
Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores - rydre
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/19/21296657/microsoft-apple-app-store-antitrust-comments
======
boudewijnrempt
When Microsoft helped me get Krita in the Windows Store I hadn't much
expectations. Now the Windows Store and Steam (fifty/fifty) bring in enough to
pay me and six other people to work on Krita almost full-time. It has saved me
from having to find a day job that would have driven me round the bend for
sure.

That said, it sucks that I cannot tell people they can also download Krita
from krita.org. There's always the fear that some day, the Windows Store will
be closed, or Krita will be kicked out or whatever.

Publishing in an app store means you're a sharecropper, with all that entails.

~~~
nico_h
Yeah, that's the thing that's so annoying about at least the windows (TIL) and
Apple App Store: you cannot mention any other option.

If they were so confident in the convenience they offered they would allow you
to mention other options. This reeks of anti-competitiveness.

~~~
sneak
The issue, I think, is not that Apple sets draconian rules in their store.
Their store, their rules.

It's that I, a user, cannot choose to sideload an app I want to use on my
device or choose to use a different store.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>It's that I, a user, cannot choose to sideload an app

That's only half the equation. I run android, but have no google account. I
have always used a combination of aptoide, f-droid and manually downloaded
apk's for my apps.

When all the covid apps were released and governments were encouraging people
to download them, do you think they put the APK on a government website for
people to download?

Nope, just links to the app store. Of course, most of those apps relied on
google play services API's for a bunch of stuff, so it's not like they would
have worked anyway.

It's not enough to merely allow sideloading. If the expectation isn't that
mobile devices are a diverse ecosystem and that it's not good enough for
developers to pick one store and bugger the rest, you've achieved very little.
Most people could not be bothered going through what I do to keep my phone
clean.

~~~
sneak
It is very troubling that to use public services, one must agree to an
arbitrary and abusive private company contractual agreement (TOS).

~~~
Sir_Substance
I've not yet found that to be the case, although I fear that one day it will.

I generally find that all you need to do is tell people their solution is not
acceptable. All the banks in Iceland are trying really hard to convince people
that phone based 2FA is the only option. However, I went to my bank and
informed them that I don't take my phone with me when I travel overseas and I
require another option. They tried a few other variations of "but you could
use your phone this way", but once they realized I wasn't joking when I said
"I often just don't have a phone with me, find me something else" it turns out
that the physical 2FA tokens totally still work, they just don't like telling
people.

Generally speaking, the people providing these things have a boss who expects
them to make sure things run smoothly. They'll try to force you to use the app
if that's the easiest path, but as soon as they realise that trying to force
you to use the app will be much more painful for them than just giving you
another option, they'll find another option.

------
013a
For a full view of not just what an executive says, but Microsoft's actions
here:

The Windows app store gives a 95/5 cut to developers, as long as the download
happened from an external link to the page. If the discovery happened via an
app store search or marketing within the app store, that cut changes to 85/15
[1]

I would also like to find some revenue split data for the Xbox store, though I
imagine that's far more nuanced, with many different contracts for different
third parties. If I'm an indie developer with no negotiating power, is that a
70/30?

[1] [https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-
share...](https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share/)

~~~
ksec
It seems every thread there is a comment on console. They are _not_ the same.

Console is a loss leader, or sold at cost. No one on planet Earth could make
an exact replica of Playstation 5 or Xbox 5 for discount. And that is
excluding all the IP, R&D and Software / OS Development involved. The 30% is
where they make the money. And personally that is a fair share.

Microsoft also make their profits via selling OS to OEM and Business. The
current App Store model are there to help distribution of Software. And the 5%
are essentially zero considering you will have to paid ~3% for credit
processing any way. i.e Linking to the App Store frees you the burden and duty
of hosting yourself for free.

Edit: And if you dont mind share why you downvote.

~~~
danShumway
I'm also not sure that the "but consoles are closed" argument would be a slam
dunk anyway, even if they were exactly the same, because I would absolutely
support either requiring Microsoft to open up the XBox or allowing game
developers to bypass Microsoft's controls.

