You can't have that level of safety with API. Nothing prevents a dev from building an API that returns always "200 OK" when being called for a "terminate subscription" action, but that does nothing under the hood. If I unsubscribe from an Apple provided UI, I will hold Apple responsible for the execution of the action. Apple works really really hard to make sure that this trust we have in their system is warranted. As we know, trust is hard-earned, easily lost, and difficult to reestablish. So all it takes is a single bad experience to make me doubt everything else.
The current system allows Apple to control 100% of the process and to be fully responsible for everything.
That being said, Apple should allow users to perform all these operations outside of the iOS ecosystem if the developer allows it. I feel there is a clear communication here that "anything done outside of the Apple UI's is not the responsibility of Apple" (including payment / subscription management).
Laws. Existing laws prevent developers from doing that.
> As we know, trust is hard-earned, easily lost, and difficult to reestablish. So all it takes is a single bad experience to make me doubt everything else.
This is true.
> The current system allows Apple to control 100% of the process and to be fully responsible for everything.
However, that same system prevent me from buying Kindle books from the Kindle app on device, for example. Even though I can open the browser on that same device and buy them from Amazon.
Laws mean nothing to scammy developers trying to make a quick buck. Would you hire a lawyer to sue for a $4.99 refund? And even if you’re willing to spend that money, are you sure you can figure out who to sue? The scammy developer is likely using some shell company registered in some dodgy jurisdiction. Sure, what they’re doing is illegal, but the average consumer has no real recourse.
Whose laws? The US's laws? Many app developers aren't in the US.
I’m sure Apple would actually prefer that you buy the Kindle books on the app, even if they didn’t get a cut of the sale. It is actually Amazon choosing not to do it in order to dodge paying the payment processing fees.
Was that ever an option? I thought you always had to pay 30% when selling digital goods
The egregiously high processing fees from AmEx are at 3.30%.
Did Apple refund people who were scammed through apps, e.g. in bitcoin trading like [0] (first item google found)?
[0] https://www.imore.com/apple/apple-removes-scam-bitcoin-walle...
Wow thats really worrying, and all these people in here saying they love using Apple products becasue it keeps them safe.
Going directly to companies and merchants keeps this control in your own hands, nobody can block you from buying other software just because you had issues in the past.
If Apple does not control the actual subscription, but is only providing an interface for managing it, then Apple must then alert the actual owner of the subscription upon changes. There's then no guarantee that the code on the other side is properly handling that alert.
How do you think you'll do that? And then, how would it be different than with an app developer?
When this happens for example https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254901336 and you don't have another Apple device available.
I can dispute a card transaction, cancel a payment, maybe even send a nastygram to a developer. But if I dispute something with a middleman like Apple, Google, Steam, etc. I have to consider the possibility that they'll cancel my whole account if they think I'm abusing their system with any dispute.
Their spite fee for alternative payment processors being almost equal to their own payment processor fee, though, kinda shows their goal is just money anyways.
Having said that, I don't think figuring out how to use Apple Pay and Paypal is that hard. My friends use all kinds of payment processors.
I'm not saying the middlemen you mention there are beyond reproach, merely pointing out the alternative systems that are implied here to be more/perfectly effective aren't exactly that either.
They are saying the middleman gatekeepers are dangerous becasue if you push them too hard they can take away your access to everything. Whereas if your agreements are with the individual companies and developers then the worst they can do is take away that one app.
I view Apple in much the same way. I don’t trust most developers, and part of what makes me willing to go out on a limb and throw a bit of money their way is the knowledge that I’m not gonna have to go through a whole path of dark pattern bullshit when I want to modify or cancel my subscription.
So I disputed the charge with my real bank, which corrected the problem by refunding me.
Google told me that if I ever did that again, they would lock me out of not just my account, but any future account using Google payment methods that was linked to me. That would make my phone service and the Google Play Store unusable. That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Google services. So yeah...I do not trust Google or Apple as intermediaries for every payment in my life.
If a DRM store drops your account, you often do. (I think some of them do have a limited account type, so they will no longet let you transact, but you can still use the content you didn't chargeback)
There are no other companies you can go to to get an app on your iphone.
Canceling a check is on you since if you didn't want to spend the money you shouldn't have written the check. CC Chargeback hits the merchant hard if approved, since they fucked up. And your chance of approval is similar as with Apple.
If it's an Apple-approved unconsented fee and you keep complaining to Apple, they remotely brick your phone and your computer along with deleting all your emails, your family photos, and your contact from everyone else's phone.
Apparently, the charges were on her credit card but associated with another Apple ID.
