No, you cannot simply refuse to give Apple their 30% (unless you are yourself big enough to negotiate an exemption; including waiving a 30% fee of your own for Apple's apps on your platforms) if you want access to their huge and very lucrative market.
Microsoft lost an anti-monopoly case because they bundled a free browser with Windows. Forcing your competitors to pay 30% and thus have higher costs and prices than your own competing services is a much more straightforward violation.
But what gives some third party the right to that huge and lucrative market? It seems parasitic in a kind of way to demand that right.
Third parties bring value to the platform. Try to remove all the third parties from the Apple Store and see how people react.
Apple's sales of iPhones benefit from the third parties, but they use their dominant position to take a huge cut of what the third parties sell.
One could say: either Apple gives access to third parties in a decent way, or they just don't. Apple needs the third parties (otherwise they would not give them access in the first place, obviously), so they should give them decent conditions.
But Apple does hinder every developer from selling their software on Apple devices without using Apple's mandatory software distribution service. Which most of us can agree, is relatively monopolistic in nature and creates a captive market of Apple customers ripe for abuse.
Every store, market place and mall has conditions for being able to sell your wares in their space. Every single one of them will prevent you from using their space if you fail to meet those conditions. Malls will kick you out if you close your store during mall hours, denying you the ability to sell to those mall customers. eBay will shut your account if you try to get buyers to pay you outside of eBay, denying you the ability to sell to those eBay customers. Your local grocery store won't be allowing you to set up in the middle of the aisle with a laser light show selling your home made cookies, denying you the ability to sell to the grocery story customers. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony will all very happily terminate your access to their markets for failure to comply with their development programs, denying you the ability to sell to those console customers.
But it's not a store. It's software; Apple charges developers to use their developer tools and then additionally requires you to pay the surcharges in their mandatory App Store. It is a racket that specifically relies on Apple's sole presence as a distributor on iOS and iPadOS; otherwise it will fail, as MacOS has shown us.
> Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony will all very happily terminate your access to their markets for failure to comply with their development programs
And every single one of those companies competes under fair pretenses with their publishing partners. Apple doesn't. That's why they're singled-out.
So is it a store or not?
>And every single one of those companies competes under fair pretenses with their publishing partners. Apple doesn't. That's why they're singled-out.
How so? What is Apple doing that those companies (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony) don't do for their hardware platforms? The certainly "[charge] developers to use their developer tools and then additionally [require developers] to pay the surcharged in their mandatory [store]." So what's different? How are they competing under fair pretenses (a phrase which I admit I'm having trouble parsing the meaning of), but Apple isn't?
What the EU is regulating is fair competition for very large platforms, defined as having 45m or more users. These benefit from network effects and may be operated in ways that inhibit competition.
Do you also believe that John D. Rockefeller never did anything anti-competitive? lol
If Apple wants to sell in the EU it will have to abide by EU rules decided by democratically elected politicians. The US has proven incapable and or unwilling to regulate big tech. The EU has been slow and won't always get it right first time but it's trying. This is why EU citizens have e.f., privacy rights Americans don't, why broadband costs way less in the EU than the US etc.
If parasitism is what interests you I suggest directing your attention to rentier capitalism and the never ending upward flow of wealth to the 1% and the extent to which US politicians are owned by billionaires.
I, on the other side, very much see it, given how huge the market share of Apple is.
I would be with you if Apple had 5 per cent of the smartphone market. Nevertheless, their very size makes any of their actions that restricts freedoms of their customes at least suspicious of being anti-competitive.
Do you commonly just assume that people who disagree with you are dishonest?
Here, the perceived benefit is cheaper apps for their cellphone. So we call Apple a monopoly, though they clearly aren't. And if they are, then why shouldn't McDonalds be forced to let anybody sell fast food inside their locations?
Apple has an entrenched audience, as is unfortunately inherent with operating system and platforms, and that comes with certain legal responsibilities. If Apple doesn't like those responsibilities, they should get out of the OS/platform space.
But this is the same argument you have no doubt seen many times, which you dismiss as "dishonesty". That is your prerogative, but most onlookers are going to see this as an attempt to get out of having to present a convincing argument, most likely because you can't.
The reason their "ecosystem" has any value is because of the "parasites". They're a f**ng platform.
Excuse me, but we should know better over here.
Their value is ideally keeping scammers out, but they don't do a great job of that and part of the reason they don't is because they also profit when the scammers do. For example, gambling for kids (loot boxes) is OK. The other part of the value is having a central place to list and promote apps, but also there they're double dipping as you need to pay them to get eyes to your app.
Their value absolutely does not equal 30% of your revenue.
It wasn't calling Apple parasitic, it was calling the app DEVELOPERS parasitic which is crazy talk.
Let me know when I can start selling stuff on Amazon without giving them a cut. Or put up a stand in the local supermarket where I sell my produce directly to customers.
If App developers made iOS such a profitable market, why haven't they made Android an equally profitable market? There's more users, more liberty, more potential money to be made.
What it comes down to is whether it's better to get a big piece of a small pie or a smaller piece of a big pie. Apple offers a bigger pie of user spending for developers, while cutting out a bigger chunk for themselves from that pie.
LOLNO :-)
The web is and was a major consumer "software" platform. We just don't have raw numbers for it because it's so distributed, my guess is that it's still bigger than these walled gardens combined.
The web would be even bigger if said walled garden makers wouldn't c**block it by not investing in progressive web apps & co (while they are investing like crazy in their walled gardens, of course).
Subscription online software for consumers was not a big market until pretty recently. As a matter of fact, from the top of my head I cannot think of any such software that is very popular for consumers. Or do you refer to subscription entertainment?
I like their product. If I buy it: do I own it or do I rent it from them? Obvious next question: If I own it, do I have right to install whatever I want?
2) You make it sound as if it weee merely technically complicated to jailbreak the device, whereas the truth is the only reason it is possible at all is because Apple has thankfully sometimes made mistakes in their security. There is no reason to believe that this should be possible at all.
Then, these companies go further: they attempt to weaponize the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions against users to claim it is actually criminally illegal to take advantage of such implementation mistakes.
The problem here isn't Apple having to go out of their way to do anything... the situation is the exact opposite: Apple has gone super far out of their way to PREVENT people using third-party parts or modified software, and that can be, should be, and in some cases already is illegal.
The same is true for apps on a computing device. Installing new ones is common, not rare like an engine swap in a car. Most people expect that if the app is compatible with the hardware you can put it on the device, regardless of who made it or where you got it.
On second thoughts, I better delete this soon in case BMW gets some ideas
Neither Apple, nor Google, nor anyone else, should be able to control so many businesses. It's the same reason Booking.com is in trouble. they're so big, they affect nearly every hotel in the world. That's too much power over too many business.
While there are more consumer friendly ways to do it sure, I don’t see anything illegal or wrong here. You’re buying their hardware, with the software licensing understanding that comes with it - if you don’t like the terms you don’t buy the hardware.
There isn’t a moral calculus that is or needs to be involved here, it’s a simple flat “don’t buy their product if you don’t like it”. If enough people cared and did so, they’d change very quickly.
Apple isn’t a monopoly, there are plenty of alternatives that might suit your needs better.