It's not clear to me why loss-leading consoles are a good thing for consumers.
It just means that:

A) games will be more expensive, because Microsoft needs to make more money on
them, and

B) a smaller number of games will be made, because the barrier of entry to
profitability on any single game will be increased by forcing developers to
subsidize Microsoft's costs.

Microsoft is still going to make the same amount of money regardless. They'll
either charge upfront, or that cost will be passed on to consumers in the form
of more expensive, less experimental games.

So, I dunno. People who make the comparison between Apple and XBox should
maybe be careful what they wish for, because I'm more than happy to go after
XBox, Playstation, and Switch with the exact same criticisms. I am skeptical
that there are many indie game developers who are happy that they need to jump
through hoops to get development consoles, or sign NDAs just to target a
platform.

~~~
pjmlp
XBox is kind of open, via UWP based games.

The game development communities are exactly the opposite of HN culture, there
no one cares about FOSS ideals and stuff, it is all about IP and getting their
ideas into the gamer's hands no matter how.

In fact, nowadays I see as a mistake having spent so much time around FOSS
during the university back in the 90's, which caused a bit of schizophrenic
considerations when going across communities.

------
jwr
Oh, how the tables have turned! I still remember Microsoft's chokehold on the
entire industry in the 1990s, their "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy,
and nearly total monopoly.

Now the wolf is an advocate for the sheep :-)

~~~
hoorayimhelping
Fuck Microsoft. I recently updated Windows and had to go through an
unskippable ad for Edge. After the ad, I had to go through an unskippable
setup process for Edge, even though I don't use it. After I got through that,
I had to tell Edge not to make itself the default browser, unpin it from my
start menu, where it was added by Windows, then remove it from desktop, where
it was added by Windows. I'm a paying customer, and they're plastering their
shit all over my computer, just like they did in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Don't be a fool and think Microsoft has changed because they give away VSCode
and have added features to Github. This isn't a goodwill measure, it's a lock
in measure. They're quietly trying to lock in engineers into their platform,
just like they're trying to keep gamers locked in to their platform.

They're trying to look like the scrappy little guy competing against Apple,
but this only after their Windows App store has failed to do anything. They
wait until their hand busts before tattling - if the Windows store succeeds,
they happily go along with it. If it fails, they talk about how great a
tragedy it is for the American consumer.

~~~
slezyr
Exactly, people forget that Valve developed SteamOS after Microsoft's
shenanigans, when they tried to lockout 3rd party programs i.e. build it's own
"app store"

~~~
skocznymroczny
Valve, the company that almost holds a monopoly on the PC games distribution.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Epic Game Store and Xbox Game Store for PC are making headway.

Epic just gave away amazing games for a month or two. I got GTA5 and Civ6 for
free amongst other treasures.

~~~
Kaze404
It's worth noting that Epic Games isn't really making headway into the market
by providing innovation. They're just dumping money into it, making everything
worse for Linux users.

~~~
pjmlp
With its drive for fragmentation, even with a gaming distribution like
SteamOS, Linux gaming community keeps changing between 1 and 2%.

No one is betting their business in such tiny communities, while having
exponential costs in development and dealing with very vocal and entitled
gamers.

So naturally a couple of studios test waters, and then they just target
Android instead.

~~~
Kaze404
Do you have a source for Linux users being "very vocal and entitled"? Someone
linked this Twitter thread here and, while they ultimately chose to stop
supporting Linux, the picture painted of Linux users is very different from
what you describe.
[https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760](https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760)

~~~
pjmlp
Really? Is that so hard to find?

