> We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit.
There is a lot I hate about building apps and releasing them on the App Store, and I'd be happy for there to be alternatives. But that said, I don't understand how its a monopoly. There is no requirement to build an app for iOS devices. There are other devices and means for software delivery out there. What makes their control of their own ecosystem monopolistic? As someone who has paid the apple tax for digital sales, it sucks but I'm also choosing to try to capture that market and that's the cost of doing business.
I'm not smart enough to get into the politics of other parts of the world, but just because the EU found something illegal doesn't mean its the basis of a good lawsuit under the US rules. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
I think it's really a perceived monopoly. Apple has created such a great thing that everyone wanted to get in on it but some people don't want to pay the Apple premium. Because most of their market is Apple App Store, they can make more money from the App Store, it's perceived as having a monopoly on mobile phone app stores.
I'm not an Apple enthusiast—my rarely used iPad mini is my only Apple device—but let me play devil’s advocate.
If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-friendly that a monkey can use it, the trade-off is that you agree to my Terms of Service. There are other options out there.
> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
I suppose you have the legal right to do whatever you're able to up until people notice the problems you're causing and pass laws against it (or enforce existing ones, as is being attempted here).
Why should it be legally permissible to "sell" general purpose computing devices that are locked by the manufacturer or vendor? How does such behavior benefit society? Aren't locked down, effectively unauditable devices anathema to a free and open society? Isn't the current situation evidence enough that their existence is damaging to the concept of a free market?
The law is complicated, its a living thing, and we're living through one of the nastier episodes of its capture in living memory. So who knows there. Its also breaking sharply on this issue in what was once a fairly high-compatibility regime of US/EU common-ish values.
So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle:
- aggregate prosperity
- broad prosperity and security from want
- individual liberty
You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process.
So then it becomes about:
- would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want
- if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group
For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps.
But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.
> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because not doing so harms the market and society (the article details how). Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights. Ideals (e.g. "a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow") are valuable guides, and worth bearing even significant costs to keep, but they are not to be followed blindly, at any cost.
> There are other options out there.
Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails. You also ignore Apple's middle-man role - consumers can choose (among the very few) different options, but companies serving Apple's captured market cannot.
Ah finally someone coming to the rescue of criminally underrepresented multi-billion dollar companies and their inevitable tactics of building monopolies, because how else do you 10% revenue growth every year. I hear Shell is also in need of some help, maybe you can find a thread on them? /s
But seriously though: why do people argue that „investing money“ leads to „I can do whatever the hell I want to my client base“? Even if this argument were to hold for all future customers, companies change their TOS all the time. Can I ask for all my money that I paid them back, to exit their ecosystem?..
Any argument in this vein must also apply to the Mac. The hardware is mostly the same. The OS is mostly the same. The native apps and services are identical, as is the security story. So why should the Mac not be locked down if the iPhone is? Put another way, what prevents Apple from using the exact same reasoning to lock down my Mac in the future, perhaps under pressure from authoritarian governments? After all, the technology (notarization) is already in place and is actively being abused for iOS app review in the EU.
That's just an argument in favour of monopolization. Monopolization kills innovation and hurts the market. Companies are not individuals that should be allowed to do whatever they want just because they have already invested in R&D, thats a nonsensical argument. That's like saying that car companies don't have to put seatbelts in cars because they already invested in R&D for building the car. It doesn't matter what a company have or haven't done! Rules exists for creating a better society.
Now imagine that instead of an iPad, you've just bought a new house with fantastic materials and an integrated software system. Should the company that built it have the right to control how and who interacts with your house?
It doesn't stop at Apple's ecosystem. It also allows Apple to regulate the choices and privacy of the people and companies using their products. There's hardware, software, and there is data. Trying to control other people's data and taking away their freedom of choice regarding their data and services used is the issue.
I don't own any Apple product, but I do admire occasionally how Apple tries to uphold the quality and security of their ecosystem, even as I principally disagree with the walled garden approach. I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
It is complicated, but I think the big thing is that Apple is huge. Not a monopoly, but your may miss >50% of your potential revenue if you take the "other option" of not supporting the Apple ecosystem.