We did a charge back which was successful. Now, I'm just waiting for the inevitable locking of her Apple ID. Luckily, she has already created a new one, but if the same thing happened to me I'd be in serious trouble. In my case, simply creating a new Apple ID is not an option.
It's really scary.
I think the EU's solution will make us both happy: you don't have to do business with companies that don't offer Apple pay, and I don't have to do business with companies that do.
Apple pay provides the exactly same functionality without the lock in. Same with Google pay and even Samsung.
As many have said for years. As long as Apple is not able to explain their value to the customer, they have to rely on shady business tactics to maintain the revenue stream they became addicted to.
The difference is that smaller companies can get away with anticompetitive behaviour but there are regulations for market leaders.
What Apple was allowed to do when they were a disrupter is different from what they are allowed to do with a dominant postion in the ecosystem.
PS Saying all companies are greedy and would abuse a market position is not a moral defense of Apple’s behaviour, it’s a defense of antitrust regulations.
I can fully understand Apple's position. They created the system that customers love, developers will have to pay something to get access to those customers.
Apple doesn't have to explain to customers the value. Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.
> Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.
Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.
That’s what allows Apple to abuse their position as a quasi-monopoly (as a platform for app developers adjusted by user spending they are effectively that in multiple markets).
> They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.
Oh, I had no idea.
> You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.
What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.
Any store that can will take a cut from producers, whether that is a physical store like your local supermarket, or a digital store like Apple's.
The question is why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms, and why hackers hate that so much? How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?
That doesn’t matter that much (when taking about app developers) compared to how much money they are spending. A single iPhone user in the US and other rich countries is worth a dozen of Android users in India/African countries etc.
Also even if not literally a monopoly they can effectively behave like a monopoly and abuse their position because no tech company targeting consumers can afford to not have an iOS app.
> What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.
Not what I meant and not how it works. I’m using an iPhone in-spite of their abusive practices and restrictions because their other features/advantages compared to Android outweigh that in my case. It’s basically a shit sandwich…
> why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms
Because they have more money?
> How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?
Yes, that exactly what I’m saying. Apple won (clearly because of the merits of their products) and now they can squeeze developers and consumers to a very high degree without any negative consequences. That’s how monopolies (of course it’s scale, Apple is not literally a monopoly, for that matter neither was Standard Oil back in 1906, they had a comparable market share to Apple these days) work regardless of how exactly they became one, they get to keep all the market surplus that would go to consumers in a more competitive market.
I think this quote illustrates well your perspective and the general perspective of hackers here. Apple users spend more on software because they're just so dumb and don't know how to compile their apps and set up a self-hosted solution.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm very happy to spend money on quality software that I need to solve real world problems, instead of suffering with low-quality FOSS or ad supported software just to save a few bucks. I prefer saving my headache instead, so that I can tinker because I choose to, not because I have to. I think most non-enterprise software customers think the same way. They want something to solve their needs and are fine to pay a fair price for that. So they buy Apple products and later iOS/MacOS software.
If other tech companies cared at all about their product and their customers, they would do the same as Apple. But it's easier to sell to enterprise clients and spy on free users to sell ads instead.
Never meant anything even remotely close to that. Apple users tend to have higher incomes and therefore can afford to spend much more than average (globally) Android users. I see absolutely nothing wrong about people spending money on quality software (the opposite really and I entirely agree with your point about ad supported and OS consumer software).
> they would do the same as Apple
Well yeah, arguably that was one of the main reasons behind their success. However I don’t see how do these things contradict each other, Apple can continue producing great products while being less abusive towards developers who have much more limited bargaining power.
Most Android/Windows/Linux users in the developed world (and they are billions) spend less on software than iOS/MacOS users, even though they can well afford it. Small time developers on those platforms are left to beg for donations (that never come), or bundle their software with ads and spyware that some big company pays them for. If they want to make a living on their work.
Developers serving Apple platforms are as far as I know better off reimbursement-wise than developers serving other platforms. Apple takes their cut, but until somebody voluntarily offers developers something better I think it's misguided to go against Apple.
People say that Microsoft got hit with these kind of lawsuits in the 90s, but as far as I remember, they were threatening PC hardware vendors if they offered competitor's software – which is clearly an anti-competitive measure. Not a reply to you, just a general comparison.
Unless I totally misunderstood, and you don't want anything, and are just expressing that the universe failed to live up to your expectations. In which case: my bad, sorry for the misunderstanding!
One might intuitively guess 30%, bringing $1 to $1.30. But Apple will take a cut of this price increase as well: $1.30 * 70% = $0.91, so still losing money to Apple's fees.
