sony to take a cut from the developer.
|
| I can pay retail stores to take a 50% or more cut, and then
| Sony takes a cut.
|
| I can regain some of the cut that I paid to a retail store, so
| that the developer gets _nothing_ , by selling it on Ebay or
| craigslist.
|
| You are always buying the game from Sony, and Sony is always
| getting their cut. Your options are whether to involve other
| rent seekers or to just fuck over the developers completely.
| kanobo wrote:
| "This case asks us to draw the line between anticompetitive
| behavior, which is illegal under federal antitrust law, and
| hypercompetitive behavior, which is not."
|
| I feel this contradiction within me when I find myself promoting
| and praising the growth hacks and 'doing whatever it takes'
| mentality startups employ and then subsequently realizing that at
| the same time I would probably shame and criticize the same
| tactics if the same company got large.
| save_ferris wrote:
| The problem is that we're terrible at assessing the morality of
| companies. We tend not to care about what startups do, even
| though the "doing whatever it takes" mentality sometimes leads
| to deeply concerning behavior (i.e. Instacart/door dash tipping
| dark patterns, Zoom security practices, online advertising
| startups generally, etc.)
|
| Part of it is that business models are getting increasingly
| complex, and it's getting harder for laypeople to really grok
| how a particular company makes money, especially when consumer
| data is involved.
|
| The public tolerates quite a bit of unethical behavior by
| companies if they determine the value of the product to be
| worth it (i.e. Facebook). And some entrepreneurs see these
| examples and think that there are no consequences. There really
| is no concrete mechanism to assess morality in companies.
| Marketing gets to dictate most of that.
| jgon wrote:
| I think that's ok though. I think that we handicap ourselves by
| trying to find universalizing systems and rules, and then
| throwing our hands up when we can't do so. I also think that
| this sort of thing is tacitly encouraged by incumbents because
| usually giving up benefits them.
|
| Size matters. If a child hits you, you scold them and tell them
| not to do it, but you're likely no worse for wear. If an adult
| hits you, they could kill you, we call it assault and it has
| legal consequences.
|
| The contradiction you feel is like saying "well I don't think
| we should punish children the same way we punish adults, so
| maybe we shouldn't punish anyone?". I know that when I put it
| into this type of metaphor it seems obvious, I'm not trying to
| be insulting, merely that when you change the context we
| suddenly see that it does makes sense to weigh different
| situations with different consequences differently.
|
| Trying to find a common legal framework to cover a 2 person
| ramen startup and the continent spanning wealth and power of
| Jeff Bezos and Amazon, or Tim Cook and Apple is something that
| seems fraught, and the consequences for the actions that each
| group takes are vastly different. I think we shouldn't be
| afraid to judge or regulate them differently as well.
| baby wrote:
| A lot of things are totally fine until they get too large
| (cancer).
|
| A lot of the time, the only rule for healthy ecosystem is that
| players don't get too big. Players getting too big means
| monopoly, cartel, etc.
| debacle wrote:
| You should not shame and criticize Apple for being
| anticompetitive, you should lament that the US is not a fair
| playing field when it comes to anti-trust investigations.
|
| Apple is under no obligation to behave fairly. Many (not me)
| would argue the opposite.
| kanobo wrote:
| That's why I try to reflect on my feelings when I can because
| they aren't rational. I have to remind myself it's the
| fiduciary duty of companies to take legal advantage of any
| opportunity the law gives it.
| macintux wrote:
| I'm not confident that's an accurate description. Companies
| are certainly beholden to their shareholders, but e.g.
| there's no legal requirement to maximize profits.
|
| https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-
| co...
| kanobo wrote:
| Thanks for the link! Looks like I was holding on to an
| assumption I never actually verified.
| macintux wrote:
| It's a common assumption.
| blackoil wrote:
| That is not a pragmatic view. Law works on assumption that
| most of the society will follow them (under moral or social
| pressure) and few rogue people will be punished
| appropriately. If everyone starts breaking the law, no
| Police/Govt will be able to contain it.
| munchbunny wrote:
| That gets at the crux of the problem: hyper-competitive
| behavior can become anti-competitive when you are powerful
| enough and have enough leverage to make anti-competitive
| behavior part of your strategy. The line between "anti-
| competitive" and "hyper-competitive" today isn't a line, it's a
| big messy gray area.
|
| It's pretty hard for an underdog or tiny startup to be anti-
| competitive because they simply don't have the leverage to do
| it. They can still be dishonest or immoral, it's just hard to
| be monopolistic when you're not anywhere close to being a
| monopoly.
| jtokoph wrote:
| Uber is the prime example of this. They broke many laws and
| regulations in order to provide a better product/user
| experience without much punishment to get to where they are
| today. If Uber started breaking more laws today they would be
| shot down very quick.
| save_ferris wrote:
| > If Uber started breaking more laws today they would be shot
| down very quick.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't see this as being true. I'd be willing
| to bet they're still breaking laws and ordinances today and
| we're just not aware of it.
|
| Part of it is the news cycle today, we'd never see a story
| about Uber breaking some municipal laws with the state of the
| world as it is. And after all, they have tons of cash, which
| is what breaking laws requires.
|
| Until they suffer material operational pain from doing wrong,
| they're not going to change.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| Besides for the employee/contractor stuff, I thought Uber was
| mostly exploiting a legal loophole for cars for hire v.
| hailed taxi distinction.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Apple has a monopoly on making apple products to sell in apple
| stores? Quick call the feds!
|
| Seriously, the game Apple/Google/etc have been playing has been
| pretty anti-consumer at times, and downright unjust at other
| times. That said, Epic's (cough cough tencent's) only move here
| is to turn this dumpster into a dumpster fire and I don't see
| that as a particularly helpful direction to go in.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Int the US, I believe it accounts for about 70% of ponds, which
| is a lot. Globally not so much but still the biggest by
| revenue, and has all the elites.
| baby wrote:
| A 30% just seems wrong to me. It just screams: we have a
| monopoly, if you want to build something that everybody around
| can you use, if you want to be a successful startup, you'll have
| to give us a third of what you charge. There's no other way:
| we'll be your middle man forever.
| projektfu wrote:
| I think it's absurd that you can neither buy a kindle book from
| the iOS kindle app nor the Amazon app. How user unfriendly!
|
| And yet, Apple runs their own digitsl bookstore... since there's
| no way to remove 30% revenue from apple's own venture, they're
| using a monopoly position to monopolize another market.
|
| Oh, but Apple isn't a monopoly because there's Android.
|
| Why did we think Microsoft was a monopoly? You could always buy a
| Mac and avoid the MS tax. But in the end the courts decided that
| MS was a monopoly unfairly restraining trade. We'll have to see
| how this turns out. But by not allowing other app stores, Apple
| has put themselves at risk here.
| tc wrote:
| Here's the thing. Even if you're OK with Apple (or whoever)
| controlling what you can run on your computers, this is a
| centralization of power that will be co-opted.
|
| Let's say that Australia wants to ban consumer encryption. This
| would currently be difficult to enforce for PC software. But on
| mobile, this is easy. Just make Apple and Google enforce it! Make
| them ban such apps from their stores. Now you've achieved perfect
| enforcement on Apple hardware. Even on Android, where people
| could in theory side-load the banned apps, this would prevent
| those apps from achieving any scale or network effect.
|
| That's what I think people are missing here. No matter how much
| you trust Apple, once the mechanisms for this kind of power are
| in place, you won't be able to control what happens next.
| izacus wrote:
| Apple already actively censors political content in apps and
| actively works with Chinese government to censor content on
| Chinese AppStore.
|
| A private company is already put themselves in plate to control
| software content that reaches millions of people without those
| people having the ability to choose anything else on their
| pocket computers.
| wayneftw wrote:
| > Apple already actively censors political content in apps...
|
| This is true, which is why I surprised the other day when I
| found this app called "BLMovement" when I was looking around
| to see if anyone was making a completely distasteful joke...
|
| https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/blmovement/id1517754969
|
| As a "resource directory", it's not purely political but
| surely it skirts the line.
|
| I'm certain that if some political movement had popular
| support Apple would forget the rules though.
|
| (Although, I doubt they'd let this same app in the store if
| it was called AntifaMovement, QAnonMovement or
| NationalSocialistMovement.)
| newyorker2 wrote:
| I feel like the core point of several arguments ITT skew
| towards the age old anti-trust laws without explicitly
| referring to it _per se_.
| zepto wrote:
| This is a good argument for enforcing open hardware at the boot
| loader level and requiring open driver specifications for the
| hardware.
|
| It is a strong counter argument for requiring openness at the
| App store level.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| I don't think you are using two points that are similar enough.
|
| If Australia bans encryption, you as a consumer who resides in
| Australia has a high switching cost (moving, new job,
| residence, etc.) and thus the consumer loses out.
|
| If Apple starts to use that power badly... you can switch to a
| number of competitor feature phones with largely the same
| feature and app capabilities (Android being the most obvious)
|
| In a market with 2+ competitors and where its low switching
| costs (moving contacts is quite easy these days, not a lot of
| deep 2-year contracts for phones/providers) this point doesn't
| hold true
| simion314 wrote:
| >If Australia bans encryption, you as a consumer who resides
| in Australia has a high switching cost (moving, new job,
| residence, etc.) and thus the consumer loses out.
|
| >If Apple starts to use that power badly... you can switch to
| a number of competitor feature phones with largely the same
| feature and app capabilities (Android being the most obvious)
|
| It depends, network are effects are strong on Apple
| (iMessage) and maybe you already bought tons of apps and
| software that you can't transfer to Android or Windows.
| mdoms wrote:
| It's rare to see someone so comprehensively miss the point.
| Bravo.
| hhjinks wrote:
| I don't think getting a new phone necessarily has that low a
| switching cost for many people.
| ohazi wrote:
| The points are not supposed to be similar... you're missing
| the part of the parent's argument where one is used as a tool
| to enforce the other, when otherwise it would be
| difficult/impossible to enforce.
|
| There is only one real competitor: Android. Google would very
| much like to have the same degree of control that Apple does
| over their ecosystem, but they're holding back for now so
| that they can point to Apple as being worse when the
| congressional inquiries heat up.
|
| Feature phones are not real competitors to smartphones.
| tantalor wrote:
| > ban such apps from their stores
|
| You could always use a website instead. Why is an app
| necessary?
| ucarion wrote:
| Lest your comment suggest the _author_ of this article isn 't
| aware of this point, he has made this argument precisely:
|
| > Whereas China needed to control country-wide Internet access
| to achieve its censorship goals, Apple and Google have
| helpfully provided the Indian government with a one-stop shop.
| This also, for better or worse, gives a roadmap for how the
| U.S. government could respond to TikTok, if it chose to: there
| is no need to build a great firewall -- simply give the order
| to Apple and Google. Centralization, at least from a central
| government's perspective, has its uses.
|
| https://stratechery.com/2020/india-bans-chinese-apps-the-app...
| noncoml wrote:
| Not versed enough in law to argue about this, but from a customer
| point of view, I hope that Apple wins as I would hate the iOS
| ecosystem to end up being a Wild West like the Android.
|
| I am happy to pay for a premium to have peace of mind. To give an
| analogy it's kind of like gaming console vs PC gaming where I am
| happy to sacrifice a bit of performance in exchange of getting
| rid of all shady game-specific launchers
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| You're not addressing the real issue here though - should Apple
| get a cut of the revenue from in game purchases? Once you
| download the game and are looking to purchase more of the game
| you've already let the app pass your "shady wild west" internal
| warning system.
| noncoml wrote:
| Yes, for the simple reason that if they don't, it opens a
| loophole for everyone to avoid the 30% cut altogether.
|
| Also from customer prospective, I feel more comfortable
| knowing the payment will go through Apple.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > , it opens a loophole for everyone to avoid the 30% cut
| altogether.
|
| But this is a good thing, not a bad thing. Literally the
| purpose of all this, is to get around this cut. It is
| better for developers and consumers, to take whatever
| actions possible, to support loopholes, that get around
| this 30% cut.
|
| This is the explicit goal here, and the reasons why it is
| good. The loophole would be a good thing.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Closed hardware should be opened when unsupported... meaning if
| apple cannot support old hardware anymore they should open it by
| law. There are so many ipads and phones that could still be in
| use but arent because you need to run their software. We need to
| stop the planet to be an electronics garbage bin. Same when they
| start with the new chip on apple computers.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| They're discontinued, but they don't prevent you from doing
| what you want to those old devices. Sure, a first generation
| iPhone/iPod touch only runs iPhone OS 3.1.3, but you can still
| jailbreak it and do what you want.
| aaanotherhnfolk wrote:
| Simplest compromise I've heard so far is for Apple's cut to scale
| with size of IAP/subscription.
|
| 30% cut starting at $0.99 purchases. As mentioned this barely
| covers processing fees.
|
| 20% cut starting at $9.99.
|
| 10% cut starting at $49.99.
|
| Not only does this fix the Epic, Netflix, Hey, etc issue where
| high value or high volume txns get unfairly middlemanned by
| Apple. It also incentivizes developers away from the "race to the
| bottom" effect that made everything a crummy $0.99
| microtransaction in the first place.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| The simplest compromise is to let me easily install what I need
| from whatever source I want on the goddamn hardware that I own.
| The rest will follow from that.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| A lot of the posts here are making points that I don't think a
| judge or jury will care for. This is clearly a case of two
| companies trying to commoditize their complements. End of story.
|
| Epic doesn't have a problem with Apple running an app store,
| despite what their marketing on this legal issue makes out. Epic
| has an app store and they charge ~12%. Given my experience with
| Epic, I am certain that if they had gotten here first, they would
| be charging the same 30% that Valve charges. Epic's problem is
| that Apple wont let them run their app store on Apple's stack.
| Epic wants to run their software everywhere, and commoditize the
| platforms/OS/hardware.
|
| Apple wants to do the opposite.
|
| IANAL, but I haven't seen any evidence that Apple should not be
| allowed to do so.
|
| If Apple were the only mobile device available, then we might
| have a monopoly conversation. But it isn't, so we wont. It isn't
| even the majority platform in the US.
|
| Where are these points coming from? They aren't from the
| perspective of a customer.
|
| I am a customer, and I will continue to buy iPhone _because_ of
| their total integration. Android is a shitshow and you are
| welcome to it. "Well, I want iOS, except for..." yeah that is
| Android.
|
| So what is really underneath all this? The money. Epic wants to
| make more money from Apple's customers. And it wants to do so by
| destroying the value that Apple customers like me choose over
| Android.
|
| Samsung makes phones that are at least as good as iPhone.
|
| Android is an OS that lets owners do all of the things that
| people here are demanding Apple allow them to do.
|
| Yet, strangely, rather than everyone here advocating that we all
| move to Android, instead, we are demanding that Apple become like
| Android.
