Pro-consumer behavior almost always looks like anti-publisher behavior.
If you don't want to give random apps your credit card, don't give it to them. Why do you oppose other people's right to do that, if they need it?
If they’re forced to open up to 3rd party stores, I hope they can do it in a way that prevents Adobe from running 8 background processes to make sure my license is current and there aren’t any font updates to download and to make Reader launch faster by keeping it in memory all the time, or whatever it is they do with their Creative Cloud client stuff.
> given that I want to use and pay for a piece of software, I would rather pay through Apple
and you're saying
> if you want to pay through Apple, then don't use and pay for the piece of software
Neil Cybart wrote this in a July 6th newsletter: “Billions of people use Android smartphones. However, the press views Android as so inferior to iOS that it’s not a viable alternative for Apple users. That ends up saying more about the competition failing than Apple users suffering from Apple possessing too much power and success.” I had a hard time believing that when I read it, but maybe it’s true.
Not the only store, period.
There is Android store which has 4 times as many users, and at some point Microsoft had a store but people didn't like it either...
If they were so pro-consumer, why do they allow spyware such as Tiktok to exist on their platform at all?
That only affects the developer, not the consumer. What does the consumer care about who gets paid the fees.
I keep seeing the App Store framed as a consumer issue rather than a developer one when it's not. The App Store is no question pro-consumer especially when you consider the fact that the "open" web has essentially devolved into using every available toolkit to track users across the web.
I'm not at all interested in giving Facebook yet another platform where they can run amok with native hardware. I'm not interested in cleaning off Bonzai Buddy off my parents and friends phones.
Instead Apple had implemented the most stringent, pro-privacy features and polices on any platform bar none.
I would prefer paying for Netflix right from the iPhone. It would be great to have torrent apps (they have legitimate use-cases). I would love to run qemu on my powerful iPad Pro.
Apple does not allow any of that.
You can go to https://netflix.com
You can also buy an Android phone like 85% of the rest of the world.
That's what the anti-monopoly is about. Frequently, apples 'pro consumer behavior' is demonstrably false, both from their hardware to their software. It's about making you artificially pay more for less and creating a culture of privledged users that mistake revocation of freedom as 'design' because they have the money to ignore reality.
Apple deserves any anti-monopoly actions it gets.
[1] Don't google it. I made it up.
Pro-consumer vs anti-publisher is a false equivalence. This is not a zero-sum game, not at all.
And when developers are forced to support all 5 big ones?
And when any benefit of a reduction in fees is completely lost because of the requirement to support all 5 stores?
If the remedy for Apple picking winners is more stores, then it just means all of the big players will get to pick winners.
There is absolutely nothing whatsoever that is pro consumer about having Google, Amazon, and Facebook be able to run iOS app stores.
It will just raise costs for developers and harm consumers that way.
It will lead to exclusives just as we have in the online streaming world, so consumers are forced to deal with all of them.
The iPhone has been pretty good for security / privacy as well - I remember an article that made the front page here about how an accidental usage of the phone's GPS was still stopped when not allowed in the user's settings, and still triggered the location use icon in the status bar.
Much like how Standard Oil actually lowered oil prices while it dominated the market -- sometimes, a monopoly is benign or even benevolent towards consumers. Meanwhile Amazon is an example of a more predatory organization, as evidenced by some of Bezos's responses in the recent congressional hearing.
Monopolies like Amazon should be torn down for the consumer. Monopolies like Apple should only be torn down if they are using their market dominance to extinguish competition that would otherwise force them to improve.
No one is talking about taking away your choice of keep using the Apple appstore. It is ok to keep using Apple, if you prefer so. We wan't choices, we don't want to remove your choice.
It seems like you want to remove that choice.
You want Apple to prohibit the apps you use from being allowed to tell you about alternative payment options?
I get it, everyone wants always more. And maybe there is more room. Many just view it from their own point of view.
PayPal comes to mind.
Android has the freedom of other app stores, but in practice very few even bother
As a fahter, the Apple App Store too is the only place I give my children access too. They started with Android phones but after I noticed the apps which are present in the Google Play Store we went on to switch to iOS. Passing on our used devices to our kids.
