Google and Apple attacked on app store 'monopoly' | Hacker News Reader

Google and Apple attacked on app store 'monopoly'

bbc.com

114 pointsquaesitor168 comments

I don't care or know if it counts as a "monopoly" (I guess I can use Android...), but as a consumer and human being, I would love it if governments compelled big companies to act more in the public interest and less in their own.

In particular, I would love to be able to install 3rd party app stores and software w/o having to resort to jailbreaks or weird certificate hacks.

To me, it seems obvious this would be a net win for society.

(I think you could make the argument that the iPhone is one of the most important creative mediums of our time; from that perspective, it's outrageous that it is censored by an unacountable, prude (& often Kafkaesqe) bureaucracy. Imagine if artists had to get each painting approved by the company that manufactured their oil paints? It's absurd.)

So much this. Let's keep our actual utility functions in view. Who cares whether or not it's technically a "monopoly"? It sucks!

Worth remembering that "monopoly" wasn't a bad word until we decided it was in the early 20th century. We can decide other things are bad too.

What? Companies behaving in anticompetitive behavior was considered mostly illegal in ... the U.S.’s inherited common law from the British before the U.S. was even formed. If anything, we’ve become more restrictive in how we define this.

These platform monopolies are absolutely anticompetitive. And it doesn’t need quotes.

> It sucks!

It does, but it’s better than what we had before.

Forcing us backward will not improve things.

We need an actual open OS and open ecosystem, not a government regulated one that is still owned by a monopoly.

Although I agree with the sentiment I am wary of the government trying to force companies to act in the public interest as I am worried it will end up with the government forcing companies to act in the government's interest masquerading as the public's interest.

Remember you must always ask yourself when the government is given additional power if you would be okay with your worst enemy having that power as in a democratic society that can happen.

is it actually a net win for society, or just a personal win for power users like those found on hn? Simply allowing all third party apps probably leads to lots of extra malware being installed on iPhones.

Power users mostly imho. I give iPhones to family and friends I support because it’s locked down with less ability to install bad actor apps

It is a win - there is a similar model that we live in everyday that separates Government from Business. It is done in that way in an attempt to balance control.

A first-party only ecosystem is authoritarian and non-competitive. Apple's ecosystem in particular on iOS and iPad OS is akin to your government controlling everything that you can do.

There are several parallels that can be drawn between societal and technological infrastructure.

Security framework is mostly orthogonal to AppStore being the only way to install apps.

Also, Apple strips developer's signature replacing it with AppStore signature. So I, the user, cannot independently verify that I'm running the same thing that developer deployed.

Imagine if you could buy apps on iPhone, switch to an Android and not lose access to your whole app library?

I don't think that's necessarily fair. There are expenses on each platform and paying a dollar or so to pay for those seem fair to me.

> I would love it if governments compelled big companies to act more in the public interest and less in their own.

First I’d like to see a government prove it can work in the public’s interest and less in its own.

You act as if "public interest" is objective. A lot of people in government (maybe most?) consider maximizing shareholder value to be "public interest".

I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. They also impose a synchronized 30% fee cut. There is a case to be made for an antitrust behavior from this cartel.

Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.

Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?

Because they don’t need to.

They did not need to collude to suppress employee wages yet they did.

I don’t see that going anywhere. I would expect both parties to argue that this is conscious parallelism, which Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para...) states “is very hard to prosecute because it may occur without any collusion between the competitors”.

They’ll also argue that they don’t keep prices high in their stores and provide value that makes that 15/30% cut worthwhile.

Anti-trust, IMO, won’t work either. Currently, Apple will (rightfully, IMO) argue it has viable competition in Android, and Google will say the same about iOS and say they allow other stores to exist.

I think we need new law to handle this kind of stuff.

EU law already handled the credit card duopoly, should work the same here. The changes didn't propagate to US though.

The Apple Apologist keep saying it is Apple's platform, Apple dictates the rules, if you dont like it go somewhere else.

And yet when EU say it is their market their rules, Apple apologist keep saying foul.

You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares.

Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.

> You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares.

The monopoly thing is an Americanism and is irrelevant as far as European law is concerned anyway. Companies are tried for anticompetitive behaviour or abuse of a dominant position, neither requires a monopoly or anything close. It is enough to show that the company is dominant in one market, and using that unfairly to advance its position in another market. A company can be dominant with a 60% marketshare, depending on the market.

On the other hand, being a monopoly is perfectly legal as long as it is not used for anticompetitive purposes. Same for oligopolies. There are a lot of markets served by only 2 or 3 companies and that’s fine as long as everyone behaves.

Agree on everything you have said. It is the Anti-Competitive nature that is of concern. I think Benedict Evans puts it best, do other business "Fear" of losing market access because of certain company.

Oh yes, I am not disagreeing with you, on the contrary.

Well, apart for the "Apple apologist" bit. I would hate to be forced to install third-party app stores when they are allowed. We know the second they can get away with it, software from Adobe, Microsoft, and Facebook will be distributed only through their own app stores. I trust these companies far less than Apple as far as my personal and payment information is concerned.

But the points you alluded to are important and often overlooked in these discussions. The CJEU won't use the Sherman antitrust act or any legal definition from US laws. The EU has put competition as a supra-national religion, but they don't care about consumers in the way American courts do, and they definitely won't wait until someone has a monopoly.

I expect them to take the narrow view and ignore all security and safety aspects and force competition.

Which of Adobe, Microsoft or Facebook distribute their software only via their own app store on Android?

Given the answer is "none of them", why do you think they'd do that on iOS?

There is no money to be made on Android, that is not the model they’ll follow. Looking at the core platform where they actually do make money is more insightful.

Adobe has been much more involved on the iOS side. We have to go through their crap on their website on macOS. Same for Microsoft (though they do offer a version of Office on the Mac App Store and are generally better than other big software editors).

We all know how Facebook will behave. They’ll see an alternative App Store as a great way to slurp in as much personal data as possible, and will try to get exclusives to lure people in. Hopefully they’ll fail, but maybe not.