|
| Because nobody here is actually interested in what Apple
| customers want. They just want access to those customers, even if
| it means fucking those customers over.
| Razengan wrote:
| Does Epic allow players to buy Fortnite content from outside of
| Fortnite, without giving Epic any money?
|
| Do Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo allow other stores on their
| consoles?
|
| How much % do they take from console game sales?
| jasode wrote:
| In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the
| following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire
| stack) even be legal to sell?
|
| Yes, it's legal today but _should_ we make it illegal?
|
| To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000
| Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day
| of release:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln...
|
| In many iPhone debates, we throw around phrases such as, _"
| unlike a game console, it's a general computer"_ and _" I own the
| device so I should be able to put any software I want on it"_.
|
| Understandable sentiments. So the question is, should consumers
| be able to _knowingly_ buy restricted hardware such as Prima
| Cinema? They pay $35000 and own the computer but they _know_ they
| _can 't sideload their own movies_. They _know_ can 't pick
| another "movie store", or watch Youtube/Netflix on it, etc. The
| hardware has _anti-tampering_ sensors so that it bricks itself if
| the owner tries to open it. The hardware is a "general pc". It
| runs Wind River Linux. I think the cpu is x86 but it might be ARM
| or something else.
|
| You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down
| (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film
| studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't. If a
| buyer wants to have 1st run movies at home, all those
| restrictions in place is they only way to get it. It's more
| restrictive than iPhone in that sense.
| noncoml wrote:
| Some customers buy into the Apple ecosystem _because_ of its
| walled garden. Not despite of it.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| The "walled garden" isn't really the issue most at stake
| here, it's the in-app purchases. To me, it's hard to argue
| against the benefits of having a one-stop-shop safe-and-
| secure place to download apps on your phone which contains
| all your personal information.
|
| However, to me, it's hard to argue that Apple should _keep_
| getting money from you once you 've established a loyal
| customer base and they are giving you money.
|
| And as a not-so-crazy take on this issue, why isn't Apple
| insisting on taking a cut of, say, the check I'm depositing
| into Chase and just uploaded a photograph of it. It's
| revenue, it's in the app ... why isn't Apple taking a piece
| of that?
| Traster wrote:
| If Apps are delivering new content and functionality in
| response to users directly giving them money then in what
| way is the walled garden walled? Just download the "door"
| app - now you're downloading arbitrary apps from a 3rd
| party. What happens when you download steam and suddenly
| people are downloading totally arbitrary code. Oh and that
| arbitrary code is hijacking whatsapp and sending itself to
| all your contacts?
| philwelch wrote:
| The only people paying the cost of that are companies like
| Epic, and if their games aren't available for iOS that will
| affect the popularity of the iPhone. Maybe Apple backs down
| on the in-app purchases, or maybe they don't and that
| decision drives away developers followed by users. Until
| then, we're just seeing them negotiate with each other via
| PR.
| fastball wrote:
| Indeed, that is exactly the argument made by the article.
| baby wrote:
| Really? Who?
| justwalt wrote:
| To be fair, this is a somewhat common sentiment that I've
| seen on HN. Similar is the "non tech oriented parent"
| point, where you don't have to worry about your parents
| phone getting a virus.
| braythwayt wrote:
| Not my sole reason, but since you asked, here I am. I give
| my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls
| over what they use, and further controls over what appears
| in the app store to begin with.
|
| I like having a single vendor for all my software
| purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and
| discontinue subscriptions promptly.
|
| I spend all day thinking about computers, I don't want to
| also be my own IT professional and security team,
| especially for a slab of glass I hold in my hand. I accept
| that I have to do _some_ IT and security thinking about my
| iOS devices, but the more the walled garden provides, the
| less is on me.
|
| I understand that with this "safety" comes a loss of
| "liberty," but I find that an acceptable tradeoff for
| consumer hardware in my personal life. I don't
| automatically assume that the right tradeoffs for me are
| also the right tradeoffs for everyone else.
|
| If someone wants to sideload apps and/or develop their own
| custom apps without some kind of special developer status,
| I have no problem suggesting they buy something else.
|
| I accept that I am not the typical HN reader.
| philwelch wrote:
| To your point, and more to the dispute with Epic:
|
| I'm sure you also want to make sure your kids aren't
| spending all your money on dumb in-app purchases. Having
| a controlled mechanism for that provides an actual value
| to you, and letting companies circumvent it would make
| things harder for you. Are the fees for that mechanism
| fair? That's a business negotiation.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > ...that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue
| subscriptions promptly.
|
| This is a big one. I'm significantly more likely to
| subscribe to a service/app if I'm able to do so through
| iTunes, because it means the app developer can't directly
| reach into my wallet. If I hit "Cancel Subscription" in
| the iTunes subscription panel, it's canceled, no ifs,
| ands, or buts, and no hidden unsubscribe links or
| intentionally obtuse unsubscription processes to have to
| contend with.
|
| This is a huge thing for consumers to give up for the
| sake of developer freedom. If Apple begins to allow third
| party payment systems, developers should be required to
| connect said payment systems to Apple-provided
| standardized subscription control APIs so strong user
| control is maintained.
| baby wrote:
| Should a parent really get their children iPhones?
| braythwayt wrote:
| If you are a parent, you decide for yourself.
|
| I question the validity of presuming this question has a
| correct answer for all parents under all circumstances.
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Should a parent really get their children iPhones?_
|
| Not your kids. Not your business.
| spanhandler wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not, but by like 5th grade most of them seem
| to have one regardless. Many younger kids have one. By
| 7th it's practically all of them (a smartphone, that is,
| though yeah, often an iPhone)
|
| Our school assigns every kid an iPad. In Kindergarten.
| Good idea? I kinda don't think so, though it's been
| useful this year, of course. But it happens.
|
| Increasingly parents have trouble letting kids wander the
| neighborhood on their own without a
| tracker/communication-device on them, and a smartphone's
| really good at serving that role. There are other options
| but kids _want_ to have their smartphone on them, and as
| soon as you want them to be able to do one other
| smartphone-thing any other option starts to look kinda
| pointless.
|
| (just relating observations of parenting in the wild, not
| my own parenting approach)
| Nullabillity wrote:
| > I give my children iPhones. I like having certain
| family controls over what they use, and further controls
| over what appears in the app store to begin with.
|
| Okay.. then their opinion is what's relevant here, not
| yours.
|
| > I like having a single vendor for all my software
| purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and
| discontinue subscriptions promptly.
|
| Weren't they in hot water recently for forcing developers
| to use their deceptive subscription trial system?
| [deleted]
| tuscen wrote:
| Why this can't be a part of parental control function
| where you can restrict certain function on devices you
| control?
| bradlys wrote:
| I will add to this: I wish my parents had stuck with
| iPhones. The amount of IT support that I had to do
| _after_ they switched went up quite a bit. It 's been a
| few years so they've adjusted (and I've just ignored
| their complaints and told them to fix it themselves) but
| who knows what garbage they've installed on their phones!
| They're not tech savvy. It would be quite nice if they
| had stuck with iPhones.
|
| I remember they got Samsung tablets and when I had looked
| at them to see if I would like to buy one... I saw they
| were completely full of - essentially - spyware and
| malware.
| barefoot wrote:
| Me.
|
| For some background, I'm a longtime hardware and (more
| frequently) software developer. I also do quite a bit of ML
| consulting.
|
| I was gifted a MacBook Air many years ago. I was an avid
| Ubuntu (and, to a much lesser extent, Windows) user and
| developer at the time so I didn't know what to make of it.
| I certainly didn't expect to be blown away and switch to
| all Apple devices.
|
| Eight years later and I'm solidly in the Apple ecosystem. I
| have an open mind about switching but I love the
| reliability and consistency of the user experience. I can
| count on the core apps that I frequently reach for to just
| work. And if they don't work there's almost always an
| obvious, low-time, solution to fix them. I still do a great
| deal of development in Windows, but it's exclusively in a
| Parallels VM on a MacBook and I've long since abandoned my
| desktop for development.
|
| The Apple ecosystem has built up enough trust with me that
| I also use it when flying (Foreflight on an iPad). You
| couldn't pay me to switch to an android tablet as an
| alternative for that use case.
|
| My largest complaint is python development is not great on
| OS X out of the box. But that's easy enough to work around.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| People who do not know better and people who make money out
| of people who do not know better.
| noncoml wrote:
| People who don't want to exposed their non-technical
| family to the Wild West of Android.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| That's just the tip of the iceberg
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/mar/11/my-kids-
| spent-...
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Uh, that is about iPad, so Apple's walled garden didn't
| help.
|
| And kids shouldn't be able to buy things with their
| parents' cards, which is something completely unrelated
| to a platform being open or not.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| The problem is that once you go down the streets dressed
| as a Batman to do justice, you'll find a villian dressed
| as a penguin
|
| Apple store is not more secure because it's a walled
| garden, people will always find other ways to scam other
| people
|
| Apple could just make sideload possible declining
| responsibility
|
| It doesn't sound very hard to me, for a company like
| Apple which employ some of the best talents in the World
| badsectoracula wrote:
| Right but i do not think it is really about Apple having
| responsibility - it is about Apple being in control.
|
| For example, see how Apple is in total control on when
| iOS devices are obsolete by requiring some minimum
| version. You can't keep your device usable and useful by
| installing a program that supports it from another
| source, you can only install it from Apple and Apple's
| requirements limit the iOS versions you can target.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| This is common FUD for Android, but i have non-technical
| family members and all of them use Android devices
| (because they were cheaper). I never had any of them
| complain about issues with their phones and Android
| doesn't exactly let you download stuff out of the box,
| you have to explicitly enable it and it pops up a scary
| warning whenever you do so.
|
| Yes, people can ignore that warning, but considering it
| is there _and_ considering all the steps they have to
| make, at that point it is up to personal responsibility,
| not making the entire society worse to avoid telling non-
| technical people that they screwed up.
| braythwayt wrote:
| Speaking of FUD, come now. Me choosing to buy an Apple or
| recommend Apple to my family doesn't "make the entire
| society worse."
| badsectoracula wrote:
| No, buying an Apple device doesn't make the entire
| society worse, however supporting devices that take away
| control from their users does make the entire society
| worse.
|
| After all that control doesn't disappear, it just moves
| to someone else's hands - and guess who has no say whose
| hands those will be.
| braythwayt wrote:
| I empathize with you. Certain products have network
| effects, and therefore, if you personally prefer product
| G to product A for whatever reason, the more people go
| with G instead of A, the more value you obtain.
|
| As a result, people often have a lot of incentive to try
| to get other people to make the same choices they make.
| This explains a lot of the jousting over frameworks: The
| more people use the framework you use, the more bug
| fixes, the more talent you can hire, the more courses,
| books, and blog posts you can depend upon, &c.
|
| Without agreeing with you that society as a whole is
| better off without Apple selling me a locked down device,
| I can certainly empathize with your desire for fewer
| people to make the choice I'm making.
| spanhandler wrote:
| _Raises hand_.
|
| I don't wanna have to worry about stupid computer shit when
| I'm just trying to use my iPad or iPhone as a tool to
| accomplish something else. Drawing, playing music, reading,
| writing, edutainment for the kids, very occasionally a
| game. Maybe the odd SSH session. If I decide I want some
| software to help me with any of those things I just want it
| to be in the App Store, and I just want it to use the App
| Store payment system. I don't want competing app stores
| because that might mean that sometimes what I want isn't on
| the Apple one, following Apple's rules about spying on my
| and otherwise behaving as badly as desktop software and
| webapps do these days. It means I have to search more than
| one store. Now we're veering into the stupid computer shit
| I don't want to have to worry about, again.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| That doesn't address the issue: those who would can't.
|
| You don't lose anything if you don't want to.
|
| You should have to keep doing what you already do.
| spanhandler wrote:
| > That doesn't address the issue: those who would can't.
|
| Then buy any other general computing product on the
| market. I'd be more sympathetic to this concern if
| Android didn't exist. Meanwhile it does, and the users
| who picked Apple did it because they don't care about
| this, they don't care _very much_ about this, or because
| they actively _want_ the App Store restrictions and the
| ecosystem that they create.
|
| > You don't lose anything if you don't want to.
|
| I very well might, though. Changes to rules change how
| actors behave in a system. The way software developers
| and publishers behave on iOS could change in ways that I
| don't like if they're able to viably distribute software
| outside the App Store. That might be OK, except forcing
| developers and publishers to follow the App Store rules
| is part of the appeal of the devices. If that'd been a
| major sticking point for me, _I could have bought
| Android_.
| simion314 wrote:
| >Changes to rules change how actors behave in a system.
| The way software developers and publishers behave on iOS
| could change in ways that I don't like
|
| Probably most apps would still be on store and hopefully
| you would get a cheaper version from the developer
| website.
|
| What is clear but you probably don't want to admit is
| Apple is not fighting here for your safety but for
| extracting mroe money, if they were not that greedy
| Epic,Spotify would not have started this wars and you
| would have been safe in the wallgarden and extremely
| satisfied that the other people inside can't escape
| either.
| spanhandler wrote:
| > What is clear but you probably don't want to admit is
| Apple is not fighting here for your safety but for
| extracting mroe money, if they were not that greedy
| Epic,Spotify would not have started this wars and you
| would have been safe in the wallgarden and extremely
| satisfied that the other people inside can't escape
| either.
|
| Why wouldn't I admit that? Of course the situation
| benefits them. I just doubt there's a way to give me all
| the aspects of their devices & ecosystem that I value,
| that _doesn 't_ also benefit them. I'd love to see them
| drop the cut they take, for instance. That being so high
| benefits me not at all, so far as I can tell.
|
| ... and if someone comes out with devices that actually
| compete with the specific sort of product they offer,
| including the integrated & closed app store and
| restrictions on what apps are allowed to do, and takes a
| lower cut of app store sales, then Apple might have to
| reduce their cut, too. Or this current scuffle might end
| up not changing the app store rules much, but dropping
| the cut they take substantially--personally, that's an
| outcome I'd love.
| simion314 wrote:
| IMO the ideal situation for Apple fans is that Apple is
| forced to offer a choice to developers, either pay a fair
| fixed charge(like you would pay for webhosting, you have
| different tiers or plans and fortuneteller with web
| hosting you have true competition) or a developer could
| decide to give Apple 30% cut. Probably most developers
| would chose to pay the fixed fee and the Apple users will
| have cheaper apps and subscriptions(in app payments)
| while enjoying the restrictions that nobody can have the
| option to escape the wallgarden(not sure how are you
| happy with this though, say in a country Apple is forced
| to remove all chat apps that are encrypted including
| browsers and then Apple fans would just say `you should
| have predicted this,sell the phone and use Android`)
| romanoderoma wrote:
| > Then buy any other general computing product on the
| market
|
| That's not how free market works.