But in this case, I still think Apple has a point. It is not a lawsuit so that consumers can truly own their device, it is not about opening bootloaders and things like that. It is just about not paying the 30% tax to Apple. And while not an Apple fan myself, I understand the appeal of Apple controlling the ecosystem, and paying 30% more for it is not a big deal. By simply buying an Apple device, you show that you are ready to pay a premium for this, so paying a premium for software too seems fitting.
Proton has a point regarding ads though, but it can be seen the other way: maybe Apple should control the ad delivery service too and take its cut too. If Apple does it right, it could actually be a good thing for privacy.
I repeat that it is not what I want, I like being able to do what I want with my hardware, but I see the value in what Apple offers. In this case, let the courts decide.
Apple has not just created integrated HW/SW to sell as a product, with the AppStore they created a closed market within that product that only Apple controls.
They invite others to sell on that market, but made themselves gatekeeper and simultaneously a player there, controlling the rules of that market in its favor.
Market forces are unable to flow freely, to the point that it affects the "parent" market (in which the iPhone/iPad competes with others) as well as other markets (where other Hardware and Services are sold).
Their closed market reached a significant size now, so it should be reasonable to step in and ensure fair competition also there.
But thanks to those layers of abstraction, billions of dollar in lobbying and marketing, there is always room to argue that ensuring that free market is unjust, hinders innovation, restricts Apple from competing, etc.
>If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it?
Of course not. Companies exist only because it is useful to have that sort of legal entity. They should be regulated to ensure that they remain more useful than harmful to society.
In the most respectful tone possible, I think if you read the article in its entirety you would get your answer. Laws are needed to keep in check powerful and influential companies so they don't take advantage. Your "devil's advocate" position is questioning 'why should consumers and those who create content for the ecosystem be treated fairly within the ecosystem a company built.' If you don't see an issue with taking advantage of people within the boundary of where you have influence/control, then perhaps let me frame it another way. Your "devil's advocate" position is essentially 'I've built a successful company, therefore I should be allowed to take advantage of the employees inside my company. While they are here, they are forced to endure. If they don't like it, they can go work for the only other employeer'
Lots of responses here but none of them mention the Hollywood story!
Thomas Edison and Company invented a patent system that separated their inventions from being able to be accessed by indie movie makers, and indie producers. Their lawyers would effectively shut down any such movements. This caused them to go all the way to Los Angeles because it was the furthest from New York and they built a movie studio on poverty row that later became the capital of Hollywood movie making.
Once Hollywood became financially strong enough, the lawyers were sent over to shut it down, but the court sided with Hollywood and killed all of the patents because the courts thought that they had abused the pattern system to only benefit a few, what I would like to call the cartel.
The cartel were chosen movie makers, and producers, who had access to the movie making stuff and cameras and equipment by which they would share a percentage of the revenue of the movie production and the theater income with Thomas Edison and Company. Effectively they had what Apple has currently.
You're not forced to do anything. There are no criminal outcomes of any anticompetitive legislation.
For companies, there are civil outcomes. This may be undesirable if you have a large financial interest in the company, but it's a tradeoff for the same legislative body allowing you to create a shield from personal liability and taxation.
If you are able to create an ecosystem on your own, do what you like with it.
No the US Sherman anti trust law prohibit monopolies. Its not a corporate right but right by citizens not to be affected by monopoly by rule of law or until tried.
"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
> If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
Because once I buy your phone/tablet/whatever, it stops being yours and starts being mine, so I should be in charge of what software it can run from then on.
Think about this for physical objects. If I bought your hardware, then decided to paint it bright pink in celebration of the fact that I like pink, but you don't like the color pink, should you be able to tell me not to paint it pink? I bought it, it's mine, so I can do just that. Why then, for digital objects, does that not follow?
Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their product away for free and spy on their users anyway.
I never really understood the monopolistic argument against Apple. In the first place, there are very clear legal criteria that define what a monopoly is and what anti-competitive behaviors are, and it’s not even the case that majority of the world runs on iOS. It is actually Android that is the most popular OS globally by a wide margin, though the split is somewhat equal in the US.
