The companies that offer alternative (and likely cheaper) appstores could be american or asian for all the EU cares. The point is to allow competition.
What I mean is that this is regulating at the wrong level, or perhaps that regulation is a poor substitute for what might be more useful. If there were more competitors in the phone side of things, then mono app stores would matter less, and if people cared about them, eventually get competed out.
The problem I'm highlighting is that the EU itself hasn't created any phone OSes that have survived to this point. If it were more conducive to that, then regulation, which is a very poor substitute for actual competition, wouldn't be needed.
Will the EU also dictate customer experience so when they force apple to allow others i don’t have to use 10 different websites to manage subscriptions and store my payment information on who knows who’s servers?
i’d personally rather have security and peace of mind that the company holding my information will not use it nefariously. is the EU thinking of the consumer in that regard or just focused on the simple minded “more competition is more better”?
There isn't a public market for iOS app distribution, and I don't see how you can force a business to create a public market inside its own products, or call it a monopoly when it doesn't. Does Disneyworld have a monopoly on food carts within its park?
No, US antitrust law does not allow a single company's product to be considered a relevant market unless very specific criteria are met. Epic attempted to make this very argument in court and failed. "iOS app distribution" is not a valid relevant market for antitrust purposes.
The details of the two cases are very different and here, details matter. The courts have already rejected "iOS app distribution" as a valid antitrust market.
Edit: In case you're wondering why "Android app distribution" can be considered a relevant market whereas "iOS app distribution" was rejected even though they both sound like the same thing, the key difference is "iOS app distribution" is a single-brand aftermarket, and single-brand aftermarkets have stricter requirements in order to be accepted by the courts.
Just because most consumers outside the US use android instead of apple doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help protect hundreds of millions of users. There is a large enough portion of market along with all the businesses built around catering to this market that are unfairly being taken advantage of.
> we shouldn't try to help protect hundreds of millions of users
No need. Market is functioning reasonably well, as Android, PineOS, FirefoxOS, and similar alternatives exist.
Just because someone purchased a product doesn't mean they were coerced into the purchase. Apple products still function fine and legally, if not ongoing service isn't exactly ethically run by the company management.
> No need. Market is functioning reasonably well, as Android, PineOS, FirefoxOS, and similar alternatives exist.
I'm not sure I'd like a government (whom at least in theory, exists to protect & provide as much collective good for their constituents as possible) to approach the situation in such a cold strictly economic fashion. Hundreds of millions of people unfairly being taken advantage of to the benefit of a small privileged few is exactly what I think governments ought to be trying to prevent.
>Just because someone purchased a product doesn't mean they were coerced into the purchase.
So what if they weren't coerced? Should government really have to wait until an apple exec points a gun to someone's head while they make a purchase before they can try and help? Isn't it possible a lot (I'd argue most) of these people don't realize all the financial nuances they've unwittingly become party to when choosing a phone. Think about all the grandparents who opted to get iphone because that is the one their grandchildren uses, think of all teenagers who chose IOS because that's what their friend group uses, heck think of all the literal children using IOS because that's what their parents gifted them for Christmas. Should the government really just turn their heads while children, teenagers, elderly, and so on are unwittingly agreeing to participate in a financially abusive arrangement.
I think you and I are running into the classic "is" vs "ought" disagreement. While I agree with you that this is currently legal, I also believe that it ought not to be due to the negative impact it has on hundreds of millions of people.
I appreciate the time you put into your thought. Fundamentally, I disagree with the assertion that because a minor consumer purchase goes south and charges an unarguably illegal processing fee (for interchange) now deemed legal for hardware providers that the usual moral justification for this, consumer welfare, is harmed as the BATNA is simple - get a different maker's phone. Varying qualities of substitutes are easily attainable.
No, where Apple goes wrong and will lose the market is through the exercise of market access to developers, as they lock the currently largest market down. It's also a implicit tax for purchasing.
But the legal remedies are already stymied. We are stuck with the stupidity of the decision for awhile despite the minor migration inconvenience.
Thus ends the House of Jobs, not with a fight but with a pyhric win.