|
| And it's a very silly objection.
|
| Android is a licensed platform.from Google, but Google
| does not make the majority of devices.
|
| Apple manufacturs the devices, but they sell them to me
| locked in the ecosystem they profit from.
|
| Imagine being unable of refueling because your car does
| not work with standard oil pumps and you had to go to
| Apple licensed gas station whom Apple charges 30% to.
|
| They would be prohibited from selling the car.
|
| > I very well might, though.
|
| But you wouldn't if you don't change your behaviour.
|
| > Changes to rules change how actors behave in a system
|
| That's exactly what many want from Apple.
|
| Change the rules.
|
| Nobody is asking Apple to relax their safety rules inside
| their walled garden.
|
| If they can't allow sideloading, they're not as good as I
| thought.
|
| > I could have bought Android.
|
| I don't buy it.
|
| If Apple sold Android powered iPhones you would still buy
| an iPhone, you're are buying the brand, not the product.
| spanhandler wrote:
| > That's not how free market works.
|
| It... isn't? How not?
|
| > Imagine being unable of refueling because your car does
| not work with standard oil pumps and you had to go to
| Apple licensed gas station whom Apple charges 30% to.
|
| Then I'd probably buy a competing brand of car, if that
| bothered me? You know, one of my other choices on the
| market? Like how there are a bunch of Android device
| vendors and a couple Linux mobile vendors that I could
| choose if Apple's App Store model bothered me, rather
| than being something I actively want? I am 100% not
| following how this _isn 't_ a market working. The choices
| people are making may not be the ones you prefer--happens
| to me all the time with markets--but there are choices.
|
| > That's exactly what many want from Apple.
|
| > Change the rules.
|
| Many developers and publishers, maybe. I'm very much
| unconvinced that's what the subset of users who are aware
| of this issue in the first place, want, for the most
| part. I think if it were a major problem for them they'd
| have bought an Android device, or something else.
|
| > If they can't allow sideloading, they're not as good as
| I thought.
|
| They do allow sideloading, it's just fairly inconvenient.
| They can't allow a form of it that's convenient enough to
| allow other app stores to thrive, without changing the
| character of the ecosystem for their users. I don't think
| any amount of being "good" at what they do would change
| that.
|
| > If Apple sold Android powered iPhones you would still
| buy an iPhone, you're are buying the brand, not the
| product.
|
| OK, cool, guess continuing this exchange is pointless.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| > Then I'd probably buy a competing brand of car, if that
| bothered me?
|
| But you also bought Apple approved tires, Apple approved
| child seat, Apple approved free miles on the highway and
| Apple approved breaking fluid
|
| You can't use them anywhere else, maybe you can sell
| them, but you have to reset the car to factory settings
|
| Whatever you bought cannot be used anywhere else, except
| another Apple car
|
| That's how vendor lock in works, I'm European but I know
| US laws don't appreciate when a company locks users in
| izacus wrote:
| Nothing what you say has absolutely ANYTHING to do with
| you being locked out from ever running your own software
| on Apple devices.
|
| This is a completely false argument you're putting up -
| you can HAVE all of those protections while STILL having
| the option of replacing protected software with less safe
| one.
|
| Please stop peddling this false argument.
| spanhandler wrote:
| It's not false though? Games are a thing. In the sense of
| how systems run and how actors make decisions in it, not
| in terms of video games. Any change that makes it
| convenient to run a competing app store will almost
| certainly change the experience of using iOS, even for
| those who choose not to use an alternative app store.
|
| If there's a way to allow easily & conveniently running
| one's own software without letting competing app stores
| work, I'm all for it. In fact there _is_ a way to run
| your own software, it 's just inconvenient, because time-
| limited so you have to re-install it periodically, which
| effectively kills any possibility of running a successful
| app store via that method.
| braythwayt wrote:
| You're right in theory, but _possibly_ not in practice.
|
| Consider two vendors: A and G.
|
| A provides a full walled garden. G provides a walled
| garden, but lets you side-load whatever you like, you can
| ignore the apps in the garden.
|
| Everyone making apps for A puts them in the walled
| garden, so if you own an A, you buy an app from the
| garden.
|
| For G, vendors decide for themselves whether to use the
| walled garden. Many choose to sell direct and avoid both
| the markup and the hassle of getting their apps approved.
|
| They also get to make even more money by embedding
| surveillance capitalism into their apps if they sell
| direct. Or include completely unmoderated and unregulated
| adtech.
|
| As a user, isn't G better than A, since I have the
| choice?
|
| It is better than A, _provided that every app in A 's
| walled garden is also in G's walled garden._ However, if
| in practice the apps I want to use are in A's walled
| garden, but sold direct on G to avoid the 30% hit, then
| in practice, as a user, I am better off with A if what I
| want are apps from the walled garden.
|
| Of course, I can always do my research to figure out
| whether a side-loaded app on G is safe to use. But if
| what I wanted was to buy apps without having to think
| about them, then I can be better off with A in practice
| even though in theory, G provides everything A provides,
| and more.
|
| Now, is there really a problem getting all the apps I use
| on A from G's walled garden? I don't personally know,
| since I don't want to go to the trouble of sorting out
| what is available in G's store versus what I have to
| sideload. So there's plenty of room to argue that in
| practice, G is superior to A.
|
| But I do not think it is _necessarily_ superior.
| zaphoyd wrote:
| On the Mac, where the App store is not required, a great
| deal of software is not in the App store and as a result
| the user does not benefit from App Store policies for
| said software. By forbidding sideloading, it forces
| developers to meet the App Store standards or not play at
| all. There are developers whose software is present on
| the iOS app store but the companion Mac app is not.
|
| I don't like the complete lockout either. I like being
| able to run my apps on my device. But it is most
| definitely true that the ability to sideload apps
| results, in practice, in some developers opting out of
| providing App Store protected apps in favor of asking you
| to sideload.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| On every discussion about this topic on HN, there has been
| at least one but typically many more commenters saying they
| love the walled garden and they would pay a premium for it.
| They trust Apple so they are OK with paying them 30% more
| instead of paying the app developers directly. They would
| never dare recommend Windows or Linux or Android to their
| parents but they would happily recommend them to get
| iPhones and iPads because they would not end up with a
| virus-ridden device.
|
| Personally, this is so different from the way I think that
| I find it utterly surprising, much more so from the tech
| savvy audience of HN. But apparently preferring walled
| gardens and being willing to pay extra to obtain one and
| even more every time you buy something on it is not an
| uncommon opinion to have.
| mnem wrote:
| Just to make a vast generalisation with no hard evidence:
| I wouldn't be surprised if it often came down to age.
| When I was younger, I had the desire, and more
| importantly the time, to keep everything I used as open
| source as I could afford.
|
| Fast forward a decade (or maybe 2) and while I am still
| very pro open-all-the-things, I am happy to pay more for
| a controlled environment to run things I rely on but
| don't care to spend time on maintaining and configuring.
| pchristensen wrote:
| I also like having a car with an automatic transmission
| and engine instrumentation that tells me when to get the
| oil changed and perform maintenance. My interaction with
| my car is strictly monetary and burns none of my mental
| cycles.
|
| I have 4 other people in my house, plus I'm the "tech
| guy" for maybe another dozen people. I appreciate how
| simple that job is when everyone has iPhones.
| arsenico wrote:
| I'm curious, how many apps do you have installed on your
| phone, and how many of them are paid ones? Especially,
| ones using subscription models? Less than 10, or dozens?
|
| I have over a dozen and I really appreciate the ability
| to manage (or at least view) those in one place. Managing
| my non-app (website) subscriptions is quite a mess.
|
| And it is only one advantage of the walled garden. I
| don't have to think much when I install an app - is it
| from the developer, or someone has tampered with it?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Personally, this is so different from the way I think
| that I find it utterly surprising_
|
| Seven billion people on the planet. It shouldn't be
| surprising to learn that not everyone thinks the way that
| you do.
|
| I wonder if it's an age thing. When you're young and have
| more time than money, tinkering with the technical
| hassles of your phone is worth it to save a buck or two.
| When you're older and have more money than time, you
| happily pay $399 for an iPhone if it means getting hours
| or days of your life to spend on other things.
| spanhandler wrote:
| Age was it, in part, for me. I used to do _lots_ of
| hardware and OS tinkering. Now the last goddamn thing I
| want to do is troubleshoot graphical glitches in
| x-windows, or try to get my audio to handle changing
| outputs correctly, or cross my fingers while "dist-
| upgrade" runs, or fix scaling and font rendering in GTK
| apps, or whatever, when I'm just trying to do something
| else.
|
| At some point I became acutely aware of every time I was
| doing something with a computer that was simply _fucking
| with the computer_ , and not actually getting anything
| that I wanted or needed to get done, except to the extent
| that making my computer be not-broken is required for
| those things. Around that time I was exposed to macOS and
| iOS and finally had an actual choice to (mostly) not have
| to do that when I don't want to, and if I decide I
| _would_ like to tinker then I can use... any other option
| on the market.
|
| I'd probably be screwing around with trying to run NetBSD
| on Android phones and turn them into mobile computers I
| can plug monitors and keyboards into and embedding RPis
| and Arduinos in all kinds of crap around the house, if I
| were 16 again.
|
| At the age I am now, though, you'd literally have to pay
| me to even think about doing any of that. Even when I
| screw around with getting allegedly set-it-and-forget-it
| RPi media projects (think: kodi, lakka) working I usually
| end up regretting it. I do know how to work with those
| sorts of things. I also very much don't want to any more,
| but do still want computer-things doing stuff for me with
| few or no hassles. Luckily these days you can pay to get
| that, in some categories at least. Largely from Apple, if
| you want them to last a while--I do wish they had actual
| competition _in that sense_. More options that don 't spy
| (much) and Just Work (mostly), please.
| nottorp wrote:
| You just described why i switched to Mac OS from Linux :)
| braythwayt wrote:
| First, I embrace your choice to not go with a locked
| down, un-free device. That is entirely within the spirit
| of being a hacker.
|
| Second, I very much argue that if there was no app store,
| consumers would pay 30% less. The app store and ecosystem
| provide something for developers, and if you remove the
| app store, the developers either do it for themselves, or
| pay somebody else to do it for them.
|
| Of course, if there was meaningful competition, the fees
| might be less, or the value provided to developers might
| be more. But I doubt that prices would drop the full 30%.
|
| I say this as someone who worked in tech distribution.
| Great things can happen when you cut out a middleman, but
| it's often surprising how difficult it is to replicate
| the middleman's distribution advantages.
|
| All that being said, I'm not here to debate whether
| prices would fall 30%, 27.2%, or even 10%. I agree with
| your basic premise: tech-savvy people have less upside
| and more downside from owning locked-down devices.
| codyb wrote:
| Hmm... I'm pretty tech savvy I'd say, but I don't think
| there's anyway the benefits I'd gain outside Apple's wall
| garden would compare to the ecosystem I live in now.
|
| Apple's rent seeking a bit with the App Store, but I have
| faith in their privacy protections, that they'll continue
| to support my devices for a long time after purchase, and
| that they'll be fairly prompt with security updates to
| all my devices.
|
| And cobbling together the connections between ear phones,
| watch, phone, computer and TV would be quite tedious,
| probably no where near as smooth, and a pain in the ass
| to upkeep.
|
| At the end of the day, besides my computer, I don't
| really give a hoot about side loading apps from different
| app stores, or I dunno... customizing things more I
| guess? I'm not really sure.
|
| There is the possibility increased app store competition
| (say, if it was ruled anti-competitive to only allow
| Apple's App Store on Apple Products) would make Apple's
| App Store better though. Discovery can be kind of a pain
| in my opinion.
|
| So, I'm not opposed to there being more app stores, but
| it'd probably take a fair amount of nudging to get me to
| actually try one.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Me for one. I don't want to deal with several different
| terms of service, different ways of payment, lack of
| clarity on if an app is trustworthy or not.
|
| Apple is simple. I trust Apple to protect me and honestly
| based on the stories I read about Google's Play Store I
| feel more confident in Apple to do the right thing for
| consumers in the long run. Their incentive is aligned to my
| needs (good safe hardware that protects me from making
| potentially poor choices -- even as someone who is in the
| "tech" world)
| damnyou wrote:
| Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, as Kierkegaard said.
| But freedom is an incredibly worthwhile thing, so much so
| that anxiety is the cost society should for it.
|
| The costs of Apple's walled garden have become so obscene
| at this point that I consider the pro-Apple position to
| be immoral.
| farisjarrah wrote:
| Is Apple's app store actually protecting you from
| anything, or do you just get the illusion that its
| protecting you?
|
| Although the situation has gotten much better the past
| couple years, its still not uncommon to find apps on the
| app store that charge like 10$ a month for some
| wallpapers or something of a similar nature. Furthermore,
| every few months there are new news articles coming out
| about how ""XYZ"" app is collecting ""ABC"" data from
| iPhone users(like apps scraping clipboard data, or apps
| trying to access the microphone or camera when the user
| thinks there should be no recording going on).
|
| The claim that the iOS is actually protecting users seems
| dubious at best. Apple tends to exert control over the
| app store, but it always seems to be in response to users
| finding out that some app is doing something evil rather
| then Apple protecting users up front to begin with.
| philwelch wrote:
| "Apple does an imperfect job of delivering that value
| proposition, therefore it should be illegal to even try"
| is quite the take. Keep in mind that there are huge
| confirmation biases here; when Apple blocks scammy or
| insecure apps before they even come out, nobody notices,
| but if they miss a single one, everyone notices.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| iOS is protecting me WAY more than Google Play store. I
| also read plenty about Apple being TOO strict on
| developers more than I read them being loose. (which
| sorry to the developers out there and definitely an area
| that apple can and should improve on)
|
| Your point that some bad actors get through doesn't
| invalidate that Apple seems to be doing the best job of
| keeping the app store secure and consumer friendly.
| MrScruff wrote:
| It's providing me with a unified experience, which is a
| benefit. You might not value it but others do.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| Me.
|
| I buy Apple products not because it's a walled garden per
| se, but because it's _Apple 's_ walled garden. Apple has
| been the only vendor to provide me with a consistently top-
| quality user experience, so I trust them to make decisions
| that benefit me. I don't have the same trust relationship
| with other software and hardware vendors, so _their_ walled
| gardens I would protest against.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Me. My life is too full of other things to want to worry
| about the latest bit of malware floating around on Android,
| or whether my phone will stop getting updates a year or two
| after I own it.
|
| To me, a phone should work for me, not the other way
| around. I'd rather spend my time living my life than
| fussing with the technicalities of my phone. I'm willing to
| pay extra for it.
|
| I also went with iPhone because I trust Apple to vet its
| apps better than any other vendor. When someone else does
| as good a job, I'll head over there. But for now, iPhone is
| where it's at.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Me. It limits the attack surface and all the problems that
| come with openness, very visible in the Android world.
|
| The problem is that giving a choice to users is risky and
| not acceptable at scale because people are not smart, they
| do dumb things all the time; like pasting untrusted scripts
| into devtools console and getting hacked. Or replying to
| mail scams.
|
| So I am happy I can hand an iPad to my parent and not be
| there to secure all activities they do online.
| braythwayt wrote:
| We used to joke about the fact that no matter what you do
| to educate users, if told that to see a video of funny
| dancing pigs[1] all they have to do is give the installer
| root privileges...
|
| Users will give the installer root privileges.
|
| History bore this out over and over and over again.
|
| --
|
| [1]: See also: Crapware-laden browser toolbars, Java
| runtimes, Adobe Reader, Windows crapware, Smart TVs, ...