[https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/3409](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/3409)

[https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1223457395419930627...](https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1223457395419930627?s=20)

------
lmeyerov
Pot, kettle: The Azure Marketplace for b2b apps is also 20-30%. Worse, while
most app stores pay out 30-60 days after use, Azure can hold on to your
payments about 3-6mo. I am a fan of the concept, but this kind of stuff is
entirely flexing and broken PM politics. Imagine if Intel did that to juice
proceeds of all x86 users for a couple of years!

~~~
Aissen
While this isn't entirely comparable (just run compute on Azure and install
your services). I'm pretty sure this is a reason Steam completely gave up on
their remote app for iOS.

------
not2b
Apple's demand for 30% of all in-app purchases, with no other way to get an
app onto their platform, and its increasing censorship efforts to block an app
from informing a user of alternative payment methods, isn't going to last,
because antitrust regulators are going to kill it.

------
rhacker
The credit card companies found that 1-3% is all they get away with skimming
from the top. That being said they have massive volumes. I wonder why everyone
is so accepting of such a massive cut of the profits. We need to demand 2% and
NO MORE of a cut of profits and that should go to everything from Ubers to
software sales.

I think a really low percentage wave is going to disrupt these markets as new
competitors that are bootstrapped, slimmed down and not VC money hungry enter
the scene. All it takes is for people to start demanding they get paid for the
real work and not the sale.

~~~
w-m
Interchange fees on personal credit cards have been capped to 0.3% in the EU
(in a law from 2015). As a result, there are no 1-2% cash back options for
cards to keep track of or any other silliness, you can just use your credit
card as a method of payment, without thinking about which card to use for
what.

I'd personally welcome similar regulation caps on app stores (higher than
0.3%, but also certainly lower than 30%) in the EU.

~~~
dionidium
> _As a result, there are no 1-2% cash back options for cards to keep track of
> or any other silliness, you can just use your credit card as a method of
> payment, without thinking about which card to use for what._

In other words, consumers get offered fewer options, which results in a far
worse deal, overall, but in exchange they can avoid the hassle of evaluating
all the better options they'd have if they hadn't been legislated away.

~~~
w-m
I'm not too familiar with day-to-day payments in the US (I'm in Germany), so
please enlighten me if I have something wrong here. Is there an actual option
I have as a consumer to avoid the fee when buying something?

My understanding: everybody pays the same price, independently of payment
method. If the standard credit card interchange fee is 2%, then the vendor has
to raise their prices by around 2% to make the same amount of money on the
product. As a consumer, I would have to pay the 2% of the inflated price if I
pay by cash (or debit card or something).

So I'm forced to pay by credit card with a cash back option or some other
rewards to make back part of the 2% that were added on top of the original
price.

I lose, if I don't play the game, and I'm back around a zero-sum-game if I do
play along. In any case, the credit card company wins.

If the fees are capped, the vendor doesn't have to raise the price, and the
consumer wins no matter the payment method.

~~~
hansvm
I only have a couple potential counterpoints:

1) The 2% fee might mostly be captured by the credit company and thus
represent a net benefit to most consumers (at the expense of retailers)
because retailers tend to want prices like 1.99 and would be reluctant to
raise that to 2.01 because of the reduced sales. Over time there might be
other options like slightly reduced portion sizes to help the store, but
profiting a little bit extra on most products is hard, and profiting a lot
extra on a few products is near impossible because consumers will buy from
competitors.

2) The 2% fee isn't reimbursed equally to all consumers, so individuals with
higher credit scores might have a preference for the current system even if
it's a zero-sum game overall. (this point also easily allows arguments the
other way in favor of regulating fees because we probably shouldn't be
extracting an additional percent here and there from young people and those
with financial hardships)

~~~
joshuaissac
>The 2% fee might mostly be captured by the credit company and thus represent
a net benefit to most consumers (at the expense of retailers) because
retailers tend to want prices like 1.99

How does it benefit the consumer if the credit company takes 2%? I cannot see
why it would make a difference to the consumer (at least in the short term)
whether the retailer or the credit company takes the 2%.

------
growlist
I think the level of irony here is so off the scale that it threatens to tear
a rip in the fabric of space itself.

~~~
votepaunchy
The irony of Microsoft also running a closed ecosystem on XBox? If Apple is
forced to individually negotiate with developers, they can and will.

------
Abishek_Muthian
This is why Google’s strategy with PWA (Progressive Web App) intrigues me,
although android is not a walled garden (sideload, 3rd party appstores)
pushing for PWAs seems counter intuitive to increase its Playstore revenue;
same reason why Apple has been hesitant about supporting PWA.

So what's the deal? It's hard to beleive Google cares more about open web
platform than their Playstore revenue or it's just they want to ditch
android/ART completely in future.

P.S. As a consumer I'm glad PWA exists and can't wait to see the end of
duopoly in the smartphone ecosystem.