>Fundamentally, I disagree with the assertion that because a minor consumer purchase goes south and charges an unarguably illegal processing fee (for interchange) now deemed legal for hardware providers that the usual moral justification for this, consumer welfare, is harmed as the BATNA is simple - get a different maker's phone. Varying qualities of substitutes are easily attainable.
Honestly we may just have to agree to disagree. Both from my own personal experience helping friends and family as well as professional experience working in IT the act of switching away from apple is always an incredibly stressful and more often than not a significantly disruptive event for the user.
A good example here is the elderly. The energy and effort that goes into learning how to use a new phone is significant for most people 70+ and a huge factor when they're trying to decide to upgrade or switch their current phone. Very often, this daunting task is legitimately not worth it for them even if it that means letting apple take advantage of them simply because they don't think or truly know that they don't have the bandwidth to take on learning another smart phone.
Here you have a vulnerable class of people who just can't simply switch over to another OS even when they have the means, ripe for financial abuse. Apple is a multi-trillion dollar company and governments ought to be doing whatever needs to be done to protect the millions of people who are functionally stuck using their platform from being abused.
In regards to the rest of your comment I don't feel knowledgeable enough to comment. All I really wanted to say is:
(a) millions of people are negatively impacted by this to the benefit of a small few.
(b) a huge majority of those people likely aren't aware that they're being taken advantage of and even if they did, a meaningful amount of them couldn't do much about it without some help and/or incurring considerable amounts of stress throughout the switch.
(c) What Apple is doing here is exactly the behavior I believe governments ought to be trying to prevent.
> millions of people are negatively impacted by this to the benefit of a small few.
Can you justify this? These sorts of phones were unthinkable only 20 years ago, even for a billionaire and now they're extremely affordable. That is a net positive impact all of this seems to be at best a tiny dip in.
> a huge majority of those people likely aren't aware that they're being taken advantage of
Let's wait until they are aware, and let them choose. We shouldn't assume other people's choices and "act in their best interests".
> What Apple is doing here is exactly the behavior I believe governments ought to be trying to prevent.
We have endless periods of time where the setup wasn't conducive to the sort of innovation that's happened over the last 20 years in phones. Governments are indeed great at that. It's just hard to notice until you see a country with a government that is conducive to innovation, and then they start creating entirely new industries, and you wonder what happened.
>Can you justify this? These sorts of phones were unthinkable only 20 years ago, even for a billionaire and now they're extremely affordable. That is a net positive impact all of this seems to be at best a tiny dip in.
Perhaps I worded this poorly, but I was specifically talking about the 27%-30% apple tax. The tax burden inevitably is either absorbed by the developer entirely leading to less profits and funds for them to innovate or they off board some of that tax burden by bumping their app's cost for the customer. I don't see how anyone but apple benefits in either of these situations.
>Let's wait until they are aware, and let them choose. We shouldn't assume other people's choices and "act in their best interests".
I'm confused... when did I recommend removing someone's choice? All I want is for the millions of people who have chosen apple to be taken advantage of less.
>We have endless periods of time where the setup wasn't conducive to the sort of innovation that's happened over the last 20 years in phones.
Yes and often those times coincide with awful exploitation. Industrial revolution was great for innovation, bad for the children who died working 12h a day in factories. Ideally we can strike a balance here and when it comes to preventing apple from charging 27%-30% for developers to innovate on their platform, a reasonably strong argument(s) can be made that it wouldn't prevent innovation.
You know one of the techniques to rip off consumers is to hide in their transaction log. Get them to sign up for a subscription and help them forget they’re paying, that way they’re less likely to cancel.
Apple handles this quite well, having all your subscriptions in one place easily canceled and non of this shenanigans about losing access if you cancel mid subscription.
Have you app store social justice warrior types thought of this and how to protect consumers against that type of scumbaggery? Or is it more likely you don’t care about the consumer at all and just want alternative app stores for your own desires?
If apple were abusing their position, you may have a point. But you’re preemptively regulating them when they’ve been nothing but pro consumer. It’s clear this has nothing to do with the consumer.