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Me. I like the sandboxing. I like Apple Pay (especially for
| subscriptions). I like the new random-gen email addresses
| system. I like that apps have to use these things and can't
| just opt-out, because I may have to use the app for work or
| something.
|
| It's not the only thing I care about, but it's not all just
| strict downside.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Me also. I don't want to spend another second of my life
| dealing with malware.
| bhupy wrote:
| Me, without a doubt. I'm too old and busy to worry about
| configuring my phone or making sure that it's safe / clean.
|
| I also buy it for my parents for the same reason.
| loxs wrote:
| > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be
| legal to sell?
|
| I think the problem here arises not from the DRM (which I tend
| to believe is OK for clear cut cases like the above movie
| player), but from the universality of the smartphone device.
| Because of this universality, the phone is in a way
| "essential", so the "contract" you (as an end user) have with
| Apple is not able to encompass every use case of the device.
|
| In this particular case, you might have bought the phone/tablet
| with the sole (or main - I know kids) purpose to play Fortnite
| on it. Now, because of politics, you can no longer use the
| phone for your initial intended purpose. Not because something
| you did, but because of something Apple and Epic did.
|
| So it should be either forbidden for Apple, or they should be
| obliged to fully refund you, because the device is no longer
| usable for the original purpose you used it.
|
| In an "ideal" world (with much less regulation), Apple would
| not be protected from such litigation (and now they are,
| because of the fine print) where users demand refund because of
| such things, but the world is not ideal. The regulation is
| there, so we should extend it onto Apple, who need to be
| "reduced" to something more like a utility company.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| No, we should not make it illegal.
|
| They maybe should have to say their product cannot be modified
| on the tin. That'd let consumers choose. It'd also let
| competitors advertise an advantage, if it is such.
|
| I am in favor of right-to-repair, but that's a different
| concern than what you're asking about.
| mLuby wrote:
| Would that apply to anything electrical, or with integrated
| circuits, or with a port or antenna, or connected to the
| Internet? Is there an exception for ROM? What about device-
| specific IDs or keys?
|
| And I wonder what test the courts would accept (which the
| manufacturers would then build to): that the device can run
| arbitrary code? That each feature of the device is easily
| accessible via FOSS library or API? That access to each feature
| in the device could theoretically be reverse-engineered by a
| sufficiently motivated expert?
|
| Interesting thought experiment.
| harha wrote:
| I'm not sure if all cases need to be handled this way, with the
| Prima Server the main transaction seems to be the right to
| access the movies.
|
| With a device that needs to be used in every day life (proof:
| smart phone penetration in many countries, more recently,
| access to certain locations only with a Covid app) it makes
| sense to have stronger protections for consumers and other
| businesses.
| arkanciscan wrote:
| First of all; Yes in my opinion.
|
| But just as a devil's advocate; what about rentals? You can't
| just put new wheels on your ZipCar. If we made locked platforms
| illegal, they would simply become rentals. But at least it
| would be explicit then.
| asutekku wrote:
| I'm really happy with my closed hardware as the tightly
| controlled environment promises the customer that the software
| run in it will be high quality and on some level will be vetted
| before allowed to the platform. This also attracts other
| developers to create high-quality software, as those good
| enough will be highlighted by the platform owner, which in turn
| means increased sales.
|
| And I really can't say the same about open platforms, which
| usually UX-wise are awful and for that I'm willing to give away
| the "freedom" some other platform might provide.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > I'm really happy with my closed hardware as the tightly
| controlled environment promises the customer that the
| software run in it will be high quality and on some level
| will be vetted before allowed to the platform. This also
| attracts other developers to create high-quality software,
|
| I am not sure whether this is sarcasm or not.
|
| Since it seems like it is not, let me say that most closed
| platforms are absolutely garbage. Let us not think only of
| the iPhones and the Androids of the world, and instead focus
| on everything else. Think industrial control. Even the cinema
| stuff mentioned by the GP I'm sure contains software of the
| worst quality.
| jarvar wrote:
| All you have to do is compare the Apple AppStore with the
| Android AppStore. How many apps on Android have been found
| to contain malware? also when it comes to quality and
| design, Android AppStore is terrible compared to apple.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| i haven't found that utopia you describe on either the apple
| of google play store.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be
| legal to sell?
|
| No.
|
| > You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down
| (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film
| studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't.
|
| You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they
| know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the
| movie. But that's only because they're in the better bargaining
| position as the only source for the movie -- it's leveraging
| the _copyright_ monopoly into perfidious control over the
| device market. But they still, at the end of the day, want your
| money. Which means that if the thing they 're insisting on is
| prohibited, they'll make it work without it.
|
| Consider the general argument you're making. It's basically
| that if DRM was prohibited by law then Hollywood wouldn't
| distribute movies at all. But that's farcical -- they would
| have no revenue. Instead they would just distribute them
| without it, because they'd have no other option.
|
| Okay, but what about your edge case, the really fancy one with
| the hardware anti-tampering. Wouldn't they at least not have
| that one? Still no, because it's still the same thing. The only
| point in having that is to try to push back the day when the
| movie is on all the pirate sites. But it's only to push it back
| while they're still distributing it using the higher margin
| distribution channels. If DRM was prohibited whatsoever then
| they couldn't use it there, so they would distribute it even
| there without it because otherwise there is no high margin
| early release market _to_ protect.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in
| front to the projector and directly imaging the projection
| into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless
| 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy
| given sufficiently sophisticated optics.
|
| Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no
| one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and
| commodity grade hardware is the price. If they removed DRM it
| wouldn't make much of a difference, the limiting factor is
| already the price of the projector.
| weehoo wrote:
| I would be surprised if there wasn't a theater
| projectionist in the warez scene that has a setup like the
| one you describe.
|
| DRM is ridiculous because consuming the product is a side
| channel.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Well, there's some practical considerations - getting the
| refresh rate sync'd up, avoiding or filtering moire
| patterns out, getting the colors and such just right,
| things like that. However, it's possible _enough_ that most
| theater projectors already have DRM restrictions that shut
| the system down if you start fiddling with the image path.
| The password to authorize an image path change is only
| handed out to supervisors. Evidently, access to such codes
| were so uncommon that, during the 3D movies era of last
| decade, most projectionists wouldn 't bother swapping out
| 3D stereographic filters for 2D showings because it would
| require getting management involved.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I honestly think that DRM is very much like antivirus in
| the sense that the only reason anybody buys into it is that
| the companies who develop it pay sales reps to convince
| corporations that it's something they need when it's really
| just poisonous snake oil and paying money to someone to
| shoot you in the foot.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The movies are probably watermarked, so they'd know who
| leaked them, and then sue the leakers for all they're
| worth.
| weehoo wrote:
| This is how some video game demos are managed. Subtle
| color variations are used throughout the game window to
| uniquely finger print each copy of the game during media
| blackout.
| 627467 wrote:
| IMO, In most circumstances companies shouldn't need to document
| their products to the point that anyone can recreate them or
| modify them. But I don't think companies should actively create
| mechanisms (legal or otherwise) that prevent tinkerers.
| runako wrote:
| > closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to
| sell?
|
| Two thoughts:
|
| 1 - As software goes into everything, keep in mind that the
| universe of devices to which this applies will grow to include
| the set of "non-organic physical objects."
|
| 2 - And this will means that surprising outcomes could come of
| requiring everything to be open. Who do you trust to verify the
| software in your used car/refrigerator/lightswitch/water
| heater/etc? For devices where physical safety is at play, how
| do you verify that the (possibly aftermarket) software is up to
| code or other certification? Imagine every car sale or home
| inspection required a software assurance verification of every
| embedded system. Closed systems implicitly provide some level
| of assurance here.
| gsich wrote:
| >Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance
| here.
|
| No they don't as I can't verify any of that. A perfect
| counterexample is the VW dieselsoftware.
| runako wrote:
| (Edit: I did not downvote, this is a legitimate
| counterpoint.)
|
| > perfect counterexample is the VW dieselsoftware
|
| This is a great counterexample that inadvertently proves
| the point because in that case a) the software in question
| was exactly as delivered by the manufacturer so that b)
| consumers were able to receive compensation from rich VW
| for the faulty software.
|
| If the software stack was open, a malfunction could be
| caused by aftermarket software (think: downloaded from
| Sourceforge) and therefore consumers would have no real
| remedy.
|
| I suppose I could have been clearer on what's being
| assured. There is (obviously) value in being assured that
| you are buying what the manufacturer intended!
| gsich wrote:
| With an open system, that flaw would have been detected
| way earlier. Now the original post was about closed
| hardware, so I'm not sure if this was the case here. I
| have never tried flashing some motor control of a car,
| but it's possibly not even restricted, so "open system"
| would more likely refer to "open source".
|
| While there might be an incentive to restrict
| modifications (at least on a car, which is potentially
| dangerous), I don't see counterpoints to open-sourceing
| the software that runs on (the car in this example).
| actuator wrote:
| I think this comparison is in bad faith. I would put it like
| this, it should definitely be illegal to be anti-competitive on
| general computing devices once you hit a significant
| revenue(the revenue bit only to allow small players to compete
| first and not be stifled).
|
| Devices like Kindle are one purpose devices. It is supposed to
| be a replacement for a book. The integration with Kindle Store
| for ebooks can be complained about, but Amazon gives you the
| freedom to use ebooks from anywhere, infact if you can live
| with the bad experience you can use the browser itself to
| download them on the device.
|
| iPhone is a different ballgame, it is an ecosystem creating
| device. I have no problem with them restricting the APIs for
| third party developers if it improves security on the device,
| that's a good thing. But then the rent seeking on apps like
| Spotify is just bad for upcoming companies and would be for
| users in the end. This is not just limited to software, they
| can use the same leverage to even kill companies in hardware
| space.
|
| Sure, Apple doesn't have a monopoly in terms of device share,
| but they absolutely are in a position to kill a company.
| zb1plus wrote:
| Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be
| legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except perhaps
| lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies that sell
| products that build off of jailbroken products should be 100%
| legal. Edge case products like Prima Cinema can simply lease
| the hardware with restrictions on how can be used under the
| terms of the lease. If Apple feels so strongly about locking
| down their platform, they can adjust their business model and
| lease their hardware to customers. However, companies should
| not be able to legally "sell" products that transfer ownership
| if they are going to include "strings" restricting the usage of
| the product.
| Despegar wrote:
| >Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be
| legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except
| perhaps lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies
| that sell products that build off of jailbroken products
| should be 100% legal.
|
| All of those things are true today.
|
| The question was: >Should closed hardware (that owns its
| entire stack) even be legal to sell?
|
| And the answer to that is: obviously it should be, if you
| care about competition and innovation. The only people that
| disagree with this are the tech people who have had problems
| with Apple's business on ideological grounds for decades
| (people like Richard Stallman and saurik).
|
| But outside that one particularly small constituency, there's
| no good public policy reason to actually make it illegal, and
| plenty of reasons not to.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Correct. It's been perfectly legal since 2010.
|
| >The U.S. Librarian of Congress ruled on Monday that
| consumers who circumvent digital protections on smartphones
| to install unapproved applications--a practice often
| colloquially known as "jailbreaking"--for noninfringing
| reasons should be exempted from prosecution under the anti-
| circumvention section of the Digital Millennium Copyright
| Act (DMCA).
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/1152935/jailbreak_exemptio
| n...
| saurik wrote:
| If you can figure it out, you can jailbreak it; but there
| is no reason why jailbreaking a device is inherently
| possible: jailbreaks for iOS are happening later and
| later in the boot cycle and so are more and more limited,
| and we have had a single bootrom exploit in like a
| decade. If you want to be able to jailbreak a device it
| must be illegal to lock it down like that, not merely
| legal for someone to figure out how to maybe break the
| lock after you build it.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| >If you want to be able to jailbreak a device it must be
| illegal to lock it down like that
|
| I'm not sure why you're putting this in terms of iOS,
| since many Android devices also ship with a locked
| bootloader.
|
| >there is no reason why jailbreaking a device is
| inherently possible
|
| Any iDevice with an A11 or earlier has an unpatchable
| bootloader flaw that absolutely makes it inherently
| jailbreakable. Apple cannot prevent you from jailbreaking
| those devices, nor can it patch the flaw with a future
| version of the OS.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2019/09/devel...
| syshum wrote:
| That exception is for Smart Phones, and I think has
| expired even
|
| This would not apply to something like Prima Cimea, nor a
| John Deere Tractor, or 1000's of other things.
|
| Also the wording of the exception bu LoC was very open to
| interpretation and not as powerful as people commonly
| think
| d1zzy wrote:
| Yes, the "consumers" should be exempted, not anyone
| selling solutions to do this or just giving them up for
| free. Which essentially means that unless you are an uber
| hacker that does this for their iPhones, nobody else can
| do it. It's pretty pointless in practice.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| You don't have to be any sort of hacker. A jailbreaking
| app like Checkra1n will step you through the process.
|
| https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/11/10/how-to-
| jailbreak-wi...
| wayneftw wrote:
| At the beginning you said nope but based on your explanation
| I feel like you meant to say yep... e.g. yes, we should make
| it illegal.
|
| Ahh, I see the problem - thanks Osiris - there are 2
| questions, each of them opposite.
|
| > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be
| legal to sell?
|
| and
|
| > Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?
|
| Good thing I'm not a lawyer!
| Osiris wrote:
| > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even
| be legal to sell?
|
| His answer: Nope.
| [deleted]
| blintz wrote:
| I think that the right legal and political concept to
| accomplish essentially the same goal is the "right to repair".
| This is a concept that lots of people (outside of technology)
| have an immediate connection to, and the downsides of not
| having it are more clear (waste, less competition, bricking
| when companies go out of business).