But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
Living in the US, I trust Apple with securing my communications (I don't have high security needs). I don't exactly trust third party developers. So, three no need for me to use something outside of Apple's apps, unless its something that don't provide. If these apps could prove they were better, id consider them, but all these lawsuits just sound like inferior products trying to force themselves onto a platform they should be on.
I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.
Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
- Yes, I know you are part of the domestic US long tail that use signal/telegram with all your friends.
- Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage.
ETA: A note because people are pretty incredulous about "most evil". Tech companies do a lot of evil stuff, no doubt.
But there is something special about putting social connection behind an expensive hardware purchase and walled garden lock in. Every other messaging app I know of is open to anyone on most platforms for little or no cost. Apple on the other hand purposely leveraged social connections in your life to force you into their garden and keep you there. Lets not pretend that Apple couldn't open up iMessage or even charge a nominal fee for outsiders. Instead you get an iphone and just seemlessly slide into iMessage. So seemless that most users don't even know that it is a separate service than sms/mms/rcs. Apple muddies that too.
But they would never do that, because using people's closest social connections to force them into the ecosystem and lock them there is just too juicy. "Oh you don't want an iPhone anymore? Well looks like you have to leave your social circles main discussion hub to do so..."
> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage
What a ridiculous statement. Even with your edit it's still an utterly stupid conclusion to come to.
Off the top of my head I can think of way worse things tech companies have done. Cambridge Analytica scandal, Gmail scanning, the Google Shopping lawsuit, Amazon's product clone hijack, Facebooks mood manipulation experiment, Ring doorbell viewing, Uber spying, to name just a few FAR worse things tech companies have done.
I don't really agree with this framing. The fundamental issue is user ignorance, full stop. The fact is that our collective tech education is in a terrible state. Apple exploiting this to sell iPhones is just natural behavior for a profit-driven enterprise.
Instead of shaming Apple (which won't be very effective IMO), we should aim to improve education. Teach users how SMS/MMS/iMessage work. Tell them that they can install universal messaging apps and so on.
This is probably a controversial opinion but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system. I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores. So I find it distasteful that other companies are seeking to control Apple's product design through the legal system. They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo. iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
If you want that, you can purchase any number of Android devices.
Not very. Plenty of people, including on HN, agree with you.
> but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system.
Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
> I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores.
And I don’t want everything to be a subscription, yet here we are. Just like I have to avoid the majority of apps today, you’ll avoid other App Stores if that is what you want.
You’re at a significant advantage because ignoring other stores is much easier, and opening up the iPhone to third-party stores has an effect on the policies of the main App Store. This is plainly demonstrated by the acceptance of the emulator from the creator of an alternative store. So even by not using those third-party ones, you’re benefiting.
> They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo.
That doesn’t make sense. There’s no monopoly on a product which doesn’t exist.
> iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
You don’t have to be a monopoly to be harmful to consumers. Companies have realised that long ago and it’s time consumers do too.
iPhone's other aspects would still remain comfortably locked down and strictly controlled for you by them if there was the opt in for those interested to have alternative ways of paying for subscriptions.
I could hardly believe you only pay through Apple for everything, I mean everything, as THE trustful, others are not trusted, not using other safe payment methods for some products due to security concerns. Not only Apple is secure in this regard.
As there are opt ins on iPhone for so many highly unsecure matters, you could share the most sensitive data with the individual apps with a flick if you wish (sharing personal and very sensitive data, sometimes personal data of others without their consent, like contacts) it is very hard to understand why this particular opt in is ringing your alarm bells of security irrevocably lost and get locked out completely ("impossible to purchase product") that hard....
You can have your choice of not choosing still, while Apple's product design would otherwise remain intact in its current form. Your arguments are very inconsistent.
This is how you know Apple's marketing is effective. When users think they have a sense of security by using Apple's apps and apps on Apple's store and advocate against competition against Apple.
I was curious about the suit by proton because I'm a user until I read authoritarian this democracy that .
Proton wants us to believe that corporations should be above nation states and national interests.
If country X deems a certain App as a security risk, it is not the work of apple or some vague state department funded organization to protest .
