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Comment by jimnotgym | Hacker News Reader

If a locked down app store is necessary for say safety, perhaps a good analogue is a water utility company. A water company has a monopoly in an area, due to the impractical nature of duplicate infrastructure. However, in return it may be heavily regulated in terms of its safety and pricing.

If you have to have a single app store then their prices should be regulated, and crucially there should be proper recourse for developers denied access to the platform

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A better analogue is cars. You can't install anything unapproved by Lexus on a Lexus system. But you can buy a different car, and get different software and apps.

I can't tell if you offering this as something that's sane to do or not. I think you should absolutely be able to install the software you want in your lexus; the built-in software is often terrible (yes, including tesla).

The difference depends on if you are talking about what is legal (eg right to repair) or what is possible by the consumer without modification. Legally you can do whatever you want since you own the hardware - but in both Apple’s case and Lexus’ case, installing a non-OEM part will void the warranty on that part, or in Apple’s case, the entire kernel since you’re modifying that kernel (although it’s easy to factory reset an iOS device and remove the modification without a trace).

> You can't install anything unapproved by Lexus on a Lexus system

Only as of recently and still rarely. Most cars of the world hardly used original parts for repairs. The whole auto repair industry is based on a bunch of hacks and fixes that are not licensed by holy overlords. Most of car computer AFAIK can be sideloaded and hacked with exception of something like the infamous john deere.

Speaking of which, John Deere has been in the news for this for ages now and maybe it's time to seriously liberate car software as well.

The difference between regulating the price of water and the price of an app is the innovation curve. You can regulate the price of water because the creation, distribution and consumption of H20 hasn't changed in a long time. Meanwhile, every June Apple shows up with new APIs that developers can use to tap into the billions of hardware R&D they've invested for that year. Regulating price here is stifling innovation.

it's also stifling innovation to be restricted to one store front. Imagine if all you had was Walmart, Target and KMart (iPhone, Android and Windows). "you can't build a new store because of all the R&D Walmart has put into their stores".

You act like all the R&D isn't paid for with phone sales and development kits ($99/year).

If you want to restrict the market? The price of that restriction should be regulation.

Actually, imagine if you were Walmart and you've spent the past 25 years investing in your brand, real-estate, parking lots, buildings, advertising, signage, etc. Your goal is to build a thriving business for _your_ customers. A fertilizer company isn't happy with the placement they are getting in your stores, so they sue you and say you need to give them dedicated, premium space in the parking lot. They also think its annoying that customers coming to Walmart for fertilizer need to go into the store to pay for their product. They want these Walmart customers to pay cash in the parking lot, pocketing all the money for themselves. If this sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. Epic is the fertilizer company and this whole lawsuit is embarrassing.

The difference is plenty of companies can make storefronts - look at Steam vs GOG and all the other options for gaming on Windows.

You act like companies wouldn't produce viable alternatives given the opportunity... and you act like Steam isn't better because of the competition.

Apple is putting forced restrictions on their platform because they want to squeeze everyone who comes through their doors. Apple acts like they are the only ones who can create a "brand, real-estate, parking lots, etc" when in reality, it can be done a lot better by any number of other companies - the only reason they can charge 30% is because of artificial restrictions put in place so... they can charge 30%.

Walmart doesn't want Target next door... because then they'll have to actually innovate to keep their customers.

Plenty of companies can make phones too, but it takes extreme time, effort, and talent to do so. It all depends on where you put the fertilizer - is the fertilizer company saying they should be able to set up a stall in the walmart parking lot, or are they saying Walmart is preventing them from setting up a store on their own land a hundred feet away from Walmart?

I am saying Walmart is preventing the fertilizer stall on their own property. The iPhone hardware, OS and platform is the property of Apple, just like the parking lot is property of Walmart. But actually, I am not even saying Walmart is preventing this. I am just saying Walmart won't hand them this opportunity for free. The result is the fertilizer company suing Walmart.

