Hacker News Reader

Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

Apple can, at will, remove your entire foundation or business

It’s the hazards of building your business on another company’s foundation.

There are millions of companies completely dependent on Apple, Amazon, or another organization. In tech terms, it goes back to affiliate marketing days. In real world terms, it goes back centuries.

No leader should make his company dependent on another company, but it happens all the time.

The only things that are different now is that the company is Apple, and that tech bubble social media outrage is a thing.

View on HN

> It’s the hazards of building your business on another company’s foundation.

This is one of those mindkill kind of lines someone posts in all such threads.

Yes, everything in the world depends on something else. Do you also say this when companies rely on utility companies for their electricity and water? Or must I buy an island and set things up from scratch before I am allowed to start a lemonade stand? Or maybe move to a different planet entirely just to be sure?

You can get identical electricity from different provider. You cant get identical platform from not apple.

I think you are in agreement with the parent on the overarching problem, but just bikeshedding the metaphor used to explain the problem here.

.. there is only one power company in the entire province I live in.

I understand and now you know why exactly this is bad. I for example have option to choose to buy electricity from any provider in my country and that electricity is delivered to me over wires of yet another company which handles only distribution. And that company is government ovned. If one elctricity manufacturer decides that im bad customer or gets greedy, i can swith to better supplier.

There's only one provider of power where I live.

No you can't, there is only one supplier for water and one for electricity. (Not in the US where it's privatized but that is US specific).

The lines are the same, owned by either a state or most likely a company. Unless you live in some weird place where every company installs their own lines.

I live in a place where power distribution is separated from power generation. There are multiple power producers, but they using delivery network of other companies. And thats by design to prevent power monopoly.

At least in my country, water and power are utilites and provided by the government or companies acting on behalf of the government. As long as I pay the bills, water and power can‘t be taken away from myself. I also myself make the rules for retrieving (which is callew law) power and water through election and vote.

An Apple login is handled by Apple. If they don‘t want to do business with you anymore, you‘re lost. They make the rules themself, there is basically not much you can do to appeal those rules directly. I can‘t do anything (well, court, but until then I‘m bankrupt) about it.

Water and electricity are, as you say, utilities and can't shut you down on a whim. But if you only have one source for lemons, and they cut you off, that's on you. Epic knows this. They're not just on iOS. You can find Fortnite on Xbox, Playstation, Switch, Android ...

So the government shut you down? Shouldn't have built your company in that country.

Blame the victim.

I think the issue is that there's always inherent risks to relying on external forces.

And that you literally cannot avoid external forces.

This isn't unique to Apple, and it's not arbitrary or capricious on their behalf.

is it even possible to be independent now? you have to purchase something as simple as a domain and hosting from somewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com