~~~
untog
I think the answer is simply that Google is massive and sometimes competes
with itself. Android’s Instant Apps, announced a few years ago (seemingly to
go nowhere?) seemed like a direct attack on the use case for web sites, but
the company tolerated it.

As a whole I think Google wants to chase ubiquity. A PWA will work on laptops,
phones, Windows, Mac, Android... an Android app won’t. So they’ll push PWAs.

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
I too thought of just blaming it on Google's idiosyncrasy, but PWA has stood
the test of time with multiple parties (browsers) extending their support.

Perhaps, I'm thinking other way round; May be PWA was supposed to kill
traditional web apps and was intended to bring web apps to Playstore/Appstore
but it didn't happen(yet).

>Android’s Instant Apps, announced a few years ago (seemingly to go nowhere?)
seemed like a direct attack on the use case for web sites, but the company
tolerated it.

I think android instant apps are meant for Google Assistant ecosystem, Google
Smart Display have it and Fuchsia would have GA; so instant apps might come
handy.

~~~
jfoster
PWAs can be bundled up for the Play store: [https://medium.com/@firt/google-
play-store-now-open-for-prog...](https://medium.com/@firt/google-play-store-
now-open-for-progressive-web-apps-ec6f3c6ff3cc)

~~~
Abishek_Muthian
Correct, I meant to say PWA hasn't taken off as much as Google wanted.

~~~
jfoster
They have made it unusually difficult to get it bundled up for the Play store.
I mean, it should be as simple as proving ownership and supplying the manifest
URL. I think solving the distribution problem would definitely be key to
having developers think about it as an alternative to native apps.

------
jbb67
Great. Presumably microsoft will also be opening up their xbox to run whatever
software I like without going through them too then?

------
soapdog
Is Microsoft doing that because their store never took off? Probably yes.

Should governments take a closer look into app stores? Absolutely yes, those
games are rigged, monopolistic, and broken.

------
sharemywin
I agree with Microsoft for the same reason they do. I don't own one.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Xbox is a thing, and Microsoft is the sole gatekeeper for that platform.
Obviously the Microsoft Store is also available on Windows, though it's easy
to go around it there, of course.

It's decently likely a ruling around app stores will have impact not just on
mobile and desktop, but the console world as well.

~~~
laurowyn
At least with a console you have the option of buying a physical copy of the
game and loading it onto the device, compared to mobile where you need to
enable developer mode in order to load apps from alternate sources (and even
then, it's not an officially supported method as the steps can change
significantly between versions).

But I do agree that there will be a console war if this is continued. I would
hope that it leads down the "I own this device" route and level the playing
field in general - I've paid Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony the money for the
device, therefore I should have the right to run whatever I want on it.
Gatekeeping what can be run on a device is a significant problem that needs to
be resolved, along with the right to repair (Apple's a good example of the
problems) and the second hand market (Tesla is a good example of the
problems).

~~~
jaegerpicker
Except that the physical copy of the game is still gatekept by Microsoft or
Sony. People complain about apple's app store and 30% tax but compare that to
the craziness it takes to get on a console and it's not even close.

As a developer I pay Apple $99 a year and i can release my app to the store as
long as it meets some pretty lose guidelines. To get on a console you have to
basically audition your game and met some arbitrary guidelines that aren't
published anywhere. Either a company can build a curated system or they can't.
XBox, PS4, and the switch aren't monopolies for gaming and iOS or Android
aren't monopolies for mobile.

~~~
slantyyz
> Except that the physical copy of the game is still gatekept by Microsoft or
> Sony.

And Nintendo.

I don't follow consoles these days, but the gatekeeping by region that console
makers used to do (even if I understand the reasons behind them) was
incredibly annoying as well.

