Apple users care because if non-App Store distribution methods are banned, then developers are forced to go through Apple's process to get access to them. You can see complaints around this thread about how bad Epic's store on PC is. On iOS, they're forced to use Apple's purchase UI, subscription rules, privacy rules, etc.
If Apple's goal was protecting their consumers, they could easily roll back the contested parts of their policy while protecting consumers AND still make a profit.
And if the only policies that these developers had to legitimately complain about were the ones that protect users, they'd be laughed out of town. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
I've been seeing this argument a lot and it makes the assumption that allowing alternative app stores has no impact on people who choose not to use them. I don't think this is true.
An app developer may decide to only list their app on an alternative store because they pay lower fees and they can handle payments themselves. As a user you now need to choose between not using the app or giving your credit card information to the app developer you may not trust.
If you get value out of the current App Store rules, like the person you replied to, then there is absolutely a cost to allowing alternative stores.
But then this is competitive pressure for Apple to charge lower fees and allow apps to handle payments themselves, at which point the app would be back in Apple's store because the customer prefers to buy it from there. Everyone benefits (except Apple).
Meanwhile if you don't want to give the app your credit card number, you still don't have to. Refuse until they use Apple's payment method. If most users share your unwillingness then developers will still have to use a payment method you do trust. If they don't, what right do you have to constrain the choices of the other users?
No it isn't. The next moment Apple significantly lowers its comission, the same people will start whining about Apple "dumping the market" "to sink its competitors", and that it should be prosecuted under the same flawed anti-trust legislation. Been there, seen that: if your rates are too high you are a monopolist; if your rates are low you are dumping; and if your rates are the same as of your competitors then there's a "collusion".
I’m not sure what your point is here. That antitrust litigation is futile or counterproductive? The threat of it seems to be having positive effects already, looking at the front page of HN: https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/17/apple-expands-its-independ...
> The threat of it seems to be having positive effects already, looking at the front page of HN
it depends on your reliance on that kind of services and varies greatly among the userbase. I'm using Apple since 2014, I've never needed to use any of these services, and I would prefer to have a device that is hard to disassemble and is cheaper to produce without a loss in quality.
We know it from history for sure, that "bigness" of an economic player is not a problem. There was no anti-trust legislation prior 1913, and Standard Oil was lowering prices for their oil and kerosine every year in order to compete with emerging oil wells developers, which kept popping up dispite Standard's dominance. [1] Customers, large and small, were benefiting along the way. But notice how governments-coordinated OPEC influences the prices and ability to enter the market:
The problem is, Apple isn't that -- it doesn't have a duty to the user, it has a duty to Apple shareholders, so what it does will be for their benefit and not yours unless they happen to coincide. Which they won't in enough cases that you don't actually benefit on net. It's not in your interest to have developers paying 30% and destroying the marginal developer and providing other developers with fewer resources to make better apps, or to have apps rejected just because they compete with Apple's, or deterred from being developed because developers become unwilling to risk their investment being wiped out by the opaque rejection process.
Meanwhile if you want the purchasing co-op, go set it up. So that it's using the market power of all the store's customers to get concessions from developers (and Apple), but is a co-op owned by and acting in the interests of the users instead of a for-profit monopoly acting in the interests of itself. Unless Apple is preventing anyone from creating that, right?
This is literally the point of allowing healthy competition. If Apple wants these games on their app store, they should offer terms that are competitive with the hypothetical third-party app stores.
You talk about developers if this is the only concern, but Apple is ultimately deciding it wants to not give money to certain social concerns or movements it doesn't like based on it's whim, and no corporation should have the power to do that for something as important as half of mobile telecoms.
Furthermore, Walmart has placed restrictions on all keyboards purchased from their stores. All online purchases made using their keyboards will now funnel 30% of the payment to Walmart.
Thank you for your business and absolute trust in our secure business model that we operate for your benefit.
You need to choose between not using the app, or buying a new phone and giving a developer you may not trust your credit card information
> Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules.
Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want that curation, you still get it.
> They've earned my complete trust.
This blind devotion to the Apple Way is baffling, especially considering how Apple-approved apps are not free of the tracking and user-data abuse you (correctly!) rail against.