Most likely they will attack the EU's definition of the relevant market as being "iOS App Store" and claim they only have a sliver of the larger "Mobile app store" market, even though iOS and Android apps are not substitutes for one another. How you define the market is usually the crux of antitrust battles.
The European legal system has not been captured like the US was by Robert Bork (yes, that Robert Bork) and the Chicago School (dogma: monopolies are a logical impossibility because markets are infallible). Thus this will likely only stall for a few months, I'm sure Apple knows that, but it's a few more months of those juicy App Store margins that are so essential to Apple's financials under the "Services" rubric.
For one, it would return us to the status-quo where the user decides what to install on the hardware they own. That seems pretty important to me, even if you hate Europe or Apple.
What is the relationship between wanting them to lose billions and having that option? Sounds like you're just wishing harm on the organization that gave you this platform in the first place.
If giving the user more power over software installation hurts Apple, then I guess I am wishing them harm. If Apple's approach was without harm though, they wouldn't have been targeted by European regulators with the DMA in the first place.
My point was less related to the cause-and-effect, and more focused on the undeniable need for user control. Apple is the reason why the Digital Market Act exists - go read it, you'll very quickly realize that the language targets them. It also (rightfully) implicates Microsoft and Google, but it very explicitly paints Apple's relationship with the iPhone as a "Gatekeeper" situation. The reasoning should be obvious; OEMs don't deserve that level of control. Apple could implement all of their meaningful features competitively, as-is, without being the sole trusted distributor of iPhone apps.
Plus, even if you love Apple and hate Europe, features like this let you meaningfully resist European mandates. If Europe demands that SMS apps have a backdoor (fancy that), Apple users would have options that aren't provided by Apple. In a world where FAANG is bought and owned by the US government and gets regularly subpoenaed for data, that might be an affordance you value.
Makes sense to me. If E2EE got banned, I could go download Free and Open Source applications from the internet that circumvent that ban. That's how it works on all of my computers right now, if Apple still demands override controls after letting you install third-party apps, then maybe we'll need a second Digital Market Act. I reckon we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Doesn’t track with me. If the EU legislates the market they can legislate blocking those E2E apps from the internet. For instance, require apps to be installed from alternative marketplaces and not just sideloaded, and heavily regulate alternative marketplaces.
More likely, the EU will demand that alternative stores be regulated and that override controls exist, precisely so that they can outlaw E2EE and block other apps they want to restrict.
The EU isn’t doing any of this to support some principle of end-user freedom. It’s all just a consequence of lobbying and politics. They aren’t going to do anything that reduces their own control.
> on the organization that gave you this platform in the first place. Seems a little unhinged.
I think the reasoning was pretty concise although throwing shade, referring to it as unhinged is uncalled for. I think I see this a bit too much on HN but bears repeating: your favorite trillion dollar company does not need to be defended. It is unlikely you'd be calling it unhinged if similar sentiments were expressed about Google, Microsoft or Facebook.
The billions of platform taxes ought to be in the hands of consumers who, given fair competition for platforms on the hardware of their preference, would see far lower software costs.
We need to have a shared definition of rent seeking. Rent Seeking necessitates no economic value creation. I struggle to objectively see Apple's AppStore as a merchant of record deriving no economic value. Same for their subscription management, inclusive of refunds, fraud detection, payment retries. Same for their IDE and development pipelines. CloudKit with automatic syncing and object management just built in via CoreData // SwiftData. Oh and discoverability via a single source of truth for Apps. And numerous more...
I would encourage anyone to try doing a fully 1:1 app in both web and native iOS for good measure to judge for themselves. Perhaps you could say 30% is a 'premium'; however after 1 year it drops down to 15%... objectively, I struggle to characterize the dev ecosystem as 'rent-seeking'
Apple acts as if the app store is the driving factor behind users installing apps when in many cases it's not. In many cases users install apps because of the developer's own marketing efforts while Apple did nothing at all to deserve to be an intermediary in this relationship. Most iOS developers I know don't see the app store as the godsend that Apple wants it to appear. On the contrary, they see it as an asinine obstacle they have to clear to reach their users.