Then there are game companies and the plethora of launchers/stores/things. Every one of them being a PII leak waiting to happen.

>I expect them to take the narrow view and ignore all security and safety aspects and force competition.

Yes. Again agreeing on everything. I want a middle ground. And I want to push for a middle ground. Except it is such a rare view, and the whole discourse is dominated by both extreme ( so to speak ).

Of course they cry foul, those two things aren't comparable at all.

Cost of switching to Android from Apple: walking down the street and buying a new phone. Cost of switching from the EU to some other jurisdiction: move to another continent. Additionally, it's not the eu's market, Apple actually created the app Store and did significant work to make it real. It is apples, due to the long-standing principle of private property rights. The EU has done nothing to create that, mostly just taking control of pre-existing markets and infrastructures, so it is dystopian to talk about a government as if it owns the people within it. That's not how government is meant to be

It is very difficult to prosecute though, because convergence is something that happens without collusion. You need to have a smoking gun to convict a group of companies under anti-collusion laws.

Case in point, the 30% fee for digital stores existed before both Apple’s and Google’s stores.

30% on specialized game consoles, yes. On general purpose computers digital distribution was diversified among many websites. (At least apart from games or before Steam.)

IOS and Android are increasingly marketed as general purpose devices which are needed for more and more parts of life.

You said exactly the same thing as I did. When the App Store started, the model was device-specific stores or Steam, all of them taking 30%. It was entirely unremarkable.

Now, is there a law saying that you are allowed to take a cut only on non-general purpose computers? Where is the line between specific- and general-purpose? Is it defined anywhere? Why would app stores selling games be meaningfully different? Is a feature phone “general purpose”? At which point did smartphones become “general purpose”? Since when the character of a device is determined by marketing (other than for the purposes of fake advertising)? Have you got any concrete examples of phones being marketed explicitly as “general-purpose computing devices” anyway?

Until there is a definite answer to these questions, the argument boils down to “I don’t like it” or “I feel it should be different”. It might make you feel good, but that point of view is unlikely to be shared with courts.

I'm not trying to make a legal argument. Just pointing out that before the IOS store and Steam it was common to buy from producers directly or from a variety of digital markets. Which could undermine the premise that a 30% cut was typical.

Convergence vs collusion is a distinction without a difference when the prices are public.

Any market dominated by only a few participants where none of the participants is willing to compete on price needs government intervention.

It's hard to argue with the claim - if you have an iOS phone or tablet, for example, it is a monopoly, since it's the only place you can buy a program for your computer.

The walled garden has real benefits in security and privacy, but seems to require centralized control, and comes at the expense of user freedom.

A solution to the monopoly pricing problem could be to treat app store controllers (currently A & G) to the same type of control that credit card issuers are subject to, and place a limit on the rates they can charge.

A solution to the security vs freedom question could be to require that users have the option to opt out of app store controls for installing programs.

I don't even buy the "security" argument; MacOS is a highly secure operating system, produced by the same company, which has no forced walled-garden App Store. There certainly are exploits and scams which happen; just like on iOS. The argument sounds great in theory, but in practice, it simply doesn't hold water; security & privacy can (and should) (and does) happen at the OS layer, not application distribution.

macOS is definitely less secure than iOS.

What's your definition of "secure" here?

Same as everyone else's, I'd expect – less possibility (higher difficulty for attackers) of viruses / data exfiltration / etc.

How is that less possible? Did grandparent do a diff between the iOS and MacOS CVE list or is it a hunch based on which platform is more locked down?

This is architecturally speaking – specifically, more wholistic sandboxing.

You literally can't do a whole host of things on an iOS device without first jailbreaking it. Things which you can do on macOS by default.

Apple has added some limitations to macOS that do similar in the past few years (namely expanding the oversight of "Gatekeeper"), but it is still allows far more behaviors than an iOS device does.

A system with a smaller attack surface (made by the same company with fairly consistent engineering practices) is more secure. That is the assumption I am making here.

If it's less secure, why are they selling it? They claim their policies are to protect consumers. But then they keep launching new Macs with less secure operating systems for general purpose use. Isn't it hypocritical? iOS apps are themselves made using this "less secure" operating system. Won't someone hack your Mac and add malicious code inside your iOS apps? /sarcasm

Yes, given the number of articles posted on hacker news that detail apps which circumvent protections on Apple... That's a bold claim

But I don't think it's very controversial to argue that iOS is more secure than MacOS (to the point of inconvenience), and that this is a reason why integration with the health data on the iPhone will pose a challenge.

The iPhone is also much higher stakes than MacOS in terms of total number of users affected by any exploit.

For this to be true, Apple would have had to remove no scams. Not just let a few through.

If I build a shopping center that gets tons of foot traffic, pay to build the amenities and security, and then charge stores rent, it doesn't suddenly become a monopoly when the tenants feel that the rent is too high.

It does when you literally can’t operate your store in another mall.

I also don’t think this analogy scales very well since many stores operate both in and out of closed shopping centers. Including Apple’s stores.

> It does when you literally can’t operate your store in another mall.

Android exists

> I also don’t think this analogy scales very well since many stores operate both in and out of closed shopping centers. Including Apple’s stores.

How is the scalability of the analogy relevant?

> Android exists

So I see this as 2-sides of the same coin. From the developer's perspective, they can choose which platforms to develop. As a consumer, if you have chosen iDevice, then you can only purchase from the one single store. However, you did make that decision on your own. Corp making you use iDevice, then why are you loading apps onto it that the company did not provide you in the first place?

>Android exists

So another Mall also charges 30%.

Do I have a third mall to choose from? Or can I set up a third mall ? What is the market entry barrier for a third mall ? Are these Mall a necessity in the community?

I wish people would stop using over simplified analogy.

I’m a consumer. I have many, many apps installed on my iPhone, and for the pretty much all of them I’ve paid $0.

Your issue exists only with paid apps. Apple is providing you the infrastructure and means to distribute your software. It makes sense to me that they get a cut.

