As more and more pressure is placed on them by the EU, the Right-to-Repair movement, big partners, etc. something has to give but i'm not sure Apple have the mindset to comply.
Unfortunately the EU is going the opposite way - increasing VAT and digital taxes, which are passed straight onto developers.
Losers are the governments if they cant pay for their healthcare or care for their elderly because all the big internet co's dont pay any taxes for their profits in their countries. A digital tax would at least put pressure on them to take a smaller slice of the pie. Granted, it might be not the optimal solution for the problem.
The high commission percentage is not the only issue with Apple's monopoly. It's also that they are gate keepers of apps they don't approve of, they can decide to throw out apps to destroy competition, etc.
My hope for this is to see regulation that recognizes that hardware, operating systems, application distribution and payment processing are four separate markets and must be unbundled.
That does not mean breaking Apple and Google up or preventing them from providing all these things within an integrated user experience; it should however prohibit:
- using technical or legal methods to prevent consumers from installing any operating system or app store on their hardware, and independent developers from creating such operating systems or app stores.
- using technical or legal methods to prevent developers from using a payment processor of their choice while using Apple's or Google's application distribution service.
I think the judgements against Microsoft in the browser wars might serve as precedent.
The tricky part is recognizing that in two-sided markets, the threshold of market share at which a company achieves a harmful, competition-stifling amount of market power is much lower than in traditional one-sided markets.
Capping the commission does nothing to solve this - opening up a competition when someone else can provide better terms, vetting or different type of content (now deemed unacceptable to Apple political outlook or prudish stance) is the solution.
It also makes Apple actually work harder and start thinking about what ACTUALLY means to build a secure, user respecting OS instead of copping out by randomly rejecting app updates.
I can provide some learning materials to catch up with the world.
On consoles, as far as the majority of consumers are concerned, there’s three players: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. On phones, there’s... Apple, Google, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, etc. Sure, it’s basically iOS and Android, but even then, it’s 3 for consoles and 2 for phones. So to say that phones have “vastly less competition” is simply disingenuous.
If that's equivalent to a gaming console then perhaps you need to adjust your comparison algorithm.
Which means that the relevant market is 50% of the US market. (As apple has about 50% of the USA smartphone market)
Are you referring to Apple or Epic? It seems that Epic are the ones who wanted to pick a fight, for better or worse.
edit: it is amusing to see this post get so many upvotes and so many downvotes. Obviously this is a very polarized community w.r.t. Apple.
How do you propose that Apple could give this option to Epic?
If they allowed Epic to skirt their rules, they'd have to do the same for everyone, so it is a fight that Epic picked and Apple is choosing not to continue that fight, that's all. You make it sound like it would have been just fine if Apple let Epic do what they were doing.
We can debate that Apple should change its rules for everyone, but it sounds like you think they should have just let Epic continue violating their policies.
Er... yes?
"Documents show Apple gave Amazon special treatment to get Prime Video into App Store"
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348108/apple-amazon-pri...
Apple is already allowing Amazon to "skirt their rules".
Would Apple likely have to forfeit more exceptions to other companies if they did this? Probably yes.
Still Apple's decision.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/d...
Those marketplaces were a monopoly, and opening up competition helped the consumer.
Now apple is an oligopoly, and opening up competition will help the consumer.
I used the phrase "can be argued" because I think the idea has enough merit to warrant being tested in court. These companies certainly have enough money and market influence to justify exploring it.
(What's really amazing is the arguments I see -- presumably from either very young or very ill-informed people -- that this is "just like" Microsoft in the 90s.)
But, for now, this action is entirely on Epic. Epic broke the rules, Apple (and the court, for that matter) said that they would continue to sign and publish Epic's Fortnite updates if they brought Fortnite back in line with their contract, and Epic not only refused to do so, they submitted more Fortnite updates that broke the rules, before eventually entirely removing Apple's IAP from the iOS version of Fortnite (just before Epic's developer account was banned).
One other thing to consider: even if the IAP rules are invalid, Apple still can decide who it wants to do business with (unless the court rules iOS an essential facility, which basically invalidates the entire closed ecosystem business model, which would really up-end the tech world).
Epic willfully not coming back into compliance with their contract is entirely on them, and lends more credence to actions Apple take against them.
The argument can be made that Apple's rules are bad rules. I think I would agree that changes to the rules should be made, and I expect that they will make some concessions eventually. But you can't fault them for enforcing those rules the way they are, especially when Epic are provoking Apple so brazenly and publicly.
Eesh.
I don’t understand why Epic isn’t releasing unsigned updates...
I haven’t played Fortnite on a Mac, but I’m assuming EGS generally behaves like Steam here.
(And of course, if you were to disable Gatekeeper none of this would be a problem, although I can see why Epic wouldn't want to make users do that, and they shouldn't have to.)
Epic abused the security update workflow of the iOS app review system. Specifically, they submitted an update which was not a hotfix as if it were a hotfix. They (apparently) did that intentionally so that the update would not be inspected closely.
The signature system is built on trust. Apple allows trusted partners to submit hotfixes to address security bugs. Those updates receive expedited (read: cursory) review. Epic abused that trust to push an update which added their own payment system, not to address a bug (security or otherwise).
If Epic is going to abuse the trust of system for submitting security updates, why should they be trusted by the signature system?
If that build that first added the unactivated flagged feature used expedited review I don't see any sources saying so. But even then, expedited review isn't exclusively for security, it is also for events (Fortnite has frequent events):
"to coincide with an event you are directly associated with,"
https://web.archive.org/web/20190326213414/https://developer...
Adding an alternate payment option wasn't a security breach for users.
This is a complete stretch to relate it to desktop security in any way.
Apple characterizes it as a hotfix and Epic has not disputed that. Apple has a well-known expedited review process.
> This is a complete stretch to relate it to desktop security in any way.
I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. The same (apparently untrustworthy) entity is responsible for both Fortnight-the-iOS-game and Fortnight-the-MacOS-game. If you don't trust that entity on one platform, why on earth would you trust them on a different platform?