Mac app store has to compete with developers doing their own app distribution and we can see pretty clearly that its adoption is kinda meh.
Apple doesn't believe the App Store is the driving factor for users installing applications.
They believe the App Store is one part of the total value of the iOS platform, and one which they chose to monetize.
And while the Mac App Store is a solid counter example to "do users value this?", the other counter-example is the Play Store, where, despite the availability of side-loading on Android, the Play Store is still, by far, the preferred way that users download and install applications on their Android device.
In Epic's lawsuit against Google they argue that google makes sideloading unusable for businesses by making users jump through a bunch of hoops and scare screens.
As the parent comment was saying however, it’s not just the App Store’s services that are being funded, but also platform, SDK, and developer tooling.
30% is probably too steep of a cut, but I don’t think it’s wrong for them to to take some percentage (the 15% rate they give to small devs who ask for it seems closer to reality).
This is also a strange argument. The "platform, SDK, and developer tooling" are actually funded by device sales because those things are inseparable form the cost of developing the operating systems themselves, which in turn is included in the device prices.
To some extent yes, but marketplace cuts help further incentivize investment in those things.
This can be seen in the difference in the rate those things improved between when macOS was the flagship platform and when iOS took that crown. All of that sped up dramatically after the App Store really took off, with AppKit largely getting left in the dust compared to its iOS counterpart UIKit and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Maybe the better question is to ask whether the current oligopoly(?, or in the case of the Apple app store perhaps a monopoly?) is moving towards increased or decreased consumer surplus.
The other way to look at it is that the EU isn't in thrall to big tech companies and the world is lucky that there's somewhere that their power doesn't reach.
The US has many reasons NOT to limit the power of companies that employ Americans and help balance the trade deficit.
> The other way to look at it is that the EU isn't in thrall to big tech companies and the world is lucky that there's somewhere that their power doesn't reach.
I'm inclined to agree when you look at things like privacy regulation/GDPR, but the recent draft legislation that weakens encryption leaves me doubting their ability to regulate.
I really don’t understand why it’s taking so long to recognise Apple/Google as a monopoly.
I develop internal apps for small companies. Apple still forces each update - to an unlisted app - to go through a review process.
Google on the other hand have just told me they need to collect my address, phone number, and ID documents next year or they will delete my developer account.
I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, wait weeks for reviews, and have my personal data collected & sold, because I distribute private software to people who use one of the two vendors that make up 99.99% of the market.
“Ohh it’s not a monopoly because your clients could just carry around a lenovo running linux instead of a mobile phone”. How is this argument still passing the bar?
Depends how you view them. If you consider them to be each rather separate ecosystems with limited exchange between them, they could perhaps be two monopolies?
I'm unconvinced by the argument that "iPhone apps" and "Android apps" are the relevant categories, rather than just "smartphone apps". It seems like it leads to a slippery slope where every company that's not selling in a completely-generic category holds a monopoly over its own products. Ford holding a monopoly over F-150 pickup trucks, etc.
Words have meanings. It's a monopoly if a single entity has complete (or almost-complete) control of a market.
"Apple/Google" isn't a single entity, neither has anything close to complete control of the US mobile-device market, and they do seem to actively be opposed to each other in many areas rather than being some sort of cartel.
monopoly | məˈnɒpəli |
noun (plural monopolies)
1 the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service: the state's monopoly of radio and television broadcasting.
• a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service: passenger services were largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies | France's electricity monopoly, EDF.
In case it's not clear from the definition, notice the first example's deliberate pluralisation; "largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies".
Your definition is both wrong, and I suspect made in bad faith anyway.
> In case it's not clear from the definition, notice the first example's deliberate pluralisation; "largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies".