And it also makes sense to me that you have to go through them. I specifically bought an iPhone because Apple seems to actively regulate what apps are allowed in the App Store while favoring customer privacy and security.

It’s interesting to me that your arguments against Apple are the specific reasons I chose an Apple device.

>I specifically bought an iPhone because Apple seems to actively regulate what apps are allowed in the App Store while favoring customer privacy and security.

That is perfectly acceptable. Except when they ban it for competitive advantage. Which is the whole point of the discussion. And Apple even wrote it in their email as such.

For better or worse, yes other malls exist.

Firstly, there's the web. Secondly, Android allows you to create alternative app stores and install them, or install apps entirely outside app stores. Thirdly, there were and still are competitors to both Android and ios, the fact that they suck and nobody uses them is not Apple or Google's fault. Finally, many people live in places where there are only one or two large malls.

Sure, and Keurig has a monopoly on coffee if you own a Keurig machine and don't buy from Starbucks. While these corporate actions *are* anti-consumer, they do not generally fall in line with the standard definition of a monopoly, which includes looking at the the whole market, not just a sub-section of it. E.g. my local golf course also has a monopoly on golf balls while I'm in their pro-shop.

Make up a new word and fine them all the same. If you engage in anti consumer practices then I, a consumer, highly endorse anti corporate legislation.

TBH this is reasonable. I'm not on the side of Apple, but the monopoly claim is ridiculous to me.

Creating new law IMO, indeed is the way to go.

Fining them for things they do now before such law exists, however, should not be pursued. Ex post acte law is forbidden in large parts of the world for good reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law:

Ex post facto criminalization is also prohibited by Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 15(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 9 of the American Convention on Human Rights. While American jurisdictions generally prohibit ex post facto laws, European countries apply the principle of lex mitior ("the milder law"). It provides that, if the law has changed after an offense was committed, the version of the law that applies is the one that is more advantageous for the accused. This means that ex post facto laws apply in European jurisdictions to the extent that they are the milder law.

Do human rights apply to corporations? E.g. in my country, Belgium, There is a difference between a law person vs natural person. I had assumed only a natural person can claim human rights, but I might be wrong here.

Isn't the whole issue the definition of the market? That's going to be highly subjective. Are Samsung and Google phones running Android the same market? Most people would say yes. Are phones and tablets, or computing devices in general the same market? Most people would say no. iOS and Android? It gets murky, the cost of switching is high and fungibility is debatable.

Are they anti-consumer? Many people seem to disagree.

I want a Linux based phone with the performance of an iPhone and a decentralized App Store with an auditable chain of trust.

I also want an information appliance that is trivial to use and completely managed by a third party I trust.

Why can’t I have both?

They definitely are anti-consumer and nobody who actually looked into the topic would disagree. Apple has a monopoly on software distribution on their mobile devices and they force companies to use their IAP api which comes with a heavy fine, which leads to developers (rightfully) increasing the prices. The same goes for Google, the only argument that could be made in the benefit for Google is that it is possible to install Apps from other sources.

Apple is the gatekeeper for anything that gets on their mobile devices (they can't really be considered yours). Apple and the review process are the ones who decide what is a useful tool and what not, what could be considered harmful to their customers etc. This way their consumers missing out at a lot.

Many die hard Apple fans would argue with the perceived sense of security, but recent events perfectly demonstrate that even the most strict gatekeeper, the review process, is insufficient to provide security to unknown users. The best thing companies can do to enhance their users security is to educate them.

The software is not the only position where Apple shows monopolistic and anti-consumer behavior, their hardware repair is another great example but not the topic

> They definitely are anti-consumer and nobody who actually looked into the topic would disagree.

This renders the rest of the comment meaningless in the context of a platform intended for curiousity and debate, so I didn’t read past it.

> the only argument that could be made in the benefit for Google is that it is possible to install Apps from other sources.

That's already a pretty big difference by itself, but in addition to that the Play Store is much more permissive about use of third party payment providers. So e.g. Apple can (and does) sell Apple Music subscriptions on Android without a 30% tax. The converse is not possible.

Starbucks makes licensed K-Cups:

https://athome.starbucks.com/coffees-by-format/k-cup-pods

Keurig doesn't have a monopoly on anything except licensing their name. Unlicensed third-party compatible cups are readily available. Keurig machines are more Windows/macOS than Android/iOS.

https://www.gourmesso.com/collections/all-keurig-blends

https://shoponline.melitta.com/pages/javajig

etc.

I'm holding out for a PINE64 PineBrew FOSS coffee maker myself.

AltStore allows you to run any app you want on your iPhone without a jailbreak. How does the App Store have a monopoly when there are literally alternatives too it. This ignores Cydia and the other app stores that require you to jailbreak your phone.

Apple has no more of a monopoly on iOS app sales then Google has on android apps, Microsoft has on the Xbox store, Sony has on the Sony store, or Nintendo has on the Nintendo store.

Can't find AltStore on the appstore and can't even bundle my apps for usage outside of the app store any more (I honestly tried for three hours last year. maybe the stack overflow was outdated)

The fact you couldn’t find AltStore on the App Store just proves the point more. The app doesn’t have to be in the app store to be installable on the phone.

https://twitter.com/saurik/status/1337094724813918208

https://altstore.io/faq/

Not exactly "first class" is it?

"I followed the instructions, why is AltStore still not installing for me?" > This could happen for a number of reasons

"AltStore freezes/takes forever to sign-in." > This could happen for a number of reasons

"AltStore says “Could not find AltServer” when trying to refresh." > This means AltStore could not discover a running AltServer on the same WiFi network

So you have to run your own local server? And it's janky as all get-out? This basically proves the point. If your app isn't on the app store, for 99.999% of users it doesn't exist; they will not be able to install it.

At least on Android you can hand them an .apk and they can trivially install it.

There are plenty of competing walled gardens on PC that sell video games. They seem to do fine.

Apple doesn't even manage to protect its customers all that well with $64B in revenue: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/8/22272849/apple-app-store-s...

The App Store’s function is very similar to HR’s. It protects Apple, and other benefits are ancillary.