Proton is explicitly suggesting that a company can choose to help a government with an authoritarian agenda, so they agree with you that a company has no obligation to protest. They make no assertions as to whether corporations should be above nation states but they do wear their politics on their sleeve (that authoritarianism should be opposed).
Their point is that they, as a separate company, can choose to object and attempt to offer products to help people evade authoritarianism and that Apple shouldn't be able to interfere with that in the US market in ways that they do. Obviously in the market of the authoritarian regime they can interfere, but that has no bearing to a US court.
Apple can do anything it wants with its software. Just as any person decides who comes into his house, a corporation decides on what terms others can use its software.
> Earlier today, Proton filed court papers in the US District Court for the Northern District of California to join an existing class-action lawsuit against Apple. Proton is a plaintiff in the case, but we are representing and suing on behalf of a class of similarly situated developers. Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in the history of capitalism is not a decision we make lightly, but Proton has long championed online freedom, privacy, and security, and we believe this action is necessary to ensure the internet of the future lives up to its potential.
Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in history, god I feel so much safer already. Sounds like PR campaign speak. I trust Proton as much as I trust Microsoft.
> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process payments through the App Store. However, privacy-first companies that monetize through subscriptions are disproportionately hit by this fee, putting a major barrier toward the adoption of privacy-first business models.
Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way and it might be the most compelling argument I’ve heard to date. It’s not simply a debate about whether a company should be allowed to be vertically integrated in isolation, but whether that vertical integration allows them to exert unfair distorting pressure on the free markets we are trying to protect.
It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet."
No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period.
But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy"
No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.
I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not.
1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out.
2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries.
Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything.
Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...
The entire business model that monetises user data, where the actual customer is the advertiser, users do not vote with their wallets, and honest competition is impossible because no one can compete with free, should simply not exist and maybe regulated against—especially in social media, where it incentivises algorithms to push aggravating content in the name of engagement and ad views.
Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work.
It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”.
Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business.
Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?
Yes, in a way it's a rather good argument. But if you take it to its conclusion, if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
It's a good argument but I'm not sure it'll hold up. Apple went to great lengths to clamp down on privacy-abusing advertising via ATT. I think Facebook have been quite open about the huge revenues it cost them alone.
I'm not so sure it's the best argument but I get what they're saying. The problem is, the argument basically says all free apps are bad, all paid apps are good. The price of an app isn't a good indicator of its intentions.
every developer knows safari is the new ie6 but we all just shrug and build native apps anyway because what else are you gonna do. leave 50% of your users on the table. classic embrace extend extinguish but in reverse. embrace web standards then purposely not extend them so you can extinguish competition
Every colleague in my company only targets and tests against Chrome because they honestly considers _everything_ and anything Chrome does as the standard.
As a FF user it hurts me because even if Apple and Mozilla has implemented some feature according to spec these people ignore that in favour of the Chrome way of doing things.
Calling Safari the new ie6 is ignorant of reality.
I detest Apple and would happily switch to a timeline where they never existed.
That said, I do not think this is the way to fight them. Just do not make apps for iPhone, or pass the 30% Apple tax to the Apple fanboys. They enjoy being submissive to walled garden overlords and paying for the privilege, so give them what they want.
These are perfectly valid options. Create value for more open ecosystems if you want to hurt the closed ones.
Not related directly and not related to subscription — a recent case of Apple’s anticompetitive and user hostile policies is Apple essentially locking down email push notifications and essentially forcing everyone to use fetch. They had given a way via some signing and now they just shut it down or it broke and they didn’t fix it. Now if every mail provider have their own app then they can circumvent via some shenanigans of non mail push notifications and then fetch mail or some circus. My mail provider doesn’t have their own app so I am stuck with third party apps where push stopped working.
We can play technical gymnastics around this but this just sucks!
The point I found myself resonating with a lot is:
>Apple’s App Store policies disproportionately favor the surveillance capitalism business model employed by companies like Meta and Google and therefore entrench an online business model that routinely violates consumers’ personal privacy.
Reply to a couple hundred comments: You don’t have to be a monopoly to be deemed to be acting in an anti-competitive manner.
Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competition.
Apple is using their control of their phone hardware and OS to preclude any alternate source of apps or app stores, in order to charge a large vig on every app and in app purchase. And block competitive, tech like alternate web browser engines, and any app they don’t like.
They are big enough to warp the whole market for mobile apps and browsers. A large percentage of apps become much less viable if they don’t supportiOS. So “choose another phone” isn’t a viable solution to the harm.
Nothing stops Apple from having an App Store. Using it to enforce security rules. Nothing stops users from using it exclusively (EDIT: Don’t download from other sources, or if you do, click “no” when you get asked if you want to install apps from other sources. This is trivial for Apple to do.)
The problem is the app market is massive, highly dependent on having iOS versions to compete in the overall mobile device space, and Apple is both blocking alternative app sources and taxing all those apps, and completely prohibiting some apps, while prohibiting any other options.
Enforcing rules against anti-competitive behavior isn’t a zero cost practice. it is reasonable for some people to prefer the status quo.
But it’s better than allowing anti-competitive behavior, which would encourage more such behavior because not having competition is incredibly profitable. And the harms of letting anti-competitive behavior go unchecked tend to be significant but only obvious in hindsight, or never. That’s part of the problem. Without healthy competition lots of significant but non-obvious progress gets snuffed out before it has a chance.
Either you nip it in the bud, or end up dealing with much worse abuses.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 74.7 ms ] threadOuch. Those are some fighting words.
I'm not smart enough to get into the politics of other parts of the world, but just because the EU found something illegal doesn't mean its the basis of a good lawsuit under the US rules. Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
If a company invests billions in R&D to create hardware and its integrated software, shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?
If my pitch is premium, high-speed hardware and intuitive software so user-friendly that a monkey can use it, the trade-off is that you agree to my Terms of Service. There are other options out there.
I suppose you have the legal right to do whatever you're able to up until people notice the problems you're causing and pass laws against it (or enforce existing ones, as is being attempted here).
Why should it be legally permissible to "sell" general purpose computing devices that are locked by the manufacturer or vendor? How does such behavior benefit society? Aren't locked down, effectively unauditable devices anathema to a free and open society? Isn't the current situation evidence enough that their existence is damaging to the concept of a free market?
So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle:
- aggregate prosperity - broad prosperity and security from want - individual liberty
You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process.
So then it becomes about:
- would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want
- if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group
For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps.
But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.
Because not doing so harms the market and society (the article details how). Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights. Ideals (e.g. "a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow") are valuable guides, and worth bearing even significant costs to keep, but they are not to be followed blindly, at any cost.
> There are other options out there.
Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails. You also ignore Apple's middle-man role - consumers can choose (among the very few) different options, but companies serving Apple's captured market cannot.
But seriously though: why do people argue that „investing money“ leads to „I can do whatever the hell I want to my client base“? Even if this argument were to hold for all future customers, companies change their TOS all the time. Can I ask for all my money that I paid them back, to exit their ecosystem?..
I don't own any Apple product, but I do admire occasionally how Apple tries to uphold the quality and security of their ecosystem, even as I principally disagree with the walled garden approach. I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.
But in this case, I still think Apple has a point. It is not a lawsuit so that consumers can truly own their device, it is not about opening bootloaders and things like that. It is just about not paying the 30% tax to Apple. And while not an Apple fan myself, I understand the appeal of Apple controlling the ecosystem, and paying 30% more for it is not a big deal. By simply buying an Apple device, you show that you are ready to pay a premium for this, so paying a premium for software too seems fitting.
Proton has a point regarding ads though, but it can be seen the other way: maybe Apple should control the ad delivery service too and take its cut too. If Apple does it right, it could actually be a good thing for privacy.
I repeat that it is not what I want, I like being able to do what I want with my hardware, but I see the value in what Apple offers. In this case, let the courts decide.
They invite others to sell on that market, but made themselves gatekeeper and simultaneously a player there, controlling the rules of that market in its favor.
Market forces are unable to flow freely, to the point that it affects the "parent" market (in which the iPhone/iPad competes with others) as well as other markets (where other Hardware and Services are sold).