"for free" and yet Apple will still make a profit due to physical phone sales, $99/year fees, etc. To imply that they aren't profitable outside of the 30% cut is laughable. Plenty of companies "research, develop, provide opportunities" that can't and don't resort to monopolistic and territorialistic practices to block competition.

There's no reason that EA can't accept payments outside of the Apple store other than monopolistic protectionism. "research and development" of something 100s of other companies can and do is a weak excuse - and one easily picked apart with relevant examples.

I don't care if Apple spends it on research and development or prostitutes. It isn't about how they manage their money. It's about their right to set their own B2B pricing. EA can accept the payments, but Apple still has the right to charge them to operate their business on top of the Apple ecosystem.

It sounds ridiculous because the analogy is really far-fetched. A slightly better one would be that the owner of Walmart is also the mayor of the town, and he won't approve the business permit for the fertilizer store unless they agree to also sell their stuff at Walmart.

In the analogy, Apple is Walmart. Could you explain what it means for Apple to be "mayor of the town"? Apple is not the mayor of any metaphorical town. They own a business.

Walmart is the App Store, Apple is the town, and Epic is the fertilizer company wanting to open a farming supplies store of their own because all the farmers already know them from farming fairs and word of mouth so they don't really need the exposure from being on display in Walmart.

I don’t think Apple is the town. A town is something that a user (resident) should feel comfortable staying with their whole life. However, it is perfectly reasonable for a person to pickup a new phone from a different vendor on their next upgrade cycle. Therefore Apple can’t be the town. Apple is Walmart and Samsung is Target and the 100s of other Android devices are other stores.

The town is a good analogy because switching towns – like switching phones – is a significant expense relative in either case, while switching stores is free.

Interesting. So is the goal of regulation to ensure it's easy for people to switch "towns"? What if Apple, Samsung and Google needed to make it simple and easy to switch between their respective platforms, to a best effort? For example, if they both had similar cloud photo storage they would automatically exchange those. In other words, if we can make switching mobile ecosystems as easy as switching stores then we shouldn't take issue with Apple or Samsung or any other mobile platform. Market forces alone can influence how each company runs their business.

Sure, if you can switch from a Galaxy S10 to an iPhone 11 for free, then your argument might apply.

Apple would just have to take other phones as payment for their phones, and the same in reverse.

The issue isn't one of technology, it's that you're pretty much locked in after spending a lot on a phone.

I don't know about that. How is this different from Costco selling a membership for a year? You've just paid up front for access to Costco for a year and now you are "pretty much locked in". Why doesn't a cookie company sue Costco for better placement the ability to pay for those cookies with cash directly to the cookie company? Those poor customers are locked into Costco and have to live with Costco's choices on which products to stock, where they go in the store, and pay for them through Costco checkouts.

Meh. Distribution of computer programs has been done since the beginning of computing. Also, there is innovation in the water supply (which most people are unaware of).

Can you send me your mailing address? I have a cool game for you to check out on a 3.5" floppy. It's also going to install a virus on your computer and you'll need to format your machine after. This was my life in the 6th grade and my dad literally beat me for messing up his computer. I don't want to go back there.

Send me your floppy to Janne Mareike Koschinski, Lortzingstr. 16, 40667 Meerbusch, Germany.

I'd love to look at the software on that floppy, including the virus (it's always fun discovering a novel virus, if there's also games on there even better)

Nobody is saying you can't use just the Apple app store if you are more comfortable with that.

But I should also be allowed to use a floppy to get my software if i want.

Solving your small problem creates a big problem for Apple at scale. The wrong people use floppies and everything just gets messed up. Whats to stop some incentive from coming along that nudges people to use floppies when they shouldnt. This is what happened to me in the 6th grade. Free games. Plus virus. Tough pill to swallow but the best solution is the current one. Lock it all down. Want to hack around? Go play on some open stack

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