The example is, presumably, referring to a single entity that provided “passenger services” between two destinations, and no other entity provided passenger services between those destinations. But since there could be multiple sets of destinations that single entities provided all passenger services for, then there would be multiple monopolies.
Which does not contradict kemayo’s post.
There is no reason to use monopoly (in this context) when more accurate vocabulary exists, such as duopoly or oligopoly.
> But since there could be multiple sets of destinations that single entities provided all passenger services for, then there would be multiple monopolies.
Which is precisely the point. Take as "destinations" the two parties to any given transaction, i.e. a particular software developer and a particular user. If the user has an iPhone, they can't use the Play Store, or Samsung or Amazon or anyone but Apple. The developer has no choice in this, even though they're the one paying the fee and being subjected to opaque and arbitrary rules.
Yes, I was referring to the smartphone market itself.
Within each smartphone operating system, Apple has a monopoly on software sold for their devices.
But for Android, I thought it is trivial for end users to avoid the Play store for any software they want? If so, I would not describe that as a monopoly.
> But for Android, I thought it is trivial for end users to avoid the Play store for any software they want? If so, I would not describe that as a monopoly.
It's possible but not trivial. In particular, the stores have a network effect where users won't install them if they've never heard of them (remember you have to give your payment info to a store), and developers have no use for a store without users. Google also makes a lot of features dependent on Google Play, which makes it hard for OEMs not to include it with their phone, which might otherwise have allowed the store they did include to reach a critical mass. So Google Play still has >90% market share on Android, even if the alternatives aren't explicitly prohibited.
I think my use of the word “monopoly” is causing people to miss the forest for the trees.
My clients have employees who essentially have two ecosystem options when buying a smartphone - Apple or Google.
I, as a developer, then have to bend to the will of both of these corporations which, no matter how they compete on other things, are just as bad as each other when it comes to developer treatment.
Monopoly, duopoly, whatever - it’s crazy. Why am I uploading my fucking ID to Google, giving them my phone number, which they say “they may contact periodically to ensure the account is still active”, because I distribute private software to a private organisation?
Because the barrier to entry for this specific product (smartphone) is incredibly high. Kind of like, if you want to buy a passenger plane, you have to go to Boeing or Airbus.
Does Boeing/Airbus force contractors employed by the airlines who own their planes to jump through crazy hoops and provide all their PII?
If I had an airline as a client and I wanted to change the upholstery on a plane, I don’t think I’d need to have the changes approved by Boeing/Airbus in addition to having my personal data (home address, phone, and ID) sold and used to target me with advertising.
Maybe it is only because Boeing/Airbus cannot figure out how to do that for upholstery. But for software, it is easier to control the changes and hence charge for them.
I'll grant that it's a bit of a pedantic response, though I do genuinely think that it's better not to misuse terms. It also affects what you appear to be calling for as a response -- just because Apple-and-Google are the two major players in a market doesn't mean that antitrust/monopoly laws are the right things to use.
Re: Google, given that you're privately distributing software to a private organization, couldn't you just sideload it onto the Android devices in question? It seems reasonable enough to for them to want you to have a developer account if you're using their infrastructure to distribute these things. But my (minimally informed) understanding is that, unlike Apple, Google doesn't force you to have a signing certificate from them or anything for the software to even run on a device.
Yeah, you’re right. The user just needs to allow apps from unknown sources.
If your employer asks you to disable security settings on your phone to install untrusted software, this raises a lot of alarm bells.
AFAIK I can’t sign the APK to generate trust like I can with MacOS. Although I suppose if I could, then I’d still need to go through verification anyway.
But yes, it’s disingenuous to claim Google is forcing me to do anything. Currently I can distribute software to any Android device with the change of a setting.
> “Ohh it’s not a monopoly because your clients could just carry around a lenovo running linux instead of a mobile phone”. How is this argument still passing the bar?