Their closed market reached a significant size now, so it should be reasonable to step in and ensure fair competition also there.
But thanks to those layers of abstraction, billions of dollar in lobbying and marketing, there is always room to argue that ensuring that free market is unjust, hinders innovation, restricts Apple from competing, etc.
Of course not. Companies exist only because it is useful to have that sort of legal entity. They should be regulated to ensure that they remain more useful than harmful to society.
Thomas Edison and Company invented a patent system that separated their inventions from being able to be accessed by indie movie makers, and indie producers. Their lawyers would effectively shut down any such movements. This caused them to go all the way to Los Angeles because it was the furthest from New York and they built a movie studio on poverty row that later became the capital of Hollywood movie making.
Once Hollywood became financially strong enough, the lawyers were sent over to shut it down, but the court sided with Hollywood and killed all of the patents because the courts thought that they had abused the pattern system to only benefit a few, what I would like to call the cartel.
The cartel were chosen movie makers, and producers, who had access to the movie making stuff and cameras and equipment by which they would share a percentage of the revenue of the movie production and the theater income with Thomas Edison and Company. Effectively they had what Apple has currently.
For companies, there are civil outcomes. This may be undesirable if you have a large financial interest in the company, but it's a tradeoff for the same legislative body allowing you to create a shield from personal liability and taxation.
If you are able to create an ecosystem on your own, do what you like with it.
"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
Because once I buy your phone/tablet/whatever, it stops being yours and starts being mine, so I should be in charge of what software it can run from then on.
I never really understood the monopolistic argument against Apple. In the first place, there are very clear legal criteria that define what a monopoly is and what anti-competitive behaviors are, and it’s not even the case that majority of the world runs on iOS. It is actually Android that is the most popular OS globally by a wide margin, though the split is somewhat equal in the US.
But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones.
Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.
Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even worse being a teenager and having to endure social shaming for it. It wasn't until the EU signaled it was going to bring down then axe that Apple capitulated to RCS.
- Yes, I know you are part of the domestic US long tail that use signal/telegram with all your friends.
- Yes, I know no one outside the US uses iMessage.
ETA: A note because people are pretty incredulous about "most evil". Tech companies do a lot of evil stuff, no doubt.
But there is something special about putting social connection behind an expensive hardware purchase and walled garden lock in. Every other messaging app I know of is open to anyone on most platforms for little or no cost. Apple on the other hand purposely leveraged social connections in your life to force you into their garden and keep you there. Lets not pretend that Apple couldn't open up iMessage or even charge a nominal fee for outsiders. Instead you get an iphone and just seemlessly slide into iMessage. So seemless that most users don't even know that it is a separate service than sms/mms/rcs. Apple muddies that too.
But they would never do that, because using people's closest social connections to force them into the ecosystem and lock them there is just too juicy. "Oh you don't want an iPhone anymore? Well looks like you have to leave your social circles main discussion hub to do so..."
It's just evil on another level.
What a ridiculous statement. Even with your edit it's still an utterly stupid conclusion to come to.
Off the top of my head I can think of way worse things tech companies have done. Cambridge Analytica scandal, Gmail scanning, the Google Shopping lawsuit, Amazon's product clone hijack, Facebooks mood manipulation experiment, Ring doorbell viewing, Uber spying, to name just a few FAR worse things tech companies have done.
Instead of shaming Apple (which won't be very effective IMO), we should aim to improve education. Teach users how SMS/MMS/iMessage work. Tell them that they can install universal messaging apps and so on.
If you want that, you can purchase any number of Android devices.
Not very. Plenty of people, including on HN, agree with you.
> but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system.
Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.
> I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores.
And I don’t want everything to be a subscription, yet here we are. Just like I have to avoid the majority of apps today, you’ll avoid other App Stores if that is what you want.
You’re at a significant advantage because ignoring other stores is much easier, and opening up the iPhone to third-party stores has an effect on the policies of the main App Store. This is plainly demonstrated by the acceptance of the emulator from the creator of an alternative store. So even by not using those third-party ones, you’re benefiting.
> They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo.