|
| From a regulatory standpoint, it seems easier than attempting
| to hand 'closed' hardware - less line drawing on what counts as
| firmware and more focus on what consumers need to properly use
| and maintain a device over a long period of time.
| autosharp wrote:
| > So the question is, should consumers be able to knowingly buy
| restricted hardware such as Prima Cinema?
|
| If this would be restricted then you should keep it legal to
| buy but illegal to sell. Making the purchase illegal would only
| further criminalize the consumer.
| simion314 wrote:
| As long I own it the vendor should unlock it, it the past the
| phones were locked to work only with SIM cards from the
| provider you bought the phone, when the contract expired the
| phone still remained locked and you had to find someone to
| unlock it for you, Then (hope my memory is not mistaken)
| something changed(probably laws) so carriers had to provide you
| with a code to unlock your phone when the contract was over. I
| think should be the same with game consoles if and only if they
| are subsidized , when I paid the full price then is my
| hardware. Preventing piracy should not affect my property
| rights and hardware should not brick itself if somehow detects
| I want to use it as I want. If Sony does not like this they
| could rent me the hardware for cheap or free because the
| bastards are locking already online features behind
| subscriptions.
| gpm wrote:
| > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be
| legal to sell
|
| Yes (practically), but with a small exception.
|
| If you are the only provider of the hardware. For example if
| you own a single patent protecting any component of the
| hardware. You are the sole manufacturer of any reasonably
| unique component of the hardware. You are the only manufacturer
| putting components together in this combination. Etc. Then it
| should be illegal. It should be an anti-trust violation. You
| are using your monopoly on the hardware to create a monopoly on
| the software running on the hardware. Moreover attempting to do
| so should constitute patent misuse and invalidate any patents
| that you previously owned on the hardware [1].
|
| If the hardware is completely commoditized, consumers have the
| option to buy practically identical hardware from a competitor,
| then it should not be illegal. It's hard to come up with
| examples of such hardware
|
| [1] Patent misuse is a doctrine where if you attempt to use a
| patent to create a monopoly on something else, you lose the
| patent. It is _rarely_ but not never used by the courts:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_misuse
|
| (I acknowledge this is a fairly extreme position, and that it
| is partially created by motivated reasoning. But it is the most
| principled position I can find to reach the conclusion that I
| want)
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| No, Can you Imagine a consumer PC manufacturer demanding such
| fee for Softwares using their hardware 10 years back and
| getting away with it? But in the age of Appstore(s), it would
| not be that alarming anymore if the computer manufacturer
| suddenly decides to lock the computer for non-store softwares
| instead of what's happening now(Warning, having to right-click
| to open etc.).
|
| But the thing is, Apple has been stomping little guys forever
| and these Billion dollar gaming companies got benefited from it
| and only when the 30% cut has become too big of a chunk of
| their revenue; they are now making it as a David vs Goliath
| story. I had a retro arachnoid type game in Appstore for years
| which was under 'Arcade' category, when apple branded its
| gaming subscription service as 'Arcade', it forced me to change
| it to an irrelevant category.
| oppositelock wrote:
| What does banning closed hardware accomplish? It won't result
| in equivalent open hardware, except at the margin where it
| doesn't matter.
| liability wrote:
| > _" You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked
| down (claiming anti-competitive behavior)"_
|
| Yes I can.
|
| > _because the paranoid film studios wouldn 't even license
| their content if it wasn't_
|
| That's fine by me.
| gsich wrote:
| >In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the
| following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its
| entire stack) even be legal to sell?
|
| You can have both ways. You can sell, but after 1 year (or 2)
| it becomes open.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Should closed hardware even be legal to sell?
|
| I don't see why not. If it's a problem, then either a
| competitor will emerge, or people won't purchase the product.
|
| If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in the
| end. Besides that I actually love the closed system of the
| iPhone + App Store, we can't just go around banning things
| anytime we think we might not like them. Every time I see this
| story it just annoys me. I want the iPhone and App Store to be
| a closed system. Opening it up is the bad idea here.
|
| Philosophically, amazon.com and Facebook are closed systems
| too. As is Wal-Mart and UPS. I'm not sure why we're only
| focused on hardware systems here, what's the meaningful
| distinction?
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| It seems worth considering startups and entrenched near-
| monopoly situations differently. Competition is hard to bring
| back in the latter, and certainly consumers might well
| benefit from the right interventions. It doesn't mean a
| purist law to prohibit proprietary closed devices is
| necessary.
|
| And I'd argue with your example of Facebook that they should
| at minimum be compelled to enable universal linking so that
| other app vendors can intercept outbound links directly, and
| users can choose their web browser etc.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Hardware is a physical product you buy. You don't buy Amazon
| or Facebook. They are a service not a product. The meaningful
| distinction is that you should OWN the hardware you buy and
| thus it shouldn't be limited by the manufacturer except for
| things that are vital for product function.
| ericmay wrote:
| We're mostly talking about the App Store, but even so I
| don't think there's much of a meaningful distinction. I
| can't choose to get a 12 pack of cola that's half Pepsi,
| 1/4th Mountain Dew, and 1/4 Cherry Coke either.
|
| I can't choose to use iMessage with my non-existent
| Facebook account either. Why? Why are they allowed to lock
| in their software?
|
| Same argument.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| But I can choose to make myself a 12 pack of half Pepsi,
| 1/4th Mountain Dew, and 1/4 Cherry. That's the entire
| point. There is no artificial restriction that mixing
| Pepsi with some other soft drink results in a toxic
| mixture. But that is essentially what's happening on the
| App store/Phone hardware space.
|
| IMessage facebook messenger case is not an artificial
| lock. They are fundamentally different protocols. It's
| not like IMessage supports facebook messenger and Apple
| just say no you can't use it. There is a real difference
| here.
|
| Apple is artificially restricting usage of it's phones
| for no other reason then greed. If the app store would
| actually protect against malware I would agree that it
| might have some value but it really doesn't. The app
| store is filled with mountains and mountains of malware.
| But since it's malware that makes Apple money it's
| completely fine.
|
| Apple mobile hardware is really amazing. The best there
| is in the world I think. But the software locks it down
| so much that it's essentially a paper weight compared to
| its potential.
| ericmay wrote:
| > It's not like IMessage supports facebook messenger and
| Apple just say no you can't use it. There is a real
| difference here.
|
| You can make a protocol then and Facebook won't allow you
| to use it. They're definitely artificially locking you
| in. It's no different.
|
| > Apple is artificially restricting usage of it's phones
| for no other reason then greed.
|
| Really? That's the only reason? Does it not seem odd to
| you that iPhones are considered safe devices, and that
| Apple goes to great lengths to protect them and user data
| and now companies are complaining about the App Store?
| Once they can circumvent the App Store, then can put all
| sorts of garbage tracking and malware into applications.
| iPhone and the App Store have been around for more than
| 10 years, and then over the last two years Apple requires
| no tracking, prompting of data usage, soon a data use
| "nutrition scorecard" and now just this year all of these
| companies are complaining about pricing? Give me a break.
| If you want to call Apple greedy, then it's just a case
| of pots calling kettles black. Notice how there aren't
| any customers complaining about this oh so bad and greedy
| practice? I don't care what developers want here. I want
| my iPhone the way it is, and changing the App Store is
| bad in my view. I'll vote with my wallet in this case. If
| that means fewer applications because they want to
| circumvent these things that I want Apple to do, then
| that's fine, good riddance.
|
| These companies can partner with Samsung or something and
| make their own phones and app stores. That's fine. But
| this isn't about that. It's about them wanting money and
| to abuse user data on the platform that Apple built.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| > You can make a protocol then and Facebook won't allow
| you to use it. They're definitely artificially locking
| you in. It's no different.
|
| If the technical requirements are met and Facebook won't
| allow then it indeed is not an artificial lock in. But I
| doubt that Facebook messenger can talk to IMessage right
| now. It's not the responsibility of either Facebook or
| Apple to make those two apps work together. The only
| thing they should not do is go out of their way to not
| allow them to interface. I.e. It should be possible for a
| user to write a bridge between those two apps.
|
| > Really? That's the only reason? Does it not seem odd to
| you that iPhones are considered safe devices, and that
| Apple goes to great lengths to protect them and user data
| and now companies are complaining about the App Store?
| Once they can circumvent the App Store, then can put all
| sorts of garbage tracking and malware into applications.
| iPhone and the App Store have been around for more than
| 10 years, and then over the last two years Apple requires
| no tracking, prompting of data usage, soon a data use
| "nutrition scorecard" and now just this year all of these
| companies are complaining about pricing? Give me a break.
| If you want to call Apple greedy, then it's just a case
| of pots calling kettles black. Notice how there aren't
| any customers complaining about this oh so bad and greedy
| practice? I don't care what developers want here. I want
| my iPhone the way it is, and changing the App Store is
| bad in my view. I'll vote with my wallet in this case. If
| that means fewer applications because they want to
| circumvent these things that I want Apple to do, then
| that's fine, good riddance.
|
| I don't consider Apple safe devices because of the App
| store. Every single protection that is afforded by the
| app store is actually provided by the OS. With the
| exception of manual review and that is a subjective
| process full of holes.
|
| Can you explain to me, since you believe Apple is
| actually not user hostile, why does it allow obvious
| malware in the app store such as apps that appear to be
| free but once you install them you end up in micro-
| transaction hell? Why do they allow micro-transactions at
| all? Micro-transactions are very rarely if ever
| beneficial to the user. What's up with the apps that
| promise a feature and don't deliver? I'm not joking when
| I say that the quality of apps I can download for free on
| my desktop is way higher then most stuff that is in the
| app store. App stores have brought down the quality of
| software significantly. It's so bad that my default
| stance on anything on the app store is that it must be
| trash because that's what it is usually.
| glogla wrote:
| Something can be both "good business" that is make you a lot
| of money, and a terrible thing for society.
|
| There's an incredible amount of effort to prevent that - we
| can start with obligatory things like slavery, but there's a
| lot more - safety regulation in cars or airplanes, food
| safety, various environmental protections, employee
| protections, and so on.
|
| "I want the iPhone and App Store to be a closed system." is
| kind of like saying "I want powerful car that doesn't have to
| follow emission limits." - I believe you that you want it,
| but you having it might hurt others, and that's why it's not
| allowed.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > I don't see why not. If it's a problem, then either a
| competitor will emerge, or people won't purchase the product.
|
| Aka "the invisible hand will fix it". We have been waiting
| quite a few years for this and it did not happen. Instead we
| got the complete opposite: a duopoly of android and iOS which
| nobody, not even Microsoft, can compete against. At this
| point, we have to acknowledge that simply waiting is not
| going to fix anything.
| ericmay wrote:
| It works most of the time, actually. I'm not against
| regulation (I argue that companies like Facebook and other
| social media companies shouldn't be able to merge or
| acquire each other, for example), but it needs to be
| sensible regulation.
|
| I also don't think a duopoly is necessarily bad, and in
| this case I think it's not even a duopoly long-term. It is
| right now because Google and Apple are the leaders, but
| it's only a matter of time until other large companies
| (Samsung, Huawei, etc.) gain a foothold and market share.
| Being a local duopoly (in the US) is one thing versus being
| a global duopoly.
|
| Further, I'm not really convinced that this duopoly we have
| is even bad. Why is it bad that we have a duopoly? Is it
| only acceptable if we have 3 large players? Why aren't we
| complaining about the Microsoft and Apple duopoly with
| computers? I think this is just arbitrary really and it
| won't be long-lived anyway.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| But Android in general doesn't have these restrictions.
| Plenty of phones (including Google's flagships!) support
| rooting, and you can install a third-party App Store like
| F-droid even when they only support sideloading. So that's
| not really a good example of market forces failing to solve
| the unlocked hardware availability problem.
| the8472 wrote:
| > If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in
| the end.
|
| Many bad business practices only lose out because they're
| made illegal. Protection rackets are great for the ones
| running them. Although one could quibble that the police is
| the cheapest universally available protection racket that
| pushes out all the competition.
| _jal wrote:
| So, the core issue, it seems to me, is one of outcomes. Do we
| want a locked down future? Or do we want an open one? Do we
| even want to have a choice?
|
| That last question is actually important - maybe "the market"
| (meaning whoever is positioned at time) should decide. Maybe
| "we" already have "decided" and the rest is just that decision
| playing out.
|
| But I don't think this discussion is that useful without
| specifics. Imagine 10 years forward - Amazon, Facebook and
| Google all require locked down (you do not have root) hardware
| to access anything they store for you/to buy anything. Maybe
| you can still give your Raspberry Pi an IP and send packets,
| but interaction with any mainstream entity requires signing
| your traffic with a key on a chip. ("To solve identity theft"
| "for the children" "do you want the terrorists to win?")
|
| Is that a world you want to live in?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| What does the "entire stack" mean? Does it apply to e.g. cars?
| philwelch wrote:
| Back in the heyday of the Bell system, telephones were owned by
| the phone company and you leased them as part of your phone
| service. That's why they were made of indestructible steel and
| you could hang up by slamming the handset down on the receiver
| at full force if you were really ticked off at a telemarketer
| or something. That also meant phone phreaks tampering with
| their own phones were in dubious legal territory because they
| didn't own the phones.
|
| I think people should have the freedom to consent to buy
| whatever products they like so long as the functionality of the
| product is not kept secret. They also should (and do) have the
| freedom to try and jailbreak it but not to the point of
| obligating the manufacturer to produce an open system. But even
| if there is some sort of law that you can't sell closed-stack
| systems, you could just migrate everything to equipment leases.
| IMO this would make matters much, much worse for the consumer
| in terms of having control over their own equipment (though
| maybe some equipment would be made to last again).
