I consider HN users to be smarter and rational than average internet crowd. Surprised to see folks here comparing the Google Apple store to other business models like Starbucks, Donut shops, Restaurants? does not make sense to me. Consumers have a choice to switch all other businesses but not the mobile app stores. I can live without Starbucks or Netflix if I want to, or switch to different providers if needed. But there's no such an option in mobile app store world. My banks, wearable devices, even many government services provide their apps via Apple/Android app stores and I'm forced to use only these app stores.. ignoring mobile and just using browsers is not practical. At this point, the app stores are monopolies and consumers are the ones who are impacted. Let Apple/Google give a top notch app store and claim it to be more secure, reliable, trust worthy (they are not today).. but let them also give other options to consumers if they want to take the risk and download apps from another app store if they want to.
And these are already trillion dollar companies. Why do some people support them to grow even more bigger and more powerful? It's a nightmare to see power getting accumulated into few hands. It's high time they are regulated. Don't treat them with kid gloves. They are not your typical mom & pop stores.
The average person needs safeguards to prevent them from being tricked into installing malware by seemingly trustworthy black hats. They should not be given devices that lack safeguards. That means having a gatekeeper that curates things. Be it Apple or Google, a gate keeper is a necessity for security.
Even for non-average people, gatekeepers like Gentoo's or Debian's package maintainer(s) do a great deal of good.
The idea that only these 2 companies can provide a platform for secure apps is patently absurd. What's stopping another company other than these companies' stranglehold? If you want to say resources, I guarantee I'm not alone in a desire to use smaller vendors if they had a good track record of hosting secure apps.
I lean WAY left and still agree the free market would have solved this ages ago.
These 2 companies having a stranglehold is the free market. Antitrust legislation is what would allow other companies to compete with these 2, and antitrust legislation doesn't exist in a free market.
My friend’s 11 year old plays games on his iPhone, downloaded from the Apple App Store.
I spent a few minutes looking over his shoulder.
A bit of gameplay followed by increasing amounts of gambling for power ups and constant reminders to buy power ups. This should be absolutely illegal.
Dark patterns upon dark patterns manipulating the kid to squeeze his parents for real money, by habituating gambling habits and normalizing a horrible experience.
Apple will never address these issues because these games make them truckloads of money.
Gambling is closer to smoking than regular gaming.
All the boy’s friends play the game and similar games. It’s an uphill battle and an extraordinary pressure on the parents to control each game that gets played and micromanage to that extend - to the detriment of their relationship with the child, because fighting these intentionally instilled addictive patterns will create upset in the child and tension in the relationship. The game devs pay psychologists to create the addiction at scale which the parents just cannot compete with.
In reality parents have finite amounts of energy and a finite numbers of battles to fight. Eat your food, go to school, do your homework, keep your phone charged and call me when you need me to pick you up. That kind of thing.
Having week longs drama forbidding a game that everyone else plays is just not on the map.
I agree with you in spirit, but I also can't help but think that most other internet denizens won't be satisfied with just banning the loobox aspects. most of the AAA games industry already moved past that and into battlepasses or flooding a store with direct purchase cosmetics.
It's more the nickle and diming people hate, not the actual gambling. And I don't know if we can or should regulate that.
The gambling patterns are related to taking additional action to getting the rewards - like spinning a wheel, choosing to take an additional step risking the current reward for the chance to win another one. That’s gambling, intentionally constructed to be addictive. It changes habits, normalizes addiction and is harmful.
Sure, and the console industry is already moving past it. It's now just asking you to lay $10-20 for a "season" of a battle pass, where you grind and get more rewards for your grinding. No RNG at all, just one input, and X actions to guarantee Y rewards. No more, no less.
But the games discourse online isn't exactly giving games like Fortnite any slack despite no longer using lootboxes for its monetization. Or on a fighter game (of which few ever used lootboxes) for offering dozens of skins.
That's the dangerous part on what to or not regulate. Do we want thr government regulating how many add-ons or cosmetics a game can sell?
The monopoly isn't necessary for that though. It can just present you with choices of app store during phone setup. It's not like some Amazon app store is going to be automatically less secure.
Those safeguards should be on a technical level and with the human gatekeepers being swappable for whoever you trust most. Which is what different app stores effectively do: different human rating, moderation and trust descriptions.
yeah, agree that gatekeepers are needed. But why only Apple and Google should be the gatekeepers? why not others? why not crowd curated, open sourced gatekeeping for at least the nerdy folks? And we all know that the current gatekeeping is subpar quality.
The free market would have created many trustworthy gatekeepers itself.
And given how much scammy shit there is on the two major AppStores, I would say that it is clear as day and night that Apple and Google utterly suck as "gatekeepers".
Exactly - the fundamental problem is that it takes an above average person to understand this. Tech is something that most lawmakers, judges, attorneys and jurors don't get and asking them to regulate it is a mistake.
They'll open up the floodgates and average people will end up dealing with fake Epic apps. A decade from now maybe that same courtroom would better appreciate the value of a trusted gatekeeper.
TBF Google does have alternative app stores. That's why people who didn't read the article or lawsuit are confused that this lawsuit succeeded but Apple failed. Of course all this fails to take into account why Google actually loss. it was using that monopolistic pressure to push away OEM deals. That's defintiely where the monopoly was being used anti-competitively.
But yea, really would like both mobile OS's to open up more. Apple is especially bad because they can effectively ban stuff of an entire OS if it doesn't follow store policies. no 18+ apps, no emulators, no file explorers (tho these two were loosened overtime), no alternate browsers unless it's a safari skin. Can't imagine Microsoft getting away with this on Windows at any time.
Sometimes choice equates to complexity, if it doesn't work for you, don't use the product. Apple is very well known (and probably very successful) for limiting choice, in product lines and features.
IMO Android devices are already open enough - there are alternative app stores and you can sideload apps. Banks not distributing on these channels is not Google's responsibility.
Take it a step further – the power grid. I don't want to have to choose which power grid to use, and we shouldn't bother making duplicate power grids. It makes sense they operate as a monopoly. Those companies are heavily regulated though.
Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism; it's exploitation
without competition, innovation is slowly strangled
if there is no free market, the wealth in the market accretes upwards to those who control the market; i.e. those businesses which do not have competition
It's right and wrong at the same time, you can only say "most of the customers don't want a choice", so we just gonna ignore the minority and let big companies take all the cake?
Let the customers have the choice to decide whether they want choice or not. Historically, more choices have always benefitted the common folks in the end.
FWIW you don't really need an app store, you could download APKs off vendors/publishers, verify signatures and mind updates (except Apple won't let you, but that's a different story).
You want to use an app store, fine, use an app store and pay some commission on what you buy there, it's not a problem, reaching into any purchase done after the initial download is.
I don't doubt you used Googles app store to access the banks app (as would I), but it's not because of something Google forces you to do. It's because your bank put it there, and it's a very a convenient service for both you and your bank. Unlike the iPhone environment the bank had a choice in using the app store. They could have you side load it, or they could put it in an alternate app store, or hell they could open source it and use FDroid's app store.
It seems to me there is very little stopping there being a whole pile of competing Android app stores out there. Technically there's nothing stopping it in fact, as the existence of FDroid illustrates. It's purely a matter of convenience - which is the same thing that drives Chrome's dominance on Android despite there being better browsers available for free. The play store app is pre-installed and is almost a one stop stop for all the apps you could possibly want, so who is going to bother loading another app store?
Turns out that edge in convenience is enough to create an effective monopoly in app stores, for most people anyway.
Google is not to blame for the fact that your bank won't trust you to verify an apk signature. There's no fundamental need for the OS vendor to oversee app distribution.
Definitely. Blackhats are much better at overseeing application distribution than the OS vendor. :P
In all seriousness, you already have to trust the OS vendor not to be trying to do bad things. Having them oversee software distribution at least does not increase the number of organizations you need to trust. If you have someone else do it, you will be opening the door to black hats that will be clamoring to take that role. Not relying on the OS vendor to do that is how we have scams where the victims installed the malware that harmed them. :/
The whole discussion is about Google, they do let you use whatever store, and also let you compile and deploy your own Android if you're up for the task and your phone manufacturer allows you to boot what you want.
I'd too prefer Apple to be forced by court to open their devices for everything, not holding my breath.
the sources go on and on, which makes sense, I guess. when two of the world's biggest and most powerful companies have interests that overlap (exclude any OS that isn't Android or iOS) collusion seems like a natural choice.
You don't need to have Android/iOS. You can access webmail, bank accounts, Netflix using web browser on an open source platform like Ubuntu Touch or Sailfish OS. I am using both just fine and both support Android apps.
>Epic v. Google [...] hinged on secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and big game developers, ones that Google execs internally believed were designed to keep rival app stores down.
Without finding the same thing in Apple, I doubt this will affect Apple's case much, but of course I should mention I'm not a lawyer; I'm perfectly happy to be schooled if someone more knowledgeable comes along!
> If the result of this case is "you can have a monopoly as long as your device and ecosystem are 100% locked down", that's terrible!
Monopolies aren’t illegal. Only the abuse of a monopoly position to advance your interest in other markets is illegal.
E.g. It’s not illegal to be the only seller of gasoline in the country. It is illegal though to bundle laundry powder with gasoline sales to corner the laundry powder market.
> Monopolies aren’t illegal. Only the abuse of a monopoly position to advance your interest in other markets is illegal.
So for example, if you had a dominant market position for a particular category of phone operating systems, and you wanted to advance your interest in the market for app distribution...
> So for example, if you had a dominant market position for a particular category of phone operating systems, and you wanted to advance your interest in the market for app distribution...
Except the App Store was added to the iPhone before it reached its current level of ubiquity.
I believe Apple views the App Store as a feature of the iPhone that contributes to its value - the huge variety of apps available definitely contributed to the iPhone’s success; see the Windows phone for an example of a phone without a good App Store.
> the huge variety of apps available definitely contributed to the iPhone’s success
fwiw I completely agree, but isn't this the inverse of the argument people make for why Apple deserves 30% of app revenue? Do app devs deserve a huge chunk of iPhone revenue since they contributed to its success?
definitely they view it that way, as well as viewing the app review process as something that adds customer value. I mean they were quite clear on all that from day 1, that they thought they were solving customer problems. And of course when you think you have solved customer problems you expect to get rewarded, and then some years down the road your solution isn't that great anymore but you just don't want to let go of any of that sweet, sweet reward.
> Except the App Store was added to the iPhone before it reached its current level of ubiquity.
Why should that matter?
> I believe Apple views the App Store as a feature of the iPhone that contributes to its value
If people prefer to install apps from Apple's store they're free to do so. That doesn't require them to prohibit other stores -- let the customer choose.
> the huge variety of apps available definitely contributed to the iPhone’s success; see the Windows phone for an example of a phone without a good App Store.
You're referring to the platform's selection of available apps. That is something different than the method of distributing them or whether it has competitors.
Seems like you could make that apply to any product right? If you can define the market as literally just your own product? Like if Joe's Coffee has a dominant market position in selling Joe's Coffee it would be monopolistic to use that to advantage to sell donuts?
They aren't preventing anyone from buying a competitor's donuts. At one point I had both an Apple and a Google Android phone. Apple preventing other app stores on iOS is more like Starbucks preventing Peet's from coming into its stores to sell its coffee. That's not monopolistic behavior.
No but it's not just going to a competitor's donut shop, it's losing your family group chat, cloud storage, apps you've paid for, integration with your laptop, tablet, earbuds, smart watch, etc, etc. Apple has on purpose (there are verified transcripts of execs talking about it) built a walled garden ecosystem that is incredibly hard to leave.
You mean your existing shoes, pants, or shirt won't let you enter the other coffee shop, and the expensive coffee mug you bought at the old shop (which was the only place they would allow you to buy one) won't hold coffee from any other brand so you have to ditch that too. Now you're getting closer
I think it is more lake the mayor allowing his son to open a Starbucks in the city but preventing everyone else from opening a Peet's because he is concerned about how that might negatively affect the image of the city in the eyes of coffee enthusiasts as he has no control over coffee prices and quality there.
IMO this isn't the correct take. Starbucks' stores are their own property and as long as they follow applicable laws regarding public accommodations, health and safety and the like they're free to run their stores however they want to. Where I live, we've got a plethora of Starbucks but we've also got Peet's and a whole bunch of small coffee roasters/shops that seem to be doing just fine. To me, Apple's App Store is the same way - it's Apple's property, run by Apple and branded by Apple. Everyone who develops for it knows the rules and (for the most part) follows them, because Apple makes sure you read the rules in multiple different places.
If you want to have an analogy along those lines, Apple is more like a Starbucks prohibiting coffee bean providers other than the ones it has agreements with from coming into Starbucks locations to sell their coffee beans.
> At one point I had both an Apple and a Google Android phone.
What percentage of people do you suppose carry two different phones in their pockets? Is this something you reasonably expect the majority of people to do?
> Apple preventing other app stores on iOS is more like Starbucks preventing Peet's from coming into its stores to sell its coffee.
Just look at your own words. Preventing other stores is like preventing competitors from selling in your store?
Preventing other stores is preventing other stores. You can put whatever you want in your store, they put what they want in theirs, and the customer gets to choose where to get their app.
Preventing the customer from using the other store is the anti-competitive thing being objected to. It doesn't need an analogy, that's literally what it is.
The issue is that "their store" is the only way to install things on your phone. You're trying to set up a catch 22 where the only way to install a competing store is from an existing store, theirs is the only existing store and competing stores aren't allowed in it.
It is anti-competitive to prevent competing stores. How you do it is irrelevant.
and their OS. I don't care if they allow whatever on their store. I would like the option to go to other stores or even sideload my own apps without the store intervention. That's right now impossible without a) hacking the device or b) being a dev working on an app.
It depends on if you think of IOS as a commons or as a private OS. And more and more court arguments are leaning towards the commons argument because of its market dominance in the mobile space. Becoming more regarded as a general purpose OS than "just a phone with a store hosted on it".
So IOS may one day not be considered a starbucks, but a park. And you can't hog a park to yourself
So is Apple the building that contains a Starbucks or the business known as Starbucks? It seems like it’s both — that is a problem. Is Starbucks charging its customers steep costs for entering the building? Where does the existing App Store with its large transaction fees and restrictions around billing fit into this analogy?
And, to extend the analogy, paying the coffee patrons you think might consider opening a competitive donut shop next door to avoid that from happening (ie Google).
"Coffee patrons" would be consumers - literally paying consumers to not shop at your competitor is just offering extremely low (i.e. negative) prices, which may be perfectly legal depending on the context.
Paying off gamedevs would be analogous to paying off dough-makers (or doughnut bakers?) to only supply your store, and not your competitor, which would be super illegal. AMD sued Intel for very similar activity, and won.
Yeah, that's why the monopoly argument is important. Not because monopolies are illegal, but some new competitor being aggressive is different from the established robber baron squashing potential competition using its establishment.
Epic as a game store is very much not a monopoly by any means. Game consoles are certainly an argument, but thus far none are dominant over the other. It would mostly be a problem if a new console jumped in and Sony/Microsoft teamed up to hardball it out.
Epic already does that and has a number of exclusives to their store, like Alan Wake 2. They also will pay devs to have it exclusive to their store for a year.
> There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts.
Isn't the resolution the same in each case? If you have an iPhone and you want to install an app from another store, you have to buy another phone. It's the same with these deals with Android, just overt.
I don't know what restaurants you frequent, but I can't think of anyone being okay with bringing outside meals or beverages. Probably you are just not kicked out because staff is not noticing or apathetic.
I only know of the concept of Corkage, where you pay the restaurant a fee if you bring your own wine to drink:
> A corkage fee is the price charged to guests who choose to bring their own bottle of wine to a restaurant. Corkage fees usually exist at restaurants that already serve wine. The practice of allowing guests to bring their own wine is considered a courtesy to guests. … The average corkage fee ranges from $10 to $40 per bottle but may be as high as $100 or more.
>Or you know, they don't care as long you're a paid customer.
Some do, some don't. In my experience, Starbucks couldn't care less as long as you buy a coffee (and even then couldn't care less. maybe a restaurant would care more but it's on bar logic: they don't mind lending seats until paying customers come in). Smaller shops tend to be more strict about doing that kind of thing.
especially if you created a product that a large part of the world's population at the time of creation agreed was something new and defined a new category so much that a new category was created in general language to describe things like your product and other products came along later from competitors and defined themselves using that same category name - for example if someone came up with a phone that was smarter than other phones and coined the term smartphone for that then yeah, it would be like that.
I don't think they should be allowed to lock things down either, but if given the constraight of what is instead what ought to be, then Apple should market the iPhone then as a specialized console, not as a general purpose device
Interesting question - since they charge a flat fee and revenue sharing model based on sales it is not like Google who had a secret deal with Spotify and Netflix.
Honest questions: I thought Playstation and Xbox had "secret" deals? They have their own studios, they buy exclusives, timed exclusives, special promotions, games optimized for platform A but not for B etc?
