Besides the app store itself, and the process by which Apple grooms apps for suitability for that store, and the payment processing system that enables people to buy apps without busting out a credit card?
Re:Antitrust, the App Store, and Apple
by aetherson on Tuesday November 27, 2018 @02:20PM
(#18545711)
Yes, I agree that the argument is not watertight.
The counterargument is, "Okay, so let there be multiple app stores on iOS, that compete with each other, and let the market price that package of services."
But regardless, let's not talk about whether Apple is providing luxuries or necessities -- that's not what rents are about.
And besides all of the work Apple does to develop and maintain the APIs and frameworks that apps use?
Re:Antitrust, the App Store, and Apple
by solarkraft on Tuesday November 27, 2018 @03:41PM
(#18546469)
What if I don't want these "services"?
Whether you want them or not has little to do with the question of whether the App Store is rent-seeking, which is the question I was addressing. Rent-seeking isn't another term for "I don't like it".
The point of a rent, in economic terms, is that the person who is selling it does not add substantial value to the product or service. They just leech value.
The analogy is to someone who holds ancestral lands and rents them out unimproved. They get some chunk of the economic value that the land produces, without ever having put their own labor or their own capital into the transaction.
The argument is that the 30% fee that Apple charges on the app store is a rent in the software produced by other parties, with Apple adding little to the transaction.