Re:More than 30 states sue Google over 'extravagant' fees in...
by clucas on Thursday July 08, 2021 @09:04AM
(#27771398)
Yeah, you're right that it's not a perfect analogy, but I think mine is closer to reality than OP's... There are plenty of apps (stores, in the analogy) out there that are actually designed to work on many platforms (with many cars, in the analogy), but still have to pay the store %.
The broader point is that just saying "oh, it's like X, therefore we should treat it like X!" just isn't enough for app stores. There is no perfect analogue. Apple and Google call them "stores" because they really want them to be thought of that way, but there are important features of phyiscal stores that the app stores lack, and important features of app stores that physical stores lack.
How we, as a nation and a society, decide to treat app stores for purposes of consumer protection laws is up to us... so let's be careful just blindly trusting the way these companies want us to think about them.
Re:More than 30 states sue Google over 'extravagant' fees in...
by simondotau on Thursday July 08, 2021 @09:46AM
(#27771881)
You say "we, as a nation and a society" except that we're most likely not a member of the same nation and I really don't have much enthusiasm for other nations deciding they know better than Apple how my iPhone should work.
Oh, and the Apple car has an extra trick up its sleeve: it makes it nearly impossible to shoplift, which allows products to be sold at a dramatically lower price. Potentially far less than if shoplifting were as commonplace as it is among drivers of Windows cars.
Of course the producer of the product always decides how much the customer pays. It's up to them to decide whether to reduce prices in response to the elimination of shoplifting.