Developers of certain apps should run to Congressional antitrust committees. Some of them already have.
Questioning the standard HN stance on this topic has led to instant downvotes for me before, but I'd genuinely like clarity on why it's considered a matter of civil liberty to develop whatever you want and force Apple to distribute it on their store?
I honestly don't understand it, and I'd really like someone to explain it to me, instead of just downvoting.
PS: I develop apps for the Apple store.
The issue about civil liberty is a byproduct, a stop-gap measure to deal with the monopoly that currently exists. The actual issue is that these companies have accrued for too much power that it prevents competition. Is the product good? Yes or folks wouldn't buy it. That doesn't negate the incentives to behave in an anti-competitive way due to shareholder supremacy. I recall that most publicly-traded organizations could be sued by their shareholders for not pursuing clearly profitable ventures (e.g. replicating a popular product with their vast resources).
This would indicate that there is no monopoly.
Ideally the store wouldn't exist, or at least it would be possible to bypass it.
You supposedly bought the device, you should be able to run whatever you damn please on it.
Because the way I see it and the way Apple markets the iDevices, they're not general computing devices. They're not computers in the Wozniak, IBM, Stallman, Torvalds sense. They're not DIY devices. The DIY tinkerer friendly computers exist and are sold as of today with various levels of DIY-ness -- and their user friendliness and security often suck because of their very nature.
It's literally because of the openness and customizability that the Linux desktop experience sucks HARD for any kind of non-programmer professional usage. (And before you hit that reply button, i KNOW that YOUR i3 no-mouse vim emacs org-mode Arch setup works just fine. I'm not talking about you.)
It's because of it, that your parents and grandparents' Windows boxes get viruses, because Windows apps regularly ship 200kB custom "installers" that download everything and spawn per-app daemons that handle software updates and everything is permitted and nothing makes sense.
It's because of it, that sw piracy is rampant on Android, that the Google Play is full of shitty iOS app clones, fakes and outright malware, that end users can buy Android devices that are outdated on their launch day, that are full of LONG KNOWN vulnerabilities that the manufacturer doesn't give a shit about.
And what you're saying is you want the manufacturer (Apple) introduce new, insecure functionality (app sideloading) into an appliance (iDevice) that was never supposed to have said functionality, because the appliance reminds you somehow of a general purpose computing device, despite the fact that neither Apple nor the (overwhelming) majority of the users consider it to be one.
I sure hope so. You should be able to do whatever you want with your own property.
> It's because of it, that sw piracy is rampant on Android
I don't see how Android app piracy is bad for consumers. If anything it seems to be a selling point to many in low income regions.
> Google Play is full of shitty iOS app clones, fakes and outright malware
Yes indeed. Just goes to show that walled gardens are not necessarily an effective strategy for stopping malware. The Apple App Store has had it's own fair share of malware also.
> Android devices that are outdated on their launch day
Because makers of appliances (such as those you mentioned in the beginning) are well know to always provide software updates with the latest security patches for many years (No, they aren't).
My dishwasher wasn't marketed as a platform for third-party wash cycles, the way iOS is. But I don't see how a customizable dishwasher wouldn't be strictly better than what we have at the moment.
On the other hand, my dishwasher doesn't try to limit the brand of soap that I use.
I do not condone any of their practices, and I dislike Apple, but... before you bought the device, you knew that you would not be able to run whatever you damn please on it, right? If so, why did you buy it? If not, can you not return it? In any case, we, the people, should buy products that allow us to do just that. I know that we do not have a huge selection of these devices, in all fairness. They all suck in some way or another, and we do need a phone...
Maybe you didn't realize the issue at the time. Maybe you got it as a gift (from your parents, for example). Maybe the choice seemed more viable back then, before the noose tightened (jailbreaking, safetynet, etc). Maybe you didn't really have a choice (for example, here in Sweden, BankID is pretty much mandatory at this point).
We don't let grocery stores sell rotten food, and then blame the people who buy it.
What do you think about BankID being mandatory?
I have never bought an Apple device, but have been forced by circumstances to use them in the past. But as I said, people make mistakes, and circumstances change. As is perhaps more relevant to me, Android isn't looking all that much better these days.
You do need to eat. And it looks like soon rotten food will be all that is available.
> What do you think about BankID being mandatory?
I hate it, but I can't really do much about it. Uninstalling it would mean losing access to:
1. All bank accounts 2. All insurance accounts 3. Filing my tax returns 4. Union account 5. Bostadsrättsförening account (think: home owners' association for appartment) 6. Mobile plan management 7. ...
I don't think that's a reasonable ask for the "privilege" of being able to use whatever damn phone you please.
There is finally some talk of building alternatives for it, but most of it seems to go in the direction of OAuth: they all fundamentally verify you the same way, and it's up to each service provider to support each of them separately. Expected end result for the citizen.. instead of needing a device that runs BankID, you need one in the intersection of BankID, Freja eID+, and whatever else crops up.
I do not believe it to be the case. As long as I have fire, I can cook stews of legumes which are healthy, for example, and quite cheap. In any case, I do not know where you are, but it does not seem likely around here.
> Android isn't looking all that much better these days.
Because it really is not. I do not know of a phone that is worth having. Maybe Librem, but I have not yet tried it. :/
> I hate it, but I can't really do much about it. Uninstalling it would mean losing access to [...]
Well yeah, this is where we should think about something that would help us achieve our goal. I do not have the answers, sadly.