Google could have done amazing things, abd so could Microsoft. But both took a different parh. I am not a Apple fanboy, I fact I am very critical about them. Yet its simply the best ecosystem for normal consumers.
Do you think most consumers would choose to pay 20~30% more for that convenience if they were informed of that choice? And isn't it anti-consumer to deny them this information?
But so far we only got:
EA, UBISOFT, GOG, STEAM, epic and windows store.
Most markets offer a variety of tradeoffs in price vs. quality. Consumers rarely pick the cheapest product. If Apple's app store is superior, they will have no problem in justifying their 30%.
If you can force thru a change to allow other app stores on an IDevice, and Apple still refuses to follow thru, then you can say you deserve it.
Wanting a thing is not the same as deserving it. Choice does not exist until you have options.
That said, I’m in favor of opening up other App Stores, so Apple can boot the all crapware and focus on a small number of high-quality, trustable apps, which they can market as such. Apple and the developers could charge a premium for being trusted and consumers would be able trust that they are actually receiving the best-in-class apps for their device.
Then, if consumers want to go to some cut-rate App Store and buy crap apps, that’s on them.
That’s a win-win all around.
People at Apple choose not to spend their time, money, and energy on supporting third-party app stores.
You can choose to do whatever you want. But you can't force people at Apple to choose to do something.
These apps track your location (both sensor and geoip based) over time, and aggregate and sell that data, along with other user data they glean.
When the App Store was launched, Steve Jobs said they plan to run it at break-even, no profit, and for quite a few years that was exactly what they did. Now they are profiting from the App Store and clearly could continue to run it as they do on a lower percentage, but I don't think 10% is that number. If they could run it on 10%, they wouldn't have operated it without profit for the first quite-a-few years at 30%!
Its not just about being a monopoly in the economical sense, which is bad per-se, but to let a private company to control what you have access or not based on particular moral, political views.
To forbid you to access technology that can compete with what they offer on the basis of "security".
If you do not get it, they control the only app store allowed where they also control what you can or cannot access to. You are implying they are good actors somehow that are doing all this thinking on you, while in reality they will do whatever they can to maximize their profits, and as long as people like you are fine with it, nothing will change.
Your current government might yet be democratic enough as this can not YET represent a threat to your civil rights or the ones you love, but things changes constantly. (Who could have predicted that the 30's Weimar Republic Germany would fall like that?)
Once your government do not respect civil rights anymore the way it should, a private company with this amount of control on your digital life can represent a big threat that unlike in the past, would be pretty hard to get rid of.
What about the concept of digital property? Should you have choices? Can a private company bar your choices? Can a private company own the things that were bought by you and are in a phone that you have pay for?
Imagine if after having bought a vehicle, Wolkswagen could tell you who can you transport: "We dont allow dogs in OUR cars".
Now imagine someone saying: "I like what Wolkswagen do, its for my safety, dogs will damage my car".. "Just buy a Mercedes then!"
Or what if Wolkswagen did also sell vehicle parts, and even if you know there are pieces for your cars that are better or cheap, you wouldnt be able to buy them because the stores would be closed for you.
But then you would say: "But apple dont bar me from buying apps, i have choices.." and its a illusion of choice, because the apps were not even allowed to enter the store in the first place.
So there's a real danger into letting any private company to choose things for you before you are able to choose them.
We should have by now a good legislation about digital rights, digital property, etc, that could regulate this source of thing.
Because as i've witnessed here in the comments, you cannot let people on their own, because they can be emotionally manipulated into want things that will harm them and their rights in the long run.
It should not be just about being good for you at this particular moment, we should always take into account the collective and social implications of our choices.
Yes. Americans fully support their money going towards 2 trillion dollar companies as long as their device works well and they can upgrade to the fastest model every 2-4 years.
If, however, you want to impose the support of other stores on Apple by the means of regulations, you're effectively supporting the use of the government's monopoly of force against a company that is building products that people are happy to pay a premium to buy products from (and therefore are perfectly fine with the app store).
In fact, Apple charges more, so it makes it even more difficult to buy them than an Android phone -- which also has multiple app install options. Why not use that?
The case here is driven mostly by Spotify who claim (my paraphrasing) they cannot benefit Apple customers equaly because of Apple restrictive practices and fee model.