>Have you app store social justice warrior types thought of this and how to protect consumers against that type of scumbaggery? Or is it more likely you don’t care about the consumer at all and just want alternative app stores for your own desires?
Hey there friend, I really don't appreciate your assumptions and negative tone. I never once mentioned alternative app stores as they have nothing to do with what I am talking about.
I believe a 30% fee for other developers to innovate on their platform ultimately bad for everyone but Apple. Either the developer eats the cost and thus has less resources to work with or they offload this cost onto their consumers which results in artificially high costs for the consumer, the only one that truly benefits here is Apple.
Here you have a market used by hundreds of millions of people controlled by one company with practically zero government oversight. Even if we take the optimistic view that no one in Apple is currently taking advantage of these people (unlikely as that may be) what protections do we have should Apple ever start taking advantage? (Let a fox into the hey pen as it were) To me it's ridiculous that consumers don't have any meaningful financial protections in this market given the sheer size, scale, and daily activity it sees.
> I believe a 30% fee for other developers to innovate on their platform ultimately bad for everyone but Apple.
Then how is Apple to continue development of the platform? Is your point that Apple should spend the money developing something hundreds of millions of people use, literally inventing smart phones as we know it, and they shouldn’t be able to make money on it to maintain it?
> what protections do we have should Apple ever start taking advantage?
In general, it’s illegal to punish someone or something for an action they have not taken. You are preemptively attempting to regulate with no damages. If this were a lawsuit, it’d be thrown out and used as the new definition of frivolous.
Now answer my question. Who do you trust more to be pro consumer? The company with the proven track record and a great reputation to lose or “Random Shady Company, LLC, were totes not gonna scam you”?
>Then how is Apple to continue development of the platform? Is your point that Apple should spend the money developing something hundreds of millions of people use, literally inventing smart phones as we know it, and they shouldn’t be able to make money on it to maintain it?
That is not my point, no. I'm saying that apple should only be allowed to make a healthy profit off of the hundreds of millions of people that use/develop on their platform. Should apple be able to profit off people using their platform absolutely, but they shouldn't be allowed to price gouge their customers and developers.
>In general, it’s illegal to punish someone or something for an action they have not taken. You are preemptively attempting to regulate with no damages. If this were a lawsuit, it’d be thrown out and used as the new definition of frivolous.
I was being generous by taking the position that apple has "never" been taken advantage of, but you're right in that it would be frivolous. So let us both take off our rose-tinted glasses and see if Apple has ever done anything to warrant regulation...
- Walter Peters v. Apple Inc (where they were sued for deceptive advertising about subscription management service you mentioned in your orignal post)
- United States v. Apple Inc. (where Apple was found guilty for price fixing e-books)
- France v. Apple Inc (Where they were found guilty of quietly sending out planned obstinate updates that destroyed older iphone battery life)
- FTC v. Apple (Where Apple was payed out 35 million to refund parents due to all of the in-app purchases apple allowed children to make without notifying the cardholder within a reasonable time frame)
Hopefully these several lawsuits where apple has already been found guilty of taken advantage of their consumers is a convincing argument that apple consumers deserve to be protected from being taken advantage of.
>Who do you trust more to be pro consumer? The company with the proven track record and a great reputation to lose or “Random Shady Company, LLC, were totes not gonna scam you”?
You're begging the question here as I'd like to have both options and be able to make my decision on a case-by-case basis. But if you insist that I answer, I'd personally use whichever one provides the smoothest checkout experience w/ a reasonable cost. (I'm not going to pay $5 more because apple's checkout is easier but I'd probably pay an extra $1 if it meant not having to leave the app.)
But again, what the heck does this have to do with my post. I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, I genuinely do not care if apple forces all payments to go through them or requires all apps to be downloaded from their store nor am I arguing that this shouldn't be the case. 3rd party app stores/payment solutions are not a required belief for me to be concerned with Apple price gouging developers that innovate on their platform. Even if they magically made both these options available right now, the reality is that 99% of users would likely still use their store and thus cause for concern.