Wouldn't have to force Apple to put it on their store store if they allowed third-party stores.
These devices aren't just phones, in fact the phone is the minor function these days. They're computers in fact and in the marketing copy, yet Apple exerts monopoly power[1] to capriciously decide what may run on the device that I bought, paying upwards ofa thousand dollars for[2].
[1] in terms of app revenue iOS is dominant. Apple is able to dictate usurious and abusive terms and vendors are effectively forced to capitulate due to the size of the market they control.
[2] I don't actually have an iPhone despite the superiority because of this, but couching it in third-person terms is awkward.
But aren't there alternative phone devices that you or anyone else is free to choose? There are even phones that can install open-source operating systems. So an Apple device isn't strictly a 'monopoly' is it?
In fact, the high price of the device could be said to operate against it being a monopoly: unlike (say) Amazon, that squeezes out local competition by strategically under-pricing until all other alternatives are unable to remain economically viable.
For me, these contentions seem to conflate a company's success with monopoly power.
Taking this problem into account, it is monopoly power. Allowing this party software installation is the only solution.
In this case, since it’s on macOS, the problem is moot. But on iOS, that is the only solution that will benefit consumers.
But pretty much the only substantive argument in favor of using legislation to attack Apple's 'monopoly' always seems to boil down to "their system is so much better than the alternatives that the user is locked-in".
If that's the best HN has got, then I think the standard stance is basically sour grapes.
Anyway, as others have pointed out, Amphetamine could totally have been distributed outside the supposed 'monopoly' store environment - so the app-developers bleating was especially egregious.
We can argue about technical definitions of what constitutes monopoly until the cows come home. But look at the behavior of vendors and the knock-on detrimental effects on consumers (high prices, lack of choice): these are the effects of monopoly, and the harms that that antitrust legislation is meant to prevent.
Stripe is successful without being a monopoly. Nokia phones had the market share to be called a monopoly, but they didn't wield monopoly power. Shimano is absolutely dominant in bicycle drivetrains, but if they tried anything from the monopolist's playbook bicycle vendors would laugh at them and SRAM would eat their lunch.
Fortunately for developers, there is an alternative. Most desktop/laptop computers run some flavor of Windows, which you can develop and distribute software for without paying any gatekeepers.
The situation is a bit different on mobile.
That's the root of the issue, and why saying "it's a private company" is not a good defense in context.
Companies that produce good products and market them well accrue power. At some point the incentives change, and the company starts to squeeze locked in customers, suppliers etc. who have nowhere else to turn to. In order to maintain a healthy market economy the government is forced to handicap the 'winner' by splitting them up, enforcing regulations, etc.
We've already seen Google prepare for this with Alphabet; Facebook went the other direction, integrating their acquired subsidiaries to make such a breakup technically difficult.
Microsoft narrowly escaped a breakup in the early 00's but with the new surveillance capitalism companies I see much bigger market threats and winner-take-all power than Microsoft had then. If you look at Apple, they are much harder to compete with than Microsoft was due to their complete vertical integration. At some point the government needs to step in and restore market balance, some way or another, or the entire small business and hobby side which is the seed for the next generation of technological innovation will die before it can really be born.
imo, it's desirable to live in a world where anyone can code up any app they want, and share it with people. This seems like a given to me if you care about equitable access to information technology or whatever.
Apple is creating a world where they're the only realistic way to get apps onto the personal computing devices of a large share of society.
Since that's Apple's choice, it's their responsibility to reconcile these two points.* If they're not doing that, it seems appropriate for society to create better incentives for Apple.
(* Promoting and processing payments for every sketchy unverified submission is probably not the right way to go about that, sure.)
Some value the civil liberties of individuals more than that of corporations.
People who are inside apples universe don't want the hazzle to get out of it. They rather want to influence the universe they are in, by all means avaiable. Where the legal system is the most powerful one to have an direct impact.
Same applies to facebook, microsoft, etc.
I can understand it as pragmatic, but personally I rather want to invest in open plattforms by default, instead of trying to change fundamentally flawed ones to make them somewhat bearable.
Let me put a simple analogy. Assuming the future continues with digitisation, whether that is online or offline, and Visa or MasterCard dedicate what you can sell, use or buy with their Network.
People will come and argue you can use cash with Offline. But what about online? Are these people left without a large portion of online opportunities?
People will argue you should start your own OS / Smartphone if you dont like it, Why dont people start their own Payment network ?
The reason why we dont have those problem with payment much is because of regulation. I couldn't think of a single industry which has more regulation than Finance.
One you have grown big enough into a Duopoly, and a foundation platform of the Digital Society, there are more responsibility to be hold. You can no longer act like Apple in 2010 when they dont have the market shares or the importance.
So the question is, why should two companies be so powerful to dictate all of our Digital Life, when Digital has increasingly become the norm.
Before Apple shifted its strategy to Services Revenue. App Store as an App Distribution platform was fine. That was 2015. Teaching App is't required to have Apple Sign in, 30% wasn't required for Education Apps to more than a few peoples. IAP wasn't strictly enforce for non-gaming Apps. And what apple calls "Reader" Apps, that is Netflix or the recent Hey.com didn't have much a problem. Right now Apple is trying to extract all the values it can, while being the gate keeper of the possibly largest Economic platform known to human history.
That doesn't just make Apple the Judge Jury and the Executioner. They are also the Tax Code writer and the Collector.