You may not have purchased a Apple device with intention to use with Spotify, but others may.
(Now extrapolate the Spotify story to any appmaker who wish to sell to Apple customers)
The better question is why hasn’t Spotify made a decent watch app that can stream directly to it and download music for off line use? Apple added the ability last year.
How much of a cut does Spotify take from musicians to be on its platform?
So, not only can you can only use Apple's payment methods, but you have to lie (by omission) to consumers about their options.
This is the market distortion of the App Store.
The rules only oblige app vendors if they agree with that contract. Users also only engage in doing business with Apple on a voluntary basis. That's not extortion, by definition.
I would have thought that is obvious to be honest.
In fact, the vast majority of people get something other than an iPhone.
It’s also not unusual for companies to make deals with third parties to include their technology and software in their products, often as optional chargeable extras. That’s all the App Store is, it’s a way to add optional features to your phone, offered by the phone manufacturer. There is nothing illegal or abusive about this.
What’s the alternative. Are you going to mandate what features Apple, or any manufacturer of devices with embedded software, can or cannot implement? Are you going to mandate by law specific features for side loading that all manufacturers have to implement in all devices containing software? What features, who gets to specify them, how will this be enforced?
So now we’re going to have governments design the software in our phones, enshrined in law?
Finally, how does this serve my interests as an iPhone user or developer? Is fragmented app stores going to make it easier to find software, make it easier for developers to connect with customers and increase software revenues? I don’t see it.
Android has had tons of app stores over the years, the public converged on the Play Store because they want to go to one place to get apps and have one company to deal with. Users like consolidation, it serves their needs.
All this does not mean I’m against any regulation. I thing there’s a reasonable case for oversight of these things and a dialogue between law makers and tech companies about how they manage their products and customer relations. That’s fine, but chopping up the market and products arbitrarily does not serve the public interest.
In fact, yes. Just like we mandate cars have seat belts and third brake lights, airliners have emergency exits, automobile fuel contains no lead or added ethanol, houses use electrical wires per code, and so forth.
Government can simply mandate a maximum fee (like credit card interchange fee regulation in the last decade), or force the system to allow sideloading (like busting the AT&T attached device monopoly in the 70s), etc.
I’ll accept the comparison to credit card fees though. As I said I’m not against all oversight of any kind. I just don’t think the 30% is all that high.
Well, it has been done for Microsoft, it could be done for Apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu
(I'm just stating a fact, not judging whether that is a good or a bad idea.)
Because the platform only exists because somebody created it, somebody specific not some consortium.
I don't want my iPhone OS to be created by a consortium, I want it to be run by Apple...
If that consortium is so great, why don’t they just make their own product. Let the public decide what they want.
That would be theft. I am honestly amazed that people are still in favor of gross government overreach in the era of Trump.
I will say it's embarrassing that we've allowed one company's products to become such a status symbol that there is no alternative to the insecure masses, but such is the present world.
Then again, perhaps competition itself is obsolete, and we should just get on to centralized socialism already.
Should we coerce Microsoft into porting the Win32 development stack and tooling to OSX and Linux? It doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t want to use their products, don’t.
Quite honestly, the software lockout business model has been deserving of government scrutiny ever since Nintendo put a lockout chip in the NES. If you own a device you should be able to run any software you want on it.
Break it up, and then you may hear people complain about how the mobile app marketplace is too fragmented (similar to how video streaming currently is).
If I want iOS users to use my app, where can I publish it besides the App Store?
I like the Android implementation, allow users to install third-party apps but make them manually enable the feature, complete with warnings. Users don't have to enable the feature if they want App Store curation, but the option is there.
Yes Apple is, there is no alternative to the App Store on an iPhone.
Part of my confidence in the iOS app store is the fact that Apple controls it so strongly. If they were forced to allow third party apps I doubt I would install any. My phone is too critical a part of my life to risk it.
we already know what a market without a mandatory App Store looks like because it is like that for the Mac. I still prefer buying apps through Apple’s store. Due to safety, ease of use etc. But I am happy alternatives exist when I need them.
They could follow a similar model for iPhone where non-Apple stores have to be enabled specifically with a security warning.