The actual amount they must raise the prices is (1 - (1 / 0.7)) = 0.428, or roughly 43%.
Doing this math backwards to factor out Apple's fees yields a confirmation: $1.43 * 70% ≈ $1
This. EU politicians and EU voters want the EU to crack down on foreign tech companies who abuse users data rights, use monopolies to push EU companies out of the market, and use accounting tricks to barely pay any taxes.
Therefore, the EU has to be fining Apple and Google for something. If not this, then it'll be something else.
The other is a governmental group formed by 27 rather different countries, all having a wide range of philosophies, cultures, corruption and mentalities.
I know which one I am more likely to get some level-headed decision which might help me.
If the EU can be said to have an agenda, it is clear from the rules - their agenda is market fairness, and the ability of new entrants to successfully compete. The DMA is a key plank of that, but there will be others.
2024 European elections: https://elections.europa.eu/en/
Includes topics such as: results, how the elections work, and what comes next.
See, the problem is that if I name one as an example, you will just fall back to silly games like "but the EU defined the term 'gatekeeper' in such a way that your example does not count". It does not matter whether the market dynamics are the same as the defined gatekeepers, whether the market shares are similar, or anything like that. Your side will shut down any debate with logic such as that. So why bother engaging?
It's like arguing with a hardcore religious person about god. "Oh, but that's not what I meant by 'god'".
>It does not matter whether the market dynamics are the same as the defined gatekeepers
Perhaps then find an example where this is the case.
EU tech companies want the EU to crack down on foreign tech companies. The Digital Markets Act’s standards for considering someone a “gatekeeper” seems like it was specifically tailored to exclude Spotify while binding Apple, Google, and Facebook.
Btw Netflix also isn't a gatekeeper and neither are Disney, salesforce or Oracle to name a few.
A glance at that list of 4 companies will quickly lead a person to the intuitive observation that 1 of those companies is not like the other. It's hard to see how one would classify Spotify as a "Gatekeeper" in the sense that the others are, so perhaps your observation is by design: Why would we expect the legal definition of ”Gatekeeper" to include Spotify, if Spotify is not a gatekeeper even on a common-sense level?
There will be very little harm to EU’s economy since almost all of the profits are being sent to the US anyway.
Also this/GDPR/etc. is a form of protectionism (not that I see anything wrong with that to a limited extent) which will hopefully give at least some slight competitive advantage to EU tech companies (since they really do need it) and maybe a bit more crumbs to fight over.
They haven't (and obviously won't), but the intent is clearly to eliminate any criticism of Apple from within apps, while also making sure that there aren't any "leaks" in the system from which money could escape that they want their fingers on.
(except for privileged companies like Netflix and Amazon)
Well, yeah. When it's your only goddamn choice it sure as shit becomes that. I can guarantee you it can be done for much, much less than 30%. But apple won't allow it.
Isn't that funded by iDevice and Mac sales? Because Mac sales sure as hell aren't going to MacOS development...
You have it completely opposite.
The argument is that the user should be given full power and permission over their own device that they own, and should be allowed to choose, on their iPhone, to install whatever they want.
If a user doesn't want to install an app, thats fine. But give them the choice to do so.
> Don’t force me to install another App Store
Then don't install another app store! Just don't do it!
This is a bit like banning free speech because sometimes not the whole story is told.
Surely because they think, "We're Apple, this is how we do things." But honestly, there's starting to burn through a lot of the consumer good will credit they have built up. They're just another "shareholders first" company now.
As a user, it’d just be irritating noise to have this start showing up in apps, unless buried in some little out of the way link somewhere like other unimportant things like the supposedly legally binding t&c all these apps pretend we’re reading.
Messages like this (“go subscribe somewhere else to get a lower price”) also confuse the hell out of e.g. my dad and prime them to fall for scam messages.
For one thing, nobody reads that stuff and secondary, after a few months people forget the details of where and how they subscribed to things.
So it absolutely would lead to an increase in support calls to Apple as people ask why they can’t manage a subscription through the App Store. Even me, who generally does keep track of this sort of thing, completely forgot through what service I first activated an HBO subscription and it was kind of a hassle to cancel it since, it turned out, I had set it up through Roku and I haven’t owned anything Roku in 6 years so didn’t think to look.
A blanket ban is overdoing it though, and is just a lazy (and conveniently profit maximizing) way to stop it. I’ve long felt that what Apple ought to do is maintain a codified standard of bad behaviors that address the specific dark patterns they are worried about and just hold that over developers’ heads to retroactively punish abuse rather than having a default posture of being adversarial.