This explains that they are a duopoly, not a monopoly. However I do agree they are both a monopoly:
You're making a 10$ app targeting Californian 10-20 yos. They have 95% Apple devices (I don't know, I'm completely spitballing, but you get the idea.). You develop the Apple app, everything is going good, you have 1M users, Apple decides to cut you off on a whim (not saying they are doing it, but they are allowed to since they are legally not a monopoly). What does this "free competition between Apple and Android" is going to do to you? Re-target your game to SWE who are more likely to have Androids?
The Unity ruling seem to be clear to me that that the US law doesn't consider it a monopoly, and I acknowledge that. I can understand where this comes from. But it feels like laws need to be updated to take this new kind of situation (a local per-person monopoly impacting multiple distinct markets) into consideration.
> What does this "free competition between Apple and Android" is going to do to you? Re-target your game to SWE who are more likely to have Androids?
It's worse than that. Suppose you have an app where neither of the platforms has a disproportionate share of the users -- they're evenly split. Now one of the platforms makes trouble for you. They want to ban you, or impose unreasonable restrictions, or charge high fees. Can you switch to the other one? Pit them against each other?
No, because the other one can't reach those users. It's not like having a Walmart and a Target across the street from each other, where any buyer can trivially switch to the other store if either of them stops carrying the seller's goods. It's like having a Walmart in Florida and a Target in California and if Target kicks you out, there is no other way to reach your customers in California because they're not going to move to Florida just to shop at Walmart.
Calling this "not a monopoly" because Walmart and Target are both operating in the United States is rather missing the issue.
When movie studios in the US were barred from owning theatres they had 17% of the theatres and 45% of the revenue. Among all the big studios at the time, Paramount, MGM, Fox, WB, RKO. Apple and Google have 99% of all smartphones and 99% of revenue.
It's pretty clear that they have an oversized influence and control over mobile app distribution too...
So for example, if you have a dominant position for phone operating systems, or a certain type of phone operating systems, and you want to exclude others from the market for app stores for those phones?
I don't really like slicing the market up that way. There's a compelling argument against broad-category monopolies, but the more specific it gets the closer it is to just "you have made a successful product". Apple naturally has a monopoly over Apple products, but that's not very helpful from an antitrust perspective.
The analogy that is persuasive to me for this particular case is that Apple / Google are excluding people from their app stores in the same way that Kroger is excluding people from its grocery store shelves.
The real question is if a given "Apple product" is a separate market. Is it fungible with a competitor?
If you ask this question about "Clorox bleach" the answer is obvious. Any other brand of bleach is a perfect substitute and the only reason Clorox can demand a premium is if customers value the brand as an indicia of quality, i.e. they're paying to get bleach they trust not to be watered down or contaminated in a bottle that doesn't leak, not because there is no other source to get bleach they can use with their washing machine.
For the iOS app store that is not the case. If you have an iOS device, you have to use the iOS app store. It would be as if you had a Kroger-brand washing machine that could only use bleach from Kroger, e.g. because they sell it in cartridges that authenticate with a microchip. At that point Kroger would have a monopoly on bleach for those washing machines, and that product would be its own market because there is no competing substitute.
For this not to be the case you would have to be able to install apps on iOS devices via Google Play or some other competitor with non-trivial market share. Because the relevant concern is whether there is a viable substitute that the same people can use for the same purpose.
And yes, this means that if you cordon off something that might otherwise have been part of a larger market by using DRM, you now have a monopoly on the thing you erected a fence around and should be subject to antitrust enforcement.
IMHO Apple will thank EU for this because Digital Markets Act will save Apple from itself.
I'm a huge Apple fanboy and I'm happy with the walled garden HOWEVER Apple begun engaging in rent seeking and missing out on innovation and I really, really want Apple to succeed because they are the tech company that cares about user experience over false metrics like megapixels and screen to body ratio.
Apple's rent seeking on NFC already causes me bad user experience because when I'm not somewhere where Apple Pay is supported, I miss out on banking apps that support NFC.