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?
|
| IMO, yes. We make it illegal for someone to come into your home
| and take your stuff, which ends up with you losing control over
| it (you have no more access to your stuff), so it also makes
| sense to make it illegal for someone to decide to not allow you
| install or modify the stuff you have (again taking control away
| from you).
|
| The way most of these platforms run is like buying something
| but by doing so you also give an implicit permission for the
| seller to come in your house and modify or even forbid you from
| using what you bought if they do not like what you are doing
| with it.
|
| Imagine if you bought an oven and you could only bake specific
| recipes that the over manufacturer allowed. And when you
| complained you had others telling you "just buy another oven"
| (until all oven manufacturers were into the game because it
| made them more money - especially those who are also into
| selling ingredients - and you had no other options, except
| perhaps a few cheap models that had a tendency to explode every
| now and then and their only usefulness is to be used as
| skapegoats whenever "monopoly" is brought up).
|
| And yes, i know the above comparisons aren't 100% fitting,
| software isn't a physical product, it is special, but it still
| feels very wrong to buy a device (be it a phone, gaming
| console, TV or whatever) and have no control over what you can
| install or even -in some cases- do with it.
| philwelch wrote:
| From a legal perspective, you have complete control over what
| you do with it. You just don't control what "it" is in the
| first place.
| gtsteve wrote:
| > We make it illegal for someone to come into your home and
| take your stuff
|
| It's not illegal however if you signed a contract to that
| effect, which is what you did when you started using the
| platform.
|
| A better analogy is that you're renting some furniture and
| the furniture is found to be unsafe. The company can come and
| take it away, either replacing it with something else or
| refunding you.
|
| In the software world nobody but the creators or IP holders
| of the software actually owns the software. They just provide
| you the license to use it.
|
| It's illegal in many countries to modify the software so if
| you had a closed-source word processing application it would
| be illegal to mod it or to use it as part of a data
| transformation pipeline. You can only use it for the purposes
| stated when you bought it.
|
| If there was a way to limit your oven to bake recipes the
| manufacturer allowed or to use specific approved ingredients,
| and would come with some sort of value-add to make consumers
| ignore that as a problem, I'm sure someone would actually do
| this.
|
| (please note that I am stating facts as I see them and not
| necessarily agreeing with the state of affairs)
| gsich wrote:
| >It's not illegal however if you signed a contract to that
| effect, which is what you did when you started using the
| platform.
|
| Contracts are not above the law. Or: you can't contradict
| laws with your contract.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Sure you can. Just look at arbitration. It's not right,
| but it's incorrect to say that a contact can't remove
| your rights.
| sk5t wrote:
| Only to the extent that the law permits arbitration
| clauses.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| The question above was about if something should be made
| illegal, not what the current state of affairs is.
|
| Also i'm not arguing about who owns the software, i never
| asked for ownership of the software, i ask for being able
| to be in control of the software that runs in the hardware
| i do actually own. This does not require me owning the OS
| that runs in my hardware.
|
| And yes, i'm sure someone would do the oven stuff if it was
| possible and making that illegal would also be something
| that would be needed.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| The part of that argument I have trouble with is the "until
| all oven manufacturer were into the game" part. Do you have
| an example where an entire class of computer hardware became
| impossible to buy without firmware restrictions? This alarm
| bell has been sounded as "The War on General Purpose
| Computing" for over a decade for different pieces of hardware
| (laptops, desktops, routers, phones, etc.) but it still
| hasn't really trended negatively (phones and routers in
| particular have many more unlocked options today that they
| did in the early 2000s), let alone come close to extinction
| for any of them. The broadest category you could make a case
| for is specifically x86 processors, but only the IME/PSP/SMM
| components.
|
| I think the reality is there just isn't as much business
| incentive to do these kind of things to computing devices as
| much as people imagine, and instead the arguments tend to
| paint the would-be oppressors as cartoon villains that want
| to remove these abilities from the world just because.
| Android phones that can root or at least sideload have been
| numerous forever; somehow nobody has bothered to create a
| halfway serious Google Play Store competitor anyway. Why
| would every business move to quash something which ultimately
| isn't a universal threat? What Epic wants isn't sideloading
| or rooting their way on to iPhones, they want Apple
| themselves to have to let users install Epic's store through
| normal channels.
| easton wrote:
| Game consoles, right? Back in the day things like the
| Commodore were often sold as game systems and computers
| (the NES wasn't but you could still run unlicensed
| software). Nowadays, good luck running something on your
| PS4/Switch that the company didn't approve (unless you have
| a hackable switch I guess, but that's extremely fiddly).
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| That's a good point, but the incentives there make more
| sense: game piracy has been a huge issue for publishers
| on every gaming platform (PC included) that didn't put
| serious hardware roadblocks to it. They also sell the
| hardware at a loss, which means locking it down if you
| don't want someone to build a supercomputer out of it on
| your dime.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The NES could not run unlicensed software. In fact, the
| NES arguably invented the App Store licensing model.
| Every console (save for the toploaders) has a lockout
| chip that resets the CPU every second or so unless it's
| able to exchange encrypted data with a companion lockout
| chip in the cartridge. Nintendo used this to "protect"
| the US gaming market from games they didn't approve of.
|
| Technically, the Family Computer (Famicom) could run
| unlicensed software. It even had a BASIC interpreter and
| a keyboard controller. Nintendo realized their mistake
| very quickly, however, which is why the NES has a lockout
| chip and the disk add-on for the Famicom also locked out
| third-party disks. (Note that part of the system was the
| ability to buy blank disks and pay to download games onto
| them via a Disk Writer kiosk, hence why the disks were
| proprietary, not just the games.) A number of game
| developers in Japan found that to be a bit of a shock,
| from what I've heard.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| If it was clearly stated before I bought the oven that it was
| limited to a certain number of recipes that the manufacturer
| provided, I actually don't see the problem. You knew from the
| start what you were paying for.
|
| And for your complaint that all the other ovens are crap and
| explode. Shouldn't you take that up with the people making
| those ovens, not the one that made the locked oven? Maybe
| it's very very hard to make ovens that don't explode from
| time to time when people can cook whatever they want in them?
|
| If someone came after you paid them and said, btw, you can't
| make muffins in this oven, then I think it's fair to be
| upset. But in the current situation, no.
| jm4 wrote:
| How about don't buy it? Here's another question. Is it
| reasonable to buy a product, knowing that it works a particular
| way, and then expect the law to change in order to change the
| way that product works?
| jcelerier wrote:
| > Is it reasonable to buy a product, knowing that it works a
| particular way, and then expect the law to change in order to
| change the way that product works?
|
| if we agree as a society that the way the product work does
| not fit with our society ideals, then yes, definitely ?
| Especially when the person buying it will likely not have a
| lot of information / put a lot of thought in the issue. Laws
| are meant to protect people from that.
| wmf wrote:
| There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in
| your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial.
|
| There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to
| have one phone, one phone carrier, one ISP, etc. and thus those
| companies shouldn't hold their customers hostage. Turning that
| into a legal principle is left as an exercise for the reader.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _There 's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player
| in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial._
|
| There's nothing stopping an iPhone owner from also buying an
| Android phone, and the cost is trivial.
|
| _There 's a common-sense argument that a person is only
| going to have one phone, one phone carrier_
|
| There are hundreds of thousands of people in the United
| States, maybe even millions, who have more than one phone.
| romanoderoma wrote:
| This is a common argument, but it's wrong IMO
|
| iPhone is not an Android competitor, iPhone is a
| Samsung/Huawei/LG etc competitor
|
| Android competes with iOS
|
| If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an
| iPhone that would be different
|
| But I can't
| reaperducer wrote:
| _If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on
| an iPhone that would be different_
|
| I'm with you there. I'm so mad that I can't install iOS
| on any device I want. My Android phone? Nope. My HP
| laptop? Nope. My car entertainment system? Nope. My
| TRS-80? Nope. My waffle maker? Nope.
|
| I even tried to install iOS on my cat, and she rebooted
| all over the rug.
|
| Clearly this is a massive conspiracy by the Apple
| industrial complex to control what I do with the things I
| bought and paid for with my own money.
| FactolSarin wrote:
| While I'm sympathetic to this idea, one thing that I get hung
| up on is game consoles. I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I
| like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the
| fact that the console is locked down is _part_ of the value
| proposition for me. It 's a pro, rather than a con.
| liability wrote:
| Or you can just play with friends who don't cheat. Cheaters
| are only a problem if your friends are jackasses or you play
| with strangers.
| spanhandler wrote:
| So... we're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-
| cheating strangers when your friends are all busy, in order
| that _every_ computing device, instead of just _lots and
| lots_ of them, can have arbitrary software installed on it?
|
| This feels like losing options, not gaining them.
| liability wrote:
| > _we 're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-
| cheating strangers_
|
| Freedom? No. Opportunity? Maybe. I think communities
| would arise to fill the demand though. Pseudo-anonymous
| reputation systems tied to matchmaking could fill the
| roll. I have a group of pseudo-anonymous
| friends/acquaintances I frequently play games with
| online. None of us cheat and if any of us did, we'd stop
| playing with them. We don't need big brother. We don't
| need technical solutions to social problems.
| spanhandler wrote:
| Maybe they could form a company for this purpose, and
| then sell a product that fills that need?
| esrauch wrote:
| That only works if you have friends to play both your
| teammates and the enemy team which is a very tall order.
| Most people play with strangers overall, and most people
| who play with friends just have them as teammates against
| stranger opponents.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| So then the value add is that you can play with orders of
| magnitude more people than just the ones you happen to know
| and won't cheat?
| pb7 wrote:
| Do you have 150 friends to play battle royale?
| gsich wrote:
| Have you played games before? Even in a 5vs5 game, it's
| hard to gather 9 friends at the same time, with a similar
| skill.
| liability wrote:
| Of course I have.
| gsich wrote:
| Then you should know that the option "just play with
| friends" is not entirely realistic.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none
| of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console
| is locked down is _part_ of the value proposition for me.
|
| The issue here is that you're using "locked down" too
| generically. What you actually want is something like remote
| attestation. The device can assert with a signature that it's
| running a particular version of the OS and a particular
| version of the game and in so doing allows you to know that
| the user isn't cheating by using some other software.
|
| That has nothing at all to do with whether you can install
| arbitrary software on the device or who gets a percentage of
| what. Even if you could install the Amazon store on your
| PlayStation and the install Cheat App from there, the device
| wouldn't then assert that you're running the official game
| (because you're not), and then the other players would know
| that and be able to boot you out. You don't need the other
| player's console to refuse to install an arbitrary app for
| that, only for it to be able to tell you when that has
| happened.
| lozaning wrote:
| FYI you can reboot every retail xbox into DEV mode and run
| your own games and code:
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-
| apps/devki...
|
| Switching back and forth between retail and DEV mode is as
| easy as rebooting.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| I don't see a huge issue there. You need not necessarily be
| able to run your code in parallel to game, the console could
| provide the option to run either your game or other code.
|
| Of course you can now make the argument that any form of code
| execution increases the attack surface. And you're right but
| hypervisors can be quite effective. Also the XBOX One can be
| put in developer mode to run arbitrary UWP apps and has not
| yet had any major exploits (to my knowledge), where the PS4
| has no similar features, but has had several firmware
| versions with significant security flaws.
| fierarul wrote:
| Fundamentally, scale does matter.
|
| If you have a small pub in the middle of nowhere you can be a
| selective as you want. If your pub chain feeds 50% of the people
| in the country you damn right will have to be heavily restricted
| in what you can do.
|
| It doesn't matter if it's monopoly or not. After you cross a
| threshold the rules should be different and it's just amazing
| Apple has been allowed to grow so big with basically no
| oversight.
| kartayyar wrote:
| Fully agree with this sentiment - if there is anything which
| becomes so common place like say a road, then I think there
| should be some kind of oversight.
|
| Apple saying no to people being able to bring their own payment
| provider feels akin to saying the road provider only allows
| cars they vet, and then charge 30% car manufacturers 30% of the
| price of the car.
| maxdo wrote:
| This particular company decided to grow financially by cutting
| apple from a revenue stream. Apple invested billions of dollars
| in rnd, PR , legal protection, security, servers etc... Behemoth
| like Epic decided to ignore that, at the same time still using
| apple services and platforms. Such a simple case to me. The funny
| part is I never heard from small company that gain traction from
| apple store that it's bad. It's a social lift for them. But once
| you grow , you forget about it... and start complaining...
| cmiller1 wrote:
| And they didn't even start with the lawsuit, they just broke
| the terms of service explicitly and then surprise pikachu faced
| when Apple slapped them down.
| gfosco wrote:
| They were well prepared for this, with what must've taken
| months of planning. They added the payment option, got
| banned, filed the lawsuit and published their 1984 parody ad,
| all within 24 hours.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| They weren't surprised at all by the lawsuit. They wanted a
| lawsuit. The only person who could change the TOS was a judge
| and Epic could only sue if Apple enforced the TOS on them.
|
| Plus, if you don't think Epic had already talked to lawyers
| and lobbyists in Washington DC and already been given a
| heads-up that they might win, then you don't know business
| that well.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| I see streaming video games as simply videos that the user is
| able to interact with. Perhaps this is a false comparison, but
| does Apple collection commission on ad revenue from YouTube ads?
| ngngngng wrote:
| > but the benefit [the App Store arrangement gave] to developers
| was much less clear cut.
|
| I disagree, I think the fact that so many developers built apps
| for iPhone supports my point. Apple gave developers everything
| they needed, users with dollars to spend.
| johnnyfaehell wrote:
| Those users would always be there. If there was another App
| Store instead they would be there. If there were app stores
| competing there would be users with dollars to spend on both.
| The App Store doesn't provide users because it does something
| special, it provides them because there is no other option to
| install apps on your expensive smart phone/tablet without using
| it.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| A pretty well-thought out article, given the inflammatory nature
| of the subject matter.
|
| I think Apple is right on the line. But I don't see a good
| argument as to what their doing is being anti-competitive. ~2
| million apps are on the app store. Charging a fee for giving
| developers a huge market that spends money is not exactly unfair.
| And the rules of engagement are generally applied equally to
| everyone - the exceptions are noted by the guidelines.
|
| What would make it fair? Lowering the fee? If that were the case,
| then the problem isn't anti-competitive behavior. If it's the
| rules, what would fair rules look like that don't harm the end
| user or the product?
|
| What actual harm is Apple inflicting on the market by their
| behavior? Developers make less money? That isn't good enough.
| appleflaxen wrote:
| the solution is conceptually easy: carve the app store out of
| apple, and make it a separate company
|
| if there is no monopoly, then little will change.
|
| if there is, then consumers will win.
| [deleted]
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| actual harm => consumers end up paying more for the apps
| because the app developers have to increase their price to
| cover Apple's cut (which is more like a shakedown).
|
| I don't see any reason why a company needs to pay _any_ percent
| of their revenue instead of a flat fee. You pay a % of revenue
| when someone is your partner or an investor in your company.
| Apple is neither. In fact, they 've shown to be the opposite of
| a trusted investor/partner as they've copied successful apps
| and integrated them into their own platform.
|
| The App Store should be a fixed fee, something like $19/month,
| for your app to be on sale there.
|
| On another note, regarding your first comments, in the late
| 90's Microsoft went through DOJ depositions and demands for
| breaking up simply because they bundled Internet Explorer with
| their operating system. It didn't charge Netscape money for
| access to Windows and IE wasn't generating any income. But the
| furor at the time was huge and the anti-MSFT attitude has
| prevailed to this day. Why not the same feelings for Apple
| who's made this far more extreme and far more anti-competitive.
| sercand wrote:
| > consumers end up paying more for the apps because the app
| developers have to increase their price to cover Apple's cut.
|
| I don't think so. When we determined our app's monthly price
| we have A/B tested several price like $5/month, $8/month,
| $15/month. And we have chosen the one that we earned most (It
| was the expensive one). If the Apple's cut will become 10%,
| we won't change our price because would earn less. Therefore,
| Apple's cut won't change most of the apps' price.