The problem with doing that is that it likely results in a game of Whack-A-Mole with malicious parties. See for instance Google regarding SEO.
This seems like a reasonable compromise. Allow Apple to tell you what you won't get if you leave their store, but otherwise let consumers choose.
> Have they ever specified any reason why they prevent users from finding this out?
The reason is that every major retailer has anti-steering or most favored nation agreements with their suppliers, and Apple thinks they shouldn't be banned from it when everyone else does it. Applied to physical retail it does seem pretty absurd, e.g. The Cuisinart blender box at Target says it's 10% cheaper at Wal-Mart.
This is more like Target prohibits sellers from ever notifying you that there's a sales price at Walmart if you're looking for a deal. You're not allowed to push deals for you're own product during Black Friday or similar.
Frankly. I donno where the quote about the "do not tell about sales is at." I tried to read the legalese and got stuck on:
7.3 "You may also distribute Your Applications ... within Your company, ... on a limited number of Registered Devices (as specified in the Program web portal)" Wait. What? My own company has limited internal distribution on my own app?
7.6 "Except for the distribution of ... Licensed Applications through the App Store or Custom App Distribution, the distribution of Applications (using Section 7.3, 7.4, 7.5) ... and/or as otherwise permitted herein, no other distribution of programs or applications developed using the Apple Software is authorized or permitted hereunder. You agree not to distribute Your Application ... via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so." IE, you cannot go out on the street and "share" this app with someone, or give it to them, or similar. And obviously not 3rd party portals.
9.2-9.3: "You agree to protect Apple Confidential Information using at least the same degree of care that You use to protect Your own confidential information of similar importance, but no less than a reasonable degree of care." ... "Apple will be free to use and disclose any Licensee Disclosures on an unrestricted basis without notifying or compensating You." Note: Licensee Disclosures include All Data. You agree to put Apple's data in a vault, Apple agrees to copy your app.
If apple want to give up platform ownership and be a retailer, the EU wont have any complaints about them not allowing steering in their app store. Meanwhile Apple's app store would become one of many options rather than the default and only, so steering is moot.
Obviously that's not going to happen, hence they are going to have to hash it out until it's not longer anti competitive or be broken up forcefully.
Well, I don't think that should be allowed either. Especially when the retailer has enough market power that they can bully the supplier into accepting unfavorable terms, like say Amazon or Wal-Mart.
If a retailer takes a bigger cut, it shouldn't forbid you from selling it cheaper elsewhere.
Solution: create your own alternative to open market - be the market (and write rules for it)
Apple will do a lot to keep this cash cow at peak performance.
For banking transfers there's SEPA so assuming a similar system could be set up for credit cards.
I didn't say they encouraged it, just that they didn't end it but instead added laws to cap the fees.
There was a time when common wisdom was that telephone companies and many other infrastructure businesses needed to “obviously” be monopolies as well (sometimes state-owned, sometimes private, which is arguably the worst of both worlds). I really wouldn’t want to go back to that.
The two cards are essentially interchangeable so it is a duopoly. And the fact that they are subject to constant regulatory scrutiny without adding laws to force new entrants is why it is such a good example, it shows how well regulations can work without adding competition. To me in Europe credit cards works really great with low fees and no fuzz, I don't think that anything needs to be done about that more than is already done.
To merchants, yes, since they can't reasonably only accept one but not the other, as that would turn away a large fraction of their customer base. This is why most regulatory action happens here.
> subject to constant regulatory scrutiny without adding laws to force new entrants
There are absolutely measures taken to encourage new market entrants or at least more competition among the existing ones. (Whether they are effective is a different question.)
As one example, in the US, every debit card issuer is obliged to add at least one other brand/network to their cards, so that merchants do in fact have some routing choice. In Europe, some countries also have a domestic competing debit scheme, such as CB in France, Girocard in Germany etc.
> I don't think that anything needs to be done about that more than is already done.
I think you underestimate how unstable the current equilibrium is. The interchange cap regulation is relatively new, and I doubt that the networks will fail to come up with other ways to grow their market share and/or revenue that will, at some point, require further regulatory scrutiny.
If something "has to be a monopoly", there is a good case to be made that you are talking about a core public infrastructure piece which shouldn't be under control of a singular private entity.
So you are talking about a technical solution to a social issue, that wont solve it.
With a common standard, the available of card-based payment providers would indeed increase. In europe, you often can't pay with Diner's Club or American Express. If they would not all have proprietary systems and were compatible, then their adoption would in-fact increase.