I think the perception of game consoles is different from PCs and mobile
devices. Even though the game console is a computer, they're still not seen by
the public or governments as a general computing platform no matter how
blurred the lines have become.

------
TicklishTiger
Are there many applications these days which are not available as a "web app"
aka website?

If we (developers) go for a "website first" approach, there is not much the
device manufacturers can do against people using our products.

From a business perspective, is there a strong incentive to develop apps at
all, when you already have a website?

Any stories of startups that had a running website already and then boosted
their usage by an order of magnitude by adding apps for the various appstores?

~~~
tekdude
> Are there many applications these days which are not available as a "web
> app" aka website?

Pretty much no, with a few exceptions:

1\. Any kind of hardcore gaming

2\. Any kind of CPU/memory/disk intensive media production software (though
this is becoming less so)

3\. Any kind of infrastructure application; you wouldn't run a web server or
database in the browser (yet)

~~~
fr2null
4\. Any kind of application that needs to interface with a server that doesn't
support TCP (webRTC kinda solves that, but not really, at least not yet)

5\. Any kind of application that needs to feel fast. I have a pretty fast
phone & computer, but I really feel the difference between a web app and a
native app. A bit of data viewing is alright on the internet, but real
productivity for prolonged periods of time? I'd rather have a native app.

6\. Anything at all that needs to interface with your device. Web apps are
extremely locked down, and for good reason, but this does mean that you can't
use them as a file manager for instance.

Applications that only need to display, search and edit some data are
absolutely fine as a webapp. Anything else gets a lot harder. Although I do
feel like we are slowly shifting to more and more web based apps. For better
or for worse.

------
Dahoon
I find the feeling of rooting for Microsoft very strange indeed but the Apple
Appstore is really a thing that needs to be broken down/opened up ASAP.
Microsoft gets slapped over IE and Media Player but Apple can go way further
and lock out every browser but their own (all iOS browsers are just a skin on
Safari). Apple has become what Microsoft used to be - IMHO worse.

------
partiallypro
Even if Microsoft is doing this out of self interest/business...they are still
100% right on this.

------
indymike
It's interesting that app stores rose in the 2000s when we were at the tail
end of selling software in boxes. Margins on packaged software were often
5-15% at the distributor level and 10-25% at the retail level for consumer
software. For enterprise software, it was customary to make 40% on the first
license and 10-20% on upgrades. So, the app stores aren't too far off of what
the reseller share would have been...

~~~
AgloeDreams
That was the original argument by Steve...But imagine a world where you
couldn't just give software to someone you know without going to the big box
store, giving it to them first and agreeing that if the other person wanted to
pay for it the store would take 30%? Even worse, the big box stores back then
also bought shipments ahead of sale and managed inventory, sales, and the
like. The publisher would pay production and take B2B orders at a 30% cut or
so. The issue is that they both are asking for 30% while doing basically
little to nothing to deserve it (with the app store netting very few devs any
sort of promotion value), applying the rules to only some companies, while
also outright banning the sale of software elsewhere.

Maybe this is fair in a small company but in a large company that controls 70%
of the US market? Thats borderline like setting up a tax on an entire industry
as if your company was a state in the US.

------
pjmlp
Yeah, right. Everyone is unhappy when they are the underdog, had the Store not
been a failure and the tune would be something else.

------
onyva
Oh Brad Smith. Like, only few years back he was heading Microsoft’s onslaught
against Linux and open source with exactly the opposite, calling Microsoft
technology “open” because they published APIs. I wonder where Republican law
makers got their straight face hypocrisy and cynicism if not from companies
like Microsoft.

------
sergeykish
It is so strange that corporations fights for what essentially is iPhone
owners freedoms.

The right to repair - fix app store owner decisions.

And that's not the worst. Apple sells devices with limited support. Perfectly
functioning devices with no way to change OS once it become unsupported.
Devices with expiration date.

------
libertine
Why not broaden the spectrum and regulate market places overall?

Amazon, AppStore, PlayStore, etc.

The pattern is the same:

\- Bend/ignore/disregard rules for their own products;

\- Leverage data from competition for their advantage within the market place;

\- Ban/exclude/penalize products from one day to the other;

\- Boost/give privilege their own apps;

\- Limited support/response, most of the times automated, disregarding the
investment and commitment people took on their market place;

------
exabrial
What a time to be alive... Microsoft calling for anti-trust action. Oh how the
tables have turned.

------
me551ah
App stores on the desktop are nowhere as close to their mobile counterparts.
Web versions of mobile apps exist, but people always choose to go with the
native versions. While on desktops, the opposite is true. I've always wondered
why that is the case.

------
routerhash
Apple could allow alternative app store which then can be permanently banned
if any of the app distributed via it contains malware/adware or privacy issues

------
JOnAgain
They mean the Xbox store, right? Gonna let steam be an alternative way to
distribute games on my Xbox?

------
romanovcode
Maybe when Microsoft implements a decent app store then they could speak about
other appstores?