Recall also how Apple forced out Tumblr, a blog reader app (simply a window to UGC) on iOS because they didn’t like the UGC.
The hypothetical lawsuits you describe don't seem very likely to succeed. No doubt a few people will complain, and then they'll discover the hard way that there is no technological cure for carelessness and whatever other platform they go to next will similarly be compromised if they are similarly careless about what they install on their equipment.
I was not able to find anything.
(And do not forget third party push-notifications, iOS devices are next to useless without them)
Exactly. As much as a car manufacturer shouldn't force you to buy only their gas, oil, tires or batteries.
That would be like telling me that if I don't like the Honda Accord I can buy a pickup truck.
They are different things and are not substitutes for each other.
Android is not a substitute for iOS.
The manufacturer of the device is within their rights to ship the software/hardware experience they want it to have.
If you do not like it, then there is no obligation for you to buy said device.
You are not entitled to make the device manufacturer pour time and effort into developing support for features like this. It's quite simple - if you don't like the ecosystem, move on.
This is the same logic people use to block modification of movies, music, books, video games, etc.
"The artist wants you to experience their art a specific way and the ability to [censor profanity/add zombies/change the ending/remix it] wrests control from the creator and allows people experience their art in a way they didn't intend, which is bad"
Curiously though, these people never mention altering food as destroying the experience the chef wanted them to have. For some reason consumers are allowed to have food preferences that modify art, but not preferences that modify other types of art.
This argument you make is actually done to the death. If you don't like Jenko's oil (ever read "The Godfather"?), you may just not buy it. It is a monopoly, and it hurts consumers.
I'm actually very surprised that this freedom-loving public here on HN is so happy be restricted by their shiny digital handcuffs. Good that EU and US lawmakers are finally waking up to this abuse.
Sorry folks, that's not how Sherman Act works. So long as there are enough movie theaters in town it's not a "monopoly", and a non-existent monopoly cannot be abused.
The US congress could, of course, rewrite the law (as they did to pass the Sherman Act in the first place), but until such day Apple is not a monopoly in the US.
Additionally, the network/ecosystem effects might make it such that you are really disincentivized to switch.
- For a lot of people, the idea that they would show up as a "green bubble" means they will never consider moving off of Apple - If you've purchased a lot of apps that you will now lose, you're not going to just move off of Apple
If you don't like a movie theater chain, you just go to another one, or don't go to the movies. Not having a phone isn't a realistic option for most people, and neither is switching (this applies in the Google -> Apple direction as well).
People are very narrowly focused on whether Apple (or Google) are monopolies, and the fact is that you can have very imperfect competition[1] in a market that can seriously harm consumers, without anyone being a monopoly.
While you’re aboard you can only purchase food, drink and entertainment from the cruise company. I don’t think a cruise ship would ever allow competing companies to provide those services.
I’m personally a little mixed on the App Store. I don’t a have fundamental issue with the App Store model, and as an Apple customer I personally see it’s limitations as an advantage.
However I do agree that Apple using its App Store to harm competitors in other industries, like Spotify and Netflix, as very harmful. Although I don’t know how fix that without fundamentally changing the App Store, or banning Apple from competing with App Store services like Spotify and Netflix.
For example, taking your “If you spend a significant amount on a phone, you're stuck there for a while” as a requirement for ‘not allowed’, Apple could start renting out phones instead of selling them.
They also could stop selling third-party apps, instead opting to buy them from third parties and selling them on to consumers or renting them out, as they already do with Apple Arcade. I think any solution would have to keep that in the ‘not allowed’ category, but it would result in a situation similar to that of IBM, which used to (possibly still does) sell CPU upgrades ‘over the air’, disallowing others to do so, or Tesla, which sells software for their cars that way (and, likely, many other companies). Should those be disallowed, too? If not, why not?
And yes, you don’t need monopolies or cartels to get an imperfect market, but if you don’t have monopolies or cartels, you can’t use existing laws on monopolies or cartels to correct that, so what should you use?
How many people are buying apps for the iPhone and not subscriptions that work cross platform or spending money on play to win games?
Do you think the EU definition of monopoly is different enough to allow Apple be classified as a monopoly? Please, make your case!