Naturally, not every grandmother and their dog should be able to use this standard but there must be a well-respected authority behind it. Taken to the extreme and we couldn't trust anybody we couldn't have root certificates.
HTML is a standard, not a monopoly
Many countries have far more payment systems. For example, Japan, 7/11 takes Line Pay, PayPay, Merupay, au Pay, R Pay, d払い, Smart Code, J-Coin, Bank Pay, QOU-Pay, WeChat Pay, Alipay, Nanco, R Edy, iD, QUICPay, 9 different train cards, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, JBC.
Some of them you insert the card, some use NFC, some you scan a QR Code, some you show a QR code.
Some have had big discounts or "points", probably to try to get market share. The discounts can go either way. Some are for the consumer (get 5% cash back for example). Others are for the merchant (zero fees for N months, etc...)
There's tons of competition.
The job of the EU is protect and benefit the EU, not American companies. The DMA is not a “general” regulation like the GDPR that applies to all, this is a tailored approach to help EU companies.
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https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-designat...
"Stay in our ecosystem or else your friends/family will stop including you in group chats, stop sharing pictures with you, stop sharing video moments with you"
Apple leverages your personal social connections against you in the US...and by and large people don't seem to know or really care.
The problem is if Apple's obstinance leads them to loosing much more of their cash cow than if they had just given up a little.
This has been observed and written about since at least the 18th century
This is also why Nintendo (when they moved into video games) set up their business model as platform-holder, not just game developer. And their own games are primarily there to seed the platform.
But Apple is not subsidising phones in any way.
Developing first-party games costs more money, to both Nintendo and consumers, so it's the opposite of a subsidy. But they're compelling enough, they clear the purchase threshold and establish the platform on which the rest of the business is built.
But I strongly doubt that your business model would even approach #1 spot on S&P index.
If you are looking for advice on your business model..
> Whipping homeless people
On avg. homeless people are less competent part of the bell curve. Don’t limit yourself, toss the “homeless” restriction.
You could reduce cost by mostly just threatening to whip, and to actually demonstrate the whipping only on Mondays, just to prove that it happens.
Also, micro-management has serious downsides. It does not build trust, it eats away at initiative and motivation.
History tells us that the institutions with laws, guns, judges and a monopoly on violence rules over "smart people" who just make phones.
Apple's only retaliation is making life shit for EU users or pulling out of the EU market which they won't because that would leave a China style vacuum that Google or a local EU competitor will take after a period of painfull transition for the EU consumers.
The EU consumers can live without iPhones. Can Apple's shareholders live without Eu's profits?
The real problem is that some of these mega-corporations can drag things out so long legally that the end result barely matters. :(
Government regulation are kind a opposite side of that coin.
It's not gaslighting. People work for the company, and they decided. You're dehumanising them by saying they aren't human.
I think you have an incorrect model of the incentive structure and actual power dynamics of publicly owned corporations.
Even the CEO has to answer to shareholders in the end.
And people who knowingly leverage their gigantic corporation to make life worse for others in the name of shareholder profit can and should be dehumanized. There nothing humane in hurting others for greed.
Like the local book club, or Hamas.
Anyway, you don't have to look very far to see the many horrible things done to humans by other humans.
The word "humane", in my view, defines how we would like to be, not how we really are.
The problem is considering "Apple" itself a person, as corporate personhood does. Thinking of companies, even in limited contexts, as a "person" allows the individuals actually making decisions to be largely immune from liability on a personal level. Maybe that should change.
Technically a person is just a bunch of cells, but those cells are interchangable, replaceable (indeed few last more than a couple of decades), and if you lose an individual cell nothing happens to the person, but the cell can’t function.
we don’t say the cells make decisions, we say people do. With a corporation it’s the corporation that makes the decisions, not the individual cells.
The population of a city or a nation is similarly greater than the sum of its parts, and there is an emergent property in both cases. Same as an ant colony.
2 things though.
The constituant parts of a corporation are human, unlike an ant colony. So in that sense they are human, and ant colonies are ant.
Regarding ourselves, we absolutely are an assembly of cells, it wouldn't be wrong to define us as such, although not terribly convenient. But interchangeable the cells are not, well not like a person to a corporation.
A cell can't move from one person to another, if it somehow disagreed with a decision of the central nervous system.
The human brain is made up of billions of cells, and decisions of the brain are heavily dictated by the digestive system and various hormones. A corporate board is at the most, what, maybe a few dozen people? There isn't the same level of responsibility of each component.