Also, governments(UK, EU, USA - all of them) are eager to turn the tech companies into a police and there's a war in Europe and political turmoil all over the world where you and hundreds of millions are at risk of falling at the wrong side of the aggressive dominant political movements.
I'm sure Tim Cook and anybody at Apple wouldn't want to be the tech suppliers who helped governments to enforce policies that some time in the future might be viewed just as badly as the German policies around 1940s.
At this very moment, Apple might believe that they are on the right side of the history but what happens if Trump wins in a year? What happens if the far right in EU begins dominating the politics? They are angry and they want vengeance, they go after people all the time. Maybe Apple was able to say F.U. to the UK and said it will not implement spying into its iMessage&Facetime services and leave UK if they have to but can they do the same in USA for example? Can Apple say no to Trump admin and leave the US markets if they decide to ban encryption so they can hunt down the "enemies of the state" and "dry the swamp".
Very dangerous times, no company should be in position to become the police.
I understand where you come from, but I believe it is way too late for that.
I used to be an Apple "fanboy", way more moderate than the term suggests but up until 2016-2017 I thought their approach made more sense and was seeking the best compromise possible.
But now they are too far gone in the money making, empire building side. I believe the culture that built the Apple we loved is completely dead now and all the people that were the keepers of that have either moved out themselves or got pushed out by management to make way for the new culture of ultra greed rent seeking.
I think it is naive to believe we can go back to what Apple was. It is a shell of itself and even the hardware products are somewhat nice but feel very bland and uninspired for the price (they also have a lot of performance/durability problems because of cost cutting, margin chasing). And this time there is not Steve Jobs to come back.
In my opinion it is better to see the objective truth, cut your losses and move on to another cheaper and more open platform. There is not much to expect from Apple, it's all downhill from here...
Challenging the law makes Apple look like they know better which laws should be obeyed.like they consider themselves as ultimate authority on any question..
Totally expected nonsense from current greedy psychopathic Apple.
They are absolutely gatekeepers and have an absolutely unreasonable amount of control on devices they are not supposed to own anymore because people bought them.
I think they also should look into their behavior of forcing update, in order to make devices obsolete earlier by making them run slower even though they worked completely fine for everything that was required of them.
I thought it was conspiracy theories but right now, just after the annual release and just after a mysterious new update with little information on what it is supposed to fix; my iPhone 12 Mini is starting to seriously lag both in Apple apps and 3rd party apps.
Thats a very disturbing coincidence, especially since it's not the first time it has happened.
By the way I am still on "old" iOS 16.7.2 because I don't trust Apple release anymore. In fact, if I could, I would go back to the iOS the iPhone was sold with; but you can't because Apple is selling their update bullshit narrative in their marketing.
From where I sit there are a lot more cons than pros for the average user...
73 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadThe European legal system has not been captured like the US was by Robert Bork (yes, that Robert Bork) and the Chicago School (dogma: monopolies are a logical impossibility because markets are infallible). Thus this will likely only stall for a few months, I'm sure Apple knows that, but it's a few more months of those juicy App Store margins that are so essential to Apple's financials under the "Services" rubric.
Ah. One can dream.
(edit: I mean from PC to IOS and Android)
My point was less related to the cause-and-effect, and more focused on the undeniable need for user control. Apple is the reason why the Digital Market Act exists - go read it, you'll very quickly realize that the language targets them. It also (rightfully) implicates Microsoft and Google, but it very explicitly paints Apple's relationship with the iPhone as a "Gatekeeper" situation. The reasoning should be obvious; OEMs don't deserve that level of control. Apple could implement all of their meaningful features competitively, as-is, without being the sole trusted distributor of iPhone apps.
Plus, even if you love Apple and hate Europe, features like this let you meaningfully resist European mandates. If Europe demands that SMS apps have a backdoor (fancy that), Apple users would have options that aren't provided by Apple. In a world where FAANG is bought and owned by the US government and gets regularly subpoenaed for data, that might be an affordance you value.