I personally don't like how Apple conducts their business so I just don't use Apple products and that's that.
If you think I'm overblowing things, try finding Signal in China's AppStore.
If apps being more expensive is really the only problem then it seems like the problem fixes itself.
With appropriate APIs, web apps can reach into devices and leverage GPU and CPU compute, multiple threads, microphone, camera, on-device storage, and more.
HTML and canvas don't have to be the only UI primitives available.
Both Google and Apple should be forced to fund the W3C and/or Mozilla in leading development of a cross-platform native experience. Other companies such as Microsoft and Amazon should join as stakeholders.
Yes, they should be forced to do it.
Edit: Downvotes already? What's wrong with wanting an open platform? Why do we have to expend effort developing for three different tech stacks (Android, iOS, web) when one is superior and wastes less human capital?
Edit 2: Wow, y'all really don't like this. My other suggestion is that we break up Apple and Google into separate companies so they're divested of their app marketplace from their hardware ecosystem/ad tech funnels. I think letting them work together on an open platform is less destructive and puts the world in a better place, but honestly if they can't do this then they should be broken up.
My representative, Lucy McBath, did a great job grilling the tech execs this week, and I continue to support her in breaking apart these unfair monopolies.
Edit 3: If you believe Apple is entitled to reap 30% from controlled access to their generic compute device, then you also should favor cable and internet service providers charging whatever they want for access to their pipes. It's the same thing. How many of you want Comcast to be able to charge you for your Netflix usage?
Private entities shouldn't be forced into doing anything on a whim. You can arguably stop them from doing some things, but there is no reasonable basis for compelling companies to do things as you are saying.
> Downvotes already? What's wrong with wanting an open platform?
The downvotes is because what you suggest is wholly antithetical to every "open" movement in history. You don't get to tell people what to do simply because you want it to be that way. That's tyranny.
> I think letting them work together on an open platform is less destructive and puts the world in a better place
Again with this whole thing. You don't get to enact whatever policies you want because you think it would be nice. People have rights.
It's not a whim. They're being investigated by the EU and US Congress for being monopolies and suffocating smaller players. They're sucking all of the air out of the environment, making it incredibly difficult to gain traction on your own.
Don't trust me? Ask DHH.
> You can arguably stop them from doing some things, but there is no reasonable basis for compelling companies to do things as you are saying.
The government can absolutely tell them what to do. Apple wouldn't be where they are today if the US Government hadn't intervened against Microsoft and forced them to pay Apple.
Apple exists because of antitrust and the DOJ.
> You don't get to tell people what to do simply because you want it to be that way. That's tyranny.
I'm glad the tyrannical government put the FDA in place. And the FAA. Can you imagine if those industries could act however they wanted?
> People have rights.
Companies aren't people. Despite Citizen's United.
Thank god for that. It's why mobile computing in 2020 isn't just Electron apps, like the desktop increasingly becomes...
Microsoft and Amazon are also seen in these processes, though not as often and their buy in is less important since neither develop their own browser at this point.
Apple doesn't have to develop what you want them to develop. But it could be in their interest to avoid being labeled as an abusive monopolistic power. In won't make them any less abusive or monopolistic, but it knocks out some detractors.
Why is it the government’s responsibility to stop you from buying a device that doesn’t fit your needs when you had an option.
Phones are a lot more important than consoles but, if a law doesn’t exist let’s make one that applies to both phones and consoles.
This is our country. If Apple doesn’t like it they can go do business somewhere else.
In light of that reality, the duopoly of Apple and Google are effectively public utilities. They can no longer be considered solely as providers of discretionary consumer goods, and should be subject to additional scrutiny and regulation beyond that applied to ordinary commodity manufacturers.
If you support Apple and Google having locked down authoritative control over the code run on their devices, then you support the Great Firewall.
The only choice of a free and open society, and one mindful of the great benefit of open source and open platforms, is to remove these companies from executive control of mobile platforms. They must become free and open, just like the web.
They're sucking all of the air out of the room. It kills freedom, diversity, and progress. It's rent-seeking.
On ios you can't.
And guess what? I don’t have to use Comcast.
