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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand this series of emails. Schiller is saying he noticed that Amazon ran an ad where someone bought books on iOS and then read them on an Android. Jobs' response is "let's force Amazon to use our payment system". But weren't they already using it in this case? How does Jobs' point follow from Schiller's example?

Schiller then brings up how there's a complementary ad in which an Android user buys books, then reads them on iOS. Jobs' point would make sense if that was the original example, but it wasn't brought up until after he'd responded. Weird. Maybe he was psychic? (j/k)

Another thing that doesn't make sense is Schiller's recommendation to ask Amazon to "get in compliance with the rules". It sounds like they were in compliance with the rules, because an exception had been made for them. It seems (from those emails only) like the issue was that Apple made an exception for Amazon they no longer wanted to abide by.

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Apple made an exception for Amazon (to not have to use IAP for books purchased in the Kindle app).

Amazon released an ad showing how easy it was to move books between iOS and Android.

Apple didn't like this ad, so revoked the original exception.

Amazon removed the ability to purchase books from the Kindle app.

End result – experience is shittier for all users, but Apple gets a fraction of a percent more platform lock-in.

Thank you, but my question was more about the connection between email 1 and email 2 in that chain. Unless you're saying that Apple had already revoked the exception by the time these emails were sent?

When the Apple App Store first came out there was no in app purchases. Amazon already had a payment infrastructure so when they released the free Kindle app on iOS it used the Amazon payment system. Apple later added in app purchases and changed the contract terms (as the were allowed to do) to require all apps to only use the App Store for IAP, they allowed Kindle to remain unchanged. The exception as just not forcing Amazon to change their app.

It was allowed under the old rules, then the rules changed, then the Amazon ad these emails were referencing game out. So at the point of these email the Kindle app was out of compliance with the App Store rules, but Apple was allowing it as an exception because they viewed it as a promotion of Apple products. This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.

Thanks for the explanation!

> This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.

I don't read it that way (most of your post I agree with though). I think the point was that before this email, Kindle devices had their own customers, and Apple wanted Kindle as a feature on their products to increase the appeal of iphone/ipad. But eventually those customers started doing all their "kindling" on their apple devices, so now from apple's perspective they think "we are providing you customers/making you a market, pay us". This is what the whole second paragraph is about.

It went both ways too. When Amazon got pissed at Apple they blocked Apple TVs from being sold on Amazon.

Phil made it sound like he didn't like the ad, but the reason for the removal of the exception was that Amazon was advertising that people could buy books from their phones, clearly promoting the phone-first use case.

If you have any business understanding that you should understand that no business is a charity: neither Amazon nor Apple. Any money left on the table is just free money for the shareholders of another company.

They made the point that Apple devices were more popular than Kindle, implying that Amazon was basically using Apple devices for lead-gen for book sales without paying Apple their cut. Their original deal was that Kindle was supposed to be a device where you bought the books, and you could just read them through the phone app as a convenience. Since the primary use case shifted they began enforcing that fee.

This seems to be a consistent app store policy, however it's been spun over the years.

I wish more people understood nuance the way you do.

Apple's deal was made only because Amazon claimed that their books were purchased on Kindle and that they wouldn't advertise other platforms. As soon as they broke that part of the agreement, Apple was not going to continue to appease them.

> If you have any business understanding

So I assume that you’re an investor in $AAPL, and not a user of Apple products?

Nobody is arguing that these lock-in moves won’t make them money, but that their greed does harm the user experience - the result being that you can’t buy Kindle books on iPhone now (and countless other such examples).

Your assumptions are wrong about me, so you may want to revise your position because it’s based on a misguided characterization of my motivations.

It’s up to Apple to improve their own user experience, or suffer the lack of sales otherwise. It’s nonsensical that the government should step in to improve the user experience for private products… especially to the benefit of a third party private company.

Framing “you can’t buy Kindle books on iOS” as Apple’s fault is spinning it because you can also say it’s Amazon’s fault for reducing their user experience by refusing to pay Apple’s platform fees.

Sure, making Apple products all free would be great for user experience, but is not only non-sustainable but non-sensical business practice.

You're missing the intent behind 'the rules': Apple gets a cut of everything on the platform. It's never really been a case of 'if you do X we get a cut and if you do Y and we don't'.... they've continually been trying to eliminate the possibility of Y at any real scale.[1] That's been a source of consternation for developers/media companies as Apple has shown time and time again a willingness to alter the rules to eliminate ways in which people could bypass paying Apple. The emails illustrate how they went about it in the early days. (i.e. we're not getting a cut? They're not playing by the rules... it has a very mafia vibe)

[1] The exception has been certain large companies that they viewed as strategic on the platform (at least for a time.) As soon as they weren't viewed as strategic, the rules tended to change.

> But weren't they already using it in this case?

No, Amazon never used Apple's payment system for books.

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