This will be round 2 in the fight for formalizing the role of OS developers versus App developers. Round 1 was the MS antitrust case, the outcome of which was clearly too weak to survive in the long run.

The definition of general-purpose Operating Systems should be formalized, and there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story. Then force Apple, Google, and Microsoft, to spin off their OS divisions or their apps&services divisions. That would immediately create a level playing-field for everyone.

Is this difficult? Yes. Is it necessary? Also yes.

It's impossible to fairly compete against a company that has total knowledge and access to the OS, access to stats on what your programs do and how they work, and total knowledge and control of future development.

This is too simplistic. Linux distributions like Ubuntu provide both the OS and the apps and services. One could argue that the OS is the apps and services. Yet we see neither a monopoly there, nor complaints.

Which leads me to believe that what you're proposing is not addressing the root cause.

There are complaints in the Linux world too, about package management (e.g. the push to snaps), they’re just less relevant since the platform is fully open anyway and there is no economic impact.

>there should be a clear separation of roles: if you make an OS you cannot make apps and services, end of story.

This. How come the authorities cracked down hard on Microsoft in the 90's and early 2000's for exactly this but aren't doing the same with Apple and Google now?

I remember the days when, at least in the EU, due to antitrust laws, Windows XP had to come without Windows Media Player and without Internet Explorer preinstalled[1], which made for a rough out of the box experience for newbie users if they just wanted to quickly browse the web or play their "totally legit" mp3s after installing it, but it served to give competing apps and browsers a fighting chance and not allow Microsoft to entrench its monopoly further.

By the same logic, why can't we force Google/Apple to not prioritize their own apps and services on their platforms against their competitors?

[1]https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=144651...

Microsoft low balled Netscape when they tried to buy them and then set out to crush them anyway with IE, it was largely seen as bullying behaviour. Google/Apple don't really do this, they buy what they see as promising companies with good ideas and pay plenty for them, so does Facebook with social.

So the difference is, Google/Apple never really look like bullies the way MS did, instead they look like companies innovating.

For the most part in mobile google just brought its already successful products to android, it hasn't from what I call explicitly tried to kill an already successful product in another niche? Well maybe with its various "social" attempts but they failed so bad it never became an issue.

Hasn't the EU already imposed at least as many restrictions on Android than they ever did on Windows? The search engine choice screen, cancellation of anti-forking agreements, and unbundling search/browser from the rest of the apps and services.

But I do find it crazy how utterly disinterested they were with Apple for a decade, and how limited the current investigation into just in app purchases is.

> but aren't doing the same with Apple and Google now?

What is Google doing that is an issue here? One can install competing app stores on Android devices.

How much do you consider an OS? Because right now Apple could say “fine”, create “The Darwin and XNU Foundation”, and just keep their closed source window manager / core apps (SpringBoard/Finder calendar, mail, App Store). As long as they donated enough to the foundation to keep open builds coming for other platforms (even if you just get a shell with really old coreutils, although I bet it’d be better than that), the antitrust suit you’re suggesting would probably be covered.

Nope, the definition of OS would have to cover at least the window manager and the equivalent of win32/cocoa libs, so that developers can build first-class “windowed applications”. I know it wouldn’t be a trivial effort to define it in legal terms, but even in imprecise terms it would lay the foundation for a body of law that could keep OS developers honest.

Ok, so now the government regulates user interfaces forever.

No thanks.

Ah great, so now smartphones never happen at all because regulations say general purpose computers must allow windowed applications? You seem to have a remarkable faith in government regulations! All the attempts to regulate tech I've directly had experience with were disaster zones of unintended consequences.

There isn't an issue with making apps and an os - there is an issue with being the only one allowed to do special things, which is what got MS in trouble back in the the day.

The problem with that argument is that unless the OS is completely open source, the developer of the OS can always do special things.

Does that mean you can’t supply a notepad?

How about Ubuntu? Would they be allowed to ship a terminal?

What about smalltalk running on bare metal? Do environments that blur the line between apps and the OS become illegal to supply?

Government regulated software will completely destroy all software freedom, forever.

You are being overly dramatic. Take the features that Windows 95 shipped with and codify them into broad legalese guidelines. That's all it takes.

> Take the features that Windows 95 shipped with and codify them into broad legalese guidelines.

Well played! Very dröle.

> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage.

I am not a person who uses Apple products so someone please clarify for me. Does Apple grant access to this to other people? Can I create a GPS-enabled product and use Apple's SDK to implement "Find My...?"

You can.

Yes. They actually talked about this in the event, and one of Tile's competitors (who's name escapes me) is adding it to some of their products.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...

Apple recently allowed this. Tile's complaint now is that the Apple Find My integration requires that you only work with Find My, so Tile's app (and presumably related subscription products) becomes unnecessary.

Except Tile’s competitor that also works with FindMy is not subject to this constraint...

I think you're wrong about that? I went and checked Apple's press release [1] to work out which tracker it is, and the Chipolo website for the product [2] says "Chipolo ONE Spot works exclusively with the Apple Find My app". To me that implies they've got the same constraint.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-networ...

[2]: https://chipolo.net/en-us/pages/chipolo-one-spot

If that can be proven, that should be considered a clear monopoly violation.

I find it scary that not a single person in this thread is against the idea of the government using its force against tech. Everyone’s just nodding in unison.

I find it scary that you trust Apple and Google and others who have admitted that they colluded to not poach employees from one another and suppress wages.

My own city has suffered from lawlessness, with government rendering law enforcement useless and advocating policies that threaten the safety and welfare of its citizens. Meanwhile, homelessness has skyrocketed and our public parks and other public spaces are dangerous because of aggressive homeless people littering trash, feces, and their drug needles.

I trust Apple almost infinitely more than I trust my local government. They can collude about employees all they want, but I would rather have my government run the way Tim Cook runs Apple. I like what Apple delivers. My local government delivers no value, in my opinion, and they’re making the situation worse. In fact, my local government blames big companies and their only solution is to tax us to death. The tax revenue is plundered on a non profit industry whose supposed goals are to help these homeless people, but the majority of their funding goes to paying their own salaries, their executives, and all the overhead.