| fungos wrote:
| Nice to know, so they can happily charge 95% from your app?
| sercand wrote:
| Oh no, they should close the App Store where my business
| lives and we should return to iPhoneOS 1 era.
|
| When we returned to iPhoneOS 1 era, all of us should just
| develop PWA websites without dealing with 30% cut.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| > actual harm => consumers end up paying more for the apps
| because the app developers have to increase their price to
| cover Apple's cut (which is more like a shakedown).
|
| So what? All markets work like this. Food prices go up
| whenever there fuel prices increase, so the grocery store
| increases the cost to cover the higher cut taken by the
| supply chain. Apple created this entire market - they
| could've been far more anti-competitive than they are. Why
| should the free advertising, access to a market that has
| users that spend more on average, be free to anyone?
|
| > I don't see any reason why a company needs to pay any
| percent of their revenue instead of a flat fee.
|
| You're the one making the claim - you have to prove why it's
| wrong to charge a percentage of revenue first.
|
| The Internet Explorer argument just doesn't apply. They had
| market dominance - Apple does not.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > So what? All markets work like this. Food prices go up
| whenever there fuel prices increase
|
| If it were a monopoly then anti-competitive practices, that
| would result in price increases, would be illegal .
|
| > Apple created this entire market
|
| It doesn't matter if they created the whole market. That is
| completely irrelevant to the legality of anti-competitive
| practices. Now, they are a monopoly, and they are no longer
| to allowed to engage in anti-competitive behavior.
|
| > they could've been far more anti-competitive than they
| are
|
| The idea that they could do worse, is not an argument
| against something as for why it is not bad.
|
| Apple could do many things that are worse than what they
| are doing now. Maybe, in the future they will hire
| assassins to kill anyone who does not own an iphone. But
| that hypothetical world, does not make the current world
| any better. It is not an excuse.
|
| > Why should the free advertising, access to a market that
| has users that spend more on average, be free to anyone?
|
| Because the purpose of laws are to help consumers, not to
| protect apple. The reason why the law should force apple to
| allow competitors, is because by doing this, this helps
| consumers.
|
| > They had market dominance - Apple does not.
|
| Apple absolutely has market dominance over apps that are
| sold on the iphone. They prevent competitors from running
| app stores on that platform.
|
| This is a huge market.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| It's not a monopoly. There is an alternative which
| dominates the market share. This simply is not a
| monopoly.
|
| > Apple absolutely has market dominance over apps that
| are sold on the iphone.
|
| This is just wrong. This would hold true if no
| alternative exists. There currently is not an app the
| iPhone offers that isn't matched in functionality
| anywhere else.
|
| This doesn't pass basic legal sniff tests.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > This is just wrong. This would hold true if no
| alternative exists. There currently is not an app the
| iPhone offers that isn't matched in functionality
| anywhere else.
|
| There is no alternative for buying apps on the iPhone.
|
| > It's not a monopoly. There is an alternative which
| dominates the market share.
|
| Yes it is. There is not a single alternative, for buying
| apps on the iPhone. They control that market, and have
| 100% market share over the iPhone app store market.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| > Apple created this entire market
|
| Which market? 3rd party software on a computing device?
| Sorry, that was dozens of years prior. Packaged apps on a
| mobile device? Sorry, I had those on my Treo in 2001. They
| haven't really created any market, they just created a
| software monopoly on their hardware using existing ideas.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Aside from trying to be smug, I'm not sure the point of
| this comment.
|
| No one cares that a small handful of people owned a Treo
| in 2001. It wasn't relevant then and it isn't now. In any
| case, if it isn't a market, then there is no case here,
| so not sure what your comment means for you.
|
| > They haven't really created any market, they just
| created a software monopoly on their hardware using
| existing ideas.
|
| The monopoly where the competitor has far, far higher
| marketshare. I'm sorry, I've never read about that in the
| history books.
| Someone wrote:
| _"consumers end up paying more for the apps because the app
| developers have to increase their price to cover Apple 's
| cut"_
|
| I think it will be hard to defend that argument in court,
| given the historical development of prices for apps.
|
| Also, Apple will likely argue that prices could go down
| because they provide developers a huge market relatively
| cheaply, so that they can make up Apple's cut with increased
| number of sales.
|
| I also think one could argue Apple is your partner when you
| publish on the App Store (evil partner, maybe, but developers
| sign a contract with them)
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| > actual harm => consumers end up paying more for the apps
| because the app developers have to increase their price to
| cover Apple's cut (which is more like a shakedown).
|
| Out of all the arguments against Apple's App Store policies,
| this has always struck me as the weakest. I remember app
| prices for Palm Pilots, and for that matter, app prices in
| general before the App Store came along -- and they were
| _way, way higher._ In 2005, a program like Pixelmator for iOS
| would have at least been $40; on iOS, it 's $5. And how much
| do you think LumaFusion, a multitrack video editor, would
| have gone for in 2005? If it had been under $200 reviews
| would have been calling it a steal. It's $30. And that seems
| _insanely high._
|
| So the problem with the "Apple's cut artificially inflates
| prices" argument is that prices have demonstrably been in
| free fall during the app era. We can argue that LumaFusion
| would be able to cut their price to $25, or Pixelmator to $4,
| and that somehow "proves" that developers have to increase
| their price, but it's not super compelling.
|
| > I don't see any reason why a company needs to pay any
| percent of their revenue instead of a flat fee. You pay a %
| of revenue when someone is your partner or an investor in
| your company. Apple is neither.
|
| Well, Apple _is_ acting as a payment processor, and payment
| processors charge you a percent of revenue. I don 't think
| anybody's gonna run credit cards for you for a flat $19 a
| month fee; if Apple charged only what Stripe did (30C/ +
| 2.9%), LumaFusion's fees would be over $19 on their 11th copy
| sold per month and Pixelmator would hit it on sale 65.
| zepto wrote:
| This isn't a clear argument.
|
| Many customers and developers want the service the App Store
| provides and are willing to pay for it.
|
| I.e. it's not a shakedown, it's a service just like any
| other.
|
| But even if you argue that people should be allowed to have
| someone else provide a different service (which is
| technically problematic since they will still need to use
| Apple's API's), there is no reason to presume that more
| stores equates to lower prices.
|
| It doesn't in streaming for example, because of exclusive
| content.
|
| It also means developers will need to support multiple stores
| and pass that cost on to the customers.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| They might want the App Store, we don't if they're willing
| to pay for it because they have no choice.
|
| And it's absolutely a shakedown. It's not a service, it's a
| requirement. A service implies app developers have options.
| They do not. Apple could raise the price to 70% of the
| revenue and app developers would have no choice but to pay.
| It's not much different than the mob saying "it'd be a
| shame if this business went away for a while, wouldn't it"
| and demanded protection money.
| zepto wrote:
| We know some of them want it because a lot of them say so
| elsewhere in this threads.
|
| Nobody is forcing developers to develop for iOS.
|
| If Apple raised their rate to 70%, I'd build for the web
| or Android in a heartbeat.
|
| It can be both a service and a requirement for iOS
| developers without being a shakedown.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| The App Store is as much the product as the iPhone.
|
| Without the app store the iPhone is literally just a
| piece of hardware. The idea that the App Store isn't a
| product in and of itself is a falsehood.
|
| > A service implies app developers have options. They do
| not.
|
| They do - it's called Android.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| I've heard this argument before...
|
| Internet Explorer is as much the product as Windows.
|
| Without Internet Explorer Windows is literally just a
| piece of software.
|
| They have options - it's called a Mac
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Ah hah! I'm glad you brought this up.
|
| What did Internet Explorer have? DOMINANT MARKETSHARE.
| That was the problem - not that a program came bundled
| with software. Such a basic fact conveniently ignored
| because Apple Bad.
|
| > Without Internet Explorer Windows is literally just a
| piece of software.
|
| A piece of software that can do many things - an iPhone
| without apps just doesn't work. Apps run everything -
| from making phone calls to keeping notes. Windows without
| internet can still be used. Bad analogy.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| Internet Explorer didn't have dominant market share;
| Windows did. You say the problem wasn't that a program
| came bundled with software, but that was literally the
| heart of the antitrust action: the government contended
| that Microsoft was using their defacto operating system
| monopoly of Windows to give IE a leg up on non-bundled
| competitors.
|
| > An iPhone without apps just doesn't work.
|
| Sure, but an iPhone without an App _Store_ works fine --
| that was literally the way the first iPhone shipped,
| remember? -- so I 'm not quite sure your analogy is a
| slam dunk here. :)
| jVinc wrote:
| Apple doesn't have a monopoly, people are free to chose other
| platforms. You can't claim harm on end-users due to higher
| costs when literally every single costumer of Apple chose
| their product and ecosystem despite it being more expensive.
|
| > Why not the same feelings for Apple who's made this far
| more extreme and far more anti-competitive.
|
| Because you can't abuse a monopoly when you don't have a
| monopoly. Apple isn't being anti-competitive. In fact by the
| very nature of your argument that they are hurting themselves
| by having high prices and are welcoming competition as
| consumers could chose cheaper alternatives, which most
| actually do as Apple only sits on like 14% of the market.
| Microsoft on the other hand tried to misuse their near 100%
| position one market to corner a different one in order to
| kill of competitors and take it for themselves.
| giantrobot wrote:
| I'm super amused by people bemoaning Apple's cut of sales on
| the App Store. I remember mobile software before the App
| Store. Buying software for a Palm or PocketPC device was a
| fucking shit show.
|
| There were multiple competing stores and sometimes even the
| developer's own site. The prices were ridiculous, partly
| because everyone had to implement their own payment and
| distribution systems. If the software didn't work or there
| was a problem it was rare to get a refund. Most of the time
| your contact info was readily sold to "partners".
|
| Apple's cut of sales for the service they provide is pretty
| small compared to the costs of doing it yourself. There's
| many of thousands of developers that are enabled by the fact
| they don't need to host their apps, handle billing, or handle
| user accounts and PII.
|
| If you seriously think prices to end users would decrease if
| Apple took a smaller cut you're deluding yourself. If
| developers are making sales at current prices there's zero
| reason for them to drop prices even if their overhead drops.
| Prices are set by what the market will bear and only have
| their lower bound set by the developer's overhead.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| > Apple's cut of sales for the service they provide is
| pretty small compared to the costs of doing it yourself
|
| Pretty small? I think Epic, who makes billions and billions
| of dollars in overall sales (though revenue is unknown
| specific to Apple devices, but fair to say at least $100M),
| would strongly disagree with this point.
| dangoor wrote:
| 2020 is very different from 2008. Palm and PocketPC devices
| were "organizers" and not primary computing devices (as
| smartphones are today, for some users), so there was a lot
| less at stake back then.
|
| Additionally, companies like Stripe have made integrating
| payments _way_ easier than it was back then. Hosting
| downloads is not difficult either. As noted in the
| Stratechery article, developers not only give up 30%, but
| give up a customer relationship and can't even issue
| refunds! They can't do upgrades, either. It's not just the
| 30%, it's the flexibility in payment models as well.
|
| I don't know that prices would drop, but more developers
| would have a sustainable business.
| ahnick wrote:
| _Prices are set by what the market will bear_
|
| That's the entire issue right there. When Apple is the
| market, then they can make it whatever they want. If Apple
| has to legitimately compete with other "App Stores", then
| the market will find a lower price than 30%.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Play charges 30% as well, it seems to be the market
| price.
|
| If that is exorbitant, what SHOULD the price be?
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| A flat monthly fee
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| That doesn't answer the question. A flat monthly fee
| could be $1 dollar or $100,000.
| ahnick wrote:
| Play is also an anti-competitive monopoly as well. Google
| was a bit smarter about avoiding potential anti-trust
| though, because they at least give the illusion of choice
| with 3rd party app stores.
|
| There basically is not a competitive market for either
| app marketplace right now, so an accurate price can't be
| determined. Allow 3rd party marketplaces to be installed
| as easily as any other app and I'm certain prices will
| come down from where they are today.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| > Google was a bit smarter about avoiding potential anti-
| trust though, because they at least give the illusion of
| choice with 3rd party app stores.
|
| I'd argue the opposite -- one of Epic's allegations is
| that Google scuttled a deal Epic had reached with OnePlus
| to ship Epic's own Android app store.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > . ~2 million apps are on the app store.
|
| Having a large customer base is not an argument against them
| being a monopoly. Quite the opposite, it is evidence of it
| being a monopoly.
|
| > Charging a fee for giving developers a huge market that
| spends money is not exactly unfair.
|
| It is unfair if they are engaging in anti-competitive practices
| to prevent competitions from competing.
|
| > What would make it fair? Lowering the fee?
|
| Allowing alternative apps stores to compete against apple's
| would make it fair, and giving users the option and ability to
| do this, easily. So, specifically I should be able to install a
| Steam, or epic app store, on the iphone, without apple having
| any ability at all to stop me, or take a cut.
|
| > What actual harm is Apple inflicting on the market by their
| behavior? Developers make less money? That isn't good enough.
|
| Of course it is. If you have a monopoly, then the harm is on
| the customers of the market. That includes both buyers and
| sellers. That is how monopolies work.
|
| And also, it is not just developers making less money. Instead,
| the monopoly place in the market, prevents developers from
| passing on the savings to the consumer.
|
| So the fee would have to be literally 0%, for me to even accept
| the idea that consumers aren't harmed by it.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| A monopoly needs to dominate the market. Apple is not, it
| does not dominate the smartphone or mobile OS market. People
| on here can't get past this basic fact.
|
| > It is unfair if they are engaging in anti-competitive
| practices to prevent competitions from competing.
|
| Which has been proven untrue - because there are 2 million
| apps on the marketplace. The rules are out there. I haven't
| seen a case where the rules were violated and nothing was
| done.
|
| > Allowing alternative apps stores to compete against apple's
| would make it fair, and giving users the option and ability
| to do this, easily. So, specifically I should be able to
| install a Steam, or epic app store, on the iphone, without
| apple having any ability at all to stop me, or take a cut.
|
| This is a significant risk to the product. Opening it up
| means that the quality of the product and consumer suffers.
| The competing app store is the Play Store. Feel free to
| switch to that OS.
|
| > Of course it is. If you have a monopoly, then the harm is
| on the customers of the market. That includes both buyers and
| sellers. That is how monopolies work.
|
| Sigh. It isn't a monopoly, but I'll humor you. Go ask any
| iPhone user what they think about the app store. I highly
| doubt you'll find any significant figure upset.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > This is a significant risk to the product. Opening it up
| means that the quality of the product and consumer suffers.
|
| Thats still a monopoly on apps sold on the iPhone.
