If you can legitimately blame the middle of a pyramid scheme for tolerating the top, you can blame app developers for tolerating apple. Both do so at the expense of those at the bottom.

Victims don't normally collaborate with their abuser.

Actually yes, they do. That's what makes it abusive - the victim doesn't have the power, control, or will, to simply walk away.

I think this does a disservice to actual victims of actual crimes. This is at most a business dispute over fees. The app store developers were cautioned that throwing their lot in with Apple (and let's not forget Google) would eventually lead to a situation where Apple controlled their business and could charge whatever they wanted. But the money was good and so the walled garden App stores became entrenched. But in principle they were always broken.

This is why unions are a thing. They create collective bargaining power. If all of the app store vendors would unite they'd have a formidable position vis-a-vis Apple, Google etc. And there is no reason why app store developers could not form such a collective to increase their bargaining power.

You must have seen it mentioned on HN before: don't build your house in someone else's garden or something to that effect, in other words: if you make all of your income in someone else's eco system you are giving them a lot of power over your business. That's a bad move, but if you have to do it make sure you have a lot of friends, just in case.

To be fair, Apple doesn’t actually charge more than they did on Day 1. In some cases they charge less.

> And there is no reason why app store developers could not form such a collective to increase their bargaining power.

This is also where you lose me entirely. You’re basically talking about unionizing independent businesses. Just call it a cartel. That’s the word you’re looking for.

> Just call it a cartel. That’s the word you’re looking for.

No, a cartel is something different entirely. A cartel is a bunch of businesses that set the price for a market, not a collective that serves to increase the bargaining position of individual entities that are too weak to do so on their own power. Cartels are all about price fixing while keeping the competition out.

That’s a nice spin and I see why you’re determined to use nicer terminology, but in this case it’s a cartel, so own it since it’s your idea here. The aim is to fix a price, and the price you are trying to set is the price at which another business buys units of your software or services for resell. The price is 30% of purchase, 30% of in-app purchases, 30% of in-app subscriptions for the first year of an individual unit’s subscription term and then 15% for subsequent terms[1]. If you use a separate payment processor, you can reduce these figures by 3 percentage points. That’s the price, and their right to charge it has been upheld, but your proposal is to band together the small, medium and large businesses that virtually fill the App Store and have them War Doctor around going “No more!” or dictate a lower price. That’s collusion, that’s price fixing, that’s a cartel.

[1]: through some silly chicanery requiring an application process, and only if your business earns $1M or less a year. Apple may be within their rights but damn do they make themselves look bad when it comes to this shit.

> That’s a nice spin and I see why you’re determined to use nicer terminology, but in this case it’s a cartel, so own it since it’s your idea here.

No, the aim is not to 'fix price'. A cartel sells a resource at an artificially inflated price to a group of consumers who have no idea that this is happening (unless the cartel owners happen to advertise the fact). Typically cartels are illegal.

> The aim is to fix a price, and the price you are trying to set is the price at which another business buys units of your software or services for resell.

No, it is not about setting a price. It is about setting a (reasonable) cap on a margin on your own price. That's an entirely different thing.

> That’s the price, and their right to charge it has been upheld, but your proposal is to band together the small, medium and large businesses that virtually fill the App Store and have them War Doctor around going “No more!” or dictate a lower price. That’s collusion, that’s price fixing, that’s a cartel.

No, that's much closer to a union than a cartel.

> No, it is not about setting a price. It is about setting a (reasonable) cap on a margin on your own price. That's an entirely different thing.

Okay, so what if Apple decided a reasonable price for doing business with them was between 12% and 30% of the price you set per unit, and that you can take it or go into a different business writing software for other platforms instead, for which a non-exhaustive list in 2024 includes the following: Windows, Android, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Linux, servers, the Web, embedded systems, supercomputers, mainframes (no really), webOS televisions, and custom systems? Pretty soon, depending on how this DMA stuff shakes out and how Apple ends up complying, you might even be able to develop for iPhones on less onerous terms, but only in the EU, so add EU iPhones to the list above as a “maybe” after March 7th.

Some people might take that deal, and others might choose to do their work somewhere working on something else. How do you plan to deal with the businesses that are just going to take the deal? Like they have been, every single time they’ve voluntarily signed the developer agreement without a gun to their heads and invested more money into building on Apple’s platforms?

It's precisely why I don't see the app store developers as victims but as collaborators.

Fair enough.

I still disagree with the form of your rhetoric as I do see cartel as a more accurate description, but out of respect for the internal consistency of your argument, I’ll drop it. People can see the case you made and make up their own minds. :)

Who do you see as the victims in this situation, then?

I don't think there are victims per-se, just people that have willingly enabled a mechanism to come into being that they profit from at the expense of general freedom in computing. That Apple and Google would throw their weight around was a foregone conclusion and if MS manages to make it so that installing software on PCs can only happen through their app store (which is a fair chance, all the indicators are pointing towards them shooting for this at some point) they definitely will not shrink away from that.

Also note that through their control of GitHub they could shut down 90%+ of of the FOSS movement out there with the click of a mouse.

It doesn't need to be _all_ app store developers. Just a large enough group that can push a unified message.

It could even be several groups, so long as they are pushing a similar agenda.

That's true, any sizeable fraction will probably work. There could even be multiple such collectives which may or may not collaborate on particular efforts.

> I think this does a disservice to actual victims of actual crimes.

Your original comment used the term “abuser”, which refers to a very specific kind of crime that not only frequently does involve a victim’s acquiescence to their abuser, but that is often the ultimate purpose for the abuse. I understand what you’re trying to say, but I think it’s probably for the best to simply avoid using domestic violence to make such analogies altogether.

It not only risks being taken to be in poor taste, but I think it’s also unnecessary in this context. It’s not especially difficult to understand why Apple’s market position gives it the kind of outsized leverage to force other stakeholders into engaging with unfair, even illegal, practices that are frequently contrary to their own interests. In negotiations, and within free markets more broadly, there’s a level to which this kind of uneven power dynamic can be productive, but it’s very clearly gone too far here, and is rightly seen as suppressing competition, stifling innovation, and sabotaging the potential for entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive.

It’s precisely the kind of thing that the federal government should be on top of, but until congress resumes its regularly mandated duties (it’s my understanding that the United States Congress has been starring in some sort of reality TV program for the last several years, and must continue until they have voted all but the last remaining legislator off of Joe Manchin’s houseboat) it’s probably a good idea to explore other options, like labor unions or maybe crowdfunded federal class action lawsuits.

> Your original comment used the term “abuser”, which refers to a very specific kind of crime that not only frequently does involve a victim’s acquiescence to their abuser, but that is often the ultimate purpose for the abuse. I understand what you’re trying to say, but I think it’s probably for the best to simply avoid using domestic violence to make such analogies altogether.

Abuser has much wider connotations than just domestic violence and I'm not so focused on sex crimes/domestic crimes that I see the term as inexorably connected but for those that do feel free to substitute another term that indicates a power relationship between two parties in which one takes advantage of the other even if the other willingly entered into the relationship.

Note that class action suits are not powerful enough for this: they simply allow Apple to partition the world into many small fiefdoms each of which will have to fight individually for their rights. Much better to tackle this as all developers versus Apple, that way you stand a chance of making it stick.

> Victims don't normally collaborate with their abuser.

Lmao, except, they literally do.

This is why leaving an abusive relationship is so fucking hard.

Android and iOS have an abusive relationship with developers.