This makes no sense. If Europe makes rules about backdoors or outlawing E2E, they will apply to every app store and every app, not just Apple.
The EU isn’t doing any of this to support some principle of end-user freedom. It’s all just a consequence of lobbying and politics. They aren’t going to do anything that reduces their own control.
I think the reasoning was pretty concise although throwing shade, referring to it as unhinged is uncalled for. I think I see this a bit too much on HN but bears repeating: your favorite trillion dollar company does not need to be defended. It is unlikely you'd be calling it unhinged if similar sentiments were expressed about Google, Microsoft or Facebook.
I would encourage anyone to try doing a fully 1:1 app in both web and native iOS for good measure to judge for themselves. Perhaps you could say 30% is a 'premium'; however after 1 year it drops down to 15%... objectively, I struggle to characterize the dev ecosystem as 'rent-seeking'
Mac app store has to compete with developers doing their own app distribution and we can see pretty clearly that its adoption is kinda meh.
They believe the App Store is one part of the total value of the iOS platform, and one which they chose to monetize.
And while the Mac App Store is a solid counter example to "do users value this?", the other counter-example is the Play Store, where, despite the availability of side-loading on Android, the Play Store is still, by far, the preferred way that users download and install applications on their Android device.
The Mac App Store has failed because Apple didn't make it good enough for developers to make it useful enough to users.
30% is probably too steep of a cut, but I don’t think it’s wrong for them to to take some percentage (the 15% rate they give to small devs who ask for it seems closer to reality).
This is also a strange argument. The "platform, SDK, and developer tooling" are actually funded by device sales because those things are inseparable form the cost of developing the operating systems themselves, which in turn is included in the device prices.
This can be seen in the difference in the rate those things improved between when macOS was the flagship platform and when iOS took that crown. All of that sped up dramatically after the App Store really took off, with AppKit largely getting left in the dust compared to its iOS counterpart UIKit and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
The US has many reasons NOT to limit the power of companies that employ Americans and help balance the trade deficit.
I'm inclined to agree when you look at things like privacy regulation/GDPR, but the recent draft legislation that weakens encryption leaves me doubting their ability to regulate.
I develop internal apps for small companies. Apple still forces each update - to an unlisted app - to go through a review process.
Google on the other hand have just told me they need to collect my address, phone number, and ID documents next year or they will delete my developer account.
I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, wait weeks for reviews, and have my personal data collected & sold, because I distribute private software to people who use one of the two vendors that make up 99.99% of the market.
“Ohh it’s not a monopoly because your clients could just carry around a lenovo running linux instead of a mobile phone”. How is this argument still passing the bar?
Apple/Google are a duopoly, and at least in the US, being a duopoly is legally fine so long as you don't collude on pricing.
"Apple/Google" isn't a single entity, neither has anything close to complete control of the US mobile-device market, and they do seem to actively be opposed to each other in many areas rather than being some sort of cartel.
monopoly | məˈnɒpəli | noun (plural monopolies) 1 the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service: the state's monopoly of radio and television broadcasting. • a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service: passenger services were largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies | France's electricity monopoly, EDF.
In case it's not clear from the definition, notice the first example's deliberate pluralisation; "largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies".
Your definition is both wrong, and I suspect made in bad faith anyway.
The example is, presumably, referring to a single entity that provided “passenger services” between two destinations, and no other entity provided passenger services between those destinations. But since there could be multiple sets of destinations that single entities provided all passenger services for, then there would be multiple monopolies.
Which does not contradict kemayo’s post.
There is no reason to use monopoly (in this context) when more accurate vocabulary exists, such as duopoly or oligopoly.
Which is precisely the point. Take as "destinations" the two parties to any given transaction, i.e. a particular software developer and a particular user. If the user has an iPhone, they can't use the Play Store, or Samsung or Amazon or anyone but Apple. The developer has no choice in this, even though they're the one paying the fee and being subjected to opaque and arbitrary rules.