"secret" deals, sure. They have well known, lesser know, and not known at all to the public practives. The main caveat is that none of them are dominating the console industry, nor necessarily preventing others from competing in the console market. It's just that no one wants to try and compete because it's a vicious market.
We're seeing more handheld PC's, but the days of the Vita or 3DS as dedicated handheld consoles seem to be past us. There's a non-zero chance PC far in the future does the same to regular consoles too.
>funny how Epic did not take Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo to court over their closed ecosystems.
they can, but they don't. Part of their argument seems to be that mobile is now a general purpose computer like Windows so it should open up. The big 3 consoles don't try to pretend that you can make host much more than games and movies on their devices, and the consoles operate on much thinner margins than the mobile market.
You can say it's cynically about money and that Google/Apple are the biggest targets. You can optimistically say it's that Epic knows consoles do more to deserve their 30% and aren't just gatekeepers (there is a LOT more support for AAA devs from the big 3 consoles than anything Google/Apple offers. Including direct help in porting if you strike deals).
Seeing as Apple is the largest market, yes it makes sense why the larger monopoly would be breaking the law more.
The way that anti-trust law works is that if you have more market power, like Apple clearly does, then you are even more subject to the law and required to do certain things.
But also, if you disagree, then feel free to sue those other groups.
I mean...I agree, but as things stand, they aren't.
It's one thing to say "this is how the law should be, so that Apple should have to open their platform"; it's quite another to say "as the law is right now, Apple should have to open their platform."
US antitrust laws are nominally extremely broad and are basically down to the courts to interpret, so what the law is right now is whatever you can convince the judge, which largely a matter of making a convincing argument that what they're doing is bad.
If the courts get it wrong then you have to go to Congress, sure. But then you're in the same place -- convince Congress that it's bad.
Either way we're having a debate about whether it should be allowed. And the answer is no -- this business model is anti-competitive, for any business, and if existing interpretations of the anti-trust laws don't currently prohibit it, they should.
100% correct. I was involved in the Netscape Microsoft anti trust case and this is specifically the finding that led to their loss (way too late for us)
The jury found that Google has a monopoly on the Android platform. That would extend to Apple and iOS, but I’ll be shocked if that finding is turned into a legal precedent that is upheld on appeal.
For one thing, the jury is probably more technically savvy than the judges that will ultimately decide this case.
Monopolies are not illegal. It’s leveraging the monopoly to exert force on adjacent markets that is. In the case here googles foul play is making side deals for preferential treatment against other app stores given their control over the handset operating system. Apple doesn’t offer an App Store market and never has nor ever represented otherwise, the app store is and always has been part of the operating system. This isn’t true for Google. Maybe for you and I this is splitting hairs, but splitting hairs is 99% of the law.
Blocking all other means of distributing apps in a reasonable way absolutely should have been enough to get Apple sanctioned. Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is now forbidden, but blocking the access using code is allowed. This is stupid.
But sure, jury trial. And also US judges in this area are especially broken, with their warped understanding of when a monopoly is harmful.
---
Of course the other part of this is stupid as well. It should be illegal to have a monopoly, and it's the job of the government to break monopolies to enable competition. The US has it completely backwards here, and this is a big reason why that country is failing in key areas of economic development and infrastructure.
The US actually had it right when the antitrust laws were written. The Libertarian Party and Austrian Economists fucked it up for the rest of us by convincing everyone that "no, actually, antitrust is just about prices and consumer welfare, not control". This interpretation was ahistorical and illiberal, but it became history regardless, like to the point where Originalism as applied to antitrust law is derided as "hipster antitrust".
America's failings in economic development and infrastructure are not strictly caused by monopolization of the economy. South Korea's economy is run by like three chaebols[0] but they have working infrastructure. The problem with America is that we have a government that doesn't like to spend money, plus a group of illiberal, antidemocratic NIMBYs who make budgeting impossible by jacking up the cost of projects after they've already been estimated and committed to.
Since I already shat on the Libertarian Party, let me shit on the Democratic Party next. California and New York have legal climates that are unusually hospitable to NIMBYism. They figured out how to weaponize environmental review laws, to the point where actual reports about environmental infrastructure necessary for mitigating or surviving climate change say that we can't build the infrastructure because it'll get tied down in NIMBY red tape. In California this manifests as delays, cancellations, and massive wind farms in Wyoming; in New York it's cost overruns as bribes are paid to whoever can look the other way to get things passed through. Either way we can't build shit in our most populated states.
If there's a root cause for all of this, it's "vetocracy". In a democracy, when a decision is made, the people on the losing end of this decision agree to lose. However, since at least the 1970s, there has been several parallel movements to roll back decisions already made and form new mechanisms to prevent new decisions from being implemented. Antitrust was a rollback, NIMBYism was a new mechanism, but in either case, we're being dragged out of our brief experiment with liberal democracy by people who stand to gain from it.
>> we're being dragged out of our brief experiment with liberal democracy by people who stand to gain from it.
There's a name for that condition: corruption
It is a societal disease that is vicious and hard to get rid of. It makes bad situations worse even when everyone says that they agree on a solution and want to make it happen.
Antitrust laws are one way to prevent and maybe even remove corruption, but they only work if the people writing the laws and enforcing the laws are not corrupt.
> The Libertarian Party and Austrian Economists fucked it up for the rest of us by convincing everyone that "no, actually, antitrust is just about prices and consumer welfare, not control".
This is not really what the courts said (and to my knowledge the people who said it weren't members of the Libertarian Party or Austrian Economists).
The actual quote from the Supreme Court is, "It is competition, not competitors, which the Act protects."
The idea here is that, for example, if Walmart can undercut you on price and you go out of business, that's harm to competitors but not competition, because Walmart is only able to do that by offering the same product for a lower price. They can only do it by competing, and only for as long as they continue to outcompete the alternatives. As soon as they tried to raise prices or reduce quality, competitors could spring up to take the market from them.
That isn't what Apple is doing. If you want to offer an app store for iOS that only takes a 5% cut, Apple will actively interfere with you -- and then they take a larger cut despite the existence of prospective competitors willing to take less. That's not consumers choosing the incumbent because they're the most competitive, it's the incumbent preventing consumers from having a choice. It's harm to competition.
> They can only do it by competing, and only for as long as they continue to outcompete the alternatives. As soon as they tried to raise prices or reduce quality, competitors could spring up to take the market from them.
But once four or five different competitors have tried, had Walmart drop prices again to undercut them, and gone out of business, no one else is going to try because they'll know they're doomed to fail.
Competitors are required in order to have competition. The Chicago School interpretation of antitrust is as intellectually bankrupt as it is morally.
> But once four or five different competitors have tried, had Walmart drop prices again to undercut them, and gone out of business, no one else is going to try because they'll know they're doomed to fail.
Suppose Walmart has the lowest price for batteries. The local hardware store goes out of business. Now Walmart doubles the price of batteries.
The local grocery store is going to start selling batteries. Walmart has to lower their price again or people will buy them there instead. If they do, the grocery store will still eventually sell their stock to customers who value convenience over the lowest possible price. They may not restock them unless Walmart raises the price again, but as soon as they do, batteries are back at the grocery store.
If Walmart never raises their prices the grocery store may never start carrying batteries, but then Walmart can never raise their prices.
If you define a market small enough literally everyone is a monopoly and preventing competition. Apple has competition from other Android manufacturers. This is like complaining that Walmart has a monopoly on who can put shelves up in their stores. If Apple and/or Google were preventing other Smartphone OSs from getting developed or used, by abusing a monopoly position, then this could be considered a monopoly. But that is not what these cases are about. It's almost literally the shelves in walmart example
The way you define the market is by considering whether there are viable substitutes.
For example, two parking garages across the street from each other are strong substitutes. You can easily pick either one based on e.g. which has the best price. But a parking garage in New York and a parking garage in Boston aren't in the same market, because you can't reasonably park your car in New York and get out and walk to your destination in Boston.
You can easily have viable substitutes for app distribution on any given platform. Windows has a first party store but you can also install apps with Steam or download them from the developer's website. The Windows store and Steam are in the same market, so neither of them has a monopoly on distributing Windows apps. The same as two parking garages across the street from each other, or a Walmart and Target in the same mall.
If the operating system prevents competing app distribution methods, there is no longer any viable substitute for the official one. This is what the OEM wanted, right? No competition for their app store -- no substitutes, a monopoly. But then that's just what it is. You don't have to monopolize markets ancillary to your primary one, but if you do, you have.
I would say that Android is a viable substitute for Apple and vice versa when it comes to phones though. So I think there actually is a viable substitute. Customers can absolutely choose the one they want. But again if you redefine the market to Apps you can install on IOS then certainly that's a monopoly. I just question if that's a reasonable way to define the market.
> I would say that Android is a viable substitute for Apple and vice versa when it comes to phones though. So I think there actually is a viable substitute.
We're talking about the market for app stores, not the market for phones.
> But again if you redefine the market to Apps you can install on IOS then certainly that's a monopoly. I just question if that's a reasonable way to define the market.
But why? You haven't provided any reasoning.
Apple's store and Google Play aren't in the same market because they aren't substitutes -- you can only use one or the other depending on which type of device you want to install the app on. That isn't a law of nature -- Apple could offer Android apps in their store and stop preventing Google Play from distributing iOS apps. But they don't, and because of that they're not in the same market.
Just to defend the libertarians briefly, no legal bullying tactics means trusts have a significantly harder time forming and maintaining their monopolies.
> Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is now forbidden, but blocking the access using code is allowed. This is stupid.
I don't think that's stupid. Blocking access using code is an honest act. Everyone knows the rules and can build their business accordingly. Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is manipulative. It gives the impression that the platform is open to competition, when it isn't.
> Apple doesn’t offer an App Store market and never has nor ever represented otherwise, the app store is and always has been part of the operating system.
"Apple doesn't offer an App Store market" is just assuming the conclusion. Nobody expects you to get competing app stores from Apple -- you get them from Apple's competitors. What Apple ought to be in trouble for is interfering with their operating system customers' ability to patronize competing app stores.
> This isn’t illegal. Equivalent to a “No outside food and drink” sign or not letting randos sell things in your own storefront
In that case, someone else owns the storefront. I own my phone, not Apple.
If Apple would like to claim that I merely lease my phone, they need to update all their marketing so it isn't misleading. They should also be on the hook for repairs (without AppleCare), and all the other responsibilities that typically accompany a leased product.
> Equivalent to a “No outside food and drink” sign or not letting randos sell things in your own storefront
Your phone isn't Apple's storefront. Their storefront is. Prohibiting their customers from patronizing any other store is clearly anti-competitive.
> It’s not illegal just because you don’t agree with the philosophy of a closed ecosystem
It's not legal just because you agree with the philosophy of a closed ecosystem. "A closed ecosystem" is inherently anti-competitive and should be illegal.
> Equivalent to a “No outside food and drink” sign
Really?
When you buy food from the grocery store, the grocery store goes to your home and physically prevents you from also eating food from a different store at the same time, in your own home?
When people buy a phone, they own it. They are using it in their own home.
No, a grocery store does not force you to only eat food from them, in your own home.
They do not prevent you from mixing milk from their store with cookies from a different store.
What does thad mean "part of the OS"? It is not built into the kernel, and is therefore no part of the OS. I do not see why the same would not apply to Apple.
But maybe the US legal system is just totally broken ...
But it wouldn’t because I don’t think that’s what it means.
They appear to have ruled that Google has a monopoly because they’ve been squashing everyone else who should have been able to make an App Store by Google’s policies.
Apple isn’t squashing anyone, they just don’t allow it in the first place.
So I don’t think this would apply to Apple because of the line of reasoning. I know most people on hacker news think Apple should be forced to allow alternate app stores, but I don’t think this ruling can be used for that. It appears you would need something else.
Apple actively squashes attempts to jailbreak the phone which allows for additional app stores. The fact they aren’t mainstream alternatives is because Apple takes actions to stop the competition.
There has been several prominent cases where Apple removed some app from the store just to bring out an app in the same space. Also Apple products don't have the same restrictions as others when in comes to ads, api etc. To me that sounds quite clearly like like they are abusing their monopoly position.
And the Judge found in Epics favour on that point. Apple have a temporary reprieve, but there is an injunction ordering them to allow developers to advertise other means of payment.
That doesn't make the premise any less ridiculous; it's only illegal to pressure people not to make a competitor, if you make it technically impossible to have a competitor, that's all fine.
Being charitable, these are two different juries. It's a little annoying that, in a country where iOS is the dominant OS, the iOS monopolist is exonerated and the non-iOS monopolist is recognized- nonetheless this is still a big win for consumer rights.
> Only the abuse of a monopoly position to advance your interest in other markets is illegal.
Two markets ARE at play for consumers: mobile phone hardware (with OS) and mobile app stores/apps. Apple is using it's monopoly in the former to create/enforce a monopoly in the latter.
You can tell there are two separate markets because you, the consumer, make (at least) two separate purchases to participate.
Hmm making the argument that apple has a monopoly on the phone market is not easy though.
I my opinion the two markets are: Providing apps on iPhone, and offering payment processing for apps on iPhone. Apple is using its absolute monopoly on providing apps to also entrenched itself in the market of providing payment for apps.
In the case of Apple, it's the same market. Because the only way to get access to the App Store is through an iPhone bought from Apple. And the only way to run an iOS app is with the same iPhone.
Yes, but this is only because Apple designed the phone that way. Apple should not be immune from antitrust law purely because they decided not to allow competition.
So by that argument if MS would have disallowed installation of any other browser it would have been OK, because competitor could just build their own operating system.
The whole argument is that Apple is leveraging the position in one market (hardware) to gain advantage in another market. Your answer is "competitors can always build their own hardware" don't you see that this is a nonsensical argument?
If it was from the start, yes. Just like they don’t support replacin explorer.exe, the network stack. If you allow competition, but use leverage to stiffle it, it’s bad.
That's like saying that everything in the US is legal, since you're perfectly able to renounce your citizenship and move to Somalia where there aren't any laws.
Apple decided where the boundary of competition lies by deciding to bundle their phone, their operating system, their app store, and their code signing policies into a package deal. A thicket of copyright laws forbid you from unbundling any combination of these. For example, I can't legally run iOS on my Pixel 8 Pro. It is legal to run Android on an iPhone, except the hardware boot ROM is designed to reject anything not signed by Apple, and Apple won't sign Android. You can circumvent that by taking advantage of security vulnerabilities in the boot ROM[0], and that's legal, too, but you can't legally tell anyone about those vulnerabilities because telling people how to break copy protection is a felony.
This same logic applies to application software. It's legal to jailbreak[1] your phone to install non-App-Store apps, but illegal to provide the jailbreak tool necessary to install those apps. If Epic had decided to release a jailbreak to install the Epic Games Store, instead of releasing a hotfix for third-party in-app billing and suing for antitrust, Tim Sweeney would have been thrown in jail for violating 17 USC 1201.
In copyright law, there's a concept of copyright misuse, which is what the courts call using copyright to break antitrust law. Copyright allows you monopoly control over your work, but you are not allowed to use that control to maintain an illegal monopoly that's outside of the copyright bargain. In other words, you don't get to opt-out of forms of competition you don't like. Congress decides those.
So no, "build your own phone and app store" is not enough. And letting Apple dictate the conduct of their competitors is effectively giving them antitrust immunity.
[0] Which are, BTW, once-in-a-decade. We've had a grand total of two bugs that can be used to install alternative operating systems on an iPhone.
[1] Jailbreak bugs aren't as scarce as boot ROM bugs, but they've been getting scarcer over time. This is not because Apple is doing a good security job, but because the NSA is hoarding all the good bugs for themselves.
>E.g. It’s not illegal to be the only seller of gasoline in the country. It is illegal though to bundle laundry powder with gasoline sales to corner the laundry powder market.
I mean, it's far more than that. Most importantly:
>Historically they have been held to include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing.
While IANAL - even as a plebe I can pretty easily tie refusing to allow third party app stores to both refusing to supply an essential facility, and product tying.
Why should my choice of hardware or OS dictate the apps I'm allowed to install? That's 100% product tying. It would be one thing if third parties just had no interest in supplying an alternative app store. It's another thing entirely to lock them out via your monopoly on the ecosystem.
> Why should my choice of hardware or OS dictate the apps I'm allowed to install?
Do you own an iPhone? I suspect that the vast majority of people complaining about Apple's "lock down" are people who don't even use an iPhone.
If you do own an iPhone ... why the heck did you buy one knowing its limitations. It's like buying a pink shirt when you hate pink, despite the availability of shirts of other colors, then going to the manufacturer to complain about the color.
I can't speak for others, but I'm an iPhone user, and I'm complaining!
> why the heck did you buy one knowing its limitations.
Because:
• Almost everyone I know uses iMessage exclusively.
• I very strongly dislike Android's UI design.
• I strongly prefer iPhone hardware.
Any two of these would be insufficient to offset how furious I am that I can't decide what code runs on my own damn phone! But taken together, Android just doesn't make sense.
I jailbroke my iPhone for years, despite the many inconveniences of running an outdated version of iOS, but Apple's security has just become too good.
Some specificity is required when discussing legal concepts like tying and essential facility.
