It's more like, if you buy a Ford car, does Taco Bell owe 30% to Ford when you use their drive through?

Or can Ford forbid Taco Bell from operating drive through stores of their own, and require Ford owners to go through Ford's own all purpose drive through stores?

I mean, you can use the amazon website on the iphone and circumvent all the limitations for example. They want to use the platform apple provides to create apps (good user experiences). So, this analogy doesn't seem apt to me

Look I don't know about Taco Bell, does it come installed in your car, like you push a button and a taco comes out from your dashboard? Because that's the only case this terrible example makes sense.

If you get a job through a phone interview, do you owe Apple 30% of your salary? No.

Using your phone's services doesn't cause Apple to get a cut of anything that happens while you do so. Selling apps THROUGH ITS OWN STORE does.

When we have self-driving cars, can Ford, Tesla, etc., require businesses to pay them a stipend to allow our cars to drive to those stores?

"No, you can't drive to Walmart; Walmart isn't in the destination store. You may drive to Target."

You’re making a category error. A car’s ecosystem is the road system. Roads don’t let you anywhere, there has to be a road there. Sometimes a paid one.

Should Taco Bell be legally required to let MacDonalds set up stall rent-free in their stores?

This is a false analogy.

People who purchased a phone, own that phone. Apple doesn't own it anymore.

Thats the difference. McDonald's own the store. But they don't own your car.

And similarly, Apple does not own your phone, but they go to great efforts to prevent you from using other app stores.

You own a phone yes. But you don’t own iOS. So take your own phone and install your own OS on it if that’s what you want.

Ok, and people should be allowed to install whatever they want on their own hardware.

We don't need to force Apple to put apps on its app store.

Instead, people should be allowed to install whatever they want on the hardware that they own.

> So take your own phone and install your own OS

Or, instead of that, we could use the court system, to stop illegal anti-competitive practices, and require, by the existing law, that people are allowed to do what they want with their own phone.

You can do whatever you want with your phone already. As I said you don’t own iOS. Install your own OS.

> You can do whatever you want with your phone already.

But, with the court decision, it will become much easier to install other app stores on the phone, if Apple's actions are ruled illegal anti-competitive.

Thats the point. The illegal anti-competitive behavior, that makes it more difficult for people to install other software, could be blocked by the courts.

At which people, people will be able to install other app stores, while also having iOS on their phone.

That sounds like a much better solution to all of this. Everyone gets what they want, and can now more easily install things on the phone that they own.

I don’t get what I want. I want Apple to control their ecosystem. It significantly altered the iPhone experience for the better imho and this is why I buy the products.

A store in a store is like a country in a country. I declare myself a country now laws no longer apply to me. How would that work for society.

And you already had what you want. It’s full of phones where you can install whatever. Why should you force Apple to offer a product they don’t want to?

> I want Apple to control their ecosystem

Users are free to choose the Apple app store, if the decide to do so.

The problem is Apple's illegal, anti-competitive behavior, that needs to be stopped.

> I don’t get what I want.

If the courts rules that Apple's behavior is illegally anti-competitive, then what will likely happens is that Apple will be ordered to make it easier for people to install other app stores, if the users choose to do so.

> It significantly altered the iPhone experience

You can continue to have that experience. Just don't install other app stores. But, if the courts rule that apple's behavior is illegal, then other users will be able to choose differently.

> declare myself a country now laws no longer apply to me.

What are you talking about? I am talking about the law. You know, the court case that is happening right now? The legal system?

The judge, in this case, in America, could rule Apple' behavior illegal, and force them to make it easier to install other app stores.

> And you already had what you want.

No, actually. What other users and developers want, is for Apple's behavior to be ruled illegally anti-competitive, and for them to be required to stop intentionally making it more difficult for people to install other app stores, using their illegal anti-competitive behavior.

> Why should you force Apple to offer a product they don’t want to?

It is not about forcing them to offer a product. Instead, it is about stopping them from spending so much effort, illegally, to stop competitor app stores. With their illegal behavior.

The problem is users would always choose short-term gain of saving a buck, over security, over user experience, over the health of the ecosystem. The average user doesn't understand all the complex implications of their choices. But they understand paying $3 instead of $4.

And that's ok, the average user doesn't have to think about all these things. But this is why Apple has to.

What's really disappointing is this sub should be populated by relatively intelligent individuals, yet this intelligence, which I'm sure is there, didn't help in figuring out how Epic getting what it wants would significantly harm the iPhone experience.

> The problem is users would always choose short-term gain

So then, at the end of the day, this is not about you getting what you want.

Instead, it is that you want to force other people, to agree with your decisions, and take away their choice to buy from other app stores, if the courts rule that Apple's behavior is illegally anti-competitive.

> But this is why Apple has to.

You can stay with Apple if you want. Problem solved. Other people, would get to choose what they want, and it is not on you to force them to agree with you, if Apple's behavior is ruled illegally anti-competitive, and they have to let other app stores exist.

> would significantly harm the iPhone experience.

Don't install the epic app store, if you don't like it then. Problem solved. You just want to take that decision away from other people, even though the courts could absolutely rule that the behavior that Apple is engaging in is illegally anti-competitive.

I wasn't using an analogy. I was literally talking about: if this is a law, how it'll ACTUALLY impact every business.

If you think what Apple has created is different, again, define it. Let's see how it's fundamentally different and where the line is.

Can you please explain how you go from the hypothetical future of "Apple's 30% app store cut is found to be illegally anti-competitive" to "Walmart would be forced to allow random competitors to open stores physically inside them".

Parent does have a point here. His point is not that you can or should compare the two. We know they are different. But the LAW doesn't. How do you define in LEGAL terms how apple and WalMart are different? You can't use the word "ecosystem" like we throw around for apple because it is meaningless in legal terms. So first you need to either find an existing legal term and apply it or you need to make a new one. If you make a new one (because obviously Apples thing doesn't have a normal analogy) then you have to be VERRRRRY CAREFUL how you define it and what exact terms you use because whatever that is will be used and abused by precedence for decades to come.

I was asking a question. (1) That we define what we mean, so... (2) We can analyze the impact.

Here I'm going to do it again. What does it mean "30% store cut is illegally anti-competetive". What does that even mean? Why isn't Apple allowed to charge a fee for maintaining their own store?

It's just entirely unclear what's the objection here. Is the objection Apple's cut is too big? Is 5% legal? Is 10%? Should it be 0%? How big should it be? What is everyone even saying? Or is everyone just whining about "big bad corporate is bad, punish bad corporate" and not thinking any deeper than this?

Believe it or not, Walmart and all other grocery stores charge 50% for the same service. Even when you order online, actually. Should we sue them for this? If no, why. If yes, why?

And the Walmart example came directly from Epic wanting to open a store inside iOS. You don't agree? Again, where's the definition that contradicts this interpretation.

Define what you say, so it means something. Right now I just see bunch of emotion and absolutely nothing of substance being said.

Real world analogies are crucial to the process of reasoning about economic relationships.

It's also how lawyers argue and judges decide.

Not using them is implausible.