I'm not interested in Facebook, TikTok, or the next VC social media company, getting native, unfettered access to hardware on my phone or anyone around me where they would be free to run the GPS 24/7. That's the reality of the "open web" today.
Claiming that Apple has a "monopoly" on app sales on its own devices might be technically true but is not a meaningful statement when there are plenty of alternatives to Apple devices on the market.
It is about as meaningful as claiming a gas station has a "monopoly" on gas sales in a three block radius, or that a bar has a "monopoly" on cocktail sales in its own building, or that I have a "monopoly" on lemonade sales on my front lawn.
If you have to apply an arbitrary constraint to eliminate the consideration of meaningful alternatives that the consumer has access to, then you're not dealing with an actual monopoly.
Natural (and legal) monopolies exist and are regulated so that there's a perceived net benefit to society for having them. The EU will investigate is (to Europeans) Apple's monopoly is net beneficial to them.
And I imply to agree with labeling Apple a monopoly precisely because, unlike the gas station on your example, a iPhone user cannot drive 3 miles to buy Spotify without having to pay Apple's 30% fee.
Is Apple obliged to make their phones available to other app stores? No. But not doing so AND profiting from 30% AND having a large marketshare is precisely why the EU is investigating them for abusive monopolistic behaviour.
They can choose a non-Apple phone. There is an alternative product on the market.
Generally in Europe the market share threshold for monopoly investigations is 25% - Apple's market-share for mobile app sales is well above that threshold.
> The Commission considers that low market shares are generally a good proxy for the absence of substantial market power. The Commission's experience suggests that dominance is not likely if the undertaking's market share is below 40 % in the relevant market. [1]
Historically the European Commission's antitrust cases against tech giants have largely been against companies with overwhelming market share:
European Commission vs Google: 90% market share in search [2]
European Commission vs Intel: 70% market share in x86 CPUs [3]
European Commission vs Qualcomm: 90% market share in LTE chipsets [4]
Apple's 25% is nowhere near the same level and I expect the Commission's investigation will conclude that they do not, in fact, have a monopoly in the EU.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A...
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_...
[3] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_...
[4] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...
Suppose Apple standardizes jailbreaking: say they allow you to turn on a switch that creates a sandbox on your device for you to do whatever you want. Your device would then be running freestyle without warranty, fair enough for me as a first mockup. What's going to happen next is a handful of illiterate or unaccountable users will deface Apple's reputation by bombarding news sites with their misfortune. Apple would be cancelled overnight. I'm barely exaggerating.
Now I guess some EU negotiations could help to have some in-app purchases without fees (like buying a book in the Kindle app), avoid getting their app rejected for a shady reason (because rules can be changed whenever Apple sees fit) and, above all, allow me to set my morning alarm to some radio app (this one is ridiculous). The tragedy is that no "developers union" could ever succeed at this.
The last issue, about supporting authoritarian regimes, is probably the most difficult to solve. This is politics, there are no companies or governments that can have it all every time. China is a huge market: you cannot hope staying in business if you try to impose all your rules everywhere. That's the exact same idea behind having the EU make a stand on the single store issues. Also, the most intolerant wins [1].
[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
Many Android phones already allow you to gain access to root or to replace the OS that the device ships with (and even more of them allow for indiscriminate sideloading, even without rooting). Has Android's reputation been "defaced" over this opportunity for users to run custom software on their devices?
But indeed "reputation" is more about marketing and at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the margin they can extract from aftermarket sales. As the recent antitrust inquiry shows, we were short of having 40% fee on app store sales.
https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/128856728139671142...
I think 30% made sense back then when the platform was tiptoeing. Now it may look as an abuse of dominant position, the classical shareholders vs workers game. I wonder how the appstore operating costs and profit have evolved over time.
Apple should be able to do this - but they shouldn't be able to do it without those companies being able to represent themselves independently, through another app store.
I dont think they should. They should only do enough to comply with the law. eg. child pornography
Each human being has its own moral standards and should be allowed to choose and not let others choose for them, unless as stated before, its considered illegal.
Also: you have any UGC in your app? Too bad, you'll have to hire a team of moderators to enforce Apple's rules because won't someone think of the children.