For tying, while not a firm ‘rule’ the most common application of tying is limited to the ‘tied’ product being from another market when compared to the ‘tying’ product. Also, the current appellate court standard (worded semi-informally) is that a tying of products raises antitrust concerns when it restricts competition AND provides no benefit to consumers.
As to essential facility, the most impactful factor for the plaintiff (as in the hardest burden for the government to overcome to establish monopolistic abuse) is as follows: the plaintiff is REQUIRED to prove that the compelled permission to competitors to utilize the “facility” does not interfere or allow for detrimental effects of the dominant firm’s ability to serve its own customers.
Apple’s historic marketing speak and other ‘on the record’ statements about the app store’s exclusivity ensuring tight control for the security of Apple’s customers is directly written to advance defenses to these two claims.
You can certainly argue that Apple’s conduct is characterized as abuse of monopoly, but there arguments against that can also be compelling.
The above IS NOT and should not be considered legal advice.
This. It isn't productive to think about this like "Google lost, Epic won" or "Google lost, Apple won".
Rather think about this as Google lost, Android won. If this ruling goes trough, Android becomes an more open platform by default. Think about it: Steam, itch.io and GOG stores on Android.
I mean sure, but in a practical sense the company becoming the only seller of gasoline happened through anti-competitive behavior and not just because they have a superior gasoline product. I think that two app stores controlling 100% of distribution and setting their rates similarly feels pretty anti-competitive.
> Monopolies aren’t illegal. Only the abuse of a monopoly position to advance your interest in other markets is illegal.
It should be though. Unchecked monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies are antithetical to a free market economy - they stifle competition and make the market un-free as well:
- for employees, they're bad because monopolies (or cartels) suppress their freedom to go to a better employer. The best case to look at is actually the tech sector, where large corporations colluded to keep compensation down [1], but there's also more evil cases like WalMart that go as far as underpay their employees so badly that they can only survive on food stamps [6].
- for suppliers, they're bad (in the correct term of a monopsony) because having only a few (or only one) buyer depresses their ability to get fair prices for products, e.g. in agriculture [2], or in WalMart [3][4]
- for customers, they're bad because they can't (realistically) go to alternatives, especially if the monopoly in question has extinguished competitors by advantages of scale - again, WalMart is a nasty example [5].
- for society as a whole, they're bad because, again, large actors like WalMart can devastate vibrant community centers like malls, leading to dereliction of entire neighborhoods in a domino effect [7], and eventually the erosion of local tax bases, leading to funding issues for basic government services.
> It should be though. Unchecked monopolies, duopolies and oligopolies are antithetical to a free market economy - they stifle competition and make the market un-free as well
Some markets only support a natural monopoly though. If you forcefully break up every monopoly you'll always be in court, because after winning the case and breaking up a company, the next natural monopoly will form within a few years.
The best compromise is to only go after them if they're abusing their position. I agree the standards for that are too low though.
Agreed, particularly in agriculture and other rural scenarios it's very common that there is effectively one seller/purchaser for entire classes of goods. But there is barely any government oversight authority to watch over these or where any affected party can raise grievances.
Except the US government is constantly opening antitrust cases and successfully prosecuting violators on a monthly basis, you probably just never hear about it.
I think a company going around saying "we are a open system you can do what you want with our product" and then making secret deals to limit that openess is worse than a company from day one saying we are selling a 100% locked down solution, take it or leave it.
It really doesn't matter who is worse morally here, just both situations are bad for consumer choice. I find it amazing that Apple things it is okay to attempt to take 15% of Audible revenue if they allowed you to buy books in the app, for example.
It's 30%. It's only 15% after 12 months of a customer rebilling which is statistically insignificant number, and it was only done as a carefully orchestrated PR move to make people think 15% when it's really 30 - as you have demonstrated
It’s statistically insignificant because churn rates on subscription services are higher than you’d think.
A typical customer lifetime might be somewhere between a year and two years, unless you happen to be a giant like Netflix.
Let’s say you expect your customer to churn after 14 months, so that means you only enjoy 2 months of Apple’s reduced royalty rate. Your total average rate is 27%.
This concept is why many sunscription services are able to offer lifetime subscriptions. They have already figured out what one customer is worth based on churn rate, so the lifetime subscription is set up to be a price that matches or exceeds that number.
Depends on what type of subscription business it is. I've heard meal kit companies like Hello Fresh lose 90% of their customers in less than 12 months, as the generous new customer discount vouchers tail off.
(Not that meal kit companies would be paying Apple 30%)
Meal kit companies don’t pay the 30% because the payment is for a service that is delivered outside the app. Uber doesn't pay it either. It’s a stupid loophole apple built in that all but proves the 30% cut is ridiculous and would never work in the real world.
Exactly. The whole argument about security and people needing a central payment system for things to be safe user friendly is patently ridiculous given that said approach is working just fine for all the “physical items” apps.
As a dev, I absolutely prefer Apple’s model of locked-down walled garden. HN has no idea about all the grandmas and people who are busy with their jobs and kids, aka majority of the population. I can’t imagine the magnitude of digital fraud and scams that would happen if Apple devices weren’t a walled garden. My only dissatisfaction is that I can’t develop for iOS without buying a Mac and a developer account, but I also understand I’m not entitled to it just because I want.
How does allowing 3rd party app stores negatively affect the elderly? Just like Android the ability to install 3rd party apps and stores would likely be off by default and you'd need to enable it in the settings. And even after enabling it installing something gives you a pretty clear warning that what you're doing could be dangerous.
If that's not enough warning for someone then they probably shouldn't have a smart phone, or if they do it should have strict parental controls on it (blocking 3rd party installs, most sites, and phone calls/texts).
Apple could still be a gate-keeper of 3rd party stores. They could dictate the security and protections that need to be in-place to be listed.
The PKI industry is a good example of this.
The Certificate authorities have to abide by standards and any misbehaving Certificate Authorities can be removed.
I'd argue the integrity of the PKI industry is just as important, if not more so, than App Stores and they have managed to maintain a device agnostic market with healthy competition.
> I can’t imagine the magnitude of digital fraud and scams that would happen if Apple devices weren’t a walled garden.
I can, and I don't mind. Let it happen. Computer freedom is more important than preventing scams and fraud. Just have the corporations and banks eat the losses instead. God knows these trillion dollar corporations can afford it.
A locked garden is a locked garden. But a locked garden that you go into knowing it's a locked garden is better than a locked garden that advertises itself as open and then locks you in. Both are locked gardens; one is also false advertising.
> But a locked garden that you go into knowing it's a locked garden is better
Out of curiosity, say that I'm not a techie that knows all about Apple vs alternatives ... and say I'm interested in buying Apple because I like the aesthetics of the device or something. Is there anything actually explicit in Apple's marketing that makes it clear to the consumer that they are buying into a "locked garden" ?
Part of this discussion has to do with definitions and what we're talking about, specifically. It's common in other industries to find yourself with some degree of vendor lock-in for "compatibility." I bought some high end Canon camera lenses, for example, so I have zero expectations that I can use those lenses with a Sony or a Nikon. I tend to buy Dewalt tools because I own Dewalt batteries etc.
Here we're talking about the "App Store." I don't know that it would register on the average non-techie's mind to assume they would have options ... but us techies know that the "locked garden" tends to mean "you're buying into the Apple ecosystem of products and will likely be stuck only buying Apple products for compatibility sake." Non techies might assume that because they assume that everything works that way. But is Apple making this extremely clear in their marketing so that people who don't assume would know up front? I'm genuinely curious since I don't buy Apple products.
Agreed, and also worth pointing out that Apple has rules for apps in the app store that they aren't allowed to tell you about Apple's cut and point you to a different place to buy. That is the absolute opposite of informing the user. Apple is preventing anybody from informing the user.
Gotta agree with you. I originally chose Android because it was relatively open but Google wiped out our freedom with hardware remote attestation. Now my bank app refuses to work if I modify my device in any way.
If I must be in a walled garden, I'm choosing the better kept one. Android is quite simply inferior, I tolerated it because it gave me relative freedom but there's no reason to tolerate it any longer.
Yea. I'm on Samsung s22 ultra myself. I'm thinking to move to Iphone and Apple Watch because at least with apple I know I'm being locked down up front.
The lesson of this would be terrible - never leave any openings in your walled garden or allow any compromise in excluding third parties, always keep it 100% closed.
> If the result of this case is "you can have a monopoly as long as your device and ecosystem are 100% locked down", that's terrible!
The rule of thumb, in a very simplified way, is indeed that you can have a monopoly as long as you don’t actively leverage that power to stifle competition.
That’s not a result of this case but a result of all the jurisprudence leading up to this case.
And to a certain degree, that makes sense. The alternative, making all monopolies illegal, would cause too much havoc because it would affect almost everyone putting out a product.
Say, for example, you’re a newcomer in the market of smart thermostats. By definition, you have a monopoly on your thermostats.
If monopolies are by definition illegal, regardless of circumstance, you’d have to allow Nest to put software on your thermostat advertising their products.
That’s an undesirable outcome, if only because it makes it harder for you to compete in that market.
I don’t think that’s even close to the spirit of the law. Monopolies are bad because they artificially limit consumer choice and market dynamics resulting in a product that’s more expensive and generally lower quality. If you intentionally limit competition where there would otherwise be a healthy ecosystem, you’re a problem, even if you have a cult of believers.
By the same logic, other phonemakers can come over and make phones. The definition of what is a "market" is arbitrary and subjective. Google may be a monopoly in internet search, but only a small player in "global advertisement". And anyone anywhere is a monopolist in the very narrow definition of the market that includes their own ten customers.
What's really important is the power play: your company should strive to hold a comfortable and stable monopoly position in a meaningful market (meaningful to you), while the government's role is to watch over all the businesses so that large numbers of people are not under heavy influence of external forces and not made unhappy. If any product exploits its monopoly by shifting the power from the government or making people sad, then gov steps in and interprets the rules in the way to correct this. Or, the gov is corrupt and helps keep that monopoly going :-)
How about a _market_ is anything where there exists a _marketplace_? Doesn't seem like a wild stretch. Now why should Apple have a monopoly on accepting payments on its platform?
To your second point: people are sad that we can’t have cheaper and better software on iOS. It’s a poor UX when an app makes me go on my desktop to sign up for their paid service. It negatively impacts consumers and only exists because Apple is wielding its monopoly.
No, I’m saying that almost everyone has a monopoly over something just by creating a new market.
This is why monopolies aren’t illegal per se, and it requires a couple of components for it to venture into unlawful territory.
One is that the monopoly is powerful enough that it can be exerted to pressure other parties in an anti-competitive way, and another is that that power is actively used.
There are more, but for the sake of simplicity, these are the important ones in this debate.
Disallowing competitors to exist, in this case, means passively making it possible for competitors to exist.
The omission of an act (passive) will never be as substantial as an indicator as an active act to quash competition.
The App Store hasn’t changed much since its inception. Commission rates have decreased since its inception, making it harder to argue that Apple is squeezing developers now that it has more power.
The analogy with the thermostat hypothetical is accurate.
If I create a new smart thermostat startup, I create a new market, the software distribution on the thermostats I manufacture.
This is analogous to the market definition people use to argue that Apple is violating antitrust laws. If it makes it easier to grasp what I'm saying, then instead, imagine I start manufacturing a new smartphone.
They launched the iPhone and, by doing so, created a new market, the iOS app distribution market.
The only difference is that the iOS app distribution market has grown exponentially, but the relevant legal realities are the same.
The law currently doesn’t have a mechanism to say, “Ok, now you’ve grown, so now it’s illegal.”
Instead, it looks at abuse of power, where acts weigh heavier than the omission of acts.
The main difference between the Google and Apple’s case is that the former went out of its way to stifle competition by making demands and setting requirements (akin to Microsoft back in the day).
Some now say that the only reason this difference exists is because Apple doesn’t have to pressure others like Google did, but that’s not a difference to be shrugged away. It’s an essential difference.
It makes the difference between one giant who throws its weight around and another who never had to do that because the terms have been the same from the get-go (however favorable it was for them).
It is for that very reason that the Google case won’t have much bearing on the Apple case.
Google and Apple are a duopoly that controls one of the most essential devices of our time. Their racket extends more broadly than Standard Oil. The smartphone is a critical piece of modern life, and these two companies control every aspect of them.
- Tax 30%
- Control when and how software can be deployed
- Can pull software or deny updates
- Prevent web downloads (Apple)
- Sell ads on top of your app name or brand
- Scare / confuse users about web downloads or app installs (Google)
- Control the payment rails
- Enforce using their identity and customer management (Apple)
- Enforce using their payment rails (Apple)
- Becoming the de-facto POS payment methods (for even more taxation)
- Partnering with governments to be identity providers
- Default search provider
- Default browser
- Prevent other browser runtimes (Apple)
- Prevent browser tech from being comparable to native app installs (mostly Apple)
- Unfriendly to repairs
- Unfriendly to third party components (Apple)
- Battery not replaceable
- Unofficial pieces break core features due to crytographic signing (Apple)
- Updates obsolete old hardware
- Green bubbles (Apple)
- Tactics to cause FOMO in children (Apple)
- Growth into media (movie studios, etc.) to keep eyeballs on their platforms (Apple)
- Growth into music to keep eyeballs on their platforms
There are no other companies in the world with this level of control over such an important, cross-cutting, cross-functional essential item.
If we compared the situation to auto manufacturers, there would be only two providers, you could only fuel at their gas stations, they'd charge businesses every time you visit, they'd display ads constantly, and you'd be unable to repair them without going to the provider.
There need to be more than two providers. And if we can't get more than two providers, then most of these unfair advantages need to be rolled back by regulators.
You might be able to blame Apple for starting this and continuing it on their phones, but I don't think Google is pushing Android handset makers to do this at all, just like I don't think Google is pushing Samsung (and maybe some others) to eliminate 3.5mm headphone jacks on their phones. Unfortunately, I think this is one of those things where the whole industry is just copying each other. Non-removable batteries are better for manufacturers for various reasons, but bad for consumers, and they've conned consumers into accepting it.
>Unfriendly to repairs
Same here. Nothing is keeping Android phone makers from being repair-friendly.
>Updates obsolete old hardware
This is Apple-only. The Android counterpoint is "Updates simply cease after 2-3 years, leaving you with security vulnerabilities that won't be fixed", but here again it's the fault of the handset makers, not Google: they're just too lazy, and Google is too stupid and short-sighted to force them to support their phones longer-term to improve the Android brand image.
Hey, re-read the dude post you are replying, there are parentheses to signal which specific actor or none for both. Perhaps they weren't there when you answered.
Please re-read it yourself, and compare with my quotes: it hasn't changed since my reply and my quotes are still accurate. I'm just pointing out that there are a few points I disagree with, or which are really the fault of the hardware makers (in Android's case).
For what it is worth, Youtube's tax is around 70%, but people get to see non-monetized videos for free. Similarly, the Google Play Store lets people download software at no cost when no price has been attached to it by the developer, despite having to do the work of distributing it.
Also, the OS developer acting as a gatekeeper is necessary to prevent malware from getting onto devices. Without that, you have Windows where black hats trick the average user into installing malware constantly.
Almost everything you list is actually a positive thing, although I would be wasting my time to explain it to people who should take the time they put into complaining into developing their own competing platforms that align with their ideals. Please do put your energy into making a competing platform. We need more choices at the operating system level, and nothing people hope these lawsuits would accomplish would give us that.
YouTube's tax is not comparable to the Play Store or the App Store because other identical services exist. Pretty much anyone immediately familiar with Google or Apple's infrastructure would laugh that off - you cannot replace the App Store in the same way. Unlike YouTube and Vimeo/Dailymotion, nobody is competing with the App Store to adjust it's taxation.
If Windows and MacOS imposed the same limitations, entire classes of software would stop getting distributed. Games would no longer be profitable enough to ship or diverse enough to compete in terms of profits. Professional software/plugin developers like Pro Tools, Panic! and U-He would lose the software margins they enjoy today and potentially stop supporting new OS releases. It happened already on MacOS after the depreciation of 32-bit apps and OpenGL.
> the OS developer acting as a gatekeeper is necessary to prevent malware from getting onto devices
You say that, but then viruses like Pegasus show up using nothing more than first-party Apple services. It's a bogus fearmongering tactic that cannot be used to justify not giving people a choice. User exploitation will exist as long as the user has enough power to act against their own interests. You'd have to remove the phone functionality to make a safe phone.
> Almost everything you list is actually a positive thing
> nothing people hope these lawsuits would accomplish would give us that.
Interesting, you sound incredibly desperate to dismiss the idea that legislation could fix this problem despite a lack of evidence. Wanna expand on that?
This discussion is as old as PC vs console gaming. Point being this horrible walled garden also provides ease of use, makes some features even possible in the first place, and I don't need to worry that my mother is installing keylogger or malware.
The way you put it—"FOMO in children," really does it justice. The way Apple uses their messaging service is almost psychological manipulation of children to increase their market share.
It's so sad that a company that resorts to those kinds of tactics to increase their market share, as opposed to, just selling more of their product because it's a superior product.
