News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax and other d... by floatingatoll on Saturday April 04, 2020 @02:34PM (#22780382)
Incomplete. They may set their own interests first, but they reliably demonstrate the priority of users to the extreme annoyance of e.g. Netflix, Amazon, and so forth. For example, Apple is clearly looking out for the interests of users with higher precedence than the interests of developers. Developers chafe at this, but consider an example:

iOS 13 now throws a dialog asking you to confirm that you want an app to be using your location data in the background. Mobile user data resellers noted a massive worldwide drop in sellable location data when this feature was released. Is this benefit for Apple actual, Apple's users, and/or Apple's developers?

It's not for developers, because the developers either used the appropriate location permissions anyways, or are now discovering that their crappy ad frameworks are angering their userbase.

It's unclear whether it's for Apple actual, because there's no financial revenue gain when they institute this, only a drowning of the swamp of data reselling (without any corresponding monetary uptick anywhere). There's probably some indirect possibilities, but I can't construct a significant and plausible case. Perhaps someone else can.

It's absolutely clear that it's for Apple's users, because those are who is concerned about and harmed by data resale. It offers a free benefit at no cost to the user, requiring neither purchase nor subscription.

So it's essential to consider each of these aspects when assessing who's interests Apple is looking out for. Yes, it's easier to argue that Apple is selfish, because it's less work than considering the three-pronged reality of apple/users/developer. It's still worth the effort to do so.

There are no comments on this comment yet.