Within each smartphone operating system, Apple has a monopoly on software sold for their devices.
But for Android, I thought it is trivial for end users to avoid the Play store for any software they want? If so, I would not describe that as a monopoly.
It's possible but not trivial. In particular, the stores have a network effect where users won't install them if they've never heard of them (remember you have to give your payment info to a store), and developers have no use for a store without users. Google also makes a lot of features dependent on Google Play, which makes it hard for OEMs not to include it with their phone, which might otherwise have allowed the store they did include to reach a critical mass. So Google Play still has >90% market share on Android, even if the alternatives aren't explicitly prohibited.
> passenger services were largely in the hands of state-owned _monopolies_
My clients have employees who essentially have two ecosystem options when buying a smartphone - Apple or Google.
I, as a developer, then have to bend to the will of both of these corporations which, no matter how they compete on other things, are just as bad as each other when it comes to developer treatment.
Monopoly, duopoly, whatever - it’s crazy. Why am I uploading my fucking ID to Google, giving them my phone number, which they say “they may contact periodically to ensure the account is still active”, because I distribute private software to a private organisation?
If I had an airline as a client and I wanted to change the upholstery on a plane, I don’t think I’d need to have the changes approved by Boeing/Airbus in addition to having my personal data (home address, phone, and ID) sold and used to target me with advertising.
Re: Google, given that you're privately distributing software to a private organization, couldn't you just sideload it onto the Android devices in question? It seems reasonable enough to for them to want you to have a developer account if you're using their infrastructure to distribute these things. But my (minimally informed) understanding is that, unlike Apple, Google doesn't force you to have a signing certificate from them or anything for the software to even run on a device.
If your employer asks you to disable security settings on your phone to install untrusted software, this raises a lot of alarm bells.
AFAIK I can’t sign the APK to generate trust like I can with MacOS. Although I suppose if I could, then I’d still need to go through verification anyway.
But yes, it’s disingenuous to claim Google is forcing me to do anything. Currently I can distribute software to any Android device with the change of a setting.
This explains that they are a duopoly, not a monopoly. However I do agree they are both a monopoly:
You're making a 10$ app targeting Californian 10-20 yos. They have 95% Apple devices (I don't know, I'm completely spitballing, but you get the idea.). You develop the Apple app, everything is going good, you have 1M users, Apple decides to cut you off on a whim (not saying they are doing it, but they are allowed to since they are legally not a monopoly). What does this "free competition between Apple and Android" is going to do to you? Re-target your game to SWE who are more likely to have Androids?
The Unity ruling seem to be clear to me that that the US law doesn't consider it a monopoly, and I acknowledge that. I can understand where this comes from. But it feels like laws need to be updated to take this new kind of situation (a local per-person monopoly impacting multiple distinct markets) into consideration.
It's worse than that. Suppose you have an app where neither of the platforms has a disproportionate share of the users -- they're evenly split. Now one of the platforms makes trouble for you. They want to ban you, or impose unreasonable restrictions, or charge high fees. Can you switch to the other one? Pit them against each other?
No, because the other one can't reach those users. It's not like having a Walmart and a Target across the street from each other, where any buyer can trivially switch to the other store if either of them stops carrying the seller's goods. It's like having a Walmart in Florida and a Target in California and if Target kicks you out, there is no other way to reach your customers in California because they're not going to move to Florida just to shop at Walmart.
Calling this "not a monopoly" because Walmart and Target are both operating in the United States is rather missing the issue.
It's pretty clear that they have an oversized influence and control over mobile app distribution too...
Monopolies, in and of themselves, are not illegal in the US.
Leveraging monopoly position to gain unfair advantage in markets outside the monopoly is illegal.
The analogy that is persuasive to me for this particular case is that Apple / Google are excluding people from their app stores in the same way that Kroger is excluding people from its grocery store shelves.
