
Phil Schiller: Apple Will Not Change Decision on 'Hey' Email App - pier25
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/18/phil-schiller-apple-hey-decision-no-changes/
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camgunz
That response letter is so sanctimonious. “We’re happy to keep distributing
your app for free”, good lord. DHH is right, this is a monopolist shakedown.

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MintelIE
How's it any more of a monopoly than Microsoft's store, Google's store, or
even a digital content "store" like Netflix?

Let's not misuse words to make a point here. All companies have, in your
definition, monopolies over their own proprietary stores. By the same token,
Wal-Mart has a monopoly over the products it sells and Ford has a monopoly
over the vehicles they produce and distribute.

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mwnivek
Apple's app store on iOS is more of a monopoly than Google's app store on
Android because Android allows third-party installed apps and even other app
stores (like F-Droid, and Amazon).

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dnh44
It can’t be more of a monopoly because neither is a monopoly.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp)

I believe Apple has roughly about 15% of the global smartphone market.

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camgunz
Fortunately US antitrust laws wouldn’t use irrelevant global stats, and iOS
has over 45% smartphone market share. It’s also important to note other
dilutions like “all operating systems” or whatever else are also irrelevant,
look at the MS antitrust case which took place in the era of TRON. Finally,
oligopolies lend themselves to predatory practices and collusion. It sounds
like Android’s App Store has similar policies, which is nuts. That means I
need to pay a 30% tax to give 99% of US smartphones access to my service via a
native app? Any way you look at it it’s just a cartel.

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dnh44
But you don't have any kind right to force either Apple or Google to
distribute your services. You can choose to enter into a business relationship
with them or you can choose to not do so.

You neither have a right to force Netflix to distribute a film you've made and
you don't have a right to force a supermarket to sell the vegetables you might
grow in your garden.

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camgunz
These analogies are just all super bad. For all intents and purposes, you can
have one of two mobile OSes: Android or iOS. Apple (and Google, to a lesser
but still severe extent) work pretty hard to control the kind of software you
can use on their OSes. It's like you can have one of two kinds of shelves, and
Apple/Google tell you exactly what your book options are, but without the
books the shelves just take up space uselessly.

This is why the app store isn't a grocery store, or a big box store, or
whatever else. And it's why, if you're an author, you'd rightly be pissed that
the shelf maker, who has a monopoly on shelves and is the most profitable
company in history, is saying they're taking a 30% cut of your book sales if
you want them to go on a shelf.

You're essentially saying, "well feel free to not make a mobile app". That's a
ridiculous position in 2020.

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dnh44
Well the bookshelf analogy isn't perfect either because a bookshelf serves no
purpose without books while most normal people just use the built-in apps plus
a couple more.

Also book authors would be really excited about paying only 30% to have a
shelf maker distribute their book because they currently pay about 90% to the
publisher and retail outlet.

Yes I am saying "well feel free to not make a mobile app" and I don't think
that's a ridiculous position and I'll explain why.

For a start neither Apple nor Google had to allow 3rd party apps, and actually
neither developers nor government would have been able to force them to do so.
However they created massive industry and that's benefited them as well as
developers and users. The two are in heavy and healthy competition with each
other. If they colluded to keep the cut at 30% I would agree that some
government action is warranted.

The other thing is if you look back in fairly recent history you see that
software developers have a pretty bad track record in terms of respecting
their users. People regularly had to reinstall their operating systems to rid
it of malware and crapware that was really difficult to get rid of. This
situation would clearly be intolerable on phones hence all of the restrictions
and app reviews.

Apple and Google also bring customers to the developers. They are providing a
lot of value for developers, if the 30% was that bad then 3rd party apps on
phones would have never become a thing because developers would have never
made the choice to develop for them. So clearly it was a good value
proposition before the market for apps exploded so it should be an even better
one now.

I think your underestimating the value that Google and Apple are bringing
here. They've created a marketplace where customers are really comfortable
with trying free apps and buying apps and subscriptions to apps. Cancelations
are simple. You've got one-click purchasing which makes it really easy to
impulse buy. No one has to give their card details to random companies all
over the world. Refunds are easy. It's also really easy to delete apps. Users
haven't got to worry that the next update of a trendy photo app is going to
install some toolbar into their web browser. All of this creates more sales of
apps. I don't think it's unreasonable to take 30% of sales in exchange for
this.

Finally it's not like developers can't make web apps that are compatible with
smartphones. You can even save the web app as an app icon. Okay so maybe push
notifications don't work but so what. The issue is that some developers seem
to want it both ways. They want the benefits of the marketplace but they
expect Apple/Google to provide all of that for free. It's a sense of self-
entitlement I think.

Anyway thanks for the conversation I should probably go sleep now. Also I'm
kind of tired of defending two of the largest companies in the world. It's not
really me.

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vb6sp6
I wonder if DHH will give up his iPhone

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AnonC
I wonder too, and see the dilemma with such things. Another example for other
people is Facebook. With all the things the company and its services have done
against people, it still provides some value to some people which they
couldn’t really get elsewhere.