Finally, if the entire corporation decides as one entity, how to punish for wrongdoing?
Should every component of the corporation be put in jail if the corporation kills people (looking at you Boeing), or just the humans at the top that made those decisions?
Another way of looking at it: Is the entirety of the Palestinian population responsible for the decisions of the dozens of humans that are the Hamas leadership?
And hurting other for greed is surely not humane, but it is very much human. Big difference that e at the end.
- it is Apple vs EU
- US gov has guns and influence and various levers
- US gov will definitely protect Apple from guns of EU (so regulator with guns is a bit mute point)
- Apple is important to americans (I think they feel it’s their symbol or something), so officials in US gov might think it’s good opportunity to grab some political points.
- US gov might act to help out Apple in this dispute (Nothing like a war, but some slight nod or handshake; maybe via diplomatic backwater; maybe in exchange for something)
Though most probably apple will give “something” even if minor change in the rules, at least just so EU would not loose face, to keep relationship friendly. (But it will be move in the right direction)
https://www.theverge.com/24107581/doj-v-apple-antitrust-mono...
The US might act in various ways to protect American manufacturers, or oil industry, or other industries that are responsible for a lot of jobs in the US or are a strategic resource in some other way. See the 100% tax import for Chinese EVs. The US government doesn't care about Apple. Apple's economic impact is basically irrelevant for the US, because it doesn't provide a noteworthy number of jobs or any significant supply chain within the US. Apple's use as a strategic resource is completely irrelevant based on their antagonistic behavior towards the US government and they've shown themselves to be as eager to comply with Chinese laws as they are to flout US government policies.
I'd maybe see the US do something to protect Microsoft, with its deep ties to the military industrial complex, or Intel, which has both these ties and is clearly a strategic resource because of the advanced chips it provides, but really only if there were an existential threat that would also prevent Microsoft or Intel from performing their necessary roles in the US economy, the military and in US foreign policy.
But to suggest that US guns are in any way relevant, or that the US would bother trying to protect Apple, is frankly absurd.
The EU has smacked down Meta, Google and Microsoft already for things they felt were anti-competitive. The US didn't give a shit. Why would it be any different here?
That's quite a large loss. Esp. given that there's another option - stay on the EU market while conforming to its rules. That will lower the profits, but not by that much.
Losing Europe as a market would have larger consequences, though. Software produced in EU would have worse support on Apple, people even in US having connections with Europeans would start installing alternative messengers etc. Apple's strength is in its network effect, cutting out a major part of it would be disastrous.
So yeah, the EU is bound to be a big number but it isn’t 25%. The biggest economies in the EU are Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium? Big countries outside of it but included in Apple’s “Europe” catagory include the nordics, UK, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and probably something else.
Even if the EU makes up half of what Apple calls “Europe.” A fine of 10% of worldwide revenues is way beyond what the EU contributes to the bottom line. There’s no way Apple wants to take the nuclear option but if the EU threatens them with big enough fines they might think about it.
This one is a big stretch. Sweden, Denmark and Finland are part of the EU, while Norway and Iceland are part of the EEA where the DMA also applies.
Most people in Europe use Whatsapp or FB Messenger, so they don't need Facetime or Apple Messages - major selling points of the Apple ecosystem. Alongside that, only 6% of people in the EU use macs, which further shows how Apple's ecosystem does not have a solid foothold in the EU.
Similarly, my experience is that software produced in the EU commonly has worse support on Apple, including at companies I worked for. Again, that's already the reality. This fact was sometimes raised as a reason the apps had difficulty getting traction in iPhone heavy markets like the US.
There are reasons for Apple to stay in Europe but these aren't the reasons. I've commonly observed that the iPhone is more of a status symbol in Europe than in the US (where it is usually just the phone most people buy by default), which creates different market dynamics. In the US good interoperability with other iPhones is more important because that is a primary reason people buy them.
Americans in Europe like you, or Americans in the US? Because for the latter, the statists would disagree, as in most use iPhones and just default to iMessage.
[1] https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/more_on_the_eus_market_mi...
Indubitably it would hurt Apple a lot if they lost a quarter of their revenue, would it not?
Do you also think drug peddlers are smart for entering an under supplied market?
As they should. Innovators should be able to collect a profit for their hardwork. A decade later when your company gets captured by MBA grads it's not a great thing for the consumer or the economy as a whole if they just sit there and collect rent while lobbying for regulatory capture to keep any new talent from being able to do better than them.
Because if would harm shareholder value. You don't need a more complicated explanation about the whole situation.