I’m honestly worried about sending my children to school. We’ve now had homeless camps on school grounds. You can shoot heroine on school grounds now. In my mind, government isn’t the answer — it’s actually the source of the rot.

If you violate the various copyright, trademark and patent laws that protect the App Store business model, tech will have no problem instigating the government to use force on you. Ask Corellium or geohot.

ETA: The above may sound snarky, but my point is serious. This entire business model exists because of a series of powerful laws that are backed with the threat of force. To pretend that we can just leave the government out of this debate is foolish: it’s already there, enacting policy. There is no opt-out.

What do you find scary about it? You're comment doesn't help me understand why we should be worried about the government reining them in.

What do you suggest as the solution to companies that grow so powerful, that they can break the rules of the free market? That’s why laws exist to curb monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior. Do we just shrug and let it happen?

Because breaking up monopolies has been an accepted function of government for a while?

What governement is going against "tech"?

Software distribution isn't "tech", also Google and Apple aren't all that "tech" is. And breaking a monopoly isn't "attacking" a market either.

Governments are finally starting to use their force to revitalize the software markets. Destroying monopolies is a large part of it.

From my perspective, the people on one side of the issue have made a demand of Apple: Give us ownership of our purchase. Apple declined. Now the people (presumably the same ones) are looking to the government to enforce their will.

This sounds precisely how government should work (assuming the people have a large enough majority). Maybe you don't think there's a large enough majority, but if that isn't your argument, what is?

A simple solution to the problem - force Google/Apple to implement API's to allow the loading/code signing verification of applications on their respective platforms.

On the PC we have GOG/Steam/EA/Windows Store etc ... why can't mobile device be the same ???.

Lets say we have an app ecosystem where you can OK third party apps, and one where that's not possible. Let's say people voted with their dollars that the one where it's not possible is a better ecosystem.

Should the one with the closed ecosystem be forced open, especially if the company says that the ecosystem being closed is one of the primary factors in their success and why people prefer it?

Apple dictated to companies that they will implement privacy labels. If the ecosystem was open, they could not do that. The big companies could make people jump through hoops to avoid it or put a lot of support into a competitive app platform if iphones were an open platform.

I am very in favor of privacy labels, and I think it is a direct result of the closed ecosystem and apples opinionated stance. I think it is a key competitive advantage for apple that the app store remain closed so it can dictate to companies that privacy labels are now a requirement, or HTTPS is a requirement, or anything else.

When people say force apple to allow third party app stores, I hear "why do we need Dropbox when there is rsync?" Just because you know that an app is violating your privacy doesn't mean parents do, they can't meaningfully compare and contrast app stores. I hear people not understanding that an app store is a commons in the tragedy of the commons sense, and all commons need a regulator to not turn to garbage.

The two systems are not otherwise identical, so I don't see that "you could buy an Android" as a reasonable alternative (I own one).

I also don't see the issue in that you can install apps from another store, since it is fairly easy to put up a warning "Apple has not approved any of the apps you can buy from this store".

So customers that want a more secure system should have no option?

Isn't it a fair assumption, based on how consumers see Apple, that all software running on an Apple device is approved by Apple? The App Store always had that concept built in. On your Mac you can still run anything you want outside of the App Store, but there's always going to be security instrumentation and app review that costs real time and money. Apple is your antivirus company when you buy Apple products, and the way they position the products means that they hold themselves accountable for privacy and security issues in a way that other vendors don't.

I think the fees are too high, but I wouldn't want app review and verification to go away. If they could make it free for any independent developer, great, but that doesn't seem to be the case yet.

Sure, their option is not to install another appstore in the first place.

And your option is to not buy an Apple device. See how consumer choice goes both ways?

What happens when an app store distributed via apple store contains apps that have malware? Will apple be able to remove them? The entire news will be of apple iphone has malware and such.

I would like easy sideloading of different ipa stores. So that we can have modded premium apps. Youtube with adblocker and sponsorblock and so many things

The fact that iOS won't let any other browser run on the platform is really the "it's not in our interest to allow iMessage on any other platform" keystone of this monopoly.

Maybe maybe users could have an ok experience on the web, online, that might make the app-store monopoly not be so insufferable. But Apple also can restrict & deny any online & web experiences they don't like, since they prevent any browser &c competition on their devices.

> This is only true because Apple prevents other vendors from bringing the modern, secure engines they ship to every other OS to iOS.

https://mobile.twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1385669199842...

Apple isn't just in a monopoly, they're radically restraining the entire web to keep their monopoly, to make sure their monopoly is an important one, that there's no threat from standards-based online technologies.

i think it's not productive to call it a literal/actual/effective monopoly, since it's designed to be monopoly. The problem is not so much that it's a monopoly but that it advertises itself to developers and to users as being an open more or less market, which it isn't since it's by design rigged and censored. There's a legal gap here probably because such situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself). Do sellers and buyers have fundamental rights in a free market economy?

> situations are unprecedented (where a company builds a market completely controlled by itself)

not really. Malls are in a similar situation. If you own the mall, you get to dictate whether the tenants are allowed or not. They pay rent to remain in the mall, and there's some rules they must follow or they get kicked out (rules which are made clear upfront).

The difference between a mall and the app store is that there can be competing malls (say, right next door!), but currently, apple has made it impossible to create competing app stores. But malls themselves have a natural monopoly, because of pysics - pauli's exclusion principle - you cannot occupy the same space as another mall.

So the law should account for this, and make sure that the app store is just as fair as a mall is today.

I dont consider that a good analogy - if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake, there would be legal repercusions for them while apple's developer contract doesn't seem to have lots of legal protections for the seller, or the buyer.

Also, a mall doesn't benefit from dictating these decisions in a direct way the way apple does: apps are selected on the basis of improving the value (and price/desirability) of apple's products, not on the basis of giving user satisfaction/choice (when these two conflict)

A closer analogy would be a gas station made by Ford that is the only station that that Fords can use. Or Tesla's charger network where competing companies could be invited , but be at their whims.