~~~
CleverLime
iOS doesn't allow sideloading, and the only available store takes 30% from
developers, that is anti-competitive.

------
z3t4
One good thing with app store tax is that more apps will consider being web
apps instead.

------
jpz
I agree Apple is abusive here.

There is also a very valid counterargument. Apple maintain the quality of apps
on their app story by being a censor.

There are a lot of ways to scam people or bug their devices, and by and large
Apple also create a sufficiently safe environment for iOS users.

There do seem to be two aspects in conflict, but good for DHH for kicking this
off. 30% is obcene.

------
robertlagrant
Is this coming up because their app store didn't work very well?

------
diffctx99
Walmart called on regulators to do the dirty work of controlling how Target
negotiates the sale of shelf space within its walls.

“As one of the largest retailers in the world, making billions each year in
profit, it’s unconscionable if we sat by not calling out others for doing the
same.”

Walmart continued, “It’s imperative that we sully our competitions brand to
make gains in the financial markets. Without state backed protectionism for
large enterprises, us Barons are really just being hung out to dry.”

Walmart has continued to profit mightily, but it says the complaint is
predicated on the fact they could be profiting MORE if someone forced Target
to behave more like the rest of the majority.

When asked if Walmart had considered rebuilding its own image to gain
business, there was a pause, before the conversation returned to targeting
Target.

Walmart blew of criticism it’s used the market to wipe out competition in the
past. When asked why they simply don’t do that to Target they replied, “Target
is too big financially. So we need a bigger bully they can’t damage in return
to stand up for us gritty, ruggedly individual elites. It’s the story of
humanity to build government that’s coddles and pampers a privileged minority.
It should be no different now.”

When it was suggested the public should advocate for dissolution of middlemen
landlords in general, rather than drag the public courts through a pissing
contest between blowhards, and stop wasting its precious time resource
arbitrating the concerns of petty rich guys, the room laughed.

------
Spooky23
This is a great example about why despite the self-interested crying and
whining, the App Store policy is a good thing.

Why does Microsoft care about this? They have the market power to negotiate
better terms. The answer is simple -- they want to reassert control over
email. The Outlook app no longer uses ActiveSync, and Microsoft architects
usually imply or state outright that ActiveSync is a legacy product.

The MS client stack has a weaker technology advantage than it ever had. AD was
the great anchor of enterprises, and it is eroding slowly as things shift to
cloud. (Remember, enteprises are a decade behind startups) The whole point of
moving away from open email protocols is that things like access control that
enterprises need must use Azure AD. That drives deeper entrenchment in MS SKUs
and drives products like ATP, Dynamics, the MS Voice stack, etc. Better
PR/branding aside, Microsoft is more like 1995 Microsoft than ever.

You can see over the years, Microsoft has bolted all sorts of mobile user
experiences over traditional Exchange/SharePoint/etc. Teams was the first one
that has had staying power. They can't add functionality to the
mail/messaging/video/collaboration stack unless they break legacy.

It would be really awful if Apple caved, and 80% of the commercial email
market became a walled garden of a historically hostile platform owner, all so
that Basecamp can make a few bucks selling an email client.