If you control the software of the hardware you sell, you must refund with the inflation adjusted sums the users at any time they return their hardware.
This way, companies can choose if they are renting platforms they deliver their services like the TV boxes some cable providers will rent, or of they are selling products and the users can choose to do whatever they like with it.
The makers can still provide and and sell services on devices they built but they will have to be good at it.
Alternatively, they can sell the devices as today and provide a method to install any software the user wishes and even to remove iOS from the device. I guess they will be required to produce a basic documentation on all this so others can create the alternative services but wouldn't be required to modify their own software and services.
Anyway, maybe some depreciation calculations might be used to account for wear&tear but the core idea is that if you are selling something that works only on your other services by actively preventing competition you shouldn't be charging for the hardware that delivers that and the money you take upfront is just a fully refundable deposit to cover stuff like the consumer breaking the device or taking it but not using the services.
Early iPhones were sold only on special "iPhone plans", not because "special unlimited internet" (at least once iPhone 3G landed for sale outside USA and its shitty telecom market), but because there was a percentage paid from the plan to Apple.
Customers would love to pay the 30% Apple tax for security and the great selection of apps.
If you count the number of devices. By app store sales, the figure is maybe 50%, probably higher.
Where did you get this idea? You are responsible for what your device does on the network. It's in your contract with your carrier. If you interfere with others' ability to use their phones on the same network, that has a good chance of the communications authority getting involved.
But we're talking about apps. The worst thing an app can do is DDoS something. That would just make you run out of data very quickly. Or auto-dial numbers (Android allows that, with a permission for which the app has to ask you), you'll just rack up an enormous bill and will learn to never make this mistake again. Or spam SMS, same thing.
But I really struggle to understand how any of this relates to the distribution of apps that run in sandboxes.
Certain categories of apps aren't deemed acceptable by Google (e.g. apps with adult content, apps that circumvent copyright, some "hacking" apps, etc). If you want any of those they are easy enough to find and sideload.
There is also a big community pirating legitimate Android apps. According to some for every one purchase ten people use a pirated version.
On iOS, they just can't "legally" have an app any more, period. Some made their apps PWAs, some say "just use the website", and some (Tinkoff/T-Bank in particular) keep trying to get into the app store with those double-bottom apps and also distribute them signed with enterprise certificates.
Most of the paid apps I've ever used on MacOS are well-known and cross-platform -- the kind of thing where you'd go to the developers website directly by name. So, of course the developer is going to guide those people down a path where they get all the revenue.
And the users of FOSS apps are overwhelmingly the people who will download a DMG from GitHub releases, and change their security settings to install it -- so why bother?
But for everyone else -- the $4.99 apps that aren't household names -- the App Store is probably where these are most often purchased. Although I doubt this market is very large on the desktop -- most people just use a browser and maybe some well known software that would have come in a box 20 years ago.
The app store isn't just about making more money, it's about enforcing privacy and security guidelines for apps through the review process and through checks for unauthorized api usage.
Apple's product is privacy; they view privacy as a premium feature worth paying for, and 3rd party app stores that are the wild west for privacy are antithetical to this.
When Apple Kerberos all their services they essentially made it possible to granularly manage service availability by user, device, and region.
The EU fining schedule is so out of proportion that it creates a real business risk to Apple that may be greater than the EU market size.
I don’t think the EU efforts are as detailed or grounded in reality as the EU considers them.
As a spectator I can’t wait to follow the ups and downs of this.
> Apple's product is privacy
that's a large component of their brand, not their product.
for contrast, signal's product is privacy. (note: i'm no fan of signal)
consider that the facebook app is allowed, on the first party app store. i'm failing to see how the app store gates privacy.
Apple's restrictions are so deep as to dictate the very way we choose to monetize our apps. And all the fearmongering about choosing to publish to an alternative store. It needs to stop.
And, honestly, they’re completely justified, IMO. They’ve done all the work of furnishing a customer who is ready to purchase. Why should they then have to allow us to steer that customer off of their site to complete the sale? Of course, we’re still allowed to sell outside of Amazon, but we have to do all the legwork to get customers. And, being in the midst of an effort to do just that, it’s a huge amount of work, so I think they’re justified in not wanting us to poach their customers.
> They rejected our PDF spec sheets for having links to our website.
I miss the world wide web where you could link to sites.
> They will de-list our products if they’re available for a lower price on another site.
This is straight up cartelization and can no longer be called a "market".
The bookstore isn't the same. It would be if the book had a QR code on the back labeled "guaranteed cheaper here" - not just the UPC/ISBN.
The customer is choosing to price compare somewhere else, that's not steering, that's brand loyalty.