Apple offers the same kinds of deals (see Netflix discussions) though there the rationales are different, which leads to sweatier "Apple has to offer deals because their value add is so bad, and having alternative app stores would help"-style arguments... I don't really know of a good legal argument there.
Apple allows companies that have a free app used to access subscription content to sell the subscriptions on their own website without giving Apple a cut.
Netflix used to allow you to pay though Apple to reduce the sales friction of needing to set up billing through the Netflix website, but they stopped letting users pay through Apple years ago.
Is Apple's deal with Netflix anticompetitive though?
Google is paying hardware manufacturers to use their search and for exclusivity with their store. Both of those are more or less explicitly to keep out competition.
Apple cut a deal with Netflix but what competition does it squash?
I agree the issues are different! I do believe there’s a subtle argument to be made about how Apple can use its customer base to “pick winners” (combo of huge user base + App Store being the only entry point), on top of things like offering sweetheart deals to certain apps. Meta being allowed to get away with so much “against the App Store rules” stuff is legit IMO.
Anticompetitive behavior can be downstream of stuff like this, even if Apple isn’t actively quashing something but merely making it way easier for certain places to absorb the costs (especially if the deal was only offered to Netflix but not to other platforms).
Its not a ironclad argument by any means but its something
Giving preferential treatment to one customer at the expense of other customers is not anticompetitive behavior as defined by any law I'm aware of.
The law doesn't say you have to give everybody the same deal just because it's "unfair" to others.
The monopoly/antitrust/etc. laws are about misusing a position of power for your own benefit at the expense of competitors. Apple doesn't have to be "fair" to Netflix vs Max vs Disney Plus.
Plus, Netflix isn’t even Apple’s customer. It’s actually kinda the other way around: Apple’s customers are what Netflix wants access to, as a source of potential Netflix customers.
When you’re a marketplace, especially a big one, both the people buying in your store and the people selling in your store start to look like customers, both paying you for access to the other. For the sellers is obviously more implicit, but still often explicit like grocery stores getting paid to put specific products on aisle end caps and such.
The whole 30% fee is premised on providing services to app makers for money.
Without saying too much, I have personally witnessed such a deal at company with a measly 2-3 million app downloads. We had a physical product in the Apple Store that was doing very well. Our sales guy somehow negotiated lower IAP fees in exchange for higher cut or exclusivity of our retail product. Everything is negotiable if you have leverage.
But Apple didn’t decide that only Netflix could be on their platform. And they didn’t take money to cause problems for other streaming video services.
That’s what Google did according to the verdict. They paid money to stop competitors.
In fact Apple negotiated that deal to keep Netflix on the platform because Netflix wasn’t happy paying 30% (surprise). It’s not good that they’re playing favorites secretly, but it’s not the same thing
Especially since Google had always had the AOSP as a reasonable way of demonstrating their commitment to the industry as a whole disjoint from the places where they thought the Google ecosystem provided extra value (which they admittedly require you to take wholesale)
AOSP has effectively been dead for a long time. You need Google Play services for almost everything now and more and more creeps into the proprietary portion.
No you don't. Writing an app to use google services is a choice. There's MicroG for silly apps that require google services, and there's also life without using silly apps that require google services.
Please note how you dismiss apps requiring Google Play services as "silly," when most people who use those services use them as part of the hardware root of trust programs for work apps, or other device attestation for banking apps. Putting demeaning adjectives in front of the things you're arguing against isn't a compelling argument, I think you'll find, and "life without" banking and work apps leads to a lower quality of life for a lot of people.
IANAL, but it's my understanding that courts like to stick to what they know. Apple's arguments about iOS security are rooted in abstruse technical concepts that a judge probably prefers to avoid ruling on directly, while Google's backroom wheeling and dealing is the kind of conventional skulduggery that is immediately recognized as an offense.
I don't get it, so no company can provide a walled garden? Or at least, not if they're successful? That doesn't make sense to me, why is that not an acceptable and desirable feature for some people?
You don't have to buy an iPhone, this isn't like a railroad or a telecom that owns all of the possible infrastructure. If you want a walled garden get an iPhone. If you want freedom with all that implies, go Android.
> Instead, Apple is a mafia that shakes down all the vendors for the right to sell in their semi-open market square.
I think they actually have a monopsony since you can only sell to apple. If there were other app stores, you could sell to them instead.
"In economics, a monopsony is a market structure in which a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services offered by many would-be sellers. The microeconomic theory of monopsony assumes a single entity to have market power over all sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service. This is a similar power to that of a monopolist, which can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, where multiple buyers have only one seller of a good or service available to purchase from."
I don't think stores have an obligation to carry your products, it isn't like supermarkets are breaking the law because they don't have an open-door policy on products. You don't have some intrinsic legal right to use someone else's infrastructure to sell your own stuff, on your terms. Framing this as a legal or ethical issue leaves me cold, when the reality is just... you'd PREFER higher margins. I get it! I'm not saying that's wrong, it just isn't a legally enshrined right.
> I don't think stores have an obligation to carry your products, it isn't like supermarkets are breaking the law because they don't have an open-door policy on products.
I agree. However, consumers have the right to go to a different supermarket, without selling their house.
Speaking as someone who's gotten more than one tech illiterate relative an iPhone and iPad, the walled garden is WHY I bought in. It's literally Apple's biggest selling point, not having to worry about fake apps and malware and scams.
10 years ago that might have been true, but nowadays Apple doesn't give a single flying shit about fake/scammy apps on the iOS app store.
It's to the point where you can't look up local government apps here without getting some advertising garbage in the results first because Apple started selling app space.
And supermarkets have no obligation to build expressways to their competitors!
We can take these analogy absurdities wherever — the harsh reality is that nobody is stopping someone from building an open ecosystem phone. But there isn’t enough demand.
As a consumer, why should I care? As a company, unless I’m building my own walled garden for company phones, why should I care? What’s the market here?
> We can take these analogy absurdities wherever — the harsh reality is that nobody is stopping someone from building an open ecosystem phone. But there isn’t enough demand.
I don't think there's too little demand, I think there's too much profit incentive in the other direction.
Only a tiny number of companies on earth have the resources to build a successful mobile platform. If you are lucky enough to be one of those companies, you're not going to leave money on the table.
> the harsh reality is that nobody is stopping someone from building an open ecosystem phone.
The harsh reality is that manufacturing capacity and network effects actually prevents building an open ecosystem phone. You will never be able to purchase the best chips and displays.
I think we need to stop pretending that regulating competition is a bad thing. Competition is what makes capitalism work as an economic system. Without competition capitalism is inefficient and harmful. If we can inject more competition into the system as a whole, wherever possible, it's going to be good for consumers.
You’d lose that bet handily. People like Apple because of the curation and the ecosystem. A mainstream complaint about Apple is not that they place restrictions, but rather that they let too much low-quality stuff in.
Citation needed. (Citation also would be good for GP's claim, but they did specify "think" and were clearly speculating, whereas you make your assertion with certainty).
There are billions of iphones out there. Unless you're working with data (which you should share) then your anecdotal experience from talking with other tech literate people is so ridiculously non-representative that it's hard to even visualize.
Interesting that you chose to ask for a citation to an anecdote but not to the person who cited a specific percentage. You might want to google “confirmation bias”.
Interesting that you completely overlooked this part of my comment: "(Citation also would be good for GP's claim, but they did specify "think" and were clearly speculating, whereas you make your assertion with certainty)"
Oh, I saw that fig leaf, I just realized that it’s meaningless. Whether or not someone includes the phrase in front of their assumptions makes absolutely no difference. It’s just a Rorschach test.
Edit: I suspect I’m wrong, adding it probably causes their assumptions to be given more weight for no reason, as happened here. Interesting observation, that’s in line with the research that disclosing conflicting interests actually causes people to weight the compromised advice more highly than they otherwise would.
One of the biggest economic theories that has been demonstrably proven wrong is that consumers act perfectly logically and with full information. The opposite is true. I really wish it weren't because economics becomes much simpler and more intuitive when you assume perfect information and logicality, but if wishes were fishes and all that.
The problem is that after a decade, my choices are to continue to spend money at Apple, or spend even more money and time to leave Apple, go somewhere else, and buy all the apps I already own, all over again.
When I first started, I used to think of Apple as the best option available to me. Now I think about it as the least bad option. The cost of leaving involves so much time and money, that it’s not a realistic option.
No you don't, you can buy a VHS player and keep using it without throwing out your TV. Or buy a combined DVD/VHS player. The only reason to buy DVDs is because the quality is better. You're getting additional value for your purchase, beyond the artificial restrictions of a mega corporation.
When someone comes to your store and says "I'll wreck your store unless you cut me 30% of your revenue" that's the mafia.
When someone comes to your store and says "I made the streets and regulate the power, water supply, sewer, and everything else in this place, cut me 30% of your revenue in taxes" that's the government.
And you'd do well to not confuse those so haphazardly. Apple didn't come to your app and with no cause blackmail you to get your money. They created an ecosystem that did not exist before, and they have to maintain it. Paying for it is completely rational.
Likening it to a government given every company has a domain over its own products and services, makes a lot more sense than likening it to a mafia which doesn't come to contribute, but only to take.
Apple allows you to ship infinite amount of apps at no cost, if you don't in return ask the store for money.
> When someone comes to your store and says "I'll wreck your store unless you cut me 30% of your revenue" that's the mafia.
That's exactly what Apple does. If you make a mobile app (for example, a presentation manager) you _have_ to support iOS, or you will go out of business.
As a developer, you simply don't have a choice. You have to either support iOS, or get out of mobile apps entirely.
You could, however, give as much of the product away as you can for free (less $100 a year for developer account) and then Apple is basically paying you to distribute it on their platform. That's definitely not the mafia.
If you want to charge money, Apple will collect it for you and take a cut. If you don't want that deal, you can still distribute your app for free, you just can't charge money for it in the app. You can still charge money for the service, but you have to do that on your own website and infrastructure (a la Netflix, etc.), not Apple's.
I'm not up to date on Apple's current rules, but for years they have strictly forbidden you from directing users to your website to complete a purchase. You weren't even allowed to mention any other payment options in the app.
> If you want to charge money, Apple will collect it for you and take a cut. If you don't want that deal, you can still distribute your app for free, you just can't charge money for it in the app
Basically, you can't make money. Duh. You can't even place a link for a third-party payment system (the case to allow that is on its way to SCOTUS).
Worse, you can't make money and you have to pay the $100 developer fee every year. The developer fee is trivial if it's a business expensive, but quite expensive otherwise!
"They want money from my app when I want money from their store! Therefore I'm a victim and they're a mafia."
Seems to me you're not noticing the Kremlin levels of cognitive dissonance in your statement here. With this severe lack of self-awareness, if you were in Apple's place you'd be way worse than they are right now.
Yes, they are a mafia. And yes, they want 30% of the gross income, just like other mafias (that historically has been the mafia cut in New Jersey and New York).
> They want money from my app when I want money from their store!
Apple is a mafia because they want money that they do not earn. They didn't do anything that deserves 30% of gross to help me write my application, and they are not promoting it for free.
All they do is they provide a shitty autoupdate service.
> Seems to me you're not noticing the Kremlin levels of cognitive dissonance in your statement here.
You realize that free apps still have to pass all the Apple rules in order to get in the store right? If they disagree with anything about your app, then you're blocked. I think that's a good thing for consumers (or at least it would be if they allowed sideloading for people who don't want to be controlled) but that doesn't change the reality that as a developer, Apple is the mafia.
Major? Probably not many; once you're a major developer, you'll go wherever there's money to be made. That doesn't mean it isn't possible to skip iOS—but unless you have some philosophical objection to it, there's no reason why you would.
But anyway, you said "As a developer..." not "As a major developer...".
Not gonna lie, all of these examples are pretty weak because all of them are in circumstances that 99% of developers are never going to be in.
Beeper Mini replicates native iOS functionality - it's obvious why it can only exist as an Android-only app.
Fortnite is the product of a massive studio, whose decision of not publishing it on iOS was deliberate as part of their anti-monopoly lawsuits. They can easily afford to do it because Epic Games has other revenue sources, alongside with running Fortnite on pretty much every other platform imaginable.
Google doesn't really cash in on their more niche apps, publishing them on iOS is unlikely to change anything for them. However, not choosing to publish them gives Android - their own product - a tiny boost in appeal due to exclusive functionality.
Apparently you read only half the comment. Do you understand the distinction between destruction and construction or don't you?
By your logic there would be no towns, cities, countries, unions, companies, any kind of organization at all. Because any time you need to pay for something, you feel like it's the mafia.
- Is it the mafia when it comes time to pay time for rent. "I HAVE to pay rent or I'll be kicked out on the street!"
- Is it the mafia when it comes time to pay your bill at a restaurant. "I HAVE to pay my bill or I'll be hungry!"
No one owes you anything. You ask for money for your apps, don't you? Because why are you complaining otherwise? 40% of $0 is $0, isn't it? But you require money, despite maybe someone could be like "you're mafia unless I can play your game for free".
Things cost money. Grow up and start acting like an adult.
> a mobile app which a majority of people in the US will be able to use
Even using Apple, you can't do this, because you need a separate Android and iOS app already.
Big picture though, I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone.
You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one. You can't just go and sell your product in the AT&T store, you need to agree to their terms. Even if you make a phone that only works on the AT&T network, you still need to agree to their terms.
You can't sell in Target or Walmart or Costco or even Amazon just because you want to. Oh and you may be quite disappointed to discover many of them take >30% cut too.
Apple thinks of the iOS App Store as another storefront, and you need their permission to put your product on their "shelves". The courts agree.
Part of Epic's argument was that they wanted Apple and Google to distribute Epic Games Store, which makes your argument valid. However, the commenter you were replying to likely isn't aware of this and does not care about how they install EGS, only that they are able to do so if they do not want to deal with Apple or Google.
The sneaky part of Apple's counterargument is that they try to apply your argument not to their own App Store, but to the entire OS. This is a land grab - the App Store is their service, but I own the phone, so the OS should respect my decision to circumvent Apple's curation if I so choose. If I'm not allowed to sell in Target or Walmart, I'm allowed to open my own store and people can circumvent Target to go to me directly. This is how it works for every other form of computer except phones and tablets.
> This is how it works for every other form of computer except phones and tablets.
But only because macs existed before they were able to get away with this. I would bet a huge amount of money that if macs were invented/created after the iphone, they'd be locked down exactly the same way. And many of the same people who love it on the phone would love it on the computer, even though now they would say that it's a general purpose computing device not an appliance like the phone is.
> Even if you make a phone that only works on the AT&T network, you still need to agree to their terms.
Prior to the 1980s, AT&T, as the dominant telephone service provider in the United States, had a policy that only allowed customers to use telephones that were leased from them. This policy was rooted in the belief that non-AT&T equipment could harm the telephone network. Does that sounds familiar?
Several legal cases (and the eventual breakup of AT&T) eventually opened up the AT&T network to third party phones and consumers rejoiced.
> I don't think you really have a "right" or entitlement to just access everyone. You're not entitled to use someone else's business, even if it's a good one.
And yet you can literally pick up a phone, dial some numbers, and reach everyone else who has a phone number.
> And yet you can literally pick up a phone, dial some numbers, and reach everyone else who has a phone number.
And yet you can literally pick up a [product engineered to a phone company’s specifications], dial some numbers [assigned by a phone company] and reach everyone else who [also agreed to the phone company’s TOS] [as long as you and them have paid a large monthly fee].
This isn’t freedom. Companies still decide how you can use their services.
Because decades ago, "figuring it out" entailed visiting a website and downloading a software installer. Why is Apple expecting everyone to forget about that and pay them the difference instead?
>I don't get it, so no company can provide a walled garden? Or at least, not if they're successful?
Framing things as you have leads to the impression that, by analogy to oppressing a person, restricting a large company is bad. But a company is not a person. Companies are legal constructs that exist because they are useful to society. A monopoly distorts markets and stifles innovation by disadvantaging potential competitors. This is not beneficial to society and so should not be permitted. So yes, a sufficiently large company should not be permitted to do things that might be permissible for a smaller company.
Having a walled garden is fine. I use iPhone and apple products from day 1. That said, charging 30% of subscription in the App Store seems ridiculously high if you put yourself in the 3rd party vendor place.
For comparison, Amazon charges 15%. AWS marketplace charges <10%.
I think a lot of this stems from "take backsies" on a long term subconscious level.
The HN audience in particular is not just tinker-friendly, but the vast majority surely lived through the era of Apple where Jobs pitched the iPhone as more of a gateway to the internet in your pocket, web apps were even mentioned as being a major feature/philosophy.
Not to mention the "old world" of premobile OSes which still have the basic understanding that I can install programs programmed for this platform, without "protection" and the "protection fees" associated with a centralized monopoly, an old world of which macOS could never shed in the name of profits, but iOS and beyond has become the battleground for redefining the computing experience to the mainstream: is it supposed to be a bladerunner 2049 esque experience of hitting the predetermined icons on my pocket vending machine, infantilizing and commodifying people's lifestyle for wealth concentration of a company that uses it's wealth to...hmm.