> Apple is using its monopoly to hold all of us hostage
> Apple’s iOS controls 25% of the global smartphone market (the other 75%, is largely controlled by Google’s Android). This means that for over a billion people (particularly in the US where their market share approaches 50%), the only way to install apps is through the App Store. This gives Apple enormous influence over the way software is created and consumed around the world.
25% is indeed "enormous influence" but it's not a monopoly. It feeling like one isn't enough. The telcos in the States seem like a comparable example. There are three major players, so it's roughly 33% control for each (differs per region I'm sure).
With ISPs, it feels even worse. In most areas you can't even choose another provider with the same technology type (if you want fiber in my area, it's only Verizon. If you want cable, it's only Spectrum; DSL, AT&T; etc). But the rationale is, it's still internet at the end of the day, so I can technically choose.
So it’s more like a 70% share, in practice.
What company would ever allow that ?
Forcing companies to build an open ecosystem around every feature is a pretty unprecedented and unworkable concept.
In fact, there was a business in US that did just that. Hollywood's Studio System. Movie studios were vertically integrated with theater chains, and you could only see Paramount or MGM movies in the theaters that that owned. And you know what? Customers were really unhappy, because studios made all kinds of bad tricks like forcing to buy a week pass to see just one movie. Of course, you could refuse to watch other 15 crap movies that were bundled with High Noon, or, like Apple defenders here say, go watch some other movie.
I imagined some arguments that some HN commenters could make:
"It's not a monopoly if you can watch other movies in other theaters"
"Paramount movie chain is just 15% of total number of theaters"
"They made this movie and they should decide how you are allowed to see it"
It all ended with an court decision [1] that ended this monopoly abuse.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P....
Apple and other large tech companies have obviously arrived at a dominant position that would trigger these sort of investigations. You could say it's an attack on their success, and it is ironic that: success obviously has to do with it.
What apple and other tech companies have are not natural monopolies so it's not always easy for everyone to understand why anyone could claim they wield monopolistic powers.
But the point of these "platform businesses" is and has always been about gaining quasi-monopolistic strength so you can extract value from the margins of everyone involved in the platform ecosystem.
Is a monopoly illegal or necessarily undesirable to society? It depends on how society sees and regulates it. Depends on what society interprets as a NET win or net loss to itself.
And I can definitely think of several aspects of this state of affairs (handful of platforms sitting at nodes of large chunk of digital economy) that present as triggers for society to question the value of the ongoing monopolistic powers of these companies.
But if anything is to be taken from Google's case with EU, Apple will just pay a headline-grabbing fine and continue doing whatever they are doing.
There are plenty of 3rd party app stores for the iPhone/iPad that anyone can access with out jailbreaking, Ignition (https://ignition.fun), TuTuApp (https://tutuapp-app.org), TweakBox (https://www.tweakboxapp.com), I'm probably missing more but they do exist. But they're sketchy and ad filled. They do how ever allow anyone to install semi-untethered jailbreaking software like Unc0ver and Electra.
That being said Apple taking 30% cut in revenue is way too much in my view and the way it's set up could be better.
I guess this would be great, if it were true. There are over two million competing apps in the market [1], and the vast majority are priced ridiculously competitively at less than a dollar each [2]. That's the average cost, not the median, which would be significantly lower.
I'm sure proton isn't happy about this, but considering the ridiculously high salaries app developers are able to command [3] but the market doesn't seem to agree with their assessment.
Now, this may be more true about app companies, but the numbers there tell a different story. Based on this analysis [4], the thing killing them isn't the developer fees, its that its ridiculously hard to make any sort of living if your only product is a phone app. The majority of apps simply make no money at all. Adding 30% to 0 doesn't do much for anyone.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263795/number-of-availab...
[2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267346/average-apple-app...
[3]: https://www.businessofapps.com/app-developers/research/ios-a...
[4]: https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-reve...
If Apple is forced to allow other app stores etc, shouldn't MS, Sony and Nintendo be forced to open their platforms as well?
And I can see already that there will be people jumping out of the woods with the classic argument: "The devs are free to leave the App store" You try to make a business and the first decision you make is that you abandon half of your potential marketshare (iOS is over 50% in the U.S.)