|
| You are just giving arguments as for why you support
| Apple's monopoly on the iPhone app store market.
|
| > A monopoly needs to dominate the market.
|
| Also, related, there does not even need to be a monopoly
| for anti-competitive practices to be illegal. Anti-
| competitive behavior can still be illegal, even if there is
| not monopoly.
|
| > the competing app store is the Play Store
|
| No, actually. The play store cannot install apps on the
| iPhone. That is the market that Apple has a monopoly on.
| partiallypro wrote:
| At least in terms of their banning xCloud, they recently filed
| a patent to make their own cloud gaming service. I would
| definitely say that sounds anti-competitive to ban competitors
| that are ahead of you from your store, so you have time to make
| your own.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| It depends on the reason for banning xCloud and if their
| product becomes market dominant. The rules are there. It
| seems unfair to punish Apple for someone else breaking an
| agreement.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Ah, so the key to a monopolistic company being a monopoly
| is that we have to wait for them to become a monopoly
| elsewhere, after they've banned their own competitors from
| the space they just entered/want to enter. Makes sense.
| luplex wrote:
| One problem is that Apple does not charge a 30% fee for its own
| services.
|
| Thus, Apple music can be offered cheaper than Spotify. I'm not
| sure how exactly this applies to Fortnite, though.
| [deleted]
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| It's weird how Epic has no problem with closed hardware
| consoles...
| mthoms wrote:
| The counter argument (from the article). Emphasis mine.
|
| >[smartphones are] not a console you play to entertain
| yourself, or even a PC for work: it is _the foundation of
| modern life_
|
| IMHO, this is a perfectly valid argument.
|
| To be clear, I have no idea how that could be legislated, nor
| do I _necessarily_ think it should be. I 'm only saying that
| it's easy to see why they aren't the same thing.
| baby wrote:
| Do these take a 30% cut from online purchases as well?
| wmf wrote:
| Yes.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I'm sure they do but the situation is a bit different. Its a
| bigger leap for the consoles to implement a third party store
| than Apple. They don't allow unsigned code on consumer devices
| and the cert process is even more entailed than Apple. There's
| no tooling or infrastructure to install third party apps onto
| the consoles outside of the first party store. Apple has a
| ready made developer flow that is artificially blocked through
| provisioning profiles and the like.
| sdsvsdgggggg wrote:
| How big of a cut do they have to pay on closed hardware
| consoles?
| pwinnski wrote:
| 30%, amazingly enough.
| wpurvis wrote:
| If I wanted a PS4 game I could go to gamestop or walmart and
| buy it. I can buy games used. As closed as consoles are there's
| much more choice in where you get your software than iOS
| devices.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Regardless of where you buy it, Sony takes a cut--unless you
| buy used.
|
| And IAP, which is the subject under discussion, is 100%
| through Sony, and Sony still gets 30%.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is what screams "publicity stunt" to me. Especially the
| 2-tier pricing in the iOS app, whereas on consoles _everyone_
| [1] got the 20% discount even though Epic is still paying
| Sony/Microsoft their 30% cut.
|
| [1] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/the-
| fortnite-m...
| orliesaurus wrote:
| Okay this is going to sound stupid but maybe someone else feels
| like me about it: I don't understand why Apple has to take such a
| big chunk from transactions of in-app purchases? Similarly
| Google. Why 30%? Why not 5%? That feels like it would be more
| honest.
|
| Is it just because "they can"?
| klelatti wrote:
| When they launched the App Store Apple took a risk - invested
| in the systems etc needed to support it and I think that at the
| time it would be possible to justify 30% as reasonable given
| these factors - and was comparable with other stores.
|
| I think it would probably be hard to argue, given the market
| structure now, that the return relative to risk is still
| reasonable. Normally other entrants would join and exert some
| degree of pricing pressure on theses fees. The Google / Apple
| duopoly means that this isn't working.
| philwelch wrote:
| If I were an app developer who relied on in-app purchases, I
| would probably care a lot more. But as a consumer, I don't, and
| I suggest the only reason consumers have to care is because app
| developers (understandably) want lower fees and are negotiating
| terms via PR.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| You should care because in the end you are the one paying the
| 30%.
| wmf wrote:
| Partly because they can but also to prevent developers from
| gaming the system. Imagine a free app with an IAP to unlock
| features but Apple only takes 5% from the IAP.
| kentonv wrote:
| So they should take 5% of regular app purchases, too. Problem
| solved.
|
| Would hardly even create a dent in Apple's revenue and they
| apparently don't know what to do with the money anyway except
| put it in a giant pile, so no loss for society.
| lilyball wrote:
| Exactly this. If IAP was a different cut, all apps would go
| "free" overnight and require an IAP purchase to unlock most
| of the app.
|
| Apple could try something like giving "consumable" IAP a
| different cut, but I'm sure devs would still try to game that
| too (e.g. having a consumable that unlocks the app for a set
| amount of time, rather than a permanent unlock).
| rstupek wrote:
| Most apps are free already and use ads to generate revenue
| of which Apple gets $0.
| wmf wrote:
| BTW if Apple is protecting customers so much they should
| ban consumable IAPs because they're being used to drain
| money from people via addiction.
| lilyball wrote:
| Consumables are used for more than just freemium games.
| benbayard wrote:
| Part of the reason is that Apple & Google don't charge credit
| card processing fees. So for a $1 app, 30% is ~ their cost. Of
| course, that logic doesn't scale to things like $9.99/mo
| subscriptions and the like.
|
| Apple could take out credit card processing fees and then
| charge 5%, but up until now they haven't had a reason to
| change. Perhaps we will see change here, who knows?
| x3c wrote:
| That logic doesn't scale of for other countries that have
| friendly micro transactions platforms..
| nemothekid wrote:
| I assume their costs are just, Credit Card Fees, Infrastructure
| Fees (Bandwidth, Storage), Reviewers Salary. Not sure this adds
| up to 30%.
|
| I think the real reason is that when the Apple store was
| started, they looked around at the current prices for "software
| distribution". Retail was like 70%, and other app stores; for
| example the Danger Hiptop / T-mobile Sidekick charged 60% for
| their apps store, and the carriers were worse. At the time, 30%
| was actually a lot cheaper than everyone else. Then I assume
| Google just copied Apple.
| eyesee wrote:
| CC processing fees may exceed this. Just using Stripe [1] as
| an example, 2.9% + 0.30 per transaction means $.329 for
| retail CC pricing. Surely Apple gets a discount, but it's
| price of competitive alternative that matters.
|
| Part of the problem with this whole market is that we're
| talking about zero marginal cost goods. Taking away
| frictional costs of transaction, distribution and support,
| the economic argument is for prices to trend towards $0.
| Hence the "race to the bottom" once the App Store made
| distribution "free" for free apps.
|
| [1]: https://stripe.com/pricing
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| $0.329 for one dollar.
|
| $0.59 in CC fees for ten dollars. That's 5.9%
|
| $0.735 in CC fees for $15: 4.9%
| kuschku wrote:
| The German GiroCard payment system is 0.125%.
|
| The EU just limited credit card inter bank exchange fees to
| 0.2%.
| x3c wrote:
| What about other countries where micro transactions are not
| that expensive... eg. UPI of India.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| The MAS fees add up to 3% with presumably similar service
| costs.
|
| 30% is just rent-seeking opportunism. 3% shows something far
| closer to Apple's true costs for all this when faced with the
| fact that the Mac App Store is (for now) not required.
| wrkronmiller wrote:
| Maintaining XCode, running iCloud app-facing services,
| building/maintaining SDKs, etc...
|
| Apple has to pay for these somehow. They can either get the
| money by charging more for each iPhone or they can get the
| money from the real end-users of these products: Developers.
| yokto wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure you would buy an iPhone if Xcode didn't
| exist.
| dzader wrote:
| Or you know, they could get the money from the yearly fee
| they charge developers for exactly these reasons
| paulcole wrote:
| > Not sure this adds up to 30%.
|
| It absolutely shouldn't add up to 30% unless you believe
| Apple should be using the App Store as a pseudo-loss-leader
| for the iPhone.
| zaksoup wrote:
| This is something I hadn't thought about until the article
| pointed it out. According to the first link in google
| (https://www.braze.com/blog/in-app-purchase-stats/) the average
| iOS IAP in 2017 was $1.08. If you compare that to Square and
| Stripe's fee structure then the processing fees charged by the
| credit card processors is about 25%. This means Apple's taking
| for themselves much closer to a 5% cut which seems much more
| reasonable for the services provided.
|
| Why Apple doesn't switch to a 5% + $0.29 structure is anybody's
| guess, however...
| halter73 wrote:
| Why compare to Square's or Stripe's fee structure? It's
| ridiculous to claim "This means Apple's taking for themselves
| much closer to a 5% cut" as if Apple is paying a $0.29
| processing fee per IAP.
|
| If developers had a choice in payment processors, they could
| choose one with smaller minimum per-transaction fees,
| aggregate multiple payments from the same customer, try out
| subscriptions instead of microtransactions so the payment
| processor takes a smaller cut, etc...
| zaksoup wrote:
| Sorry, I am not arguing that developers shouldn't be
| allowed to pick their payment processor on iOS, just doing
| some back-of-the-envelope math that tracked with the quote
| from the original article that 30% is not much higher than
| the processing fees in the first place on a $0.99
| transaction. This was a surprising revelation to me since I
| hadn't considered that there were often flat fees of ~30
| cents from card processors.
| bluk wrote:
| Having worked at a payment processor, if you are a medium
| to large business, you can cut deals with payment
| processors for a much lower fee. They are very
| competitive, and of course, Apple would be a special
| customer given very generous terms (assuming Apple are
| not processing the transactions themselves which is
| possible). This does not even take into account Apple
| store credit via gift cards and the like or purchasing
| different apps in one transaction which eliminates or
| lowers the fees.
| donarb wrote:
| Apple provides a ton of services besides the credit card
| processing. - 24/7 worldwide availability,
| instant payment/app download - Easy re-install after
| deletion, you still own the app even if deleted -
| Region restriction - Separate app pricing by region
| - Revenues paid to developer from multiple region currencies
| without conversion fees - Tax calculation and
| collection - Customer refunds - User rankings and
| reviews - App store advertising in category listings
| - Video previews of the app in operation - Packaging of
| media content allowing developers the ability to load game
| levels as needed. This allows a user to start playing your
| game quickly. - App sales stats
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Most of them are there either because local laws, or purely
| to benefit Apple, or both, e.g. region restriction helps
| Apple add content to their store, and circumvent local
| restrictions, if apply.
| schoolornot wrote:
| Call a spade a spade. Not even the mafia extorted businesses
| for 30%. I'd argue an act of digital eminent domain is in
| order. Imagine being a store owner and having to give a 30%
| kickback to your landlord.
| ladberg wrote:
| Most shops do have to pay somewhere around 15% of the revenue
| in rent. In addition to the flat cost, there are tons of
| commercial leases that charge a percentage of profits on top
| of that.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| well maybe the digital word needs Georgism too. The OP is
| exactly right, what Apple is doing is nothing else than the
| digital equivalent of extracting land rents.
|
| If Apple, Google et al want to have control over their
| digital domains honestly instead of breaking them up let's
| just socialise the economic rents, or cap it at 2% or
| whatever.
| askafriend wrote:
| > Call a spade a spade. Not even the mafia extorted
| businesses for 30%.
|
| What do you call Steam, Xbox, Nintendo, Best Buy, Game Stop,
| Playstation, Microsoft...
| pwinnski wrote:
| At launch, Apple operated the App Store hoping to break even,
| and 30% wasn't quite doing it at first.
|
| On a $.99 app, they still might not. I mean, they might, given
| economies of scale, but barely. Free apps incur costs with zero
| compensation. If all apps cost 99 cents, I don't think we'd be
| having this conversation. If Apple were still operating the App
| Store at break-even, I don't think we'd be having this
| conversation.
|
| Apps with IAPs that are $9.99, that's a lot of extra profit.
| Apple might argue that they help offset all of the free apps,
| but obviously a company like Epic is going to feel singled out.
|
| Apple is no longer only trying to break even with the App
| Store. They have openly stated that it is profitable, and that
| they want it to be more so. Epic and others with higher-
| than-99-cents sales don't like giving up so much, and I can't
| say I blame them.
| kaiju0 wrote:
| Yes the are providing an eco system, customers and payment
| processing.
| seanwilson wrote:
| Don't they need to pay for and take care of country specific
| sales tax for you? If you sold directly to customers within the
| EU for example, you'd be liable to pay ~20% VAT for sales to
| most countries as far as I understand.
|
| I don't know if 30% is fair but there's value for sure in
| making tax returns easier.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| Apple's share of the hardware market is practically fully
| saturated. They're not going to sell 30% more phones or
| computers. They need some place to expand and grow, and
| services/payment processing is where they're doing it.
| txr wrote:
| I find the comparison that many people make to game consoles very
| short minded.
|
| It should be clear to everyone that the smartphone will become
| more and more integrated into our lives to a point where at some
| point you cannot participate in society without a phone. Sure,
| many things have alternative options or are limited to tech
| enthusiasts but other options become less favorable more and
| more.
|
| The alarm clock in the morning, communicating with friends and
| family, paying for things, doing your taxes, unlocking your door.
| Also unlocking your car is coming and there is even early talk of
| putting your driver's license in your phone. Getting driving
| directions, some people use their phone as an artificial pancreas
| system. (https://androidaps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
|
| The smartphone has become the personal computing device.
|
| A gaming console is something completely different, there I'm
| perfectly fine if a company wants to control the environment. I
| would prefer an open system but Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft
| controlling the games I can play is not even close to the
| limitations apple creates with their ecosystems on society.
| Google allows for third-party stores on their Android system, I
| would be doable for Apple to allow the same.
| williesleg wrote:
| Epic = China Let the flame wars begin. Also, please post first if
| you're a CCP member first, so we all know.
| LockAndLol wrote:
| Honestly, I don't see the big deal. You pay for vendor lock-in,
| you get vendor lock-in. Apple doesn't have a "monopoly" on
| smartphones. If anybody wants variety, they can get an android or
| invest in a PinePhone or Librem5.
|
| Epic complaining about being shut out of the App store is like
| Dominoes complaining about being shut out of that private
| university where all the rich kids go. They should just go over
| to Android where, if they want to, they can make their own app
| store.
|
| > My preferred outcome would see Apple maintaining its control of
| app installation. I treasure and depend on the openness of PCs
| and Macs, but I am also relieved that the iPhone is so dependable
| for those less technically savvy than me.
|
| This, I certainly don't agree with. Android has more app stores
| and is still quite easy to use and dependable for the less
| technically savvy. Apple getting more App stores won't change how
| "easy" the iPhone is to use.
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