It is, at the very least though, a bit of a betrayal to those used to the old ways.
At the worst, it's part of a larger regression against individualism.
So the law says that once your city reaches a certain size you must let in the barbarian hordes? In this case the barbarians are the malicious apps that would have been stopped by app store vetting. Seems like a bad deal for the average citizen of that city.
I think tech savvy users should be able to (after jumping through a few hoops) do whatever they want with their phones, without any fear of reprisal from software and hardware manufacturers. If Apple and Google insist on strangling this market then Tim Sweeney has the money to develop a competing phone ecosystem, it could be a great business opportunity if a large number of users and developers are actually not being well served. But he may find that this underserved population is a quite small slice of the total addressable market, and that walled gardens actually do a good job for the vast majority of users, protecting my oblivious grandma who clicks on everything from a horde of scammers.
You're looking at it from the user's perspective, this case is about B2B.
Imagine you're working on a hardware product that can communicate with your other devices over Bluetooth. How exactly do you avoid Apple in this scenario?
You can't, or you won't be in business for very long. You need to develop an app because Apple intentionally gimps their browser, and to release the app you must agree to their terms.
They're in a dominant position that allows them to dictate unfavorable terms to the rest of the industry which, among other things, stifles innovation.
> Imagine you're working on a hardware product that can communicate with your other devices over Bluetooth. How exactly do you avoid Apple in this scenario?
I can't think of nothing that is paired over Bluetooth that couldn't be done better with some other medium. Even Apple use a superset of Bluetooth to get its devices working properly together.
I read the paper. That's very cool research! I've never thought of representing UI as a graph before. Their code generation clearly leaves much to be desired (see the figure at page bottom).
> If the result of this case is "you can have a monopoly as long as your device and ecosystem are 100% locked down", that's terrible!
One could hope people would despise such a company and the market would fix it, but humans have proved the opposite. I've stopped trying to educate people and lost all faith in humanity. Most of them just don't care, as long as they've got their shiny stuff.
This is precisely my experience as well. I think what's happening is that everybody wants authoritarian control, and in fact prefers it, right up until the authority makes a decision that runs counter to their needs. But by then it's too late.
It reminds me of the Newburgh Letter, suggesting that George Washington be declared king after winning the revolutionary war. It's like they missed the whole point of the exercise.
> If the result of this case is "you can have a monopoly as long as your device and ecosystem are 100% locked down", that's terrible!
I guess part of the result is "you can't lock your ecosystem while pretending it's open". As for Apple's situation, it's different enough to warrant a separate lawsuit.
It was shown that Apple does have secret deals though. Part of it was that Apple could actually be hurt if some of the bigger players left - Amazon, Netflix, etc. Netflix had a really sharp deal if I'm not mistaken, like 10% compared to the 30% everyone else paid.
It's not that Android is open or locked down. Google can do whatever they want with own handsets, like Apple does, but Google is using their influence to affect the software market on other handsets.
How is Apple a monopoly? They have a huge competitor in the mobile phone market: Google/Android. I could see arguing that Apple and Google are a duopoly.
It should be noted that this was a jury decision. Juries are instructed on the relevant law, but ultimately they can give back whatever answer they want, for whatever reason they want. So while we can speculate why the answer came back as it did... and that speculation may be correct if the jury was following instructions, we won't know for sure unless someone on the jury chooses to come forward and explain their decision.
I always wondered how the hell jury system works and how the hell they can put matters like this, or any matter for that matter, in the hands of a jury? Jury system seems so arbitrary to me. There is no explanation - no basis - just “we felt like this”, or rather “whatever, we want to do just do this”.
It isn't quite that chaotic. The attorneys will negotiate and work with the judge to figure out how to instruct the jury. And before the jury goes to deliberate on the decision, they are given fairly detailed instructions on what the law is, what evidence to consider, and sometimes what to specifically not consider.
As the other posters said, most jurisdictions follow specific recommendations on avoiding telling the jury to do whatever they want. And different jurisdictions have different rules on whether or not the jury can truly redefine the law or facts. Some places have that ingrained in their state constitution, but most do not. And civil vs. criminals trials also have different rules. And where I live, there are even different rules for specific types of civil trials.
It really is all fairly complex, hence every trial will give a specific set of instructions to that jury. And that is also why an attorney in one jurisdiction might not be correct on how the details work in another one. (Although the gist of it all will be the same.)
At the same time, this is also why we don't know for sure what the jury said or thought. We can get all their instructions - those are public record. But the actual deliberation is not.
As always, IANAL. Other commenters already seem to be annoyed at my layman's take on it all, but this is what I know from being a law school dropout and having served on juries.
Have you ever heard of a judge telling a jury that they are free to think for themselves and give the answer they want? If I recall, there is a term for that, called jury nullification and judges reportedly become upset if attorneys tell their juries about it.
If you hear of a judge that encourages juries to think for themselves and answer as they think, rather than prescribing how to think to them, let me know.
I'm a lawyer. I've explained this so many times it's starting to bore me, but I have to keep doing it.
Jury nullification has never existed as a right in any common law system. It is merely a descriptive term that lawyers use to describe a situation where a jury decides to ignore the law. Lawyers cannot instruct juries on its existence because, in the law, it doesn't exist. It only ever happens because juries cannot be punished for deciding contrary to what the law says; their right to their own reasoning is sacrosanct.
It describes a situation where the jury ignores the law, and lawyers can never instruct juries to ignore the law, in any circumstance. Lawyers can never say "I know the law says X but if you ignore that, we can't punish you hint hint."
It is a term that describes a crinkle in the law. It does not exist as a right, and juries are NOT entitled to do it, but at the same time, they cannot be punished for doing so.
People who whine about jury nullification are one step below 'sovereign citizen' types in terms of driving me nuts with their willful misunderstanding of the law.
Epic's angle was to get discovery so they could embarrass the shit out of regulatory agencies and legislators by pointing out how they were sleeping on an obvious, decades old antitrust case. It worked. The DMA wouldn't have been a thing without Epic suing.
Epic v. Apple did find some limitations to Apple's policies, but also found that Epic specifically didn't prove the abuse of monopoly power they wanted to.
They are completely different cases because Apple controls the manufacturing process of every iOS devices in every phase. But Google does not control the whole product lifetime of the every Android phone out there.
On the latter monopoly abuse is bigger problem.
But if you make, build, control and design everything from bottom to top on the product, then it is less about monopoly abuse. It is just single total product.
I and I think many others disagree. Apple's case seems more egregious. Who are they to tell me what I can and can't do with my phone? Walled gardens may be a value add for some but it also spits in the face of first sale doctrine.
I don't like the idea of not owning my own phone either, but you are not exactly forbidden to do whatever you like with your phone. It is more about what are you capable of.
This cap of capability has been increasing drastically with technology. Even if you had an old, repairable car, not everyone has capabilities to repair it or modify it to something else in the past. But now even less likely.
The question is that how much they hinder on purpose? In the case of Apple, many times it might have been hindering on purpose, but some choices have also valid points.
If you remember the old times of Android (and still), Android provides extra-ordinary attack surface for malware what iOS has never had.
The distinction between Google and Apple is that you might think that with Android, as there are many manufacturers and brands, you have a choice, but it is just an illusion, if Google "abuses" it's market place with other manufactures.
In the case of Apple, it's just Apple. Apple can do whatever they please but is unlikely affecting any other manufacturers or brands. If they want to compete with Apple, they need to be better than Apple.
Of course, there is the value of user base. All the companies must try to adapt with the social behavior of people, and if they choose to use iPhone for playing games and listening music, companies must bring games and music on those platforms to be competitive. It is hard to get this userbase.
The biggest issue of this particular case with Google were the deals. And other manufactures and companies since Google is not manufacturing the phones itself, but instead makes secret deals about the Play Store and other software. This goes to line of monopoly abuse, since it affects other companies and the illusion of choice, and also hinders innovation.
Well can do whatever you want with your phone. Apple however has no obligation to make it easy for you to run third party software or support this at all. After all that would be an additional feature which they never claimed their devices have.
The impact of the OEM deals can not be understated, and actually account for Android not being dominant in TV or IoT because Google don't quite understand that other companies aren't idiots and they didn't want a replay of the phone situation.
For instance, for a long time if you wanted to make a device with the Play Store on you could not make any Android device which did not have the Play Store, even as a third party for someone else.
If you do that while making billions in platform fees don't be surprised when everyone else thinks building their own app stack on top of vanilla embedded Linux is a better idea.
Of course often the OEM intentions are far from honest, but the deliberate result of Google's antics is to prevent the emergence of any honest actor trying to produce an Android device which does not serve the ad tech beast.
I wonder what the remedies will be -- sideloading is already allowed, so allowing third party in-app billing? That seems to be the actual thing the juries said -- that Google used their dominant position to do anticompetitive things, among which is taking their 30% cut on everything.
Third party stores do not have the same functionality as Google's store, this is one of the things Epic sued over, so I imagine it will factor into the remedies.
AFAIU Aurora isn't an alternate store, but an alternate front-end to the Google Play Store.
That is, the only apps available through Aurora are those on Google Play, and if Google's rejected an app, then you won't be able to install it via Aurora.
By contrast, F-Droid is an alternative front-end and app store, with apps available which aren't included in Google Play (for example, Termux).
(I use both Aurora and F-Droid on an Onyx Android device.)
By that measure, F-Droid is very close in that both have the majority of apps some people use (Aurora for you, F-Droid for me).
Neither can compete with the Play store though, as only Google's offering is allowed to update or install apps in the background without user interaction (without root). For that matter, only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can uninstall apps from user's devices with no interaction.
>only Google Play Protect (part of the Play Store IIRC) can uninstall apps from user's devices with no interaction.
That sounds horrible. Why can a store decide to delete an app with no prior notice?
But it does seem Google has given more freedom to other apps to install apps. I guess it comes down to if that's still too many clicks or too fear mongering to count as "competitive".
Worse than that, I've had it unilaterally block legitimate third-party apps I've installed from F-Droid. Then since I've disabled it, it constantly nags me to re-enable it so it can re-delete my third-party apps. If you want to talk about anti-competitive, Play "Protect" should be where you start.
In my experience Google Play Protect can be disabled, and shows a warning an app might be "Harmful" and sometimes prompts to Uninstall or Ignore the warning, afaik no unprompted uninstalls
You're right! I thought I'd heard something about that, but couldn't quite remember :) From your linked article though:
> in response to mounting pressure from Epic Games and government regulators
Just because it came out before the judgement doesn't mean it wasn't because of the court case. And frankly, needing to be sued to do the not-a-monopoly thing isn't exactly a great look.
Maybe I'm just grouchy because I'll never get to use it though - BlackBerry stopped making handsets, so I'm using either the last great physical keyboard (subjective, but true IMO) while being "stuck" on Android 8.1, or GNU+Linux à la Pinephone Pro.
Google Play is not just app store, but also the only way to efficiently deliver push notifications on Android devices. And latest modifications to Android OS make it very rippled without push notifications, all background apps unload from memory very fast. The result is that it makes many types of apps impossible to implement without relying on push notifications - and lock in to Google Play services.
While they carry almost the same name, Google Play Services are not the same as the Play Store, though. You can use the former without using the latter.
I highly doubt that a manufacturer can release an Android phone that does not have Google Play Store app but does use Google Play Services. We have evidence that Google prohibits even releasing other models w/out Google Play store if it wants to make Androids with Google Play.
Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has. That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.
> Pretty much. Google Play services runs as like a root process that can (among other things) bypass all the security checks that the OS usually has.
Unnecessarily mind you, GrapheneOs proved that you can get the vast majority of GMS functionality without it needing to run as root.
Even Gpay would work if google allowed it.
> That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.
This has changed with android 12, third-party sources can now auto update an app after a user accepts the initial prompt go install it.
> That includes those annoying update confirmation dialogs which make it impossible to install updates automatically without user interaction.
Important to note this has changed starting with android 12, now you just need accept installing the app, and the source can update the app without interaction.
Droidify (third party fdroid client) supports it, among others like Aurora store.
Specifically GMS runs as a "privileged app" (that's what priv-apps stands for) which can declare access to permissions in the manifest that non-privileged apps can't even ask for.
You can install and run apps from Aurora store without having Google Services installed? Did Aurora store replace Google Services somehow? Many apps depend on those services.
It uses that to install new applications and update applications installed by other app stores without the OS-level confirmation, probably can't be uninstalled on most Android OSes and perhaps some other things.
Auto updates can be implemented by other apps without prompt. [0] But you're right on initial install there is that installation confirmation prompt and other stores may be uninstalled.
It feels like you're trying to use the existence of some criminal acts as a justification for a different set of criminal acts.
So, yes, when users literally own their own devices, it is difficult for the manufacturer to keep them perfectly secure without abusing monopoly power.
The door also swings the other way here too, because malware has certainly existed _inside_ the Play Store, and it took _users_ to bring it to the billion dollar corporations attention.
You realize the same company suing Google and saying that allowing third party app stores is the same company that actually introduced a vulnerability by doing so?
The entire value proposition of the App Store is the sandbox.
I just had a coworker say that he surreptitiously installed an app on his son’s phone that allowed him to see everything his son was doing remotely and listen in to his son’s conversations. He showed it to us in action.
This sounds suspiciously similar to the “evil maid” attack: all bets on security are off when you’ve got physical access to the device. This is a well known weakness in all platforms. Some platforms manage short term protections against this, but nothing ever withstands it in the long run.
If the adult demanded the kid's phone password, it's rubber hose cryptanalysis. If the adult set up the password for the kid, it's a supply chain attack. Evil maid implies you don't know the password at all, which doesn't sound like the case here.
Yes and because of Linux’s “openness” it’s being used by most people as their main desktop OS and in the US 60% of the market are buying iPhones. Have you thought that their priorities aren’t the same as yours?
Surely most people care at least enough about openness to want to be able to install apps on their phone. Your threat model is considering an authorized user installing an app to be a security breach.
Android has privacy indicators for when software is recording things on the phone. Wouldn't that give the coworker away? Or does his son just have an old phone? (The privacy indicators are fairly new, IMO, but it mirrors a thing Apple did a few years ago.)
What “child tracking” device on iOS lets you intercept phone calls, text messages and remotely monitor in real time what someone is doing on their phone?
It's a difficult security model when the threat actor is a parent who presumably has access to the device and in an unlocked state along with permissions to install anything from anywhere. It's not like the threat actor realistically couldn't (with some effort) see everything the child was doing already just by asking so I don't really see this as a very good threat model.
Sure, Apple might prevent you from installing such applications on devices (though they offer monitoring app usage and websites for parental controls), but that's just because they have a walled garden that could disallow such apps and it's less clear how to weigh app freedom against user safety.
If you're worried about zero days, Android exploits are priced around the same as iOS exploits apparently so take that how you will.
If you own a device you can do whatever you want with it. Can you install surveillance cameras in your own home? If yes, then I don't know why you can't install surveillance software on your own device.
Without any indication that it’s on there? Would you feel the same way about an abusive partner installing software surreptitiously on their wife’s/husband’s phone?
> You really think you are going to ask a child what are they doing every second and what they talked about and they are going to tell the truth?
Of course not, but usually adults can force a passcode out (or take the device altogether) or force the child to sign in for them to see at regular intervals, in which case they can observe everything. I would agree that this is excessive for a parent to do, but clearly the parent you are talking about is already taking excessive measures.
> What’s stopping someone also from surreptitiously installing the same snooping software on another adult’s phone?
Presumably, an attacker will not have access to the device and not be freely given the password or access with the ability to install an app. If they do, then there's nothing stopping the attacker from just going through the phone. Installing a app without the person's knowledge would either require you to have inside access or have a zero day.
> It’s not less clear. There is no reason to allow this type of software to be installed on a phone without a clear indication that it is on there.
A lot of the permissions individually make sense and this software could just be composed by a significant number of them. I'm not sure exactly how the software you are referring to works and its scope, so I'll take a narrow example.
In the case of messages, users may legitimately want a different messaging app. If the adult just side loads an arbitrary SMS app, how is that supposed to be distinguishable to the OS whether the app additionally happens to sync these messages to a third party?
In the case of screen capture, that's a perfectly normal use case to stream your screen. Android does warn you when this is occuring.
Or for that matter, many Android devices permit side loading an entire OS. This could be used by the adult to basically bypass any restrictions on apps altogether. This has a completely legitimate use case. Should we block that as well?
Even if the parent “forces a passcode”, they can’t remotely listen in on conversations and see exactly what their child is doing at any given minute.
> Presumably, an attacker will not have access to the device and not be freely given the password or access with the ability to install an app.
Are you really unaware of what a jealous partner can do?
> A lot of the permissions individually make sense
In what world does a permission to “remotely monitor your screen and intercept your voice and hide that the app is installed make sense”?
> A lot of the permissions individually make sense and this software could just be composed by a significant number of them. I'm not sure exactly how the software you are referring to works and its scope, so I'll take a narrow example.
Maybe it’s a bad idea to allow a third party app to have access to your SMS messages especially seeing they are often used for 2FA?