Well, pauli's principle allows up to 2 malls in the same place

> if a mall closes a cinema because it doesn't like a movie, or a bakery because it baked a cake,...

Would they though? If a movie theater refuses to show a certain movie, that’s legal. A mall is just refusing to house a tenant they don’t agree with. Apartment owners are allowed to refuse to rent to you for any reason (not covered under a protected class).

> it advertises itself to developers and to users as being an open more or less market

This is about as false as a statement can get.

Every developer signs a contract agreeing to the rules, and Apple’s marketing page for the store highlights the curation and review as a selling point. Tim Cook says out loud we believe in curation and review at every possible opportunity.

Nowhere does Apple ever suggest that the App Store is an open market.

First sentence in Apple's developer agreement:

> no legal partnership or agency relationship is created between you and Apple

So developers have no legal obligation to follow the rules

Here's the app store descrption:

> The App Store for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and iMessage, makes it easy for over a billion customers around the world to discover and download your apps. There are no hosting fees and Apple handles all payment processing.

>> no legal partnership or agency relationship is created between you and Apple

> So developers have no legal obligation to follow the rules

Another completely false statement. It’s still a binding contract.

This just means you don’t understand the legal terms ‘partnership’ and ‘agency’.

I am not an attorney but I recommend you consult one.

> it's designed to be monopoly

How is being designed to be illegal a defense? If anything, that makes it worse.

to the people that have experience designing Operating Systems - how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing ? If everything is user level sandboxed. app can only access it's data. then apple | google wouldn't need to charge 30% to vet apps. if data is to be shared - it has to be explicit.

It’s impossible because it doesn’t solve social engineering or phishing attacks.

Browser environment provides a living example that it's possible to have a proper application sandboxing. Even with multiple different produciton-quality implementations.

A more interesting and practical question is how difficult is it to have proper application sandboxing, while keeping reasonable backwards compatibility level with existing code. I think that it's near impossible, that's why I don't hold high hopes regarding any existing OS sandboxing. But new systems like Fuchsia might actually bring us Android successor able to run any code without fear.

We need an Ethereum App Store to handle vouching for apps. Let apps pay a bond and ever reducing insurance to the people who vouch for them, based on auditing and perceived risk by the market

Apple doesn’t dare charge a fee to WeChat, we need something as big for the open community

Apple is the best at getting consumers to buy software. US govt cracking down on that is shooting themselves in the foot. Google Play is mostly free ad-supported apps with a higher incentive to resell data.

People buy apple phones since they are fine with spending money, so then they spend more money in app stores as well. It has nothing to do with how Apple runs the store.

Noone comes close to their success selling software to consumers. That's because of a legit strategy to unify hardware and software, not anti-competitive behavior.

Software piracy was rampant in the 90s and early 2000s. It's why everything now is subscription or online-only. Apple was hugely successful securing their devices and store to convince people to buy software.

Disrupting Apple for their success here would hurt competition, not help it. Apple provides developers a secure platform that has customers, and it provides consumers with software and hardware they can trust.

Without Apple carrying the torch we would have even more data breaches, less trust, less investment and less innovation.

Can we get an updated title mods?

I feel like the entire world has forgotten what a monopoly is. Apparently both Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors of one another. Programmers clearly talk about developing apps for one platform or another and sometimes give up on developing for one because the approval process was annoying or arbitrary. Consumers have a choice in the phones they buy and whether to even use a phone app for that service to begin with. Maybe this isn't a healthy ecosystem, but it seems we've completely lost the thread on what a monopoly is.

Monopoly is anything that does something that I don’t like.

People bitch about Android vs iPhone and ignore the actual local monopolies present in the phone network itself.

Those are called natural monopolies.

It's very difficult to put up network infrastructure.

So why are they not municipal

Or should we have water and electric monopolies

You're right. It's a duopoly, a cartel.

A system controlled by two players who move in coordination with one another.

techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/google-play-drops-commissions-to-15-from-30-following-apples-move-last-year

Good thing that they all cross into each other's primary fields so that there's never a monopoly. Google makes phones. Windows is a search company.

Apple has a search engine. Apple sells advertising. Apple has a maps app.

So does Yahoo, Naver, Yandex, Baidu etc. It's all very far from a cartel.

Sure chose a bad example... that's Google being forced to drop fees by their competitor.

Those are commissions the stores take not what the developers take. Sure sounds like competition.

And yet again wrong. Google and Apple have exhibited very little cartel like behaviour at all. If they had there would have been a clear anti trust case by now.

The problem is that everyone seems to have collectively forgot that it's not monopolies in and of themselves that we have to protected against but rather anti trust behaviour.

You could potentially argue that app stores do exhibit anti trust behaviour but in that case one should do so and not throw around words clearly aimed at invoking an emotional response.

You need to be careful as words matter.

Apple and Google are not a cartel by any definition and they do not in anyway coordinate with each other. Either of these are criminal.

Google reducing their margins to better compete with Apple is no different to how every market works.

Apple and Google’s action is no more than a cartel than Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile in the late 90s and early 2000s. They just don’t compete against each other.

OR maybe that's just how markets work

> I feel like the entire world has forgotten what a monopoly is [...] we've completely lost the thread on what a monopoly is.

Perhaps what “a monopoly is” deserves to be redefined from time to time.

I agree with you, legally and based purely on prior case law precedence, maybe it doesn’t count as a monopoly as currently defined by law.

But the legal system is designed to be fluid, to adapt to an evolving society. There are no absolutes in any legal system and everything is up for debate, which is the beauty of the system.

Apple has a monopoly for apps stores on iOS devices.

> A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity.

Commodity: Apps sales on iOS. Only supplier: Apple.

Apple use their monopolistic market position to enforce a 30% levy on third parties. It has nothing at all to do with Google, since Google cannot compete with Apple to provide app stores on iOS.

Even bringing Google up is an attempt to shift the conversation from the app store situation on iOS to something off-topic and irrelevant (handset market share). That's not what we're discussing.