That doesn’t make sense. There’s no monopoly on a product which doesn’t exist.
> iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.
You don’t have to be a monopoly to be harmful to consumers. Companies have realised that long ago and it’s time consumers do too.
I could hardly believe you only pay through Apple for everything, I mean everything, as THE trustful, others are not trusted, not using other safe payment methods for some products due to security concerns. Not only Apple is secure in this regard.
As there are opt ins on iPhone for so many highly unsecure matters, you could share the most sensitive data with the individual apps with a flick if you wish (sharing personal and very sensitive data, sometimes personal data of others without their consent, like contacts) it is very hard to understand why this particular opt in is ringing your alarm bells of security irrevocably lost and get locked out completely ("impossible to purchase product") that hard....
You can have your choice of not choosing still, while Apple's product design would otherwise remain intact in its current form. Your arguments are very inconsistent.
Their point is that they, as a separate company, can choose to object and attempt to offer products to help people evade authoritarianism and that Apple shouldn't be able to interfere with that in the US market in ways that they do. Obviously in the market of the authoritarian regime they can interfere, but that has no bearing to a US court.
Challenging one of the most powerful corporations in history, god I feel so much safer already. Sounds like PR campaign speak. I trust Proton as much as I trust Microsoft.
https://res.cloudinary.com/dbulfrlrz/images/v1751299117/wp-p...
Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way and it might be the most compelling argument I’ve heard to date. It’s not simply a debate about whether a company should be allowed to be vertically integrated in isolation, but whether that vertical integration allows them to exert unfair distorting pressure on the free markets we are trying to protect.
No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period.
But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy"
No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.
1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out.
2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries.
Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything.
Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...
Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work.
It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”.
Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business.
Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?
Every colleague in my company only targets and tests against Chrome because they honestly considers _everything_ and anything Chrome does as the standard.
As a FF user it hurts me because even if Apple and Mozilla has implemented some feature according to spec these people ignore that in favour of the Chrome way of doing things.
Calling Safari the new ie6 is ignorant of reality.
That said, I do not think this is the way to fight them. Just do not make apps for iPhone, or pass the 30% Apple tax to the Apple fanboys. They enjoy being submissive to walled garden overlords and paying for the privilege, so give them what they want.
These are perfectly valid options. Create value for more open ecosystems if you want to hurt the closed ones.
We can play technical gymnastics around this but this just sucks!
>Apple’s App Store policies disproportionately favor the surveillance capitalism business model employed by companies like Meta and Google and therefore entrench an online business model that routinely violates consumers’ personal privacy.
Spot on.
Just dominant by some significant measure, in some significant dimension, enough for many people to complain. And for a judge to review the practices and find the company is leveraging that dominance to maintain dominance or hold dominance over adjacent markets in a way that is blocking competition.
Apple is using their control of their phone hardware and OS to preclude any alternate source of apps or app stores, in order to charge a large vig on every app and in app purchase. And block competitive, tech like alternate web browser engines, and any app they don’t like.
They are big enough to warp the whole market for mobile apps and browsers. A large percentage of apps become much less viable if they don’t supportiOS. So “choose another phone” isn’t a viable solution to the harm.
Nothing stops Apple from having an App Store. Using it to enforce security rules. Nothing stops users from using it exclusively (EDIT: Don’t download from other sources, or if you do, click “no” when you get asked if you want to install apps from other sources. This is trivial for Apple to do.)
The problem is the app market is massive, highly dependent on having iOS versions to compete in the overall mobile device space, and Apple is both blocking alternative app sources and taxing all those apps, and completely prohibiting some apps, while prohibiting any other options.
Enforcing rules against anti-competitive behavior isn’t a zero cost practice. it is reasonable for some people to prefer the status quo.
But it’s better than allowing anti-competitive behavior, which would encourage more such behavior because not having competition is incredibly profitable. And the harms of letting anti-competitive behavior go unchecked tend to be significant but only obvious in hindsight, or never. That’s part of the problem. Without healthy competition lots of significant but non-obvious progress gets snuffed out before it has a chance.
Either you nip it in the bud, or end up dealing with much worse abuses.