> In the case of screen capture, that's a perfectly normal use case to stream your screen. Android does warn you when this is occuring.
And yet there are plenty of apps for Android that can do this surreptitiously…
You realize you aren’t making a great case for Android here don’t you?
The 30% is only an issue for the jury in the context of the trial where it stands to gain against competing stores.
The jury did not set precedent that 30% fees in and off themselves are bad. It has very little relevance to Apple or other single market platforms (consoles etc) since they have no competing store product.
An interesting effect could be to have more devices that don't have the Play Store by default, and Google providing sanctioned ways for the customer to add the Play Store as a choice.
Hope it doesn't happen to Apple as I like and prefer that I can only buy stuff and most importantly have a single place to cancel all my subscriptions without dark patterns like having to talk to a person to cancel.
I'll again make my argument that the developers should respect the choice of the users. If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product. I certainly do so and so do my parents who haven't had an issue with random apps scamming them and stealing their card details or passwords.
I really don't understand the negative sentiment against Apple - guys, it's a phone/tablet. The consoles are much more like a General Purpose Computers and we are not really touching those or being that vocal which to me shows that it's not really a moral stance and it's a "my profits are affected stance".
> If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product.
If no iOS user wants a 3rd party store, no one will install them, all of them will fail and we wouldn't be talking about this.
So why are Apple so afraid of a little competition? I think some iOS users (me) are willing to use other stores. And that's why Apple blocking it is anti-competitive.
One plausible argument is that Apple is afraid of other parties competing unfairly; if apps can ship outside the App Store - and, critically, if they can thereby bypass some of the restrictions Apple imposes through their review process - then ex. Google and Facebook could ship apps that do bad things (probably privacy related) and abuse their own market positions to coerce people into using such apps. Given that this doesn't happen on Android, it might well not be a problem, but Google already does anything they want on Android and arguably the restrictions that companies would want to bypass just don't exist there so it may or may not be a useful point of comparison.
A different angle is: If a user wants a 3rd party app store, why did they buy an iOS device?
(To be clear, I'm not really convinced either way at this point; I'm throwing out what I think are reasonable arguments but that doesn't mean I'm convinced there aren't good counterarguments to them)
> If a user wants a 3rd party app store, why did they buy an iOS device?
Wants and circumstances can change over time. When I purchased my device, Fortnite and Xbox Cloud Streaming were available from the Apple App Store. Now they aren't.
Also I can want more out of my device; none of my devices are perfect but I still buy them. I believe 3rd party stores would be an improvement to my device. Replace the feature "3rd party app store" with folding phone: "Why did they purchase an iOS device if they wanted a folding phone" is a leap in logic to "No iOS user wants a folding phone"
A year ago, I'd say USB-C, but that's no longer the case.
> if they can thereby bypass some of the restrictions Apple imposes through their review process
Those same restrictions are blocking apps like Xbox Cloud Streaming. When Apple chooses to block those, but I still want access to apps, 3rd parties providing the such apps isn't unfair competition.
The problem is that this "choice" in iOS is an illusion, if both Google and Apple employ user-hostile, monopolist tactics. That's like saying someone chooses to stay with an abusive guardian when the only alternative, foster care, brings its own sets of challenges.
> If the user chose iOS maybe they chose it because they wanted the curated experience and the locked it product.
This would make a lot more sense in a world where users have more choice. If you want to make this argument, you probably need regulators to step in and enforce standards and interoperability such that consumers have more choice, along more different axes than they currently do (2-ish operating systems, determined by the hardware you buy).
>I like and prefer that I can only buy stuff and most importantly have a single place to cancel all my subscriptions without dark patterns like having to talk to a person to cancel.
You could STILL do that if that does happen on Apple. No one forces you. It just gives people more choices. Choices are good.
Not if every app decides to implement their own in app subscription in order to make it harder for me to cancel or dispute. And then move their app to not the App Store. Apple provides a common playground for every app. You need to provide these things to your customers or you can play with them. I like it because it forces developers to adhere to some standards. Like for example not tracking me and not building only the subscription start part but have the cancellation behind an email I need to send.
Is it worth it to pay 30% more for everything in order to have that convenience?
Even if you think it is, other people might disagree. Apple prevents app creators from even mentioning that you can purchase content or subscriptions in a web browser instead.
I just want to be able to use the hardware I already paid for without Apple taking a cut of everything I do on it.
But you knew exactly the contract you are getting into and still went ahead with it.
Also Apple take around 15% from most developers.
Also it’s not really about providing choice given that developers will flock to the lowest % store and it doesn’t matter if that store siphons personal data. My main problem with this is that the push comes from profit margins and not care about the users and that is pretty obvious if you ask the why question a few times
I'm curious, do you have an Amazon subscription or any of the dozens of other major subscriptions that didn't go the AppStore route because of Apple' policies ?
I'm not sure at any point I experienced a "cancel all my subscriptions" in a single place, even as I was neck deep in the Apple ecosystem.
Just yesterday I stopped a handful of subscriptions all at once and it was excellent that there was a third party disinterested in trying to retain my business giving me a nice list of everything and a button to stop them. If I can subscribe through Apple Pay for anything, I will. It would be great if a bank had a workflow as nice as that.
> really don't understand the negative sentiment against Apple
I just want them to be better.
They take 15-30% of my gross revenue and are the source of most of my stress (through regular rejections of my app updates). It would be nice if they charged less and stopped rejecting me for mentioning Android in my app copy.
> guys, it's a phone/tablet. The consoles are much more like a General Purpose Computers and we are not really touching those
I mean, I'm on board with using video game consoles as proper computers as well, but my phone literally has gcc installed so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
It’s not a general purpose device, it’s a phone. The only reason why anyone is pushing for this is because their profits are affected and they do all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to justify it. If Apple tomorrow says 0% fees - 90% of the developers are going to say YES we did it. But in reality no new user freedoms were gained or choice to the user was provided. It’s an assumption but everyone always talks about the % being high and given that there are more app developers than console developers it seems like it’s not a mindset but just a “it hurts my profit margins” which has 0 benefit for the user.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread regarding why Apple won their case against Epic while Google lost theirs.
The key reason Apple won their case is the fact that consumers generally purchase iPhones knowing ahead of time that their app download options are restricted to the App Store. If they disagreed with that restriction then they could have made the choice to purchase another phone instead, but deciding to purchase an iPhone anyway means they "knowingly agreed to the challenged restraint".
Under US law the precedent is very clear (established by the Supreme Court case Eastman Kodak v. Image Technical Services and the 9th Circuit case Newcal v. Ikon) that if the consumer knowingly agrees to aftermarket restraints ahead of time then that aftermarket will essentially not be considered a monopoly for antitrust purposes.
Source: The Epic v. Apple 9th Circuit ruling (specifically pages 30 to 40 which explains this in detail).
"Knowingly agrees" - that phrase is doing a lot. The average consumer who buys an iPhone has no idea about Apple approved apps or app store restrictions. There also not told about it when purchasing the device or setting it up.
Before using the App Store, you have to agree to terms of service. No one reads it, but they could! They are told to look at it and must acknowledge they agree before they can use the service. What else are you going to do, force anyone buying any device with services attached to sit in a little room and interrogate them until you're sure they understand every detail?
Do you have Apple Stores in your country? They're almost always packed. Could you imagine how insane it would be to do that? Would you no longer be able buy iPhones online? What you suggest is completely infeasible.
It’s not like there was some centralized decision making here. It’s possible for the two cases to be contradictory, given jury vs bench, and a whole host of other reasons. I think it’s safe to say that there’s still a long road ahead for both cases, and it’s possible that one outcome will affect the other in the appeals process. Not to mention any legislation that might get passed as a result.
>It’s interesting how the judges in Apple vs Epic stayed with Big Tech
My thought is that the judges are likely staying with the "letter of the law" which is what Big Tech (Big anything really) hires all of their lawyers to make sure that they technically stay within, while flagrantly violating the spirit of the law in a way that helps the business model.
The Jury is more prone to look at the spirit of the law.
I agree. Why would a judge be afraid of Apple or Google? They don’t give a shit. Neither company is going to hire hitmen.
The judges are following previous rulings and trying to apply them to what are likely novel situations that the law was never intended to cover because it no one foresaw it.
The courts are not how you fix this. The legislature is. Unfortunately that’s too broken to do anything.
>I agree. Why would a judge be afraid of Apple or Google? They don’t give a shit. Neither company is going to hire hitmen.
Since it's legal in US to buy political influence (lobby) and since judges and prosecutors are politically appointed and since the said corporations have very large pockets...
To add on that media and public opinion also impacts your career as a justice and money can swing both media and public opinion.
I don’t think that it’s that judges are scared of big tech. I think the antitrust teachings from the 80s and 90s were Reagan (Bork) style philosophies which have since become outdated. But federal judges are often older folks and probably lean on their now-outdated “law and economics” theory of antitrust
Looks like Epic is getting almost everything they wanted from both Google and Apple, given that EU is giving their hands to do all the jobs necessary for the Apple's case. Those two stores will remain dominant (>95% share) for a foreseeable future, but at least customers will have a choice.
Now I wonder what if Google/Apple decided to decrease their cut to a more reasonable level, around 10~15%? App store/Play store fees are not their primary revenue stream so this must be a reasonable cost for them to mitigate this kind of legal risks, but they choose not to do so.
> Looks like Epic is getting almost everything they wanted from both Google and Apple, given that EU
It remains to be seen whether Apple will comply with EU rules outside of the EU. If not, Epic isn't getting their way, because EU revenue alone isn't going to be enough.
Whenever DMA kicks in, I'm reasonably sure that there will be a number of state legislatures to follow this case, which will practically enforce Apple to open up the App store in the US.
I’m not even clear on if under the DMA, Apple has to comply in a way that will enable Epic to make their own store. Depending on how they intend to comply, Epic might still get excluded since they terminated Epic’s developer program accounts and their business relationship in retaliation for the lawsuit Epic filed.
If Apple is still anywhere in the final process, its entirely possible other people can make their own storefronts but Epic will not.
After DMA, Apple must allow app sideloading. They may decide not to host Epic Games Store in App Store, but I don't think they will be allowed to block them from running their own store with sideloading.
Of course, Apple can try to circumvent but that's a blatant violation of DMA and there will be serious retaliation. EU already has given a warning[1]. Perhaps it's good to remind that Apple could've been in a better position with all the USB-C situation if they didn't insult EU congressman with laughter[2]... I don't think Tim's going to repeat the same mistake.
Also, subscriptions are charged at 30% for the first year, which then drops to 15% for subsequent years.
When we sold software through resellers years before the App Store we often paid 40%-45%. We found it absurd at first too, but we learned that large businesses only bought from certain resellers or the resellers could sell into businesses we couldn’t reach (a sales staff in business or marketing to consumers). In some rare cases we negotiated to 30% so I don't find these fees out of the norm.
Are customers really going to have a choice? It seems more likely a bunch of big companies are gonna want to get into the game of distributing apps to get the xx% cut of IAPs, and there will be exclusivity contracts for every app you want, and you'll have to install 5 app stores that will each be managing different things, and you'll no longer have a centralized location to manage recurring billing subscriptions like we have right now.
Google is quite a bit more developer friendly than Apple. Glad to see Epic and developers get a win here, but too bad the courts sided with Apple. Would have liked to see App Store / Play Store duopoly broken up.
Google is in this case less developer friendly. They made secret deals with Spotify (0% fees when using Spotify billing, 4% when using Play Store billing), but it took lawsuits for normal devs to only have to pay 15% on the first million.
So yeah, it's a middle finger to all devs from Google.
The lesson is loud and clear: if you want to destroy normal consumer protections, do it using technologic dictatorship like Apple and the gaming console companies, not through an open platform and then soft power with your vendors.
Feels like a "if you run somebody over with your car it's better to back up and kill them" moment of perverse legal incentives.
The lesson should be: do not get caught paying off companies to not compete with you when you already have a monopoly because you will get pilloried by a jury.
Because that is what Google just got punished for doing. They paid off companies to not ship third party app stores pre installed, pressured software companies to not make third party app stores, and gave money to companies to not compete with Google play
If they had restricted those APIs way back when, Android would have stalled and Tizen or some other platform would have eaten a huge chunk of the market they have today. You can't just change some important historical detail and pretend there would be zero consequences except the ones you care about.
How can you be certain that changing this detail would result in Android failing? Was it really app sideloading and allowing other stores that made Android successful? I think the biggest contributing factor was that it was made by Google (who had the money to both partner with other manufacturers and eventually make their own hardware), in combination with a lack of other options that'd directly compete with iOS (you mentioned Tizen, but it wouldn't come out for another 4 years after Android's release)
It's not about what made Android successful, it's about what made OEMs ship Android rather than something else. OEMs were conned by Google with an open platform that was then shut by secret deals with some of them. That cost the others who weren't in on the secret deals and it cost consumers in missed opportunities. Take away that scam, and perhaps Android never would have got the OEM momentum it did.
No, they could have avoided this outcome by not paying other companies to not compete with Google play. They paid off phone manufacturers like Motorola to not preinstall third party app stores and software companies like Riot Games to not produce third party app stores.
OP is saying they could also have avoided this outcome by not allowing competition at all. That's the route that Apple took and Apple won their case against Epic.
Google's plan was to maintain a de facto monopoly on app stores while technically allowing competition. Apple's was to just come out and say that they were the only authorized app store and therefore they can't be anti-competitive because there exists no market for iOS app stores.
Google is probably wishing they had taken that route now.
I think it’s tough to guess what would have happened if Google had been more proactive about locking down some parts of android earlier. Though I will speculate that android would have seen much less widespread adoption if they had been more restrictive
Really? The lesson I learned is that if you make a product that the US government relies on, you are immune from prosecution. It works across industries from oil to manufacturing to computing.
1. The fact that Google lost here doesn't bind or affect apple. Jury verdicts aren't binding on any party other than those in the lawsuit. Apple may or may not be found to violate the law in a separate case.
2. Interesting no one has mentioned Epic's Chinese ownership. I could see Google complaining to us govt that it's unfair for Chinese tech to win these court cases against US tech.
> Interesting no one has mentioned Epic's Chinese ownership.
Its not relevant to the issues in the cases they have been involved in over app stores.
> I could see Google complaining to us govt that it's unfair for Chinese tech to win these court cases against US tech.
"The government" (presumably, here, you mean the executive branch?) can't veto a court ruling on the premise that the law should have been different then it was when the events actually happened and the case was heard.
There are avenues for dealing with security and other risks from foreign ownership, but they are entirely separate from the legal issues in Epic v. Apple and Epic v. Google.
To be clear, I agree with you. But the administration is very anti China. Not saying they can violate the constitution, but they could pressure or suggest legislation about this.
Current example everyone is likely aware of: all the various states trying to pass pro/anti-abortion laws in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling.
while they do have pretty deep ties to tencent and are 40% owned by them, they’re not really chinese-owned since Epic is majority-owned by Tim Sweeney, a billionaire programmer on the Forbes 500 who mostly escapes criticism from programmers and game devs by branding himself as a savior for indie devs, which people accept uncritically because he likes to go on twitter and affirm their priors. He’s a highly effective nerd populist.
Serious question - does anyone really think of Sweeney as the underdog here and that he's fighting for the "little guy" gamer? Honestly asking to me it seems like a position to take to generate some political power but at the end of the day he's representing large corporate interests as well.
Both Google and Epic are large for-profit companies, and are primarily concerned with maximizing investor returns. Neither company should be considered "the good guy."
Despite that, I'm still glad that Epic won this case, as I believe they're in the right. But just because I think they're in the right with this court case does not mean I think that they're "the good guy," nor that they're concerned with gamers. Epic clearly has their own agenda, and in this specific case it aligns with my own.
I think he was broken by "Games for Windows Live" on PC. They had to integrate it in Gears of War, and I think a lot of the industry saw it as Microsoft trying to steer the PC into being a MSFT only device. There was not much benefit for devs/pubs to using it, it was all good for Microsoft. He seems to want everything to be old school PC where anyone can sell in their own store and do what they want on a device.
However, it always feels weird to me on mobile since those devices were not really open and the maker always took their store cut. Epic knew this and got on those devices anyway, but then after Fortnite getting huge, wanted more of that mobile pie for themselves. That's sort of a generic take on mobile, as I haven't read through everything on this case.
Yeah, to my view, it's one giant corporation battling another giant corporation, with little regard for end users like me.
I suppose Epic is the smaller of the two, so relative to Google, maybe they are the underdog. But compared to me they're both "big dogs".
In general, I am in favor of breaking up monopolies and making smart phones and other devices more open so, on the surface, this seems like a good result.
Underdog yes, it's a multi billion dollar company going after multi trillion dollar companies. Fighting for the little guy nah, fighting for their own interests. Those interests are probably closer to aligning with what the typical small/individual player might want than what the larger players want but that's not why they are doing it.
From what I understand it's all ego and ethics from him - the board is not stoked about the risk involved and the potential upside. I think Epic has something to gain by removing app store fees for medium sized games though - that would put money back in their pocket creating an opportunity to charge more for Unreal revshare.