If you ask this question about "Clorox bleach" the answer is obvious. Any other brand of bleach is a perfect substitute and the only reason Clorox can demand a premium is if customers value the brand as an indicia of quality, i.e. they're paying to get bleach they trust not to be watered down or contaminated in a bottle that doesn't leak, not because there is no other source to get bleach they can use with their washing machine.
For the iOS app store that is not the case. If you have an iOS device, you have to use the iOS app store. It would be as if you had a Kroger-brand washing machine that could only use bleach from Kroger, e.g. because they sell it in cartridges that authenticate with a microchip. At that point Kroger would have a monopoly on bleach for those washing machines, and that product would be its own market because there is no competing substitute.
For this not to be the case you would have to be able to install apps on iOS devices via Google Play or some other competitor with non-trivial market share. Because the relevant concern is whether there is a viable substitute that the same people can use for the same purpose.
And yes, this means that if you cordon off something that might otherwise have been part of a larger market by using DRM, you now have a monopoly on the thing you erected a fence around and should be subject to antitrust enforcement.
The answer is corruption. I believe it’s plain obvious by now.
I'm a huge Apple fanboy and I'm happy with the walled garden HOWEVER Apple begun engaging in rent seeking and missing out on innovation and I really, really want Apple to succeed because they are the tech company that cares about user experience over false metrics like megapixels and screen to body ratio.
Apple's rent seeking on NFC already causes me bad user experience because when I'm not somewhere where Apple Pay is supported, I miss out on banking apps that support NFC.
Also, governments(UK, EU, USA - all of them) are eager to turn the tech companies into a police and there's a war in Europe and political turmoil all over the world where you and hundreds of millions are at risk of falling at the wrong side of the aggressive dominant political movements.
I'm sure Tim Cook and anybody at Apple wouldn't want to be the tech suppliers who helped governments to enforce policies that some time in the future might be viewed just as badly as the German policies around 1940s. At this very moment, Apple might believe that they are on the right side of the history but what happens if Trump wins in a year? What happens if the far right in EU begins dominating the politics? They are angry and they want vengeance, they go after people all the time. Maybe Apple was able to say F.U. to the UK and said it will not implement spying into its iMessage&Facetime services and leave UK if they have to but can they do the same in USA for example? Can Apple say no to Trump admin and leave the US markets if they decide to ban encryption so they can hunt down the "enemies of the state" and "dry the swamp".
Very dangerous times, no company should be in position to become the police.
But now they are too far gone in the money making, empire building side. I believe the culture that built the Apple we loved is completely dead now and all the people that were the keepers of that have either moved out themselves or got pushed out by management to make way for the new culture of ultra greed rent seeking.
I think it is naive to believe we can go back to what Apple was. It is a shell of itself and even the hardware products are somewhat nice but feel very bland and uninspired for the price (they also have a lot of performance/durability problems because of cost cutting, margin chasing). And this time there is not Steve Jobs to come back.
In my opinion it is better to see the objective truth, cut your losses and move on to another cheaper and more open platform. There is not much to expect from Apple, it's all downhill from here...
They are absolutely gatekeepers and have an absolutely unreasonable amount of control on devices they are not supposed to own anymore because people bought them.
I think they also should look into their behavior of forcing update, in order to make devices obsolete earlier by making them run slower even though they worked completely fine for everything that was required of them. I thought it was conspiracy theories but right now, just after the annual release and just after a mysterious new update with little information on what it is supposed to fix; my iPhone 12 Mini is starting to seriously lag both in Apple apps and 3rd party apps. Thats a very disturbing coincidence, especially since it's not the first time it has happened. By the way I am still on "old" iOS 16.7.2 because I don't trust Apple release anymore. In fact, if I could, I would go back to the iOS the iPhone was sold with; but you can't because Apple is selling their update bullshit narrative in their marketing. From where I sit there are a lot more cons than pros for the average user...