Let's go through the markers of a monopoly:

- Profit maximizer: Maximizes profits.

Yes.

- Price maker: Decides the price of the good or product to be sold, but does so by determining the quantity in order to demand the price desired by the firm.

Yes.

- Single seller: In a monopoly, there is one seller of the good, who produces all the output. Therefore, the whole market is being served by a single company, and for practical purposes, the company is the same as the industry.

Yes, Apple is the exclusive provider.

- Price discrimination: A monopolist can change the price or quantity of the product.

Yes.

So the Appe Store on iOS checks all the markers of a monopoly. But people want to pretend the monopoly designation can only apply to traditional market segments without justification.

iOS App Stores is not an industry though any more than Tesla car operating systems or Ikea screws are.

They are intrinsic parts of the objects and have never existed independently of them.

See United States v. Microsoft Corp. That was a landmark decision that essentially says that things like the App Store are in fact eligible to be declared monopolies for the purposes of anti-trust.

There is no market in those two examples. No one buys Tesla operating systems, and no one buys IKEA screws. In both cases, those are building blocks of the whole.

You must have a market before you can abuse it. In addition, you must have a firm and durable market power. If IKEA had a strong screw market across multiple segments, and then abused that position through exclusionary practices, you could argue a potential illegal monopoly. Likewise, if Tesla operating systems were closer to 90’s Microsoft, you could have an argument there.

Notice no one is arguing an iOS monopoly. The App Store fits the legal definition of a market. Apple has a firm and durable market power (over 50% in multiple countries, including the US, which is their highest revenue). Apple excludes some from this app market. Apple can and does prevent certain firms from succeeding in their marketplace. It is not unheard of to have Apple reject or pull apps once they decide that they want to add that app’s feature to iOS. Once the app is pulled into iOS, it gains functionality not available to other apps. Their monopoly was gained not by innovation, but by the fact that they set the rules of this market - you simply cannot make a competing App Store.

These are red flags and should be investigated.

>- Price maker: Decides the price of the good or product to be sold, but does so by determining the quantity in order to demand the price desired by the firm.

>Yes.

We are talking the app store here, right? How does Apple set the prices of the apps? The devs release their apps at the price they want. Free, Freemium, Paid, In App Purchases, etc.

>- Price discrimination: A monopolist can change the price or quantity of the product.

>Yes.

Again, how is Apple changing the prices of apps on the app store?

>So the Appe Store on iOS checks all the markers of a monopoly. But people want to pretend the monopoly designation can only apply to traditional market segments without justification.

Clearly, I'm disagreeing with this summation.

> We are talking the app store here, right? How does Apple set the prices of the apps?

Yes we're talking about the app STORE not the apps. Apple exclusively sets the price for the store the apps are sold on (and any services the apps sell): 30% (+- first $1M).

> The devs release their apps at the price they want.

We're talking about what Apple charges developers, not what developers charge customers.

This argument falls apart when you consider anybody is the sole provider of anything. I’m the sole provider of my approval, therefore I’m a monopoly? So then you have to decide at what scale this argument makes sense and nobody is going to agree on that.

> Apple has a monopoly for apps stores on iOS devices.

I spent a summer interning for the CA DOJ's antitrust division. The first thing I learned is that the determination of the relevant market is extremely important, and often outcome-determinative. If the relevant market is drawn broadly, then it's much less likely that a company will be considered to have a monopoly; if the the relevant market is drawn narrowly, it will be much more likely.

The question for Apple/Google is: is the 'relevant market' the market for distributing apps on their own platform, or for smartphones in general? There's no way to know in advance how a court would come down on this question, and it would have a huge impact on the outcome of the trial.

>Apparently both Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors of one another.

It is called Duopoly.

>but it seems we've completely lost the thread on what a monopoly is.

monopoly | məˈnɒp(ə)li |

• a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service:

I really like the Apple app store a lot. I like it because I trust it more than alternatives (google play). I like it because it feels more secure. I like the unified purchase interface. I don't think you can say with a straight face that the Google experience is better than the Apple experience for your parents. I moved my parents to Apple devices because it's safer.

I especially like it because apple is using their "monopoly" position to create anti-business, but pro consumer policy that can't seem to get implemented otherwise. The government should be legislating privacy, but is incapable or unwilling. Apple is doing better than the government.

Calling it a monopoly is a dubious claim, because it's not clear apple is enacting anti-competitive practices in an unfair anti-consumer way. If anything they seem to be enacting pro-consumer policies via monopolistic power.

That being said, Apple is doing one thing that should be unacceptable. Apple makes apps that compete with things sold in the store it controls. That is the sole problem with the app store in my opinion. The closed-ness of it is vastly more beneficial than it is harmful, and there are clear competitive alternatives to buying an Apple device if you don't like it.

Even that being bad is questionable. Kirkland Signature? Half life on steam? Amazon basics? There is clearly precedent. I doubt you feel the same way about each of those implementations of similar behavior.

If you trust Macy's and you don't trust Bloomingdale's then just keep shopping at Macy's. There's no need for you to ban Bloomingdale's for everyone else. A store and the vehicle I drive to get their shouldn't be tied. Imagine buying a car from Apple and it only being able to drive to Apple licenses stores.

Apple can still have the App Store and most users will still only use it. (see Google Play). Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers. All it does is ban competition.

If you continue to only use the App store from your POV nothing will have changed. You'll still get the same trusted experience.

I don't understand this argument. You are using car and store but apple isn't selling a phone and an app store, it's selling you the Apple experience (and my understanding is that is literally how apple thinks about it), and if you don't like it, you can easily buy one of the many android phones.

> Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers.

I don't think this is true at all. Apple gets to retain all apps on the app store despite implementing a very unpopular with business but pro consumer policy like privacy labels. With multiple app stores, the apps might vote on a different store, and all of a sudden as a comsumer, I have to install 20 different app stores to get the full set of apps I want.

> Banning other stores does zero for Apple and their customers.