It will be extremely interesting to see how this shapes android going forward.
Google didn’t just lose some point— they lost every point
> The jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. They decided Google has an illegal tie between its Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services, too.
Finally. I'm glad this caught up to them. I used to have a lot of warm fuzzies for Google, but they've become downright despicable in so many respects. The app store has leaned toward unfair for publishers (and users) for years, I hope something good comes of this.
As other comments have said, Google's was a jury trial, Apple's not. And, even if neither were jury trials, as another another comment said, the justice system is not a hivemind: the way your case goes can and does depend on the judge/jury passing judgement.
That being said, Apple isn't stupid: they probably know as of now, even if they managed to believe it didn't before, that this monopoly on distribution has a shelf life. So I'm interested to see how they expand iOS app distribution to counter the claims of monopolistic behavior in the future, not unlike the way Microsoft supported other browsers financially for years to stop the FTC suing them into the dirt over Internet Explorer.
I'm generally an Apple fan, and to be totally honest, if there was another app distribution system on iOS, I doubt I would touch it. I appreciate the baseline level of quality and curation in the App Store and have no desire to leave it. I see the low-effort dreck of the Play store by comparison as undesirable. That being said, I don't grudge anyone for pointing out Apple's position in that space is uncompetitive. It is. I have no interest in alternatives but that doesn't mean alternatives shouldn't exist.
Thank you for the explanation. I'm also an Apple fan and would not leave the App Store easily, however I am unhappy that I am forever unable to do so.
I think rulings against these companies are warranted, but I want an end game where iPhone is closer to Android's best aspects, not where Android drops them to mimic iPhone's. Google could easily stop being as "anti-competitive" by not releasing another public update of Android again, launching a new "Pixel Play Store" available on Pixel, and putting all of their effort into this platform going forward. The world would be a worse place for this, and Google would likely make more services revenue. I have a feeling developers would abandon the other manufacturer's platforms in a microsecond. If Google's not allowed to have influence over the default search/apps installed on 3rd party android phones made by Samsung/HTC, why would Google even bother with the business? They only ran it to get more mobile search users into Google Search IMO.
I'm sure Google deserves to get smacked for the worst of their behavior but Apple walking away (for now) without a scratch is sending a stark message, at least to my eyes. You say Apple's time with this behavior is limited, and I can only hope you're right. Being positive, hopefully down the line, this case can be used as a wedge to peel Apple's grip open.
Epic vs Apple was decided by a judge. (The judge suggested a trial by jury but both Epic and Apple declined.) Since the judge decided it there's a written record and rationale for the decisions. Epic's argument was "Apple has a monopoly on the Apple App Store market". Apple's argument was "we don't have a monopoly on the games market". The Judge's decision was: "Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the digital mobile gaming transaction market". This was later appealed and the ruling was upheld.
Epic vs Google was decided by a jury and God only knows what they were thinking. (All jury notes, doodles, etc are destroyed afterwards).
Well, it’s common law, not civil law. So lawyers, juries, judges and so on all heavily influenced the Epic Games v Apple outcome, as they did in Epic Games v Google.
The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent. But then again, Epic Games v Apple might be used as precedent in Google’s appeal.
EDIT/correction: Apparently, only appellate and higher courts can set precedent for case law. So it might take a bit longer for Epic Games v Google to set a precedent, while Epic Games v Apple has already been dealt by a higher court. The next time someone sues Apple, there might not yet be precedent set by Epic Games v Google.
In theory. I’m not an expert on this. But this doesn’t happen as often in civil law countries I lived in (EU), where the law doesn’t apply before it’s written, and when it’s written, it applies universally.
Things will even out in the US over time, I think. There will be case law for what’s allowed and what is not for everyone.
>The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent.
Trial courts don't set precedent, only an appellate court or higher can set a precedent, and that precedent is only binding on lower courts.
Since trial courts are the lowest courts, their decisions are not binding on any future trial and as a general matter do not set any kind of precedent.
Appellate courts set binding precedent, but district courts routinely look to eachother for guidance on how to rule on questions where there is no circuit/SCOTUS ruling.
Similarly, a judge in one circuit may look to the decision of a different circuit court when their own circuit has yet to rule on an issue, even though a different circuit’s opinion does not bind them.
In this case, however, the issue was ultimately put before a jury which doesn’t produce the kind of written decision that other judges would look to when deciding similar cases.
I clearly stated “I’m not an expert on this” and publicly corrected my mistake to not mislead readers.
Don’t fulminate, my brother, see comment guidelines on HN for more info. There’s need to act like this and your comment doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion.
> There’s need to act like this and your comment doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion.
Does yours?
I mean that in earnest, not as a dig. You're posting legal analysis without even rudimentary legal knowledge, and I think that's worth noting and responding to.
It's also worth noting you only admitted you were not an expert once your initial post was debunked, and that in your corrigendum you manage somehow to add many additional substantive legal claims. Without any apparent additional legal knowledge.
If you did the same on a programming topic, there'd be an army of people ready to downvote you, because most of the wonderful folks here on HN are versed in programming, and could easily see through that. But this doesn't hold true for law, and you're in a position to mislead. Noting that contributes to the discussion by helping a reader discriminate signal from noise.
> It's also worth noting you only admitted you were not an expert once your initial post was debunked
No, that was in the original comment. I added only the paragraph prefixed with EDIT.
My friend, you are just picking a fight on the internet. You don’t actually know what the comment was and yet you say you do. Please do not.
Alternatively, please tell me how my comment is misleading now, if there truly exists an argument in your comment beyond an ad hominem. That would be more useful.
With respect, you seem to be the one struggling to let this one go. In two short comments you've accused me of: fulminating, not being constructive, posting against site rules, picking fights on the internet, posting ad hominem attacks, etc. All I've noted is that you're not legally trained, which you yourself admit.
My respectful advice is that if you're not legally trained, but wish to write legal analysis, (1) pause and consider how useful this actually is to others, and (2) if you must continue, preface (!) your statement with a disclaimer that you're not legally trained.
Lawyers are trained that with knowledge comes responsibility - people tend to rely on what lawyers say, often in unanticipated ways. Not only does this often lead people to go off half-cocked, but it can have legal consequences for the person giving the advice (there's such a thing as negligent advice). Generally these laws apply equally to lawyers and non-lawyers, and simply because you don't have any legal training doesn't mean you're not giving 'legal advice', it just makes your advice all the more dangerous. It seems reasonably unlikely you'd be sued for negligent advice for random comments online (not impossible!), but you should reflect on the ethics of confidently leading people on, from a position of relative legal ignorance.
I realise you may not be receptive to what I am saying to you - you appear to have become somewhat defensive and might be perceiving my words as further attacks - but I'm genuinely not here to diss you, and I'm absolutely not looking for a fight. Perhaps my initial comment was a little glib, but not knowing what precedent is and giving legal advice is rather like not knowing what a variable is but nonetheless giving confident programming advice. Generally best avoided.
Be mindful that in practice there is very little difference between civil and common law systems: the ceremonies appear different but the spirit is the same: past decisions heavily impact future decisions since that's the only way to keep things fair, society changes decisions in a softly evolving jurisprudence in both systems, juries are consulted but not all powerful since they can be driven by revenge sentiment etc.
Like you I was born and raised in civil law (France) and now have been living for 10 years in common law (Hong Kong), and the difference is almost invisible: Judges obey parliamentary decisions in both, whether you call that laws or constitutional amendment or even political pressure. They also ensure consistency of decision when needed but are ready to launch a little revolution if they feel society has changed (gay marriage in Hong Kong is in the air, for instance)
Yes, ultimately our morals, culture, and sense of justice gets enshrined in law. But I did feel a big difference between living in a common law country and a civil law one.
There was a sense in business circles in the latter that what is not legally a crime, one cannot be punished for. So there was a bit of a drive to exploit that for profit. If something becomes forbidden by law, it’s “verboten”. It cannot take place, no matter how ethical it might be.
It’s much less clear in common law countries, where you could be tried and be unable to defend yourself for immoral things. Or you could break the laws but have such a strong moral argument for it, it is possible to defend. So generally, people and business are more considerate of each other, less stone cold bureaucratic. But that invites ambiguity in the legal process, even if the ultimate forces shaping it are similar to civil law. And you can get different outcomes in similar cases, like Epic Games v Apple and Epic Games v Google. These cases started out very similarly.
In civil law countries, if something was prohibited by a code, then it would be penalized, there wouldn’t be much debate in the courts. I think this is why the EU keeps fining these large tech companies all the time, it’s like a non-event, whereas it’s much more difficult in the us.
That is what I observed. Of course, what you say is also true.
there is no sanction in the US for monopolies if the market chooses that, you just cant do anticompetitive things in the process or while you have one
so simply being in the exact same position is not enough, the details of exactly how you navigate it are more important
with that in mind, Apple is still vulnerable based on their behavior, but its not a slam dunk by mere nature of being in the same position
for example, revenue splits were always high in app stores, they didnt jack them up higher and in fact have come down periodically as if there was competition, and the market still chose to use them. app stores have always had heavy handed selective moderation approaches, it didnt get worse its gotten better in some regards. makes it very hard to prove antitrust just because the market kept subjecting itself to these
But they are not in the exact same position - Apple has a much tighter grip on their App Store than Google, and they don’t even need to: they make money selling the devices.
I'm sure that's how Google feels! "Unfairly competing in the 'Android app distribution market'?? We are Android!!"
This is one of those legal situations I really can't wrap my head around, though. The point is the situations are different enough it would have to be a different legal framework for Apple's situation, and a different day in court.
I think a ruling like this is good. We need more checks on Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.
And the fact Epic lost so handily against Apple for the same thing is pretty chilling for the future of open devices. Lock down your platform tight as a drum and you may employ all manners of anticompetitive practices because you legally forbid the existence of competitors and you're "curating your experience" but open yourself up to any competition and your behavior becomes anticompetitive.
Problem is that Google tried to have it both ways. Android is technically much more open, but then they would make deals to squash any other competition. It’s exactly the un-openness that Google’s gotten in trouble for.
> One Google Play exec boasted she got Riot to halt development on its own app store by promising the company $10M in marketing.
> Another Google exec suggested that sharing revenue with Samsung would be “better at disincentivizing other app stores from being preloaded.”
> Google wanted to offer a 16 percent Google Play revenue share to key Chinese OEMs to “secure Play exclusivity” — and wound up giving them 20 percent.
> A secret Google deal let Spotify completely bypass Android’s app store fees
Apple made significantly less of these deals - they have their rules that you can either follow or not participate. I do think that some of those rules limit competition and make worse products for consumers.
The way that the stock apps in AOSP are barebones and have been practically abandoned in favor of nicer closed Google-branded counterparts is also suggestive of them trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Google just has more types of companies in the ecosystem to make deals with. Apple’s iOS OEM deals can’t be found anticompetitive because they don’t have those deals to begin with.
It’s interesting that none of the desperate arrangements were lower fees; the closest being ability to upsell preexisting subscribers (off apples platform)
I mean a lot of it just doesn’t apply. Google was caught paying off Samsung to encourage them not to put alternate app stores on their devices. Squashing competition where it should exist.
Apple makes the devices, so they aren’t making others squash competition. They’re exactly what they say.
Apple made deals to set the default search engine and the default maps app, and rejected other app stores. As bad as Google is, Apple is even worse, setting worse terms for deals and rejecting other deals outright to favor their own products.
Apple was pretty careful not to make deals. For instance Microsoft and Epic both publicly complained about not getting deals.
Supposedly, the 15%-after-first-year rule for subscriptions that they instituted was because they were trying to entice Netflix to continue to take in-app payment for subscriptions. Rather than a sweetheart deal, they rolled it out as a platform change.
There are areas which I think are more questionable, such as their Apple TV partnerships with Amazon and a few others.
Netflix reportedly had special terms for years before that policy change for everyone else. I don’t think they were the only ones.
I think Apple just did that because it was becoming clear that what they were saying wasn’t true/they were getting political pressure about charging 30% no matter what.
I don’t remember the exact timing on the change so my guess as to the cause may be wrong.
Apple didn't need to make as many deals as they're the only OEM. There's no real way to have a separate app store on Apple phones.
Smartphone makers need app store revenue to make the handsets competitively priced. It would really hurt Android market share if all non-Google Android phones were say 10-20% more expensive to compensate for that. Or alternatively if you had a fragmented ecosystem with a separate app store per OEM.
I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to share app store revenue with the OEM making the device.
Can't speak to the deals with particular app developers like Riot or Spotify
That does not refute the point. Google gives you a choice of A or B and then incentives you to choose A. And then Apple gives you one choice which is A. Now tell me which is worse.
I think it is pretty easy to review google’s deals with phone manufacturers to stop them from shipping third party app stores presintalled and quickly come to the conclusion that Google was using its market position to prevent competition between the Google play store and others on android.
Google, as evidenced by their own internal documents put into record in this trial, was not interested in creating a platform where they had any real completion with the Google play store
No, this was not a court case about if Google has a phone OS monopoly. This was about if Google has a monopoly within the android ecosystem when it comes to app distribution. The jury ruled that they have a monopoly within android, and that they used this monopoly to stifle competition. They cited that Google used its influence as the makers of android to get phone manufacturers to not preinstall third party app stores, and paid off companies to not compete with Google Play
Google lost this lawsuit because they were engaging in anticompetitive behavior on android by paying off companies to not produce third party app stores (like Riot) and paying phone manufacturers to not ship third party stores
Google, as evidenced by their own internal docs and company deals, had no interest in having any real competition for the Google Play store.
It’s really hard to see these deals when Google is the arbiter of android and anything but extremely anti competitive
Consider how many of those items apply to Google's behavior and how many apply to Apple's.
That Apple is the only way to get the hardware or software for their products (compare to getting Google software licensed on Samsung) is a very important distinction.
I don't see why the Microsoft case is all that relevant; it's not like Microsoft is the archetypal definition of monopoly behavior in hardware/software, and only companies that do things the Microsoft way should be punished.
I personally don't think the distinction you point out should actually be important at all. The end result is an anti-competitive platform, and that's all that should matter.
If we go by the oft-used test of consumer harm, consumers get harmed in exactly the same way on both platforms, with higher prices (due to percentage fees that you can't opt out of) than if the market were more open.
The non-US world overwhelmingly uses Android more than iOS, and yet everyone's personal security has not crumbled into dust. I will absolutely agree that Android's security posture (both in the OS itself and its app ecosystem) is worse than Apple's, but that doesn't seem to make all that much of a practical difference, does it?
I have no idea if iOS or Android is better (or maybe if iOS is actually worse on some basic level, but they can rely on the single store to reach parity).
But, their justification is at least plausible. Do I think they actually telling the truth? I think it at least is a case of financially motivated reasoning. But they haven’t completely given it away.
Google has by being willing to open up as long as some financial requirements are met.
I don’t claim to understand their actual reasoning, and I’m 100% willing to believe that Apple actually is not being honest and could handle alternative stores. But, by not opening up for any amount of money, they at least have remained consistent with their claim.
Couldn't agree more. It's bizarre to think that one company should be punished because they theoretically had a competitive platform, but did some shady business deals to keep it noncompetitive; but another company is completely in the clear making a platform that is noncompetitive by design, with technical measures in place to ensure it can't be.
I kinda get how it plays out that way in a legal sense, but it still baffles me that so many people can simultaneously support this ruling against Google and continue to praise Apple's practices. Cognitive dissonance (and the Jobsian RDF) is a thing.
Google created the opportunity for "markets" of android alternative app stores and alternative in-app payments, but then leveraged their control of other areas (such as OEM distribution of android and play services, revenue sharing, marketing) to squash competition in these areas.
Apple on the other hand has tried very hard to make sure such perceptions of markets do not exist; for instance, the requirements they gave to Microsoft for shipping a game subscription service on iOS is that the games themselves had to be in Apple's App Store, pass App Store review, and take payments for DLC or currency via in-app purchase.
This is also IMO why Apple will never actually lock down macOS so that things are only available in the Mac App Store. Whether or not it is a good idea, they can't defend it legally.
The difference being that Apple isn't strong arming other companies into using their App Store. Google opens itself up to scrutiny because they both offer the ability to compete but then actively use their influence to try to stop that competition.
> They do. It's either Apple store or you go out of business, if you are developing a mobile app.
They don't. Apple is selling both the services and the hardware. They're not asking anyone to develop apps for them and no one is entitled to build an app store for their hardware.
But if I'm an Android phone manufacturer and Epic wanted to build an app stores for my devices, but I refused for no other reason than Google's money or pressure, there's a case for anti-competition. If Apple licensed iOS to other manufacturers, the same case would apply.
> They're not asking anyone to develop apps for them and no one is entitled to build an app store for their hardware.
You are clearly missing the point on purpose. Imagine that all roads in the US belonged to Apple and you had to pay 30% of the cost of your goods to Apple for the privilege of transporting them.
This would be OK, because you'll still be able to walk or maybe even use rail transport.
Apple's ecosystem is _unavoidable_ if you are making mobile applications (not games). You HAVE to support iOS, or you'll go out of business. No alternatives.
