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Comment by enragedcacti | Hacker News Reader

...just don't use other app stores?

Honest question, what do you lose by other people having the option?

Because it leads to fragmentation.

If developers have a choice of app stores, then users have to install ALL app stores if they want access to the entire market. This happened with streaming services as well: when Netflix was the only prominent one, only that subscription was enough. Now you also need Amazon, Hulu, etc.

If enough users agree with the parent comment that the app store is the best way get software then companies can weigh that user base against the 30% cut. Why should we force the users who don't like the App Store (or want apps that are incompatible with Apple's business model) to suffer on behalf of the users who don't?

Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Apple ecosystem. People want to get onto App Store because they know they can benefit from it, financially big. And they subscribe voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by trading their money in exchange for the service under the rules that are mentioned prior the transaction takes place.

By omitting details and framing each transaction as an isolated incident, you can make almost any monopoly or anti-consumer practice sound like just another business.

Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Carnegie Steel. People want to use their steel because they know they can benefit from it, financially big. And they purchase it voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by trading their money in exchange for the steel under the rules that are mentioned prior the transaction takes place.

so, where's the flaw? The fact that somebody sometime ago named another corporation a monopoly by the same ridiculous criterion as "too big" and discharged it, doesn't make it anyhow right. Was there gatekeeping from the government for new players to enter the same market? Any quotas or tariffs by chance?

> Was there gatekeeping from the government for new players to enter the same market?

That isn't what a monopoly is.

Artificial inability to enter the market with a competing product is literally in the definition of a monopoly.

In a completely free market, monopolies are natural outcomes of some circumstances.

> then users have to install ALL app stores if they want access to the entire market

You didn't have access to the entire market when Netflix was the only store. You had access to Netflix's market, and all of the other shows that are currently being funded by competitors didn't exist.

You could still use only Netflix today if you wanted to. The only difference is that now you are aware of what you are missing.

How many developers have consciously chosen to abandon the entire mobile market because of how toxic it is, because of how tailored the market is to a very specific sub-genre of mass-market apps and games? How many developers have abandoned iOS because their games touched on political or serious topics that Apple decided weren't suitable for their store? Many of us are not interested in creating the types of apps that thrive on the current mobile app stores, so we've abandoned the mobile market entirely.

When you can only see a tiny part of the world, you think that you have access to all of it. Once the walls get taken down and you realize how big the world is, then you realize how much of it you didn't have.

I completely sympathize with the frustration of not being able to get access to some of this stuff. I won't sign up for Netflix because of their DRM and anti-consumer practices. There are some shows I can't watch because of that. Trust me, I get the pain.

But having only one streaming platform forever would have been worse. So much of the original content that's coming out on Netflix only exists because Netflix had to compete. There are really good shows that are HBO/Hulu/Disney+ originals. I want that media to exist, even if I can't personally get at it right now.

Apple could easily offer good enough terms on their app store that app developers would use them by free choice.

Then you could personally keep using a single app store and enjoy the non-monopolistic prices.

That would never happen because there will always be a market for other gatekeepers who want to try and build their own lock-in even if Apple charged nothing.

It also leads to competition. Without alternative streaming services, we'd have a Netflix monopoly, and there's nothing stopping them from increasing prices like what happened with cable monopolies.

Look at how Netflix is still raising prices even with less content.

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