But Apple aren't doing that, really. If I find a link to an App Store app on a website and install it via App Store (as that's the only option), Apple have put no effort into finding a customer. In fact, they've injected themselves into the process by requiring apps come via the App Store.
>They will de-list our products if they’re available for a lower price on another site.
This sounds pretty shady
I would automatically give the clients a rebate equal to the Amazon fees if they purchased through my site.
Amazon is giving sellers something of immense value (the opportunity to sell physical goods to a huge pool of customers who are ready to buy). Why should Amazon give that access to sellers who are trying to divert customers off of Amazon? They're not running a charity. It's their business, which they've built over decades of immense investment and effort. And the immense value of what they've built is evident in the difficulty other massive retailers like Walmart, Target, Kroger, etc. are having building similar online retail businesses.
So they are using most favoured nation deals? Whether you believe they have a good reason for it or not (I don't think they do) doesn't make it any less anti-competitive
> It's their business, which they've built over decades of immense investment and effort.
I don't care how much money and effort it takes. That's their problem, not the customers'.
They have also built it up by exploiting their workers, creating inferior knockoffs and then kicking the original off the platform, taking as much money from suppliers as possible, and introducing paid placements so that vendors need to advertise to show up even when searched for by name.
> And the immense value of what they've built is evident in the difficulty other massive retailers like Walmart, Target, Kroger, etc. are having building similar online retail businesses.
Perhaps that might have something to do with all of Amazon's best efforts to exert ever more control over suppliers. Or leveraging their success in other areas (looking at you AWS) to do things that would not be profitable otherwise in order to eliminate competition (Diapers.com anyone?).
a) Amazon is implicitly admitting that their shopping platform is not so special: if customers could find cheaper suppliers of your product that would be enough for Amazon to be outcompeted.
b) Amazon is indisputably engaging in anticompetitive practices by forbidding you from even selling at a cheaper price with the only justification of "we do not want price competition to even exist"
> And, honestly, they’re completely justified, IMO. They’ve done all the work of furnishing a customer who is ready to purchase.
Amazon is just a dumb pipe for your product and for payments. Sure, they have world-class infrastructure, but it's still a replaceable service, other companies do it successfully. Some % of those customers would find you without Amazon, especially if you advertised or put your product on other marketplaces.
This mindset also allows Amazon to exploit you, because you've already decided you'll accept anything they decide to do.
"We can't link to our website" is INSANE. It means any other company can undercut you or impersonate you on Amazon because your customers have no relationship with you as a company! That's terrifying!
It's even better when Amazon undercuts you with an Amazon Basics product. As a bonus they'll give the Amazon Basics product a preferential position in search too.
I say this as an Amazon seller that competes with Amazon Basics.
Because we live in a democratic society with laws that are voted on, and voters are perfectly able to decide what rules they want to live by.
If Apple doesn't like it, then they can shut down their entire company or move out of those countries that have the full democratic authority to decide how businesses run in their country.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/fees-for-...
The reason it charges 1.4% more for accepting US cards is the US card fees (interchange fees). These fees are complicated and roughly five times more than European card fees [3].
[1] https://stripe.com/en-fr/pricing
[2] https://stripe.com/pricing
[3] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/credit-car...
https://www.bankrate.com/credit-cards/business/can-a-busines...
Because the ripped off customers must keep paying. Why pay 30% more ?
Absolutely. This is the same as giving Candy to a child and saying "don't tell anyone" or your boss saying you can't tell coworkers how much you're being paid.
The fact they want to keep it a secret shows something fishy is going on, and they know it.
Not wrong.
Start as the rebel/upstart being more bold, fighting the system, disrupting, until they become big enough to become the system.
It's just different games, as a startup you can't behave like a big corporation, so you use that strength to your advantage, as you get huge, you can't act like a more reckless upstart.
1. Not very good at explaining itself.
2. Not entirely sure why things are done in a certain way, they their changes it and revert to Steve jobs's way, or they refused to change and did not understand why Steve decided on doing certain things in the first place.
3. Not a very coherent company. Still better than most other companies except may be Jensen in Nvidia.
The point being, Apple is clearly willing to use every trick and scheme possible to maintain dominance and should be regulated as such. They are begging for it.
Consistently these anti-steering rules are what gets Apple in trouble all around the world. It's the one part Apple lost in the US Epic case, and it's the EUs first point on their breach. Apple has done this to themselves by being so stubborn and refusing to budge an inch on how they run their platforms. The tiniest concession years ago could have avoided all this regulation on them.