> Imagine that all roads in the US belonged to Apple
If you go this route, not all roads would have belonged to Apple. People would use Apple's roads because they're well built, the majority of cars are nice ones and drivers drive well because enforcement is harsh. Maintenance is usually done on schedule and if people want hassle free travel, it's the best choice even if they're boring and uniform.
There exists other roads for every (start, destination) pairs. But only the new ones are maintained. Drivers do whatever they want and even enforcement wants to stop at every turn. Sometimes you're not even sure what exactly are alongside you on the road.
Here you come trying to create a taxi service (But you did not build any road yourself) and both companies ask you for the same fee. But you know you can probably get your cars on Google's road and bypass the fee with some hassle. But Apple's won't let you do that. People has paid a high fee to get access to these road and they don't want random cars on it. But you know these people has money and you want some of it.
I could go on and on with this.
> Apple's ecosystem is _unavoidable_ if you are making mobile applications (not games).
If you're a business, why would you care for 30%? Apple is providing the whole SDK for free, and your users' platform is getting updates for free. You are not doing any of that. the 99$ yearly fee is peanut.
If you're building things for yourself, Apple has never advertise that iOS was something to tinker with.
To give you another example: imagine if cable Internet companies decided to require you to pay 30% of your gross income to them if you use Internet for work-from-home.
After all, without their generous service, you wouldn't be able to earn money. Right? What's that puny 30% of your income to you? It's really nothing!
So basically, in your zeal to defend the Apple Mafia, you're saying that it'd be OK to shake down people just for connecting to Internet. Because you personally like iPhones.
> Yes, some backwoods roads would belong to Android.
There are good manufacturers for Android. But they're still unmatched in terms of services. In the above analogy, nice road, worse travel experience.
> Because it's a lot.
It's the cost of doing business with Apple, made clear to you since you begin. You just factor it in your offering.
> 1. You have to pay for Apple computers.
Because it's the tool for the job. No ones expect you to build a Windows App without a computer running Windows. The tools Apple provides only run on MacOS which only runs on Macs.
> 2. You have to pay for the SDKs
You don't. You're paying only for access to the distribution channel (base fee).
> You have to give the MAFIA shakedown 30%
Remember the tools and services above? If you're making business with Apple customers through Apple services, you're paying for it on a transaction basis.
> There are good manufacturers for Android. But they're still unmatched in terms of services. In the above analogy, nice road, worse travel experience.
Again, it doesn't matter if roads are nice. Or if your mafia thugs give you a handkerchief after they beat you bloody.
> It's the cost of doing business with Apple, made clear to you since you begin. You just factor it in your offering.
Just like mafia.
> No ones expect you to build a Windows App without a computer running Windows.
Can I buy macOS to run on my PC? No?
> You don't. You're paying only for access to the distribution channel (base fee).
Since you mentioned Windows, I can compile and distribute as many Windows applications as I want. Without paying a cent to MS.
> Remember the tools and services above? If you're making business with Apple customers through Apple services, you're paying for it on a transaction basis.
And before someone tries to refute this part of your argument: sure, Android is an alternative... if you have a very niche app that somehow only caters to Android users, and somehow caters to the comparatively small percentage of Android users who are willing to actually pay for apps.
Ultimately if you're a sizeable company that wants to operate in the US, and a mobile app is something you need to offer, you have to build one for iOS. If you don't, you'll fail.
I would say these days you aren't going to do quite as well if you don't also build an Android app, but you can probably get away with it in quite a few markets if you really didn't want to.
Heh, I remember when Instagram was iOS-only, and that was the case for... at least a year? More?
If you want to build a successful, growing business in the US, yes, you absolutely do.
Certainly the definition of "success" differs depending on who you ask, but if we're talking about a player like Epic, they absolutely have to sell their app on the Apple app store. They absolutely should also sell on the Google Play Store, but it's still table stakes (at least in the US) to have an iOS app.
I agree that Apple does have that monopoly. I guess the difference is that Google actually does technically allow third-party app stores, but used their monopoly position to squash them, at least in the realm of pre-installs?
I'm not sure why this should matter, though. I don't see why it's somehow better to use technical means to refuse to allow there to be a competitive market, than to use shady business deals to ensure a competitive market doesn't grow.
The government does not (and legally cannot) give a darn on "dominance in market profits." If it isn't hurting consumers or illegally propping up market share, that's just called good business. As it should be, otherwise you end up with very bad incentives.
For example, what's stopping Samsung then from using the world's most inefficient and old manufacturing techniques, and then complaining Apple's more efficient (but expensive to research) techniques are propping up their profits? Nothing. It would even be easier for Samsung to do that, and then use their competitor's own cost-cutting innovations to take them down.
If anything, they’re hurting developers, but even that may be hard to argue. Developers still flock to the platform.
Even if those developers can’t make a living doing that (and many likely can’t), that’s not an argument for Apple’s fee being too high. There’s no right to be able to make a living in the way you want.
Yes, they are hurting consumers by banning competing app stores. Just because they offer an acceptable product doesnt mean they can hamstring competitors. There is a right to be allowed to compete.
How is this different from telling people to move to a different town when their town bans walmart? I've invested considerably money into the apple ecosystem. I have a bunch of media on their cloud. Switching is a pain in the ass, why cant the gov just enforce anti competitive laws?
> How is this different from telling people to move to a different town when their town bans walmart?
I generally agree with your point, but this is a weird argument: towns can and do ban big-box stores, and yes, "move to a different town" is exactly the only remedy people have, if they want to live close to those kinds of stores. And frankly we generally see that as a good thing! Big-box stores tend to kill downtowns.
> I've invested considerably money into the apple ecosystem.
This confuses your Walmart analogy quite a bit, because there's no such thing as "investing money into the Walmart ecosystem". Walmart doesn't have an ecosystem. If your Walmart closes down and other stores pop up to replace it, you just start shopping at those other stores, and likely don't really notice much of a difference.
And that's precisely the point of the issue with Apple. If I've been an iOS user for years and years, and suddenly Apple changes the terms to something I really don't like, it'll cost me a lot to switch to another platform.
No I'm not. In the smartphone case, you've bought your iPhone, but you're only allowed to "furnish" it with items from the Apple App Store. If you don't like the Apple App Store, you're screwed. You have to sell or ditch your iPhone, and everything you've bought for it becomes worthless.
In the Walmart case, you've bought your house. Presumably up until now you've mostly relied on Walmart to furnish it, and to buy groceries, etc., etc. Walmart disappears. Your existing furnishings are fine and still work. You can buy more furnishings at other stores, and they will work just fine in your existing house, with your existing furnishings. You can buy groceries at another store, and consume that food just fine in your existing house. Also consider that Walmart has online ordering and ships things; if you really want to continue to get some items from Walmart, you can still do so.
Sure, if you're unwilling to take the entirely reasonable step of finding alternatives to Walmart, I guess you'd have to sell your house and move to a town that still has a Walmart. But that's... a pretty ridiculous course of action to take, honestly.
No one is forcing you to sell. There are lots of people that are perfectly happy in the Walmart free town. There are people that are coming because it has no Walmart. And there were no contract signed that there would be a Walmart in the vicinity.
A. That's not exactly secret information, so your ignorance is not an excuse when you could have easily found that information if you cared. It's not a secret contract.
B. Android also charges 30%. Developers making under $1M per year pay only 15% (initially announced by Apple, copied by Google). You can't argue you'd save a penny going to Android.
C. You can always sell your iPhone, if it matters to you now, and buy an Android.
D. It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.
> It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.
I think it's a little more complicated than that. I agree that developers are unlikely to lower prices if the 30% fee is eliminated or reduced. But it seems reasonably likely that the next time they look into raising prices, they may raise them less, or decide not to raise them at all.
I do agree with the underlying point: prices are not set based on cost, but are set in line with what the market will pay. If the market will pay $10 when the developer has to pay a 30% fee, the market will still pay $10 if that fee disappears.
But still, consider that for many apps there's going to be a tension between what the market will pay, and the minimum the developer needs to keep the lights on. The developer might settle for a lower per-sale profit if they get a bunch more users that more than offsets the lower per-user revenue.
Let's say a developer sells at a $10 price point, which nets the developer $7 (after Apple's 30% cut), and that they need $6 to keep paying their other costs; they'll get $1 in profit after all is said and done. But maybe they can only make 100,000 sales at that price point, or $100,000. Kill the 30% fee, and they make $4 per sale, or $400,000. Great! Instant 4x profit! But maybe they'll be able to make 150,000 sales if the price were $9, which would give them $450,000 in profit. That's a compelling reason to drop prices. Or at least not raise them even when their other costs go up from $6 to $7.
Obviously these numbers are made up; maybe dropping the price to $9 only nets them an additional 5,000 sales, so it's not worth it. But we can't just flat-out say that no developer will do the math and decide that dropping prices can actually help them.
> D. It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.
I could not disagree more.
> B. Android also charges 30%. It's actually better on iPhone, because developers making under $1M per year pay only 15%. On Android, everyone pays 30%. So you'd be paying more to Google on Android than on iPhone.
Android is bad too but at least you can get an app store without the fee.
> C. You can always sell your iPhone, if it matters to you now, and buy an Android.
Will I get refunded for the apps I bought? What about the macbook I bought because I entered the apple ecosystem?
> A. That's not exactly secret information, so your ignorance is not an excuse when you could have easily found that information if you cared. It's not a secret contract.
How could I have known to look this up before it became a story?
Well, we can agree to disagree, but call it a prediction - in three years, prices will be exactly the same as they are now. No business, especially in this economy, gets an opportunity like this to raise margins without affecting sales.
> Android is bad too but at least you can get an app store without the fee.
Yes, and literally nobody will install it. And the few app stores that are available - Aurora will get your Google account banned, while F-Droid re-signs all apps with itself, meaning you are opening your device to serious security risks. A middleman in F-Droid would mean every app you install from them could be compromised with fake developer signatures. Fun.
> How could I have known to look this up before it became a story?
How about paying attention since the 30% commission was announced at the iPhone App Store launch in 2008, literally by Steve Jobs on stage when iPhoneOS 2.0 was announced? There's no legal requirement to advertise every possible detail to cover every possible person's perspective - especially when it's old hat announced a decade and a half ago with fanfare.
Edit for the comment below about iPhone being anti-competitive (because I'm "posting too fast"):
Well, here's the problem with trying to investigate the iPhone.
Remember how I showed that announcement in 2008? iPhone market share, at the time, was less than 5%. Almost the entire smartphone market was split between BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
Now look at where iPhone is now, despite the fee. That demonstrates, to a regulator, that it is a competitive product, and the market preferred it, despite the fee which was implemented at the beginning. Apple didn't build the iPhone to where it is now and then lock it down - developers signed up right when it was beginning and didn't care then, so they can't care now that it's a success.
Apple has basically an ironclad argument for competitiveness. If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored. This came up in the argument with Epic - Apple argued, successfully, that the market chose them and their "anti-competitive practices" despite them having almost no clout, which can only be the result of market support for being a competitive product.
Edit 2 (same issue, thanks @dang):
> What makes you say that? A product being anti competitive has little to do with whether consumers will buy it. You dont see how you can have the best product on the market and also stifle competition?
The iPhone took off because of third-party support, any market analyst will tell you that. If it didn't have third-party support from the App Store, it would have died.
Why was that third-party support there? Previously, on almost all other cellphones, every carrier had their own App Store. With their own policies. And a 50/50 split at best. Some only gave the developer 30% with the carrier taking 70%. With the developer paying for your own credit card fees and hosting fees. Many carriers had severe upfront costs of tens of thousands of dollars to get a half-functioning SDK. The 70/30 deal with one App Store was revolutionarily competitive for the time. Developers flooded Apple's scene because it was, by far, the cheapest and most profitable App Store available at the time. They can't claim, high on the success that Apple gave them, that Apple's the problem now when Apple did not even change the deal that they initially signed for. At least, not legally easily.
> If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored.
I don't really get this point. Internet service providers are all anti-competitive, but they're doing quite well, because there are no alternatives. When the iPhone was released, so so so many people immediately saw it as completely in another class above all previous phones, and there were no alternatives in the same class. (Obviously there were trade offs: I personally know quite a few Blackberry people who scoffed at the iPhones lack of physical keyboard.) Even barring all that, the Jobsian Reality Distortion Field was still going strong at that point. The iPhone was cool. (And at that point, there wasn't even an App Store, and no SDK for third parties to build apps.)
Most people don't realize that they're negatively impacted by anti-competitive behavior until it's too late. They've already bought into the ecosystem. Sometimes they don't even know things could be more innovative or cheaper or whatever, because they have nothing to compare it to. To revisit my ISP example, a simple reason I'm mad at Comcast's anti-competitive behavior is because I know it can be so much better, based on people I know who live in other places and have an order of magnitude faster internet connection for a fraction of the price. If I had no other examples that suggested that 1200/35 for $90/mo was a bad deal, I might think that was just how it had to be in order to provide the service.
> If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored.
What makes you say that? A product being anti competitive has little to do with whether consumers will buy it. You dont see how you can have the best product on the market and also stifle competition?
I also think youre mixing up your markets here. The app store is not the same thing as the iPhone. The iPhone was a very competitive product that has an anti competitive market in it and some consumers are willing to look past that. Doesnt make it acceptable.
Or maybe I can just assume that the government will enforce anti competitive laws and not waste all my time trying to sus out whether a product has some anti competitive trick going on.
F-Droid is strictly more secure than the Apple App Store. The same MITM attack works on Apple, but since the App Store doesn't have reproducible builds, you have no way to detect it. The App Store is the least secure of the mobile app stores that most HNers use. You've been sold a bill of goods.
Aurora isn't an app store. It is an unauthorized client for the Play Store.
I don't disagree with your overall point, I don't think, but having reproducible builds doesn't -- alone -- make a distribution method more secure. I can publish an app with a bunch of security holes and maybe even some obfuscated malicious behavior, but if the F-Droid maintainers don't notice, it doesn't matter one bit that a user could reproduce the build they made.
Of course, I don't know if we can say that Apple's app store approval process filters out more or fewer security issues or malicious apps than F-Droid's vetting process does.
Which isn't really "a thing" legally. The fact that there's so much money to be made on iOS for 3rd party app developers and more than Android is evidence of a competitive market in a broader sense. A company employing anticompetitive practices would drive those profits to zero.
> The fact that there's so much money to be made on iOS for 3rd party app developers and more than Android is evidence of a competitive market
No, the opposite, it is evidence that Apple is a monopoly, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten away with taking 30% with no repercussions. It should have driven their profits to 0 in the appstore market since why would users pay such a massive markup for everything? But it didn't due to their anti-competitive measures.
> A company employing anticompetitive practices would drive those profits to zero
No, that isn't how it works, they weren't anti competitive towards other apps, just towards other app stores. Their massive tax on those apps is the result, you can still be profitable even with a massive tax.
The message I got is that everything is corrupt. I hope Google execs and shareholders also got that message.
Now finally some big guys are getting a sense of the issue with centralization. There can only be one government-ordained winner and it's not the one who plays fair and square who wins. It's usually the biggest political manipulator.
Google is in a weak position now due to the perceived risk of AI disrupting its business. When you show any weakness at all, the law starts working against you in the most blatant ways and it becomes self-fulfilling.
Are you suggesting that Google lost this lawsuit because the government decided they don’t matter anymore because they don’t have good enough AI on the market?
No. I'm suggesting that Apple won theirs because they are more important in the eyes of the corrupt government and that's what it takes to win. There can only be one winner. Second place is a loser.
Just wait 10 or 20 years. Watch the system concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands and people blame everything under the sun except the design of the system. I think the winner will probably be either Microsoft or Oracle because they are the most corrupt.
Seriously, does Microsoft or Oracle do anything useful these days? No, they just extort money from the government via overpriced proprietary software licenses, lock-ins and contracts obtained through corrupt practices. That's what winners do.
How exactly does this work, in your opinion? Does "The Government" (one entity) somehow decide on something like this and forces a specific judge to rule in a certain way? If something like this was uncovered, it'd be way bigger than this lawsuit.
And while you have a bit of a point about Oracle being stagnant... Microsoft? They own and develop tons of things. Microsoft isn't just Windows and Office.
It's just moneyed interests manipulating things behind the scenes. They can influence which judge will be assigned to a case, they can lobby politicians to add special loopholes to new legislation which suits them preferentially. Big companies have hundreds or sometimes thousands of lawyers with plenty of time to oversee every small detail of every case they're involved in and every law that affects them. They will offer loyal politicians and judges fancy jobs after they finish office.
I don't think this will be uncovered because you need money to have a voice in this system and as this serves the bigger moneyed interests, anyone who has an incentive to cry foul will find that their cries fall on deaf ears. Also, PR firms will manufacture narratives t
And these are already trillion dollar companies. Why do some people support them to grow even more bigger and more powerful? It's a nightmare to see power getting accumulated into few hands. It's high time they are regulated. Don't treat them with kid gloves. They are not your typical mom & pop stores.