If you can't come up with 3 good faith explanations of why a closed app store is good, then you're not critically thinking about the situation or responding in good faith.

3 reason's a locked down app store is bad: - Ties the apps closer to the OS creating a form of vendor lock in for both consumers and app makers - I can't fully utilize my device, it comes limited in specific ways. - Gives apple too much power over apps, especially apps it directly competes with.

Your argument is that there's no good faith explanation for a closed app store being better. If you can't think of any, that is a failure of yours, not a failure of Apples. Once you make a list of pros and cons, you realize that there are pros and cons and that someone might actually choose one set of limitations even if you philosophically don't agree with it.

> With multiple app stores, the apps might vote on a different store, and all of a sudden as a comsumer, I have to install 20 different app stores to get the full set of apps I want.

Fear of freedom here is just remarkable. Oh no! What if I had choices! What if there wasn't a monopolist protecting me!

Look at you! What an intellectual you are. You sure got my number. That's me, afraid of freedom. Freedom is good, there are clearly no bounds to freedom. There are clearly no counter forces to freedom.

You know what the cost of freedom is? Education. When you are educated freedom is good, but when you are not, it is dangerous.

Being able to directly install a virus is a freedom, and for a security researcher or human rights abuser that might be great, but I don’t want my mom to have the freedom to install a virus. Should virus creators be able to load their software into a store and market it as they wish? No? But what about their freedom?! What about my freedom to download viruses?!

Not getting a vaccine is a form of freedom, but what does that do for herd immunity if too much of the population isn’t smart enough to handle the freedom not to vax?

Do you like nutrition labels? Seems like it limits the freedom that food companies have to market their products.

I think all fishermen should have the right to fish as many fish as they can. What right do we have to limit peoples livelihood?!

Why can't kids take heroin if they want? Why are we limiting their freedom to conduct their lives the way they wish?

You use the word freedom like you understand it, but then fail to understand the cost of freedom.

For you and me freedom is great, we're probably educated and well read. For mom and dad, they need a bit more of a curated experience because they don't have the knowledge or experience which would allow them to protect themselves or understand their own choices.

This same discussion has been fought out with voting rights. Clearly only the big land owners should vote. The average peasant does not have the knowledge or experience required to participate in governing a country. Same for women. Peasants should stay on their land, women in their kitchens, voting should happen by those educated and well read.

The people claiming this were probably right, but the solution was radically different from what they envisioned: Peasants and women fought for the right to get schooling. The news became available for everyone. They got in fact the tools needed to perform the job.

We should strive for the same things here. Even knowing a majority might get malware or vote for Trump. The minority that makes maximal use of the given opportunities has demonstrated they will make the world a better place for all of us.

No, my argument is Apple should not be in control of MY device. A car company should not be able to choose where I can go or what things or people I can have in my car. A housing company should not be able to decide who can I have in my house or what companies I can shop for furniture and/or decorations. A refrigerator company should not be able to decide where I can buy groceries or what things I'm allowed to store in my refrigerator. And, a computer company should not be able to decide what content, including apps, I'm allowed to put in my computing device.

If you want safety in any of those situation you are free to choose at some shop you trust but no company should be allowed to limit where I shop.

You claim there are good and valid reasons for a closed system. I claim those reasons are invalid and/or immoral. In an open system you can choose better stores. In a closed system the better stores are banned. To take one example, Real Chrome is more secure than Safari. This is provably true by reading the CVE lists. They have about the same amount of bugs but Chromes bugs have 7x less "arbitrary code execution" than Safari. But, I'm not allowed to run a more secure browser on iOS. Another example is the Hong Kong app that Apple banned. Apple has no requirement to carry any particular app but it's immoral IMO for them to control the phone itself such that such important apps can't be installed in other ways. Yet another would be sexuality apps. Apple censoring such apps is arguably as immoral as banning LGBT people from anything. Apps are speech as ruled by the Supreme Court, and there are plenty of topics that are conveyed better via an app then a book/video but Apple's banning of apps means that while they allow you to download sexualized books and movies they don't allow you to download sexualized apps. That's a severe form of repression and is immoral

Do yourselves a favor, and read Ayn Rand. Monopolies are created by governments, and are impossible in laissez-faire. Apple has created the App store when MS was seen as a "monopoly" that no one could move. Innovations beats anyone who dominates the market. Google did the same to a Alta Vista and Lycos, just by being better.

She also must think that Walmart cash registers are literally a monopoly.

I say, “Amy klobuchar is literally a dumbass.”

Can Apple be considered a monopoly with 23% [0] of the mobile market share?

0: https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor

Apple has a monopoly on Iphone app stores, your number is irrelevant.

Yes, it is a monopoly. You can see the effects in software that doesn't even run on Apple devices. The most recent example is Discord being forced to change their entire platform and software on non-apple OSes just to be allowed to have their software run on Apple's monopoly walled garden.

Example? As far as I know, Discord mainly uses React Native on all platforms, with some iOS and Android specific code on those platforms for integration and performance reasons.

Edit: ahh, you’re talking about content restrictions. They way you phrased your message sounded like you were talking about the technological stack.

They weren't forced to do it, they did it so they didn't have to have a 17+ rating in the App Store. And then they decided not to.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/2021/4/19/22391675/discord-ios...

has any a browser a +17 rating on the App Store?

Every browser used to, given you can look at porn on them.

> She also accused Apple of preventing Tile from using the technology behind Apple's Find My function, giving AirTags an unfair advantage.

> Apple said the product was different. "We didn't copy Tile's product... It's extremely different to anything else on the market," said Apple's Chief Compliance Officer, Kyle Andeer.

lol! yeah right, Kyle.

Tile plays a sound to be found. AirTag are triangulated by the Find My app.

Also, third parties are already signed up for the new third party integrations to Find My.

The irony of Tile's demand was that by Apple opening up Find My to third parties Tile's network effect moat just became irrelevant.

Instead of having one serious competitor with a network (Apple) that's only iOS they're now a strict commodity and the "Tile Network" isn't a differentiated advantage.

Be careful what you wish for.

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