Even if the app store was run differently, say allowing a competing way of installing apps, Apple still have plenty of fungible power to make such deals. You might have ticked a box to make it technically fair, for some definition of, but that would probably be just cosmetic. IE, app store would still represent most revenue and everyone is in the same position but a few geeks.
The "platform game" establishes market power, where buyers and sellers need to go through you. They have no negotiating power, and you can price to make deals that take all the "surplus utility" off the table, in classic economic terms.
So... reality isn't perfect and some players are big enough to negotiate. Netflix is that player here. They negotiate when they have to, but try to keep it quite.
When the market is this structured, this is how it works.
Netflix does not need to go to a different store. They're influential enough to negotiate. Apple would cut them the discount, like now, and they wouldn't. The other store will not have enough users to make the reduced fees worth ditching the app store.
If there was enough competition, most of the app store profits would dissipate. That's what competition does. Users wouldn't pay 20-30%'extra to have apple's stamp, prices would fall and the business model is gone.
No little tickbox rule will make a competitive market in app stores. These markets are structured by nature. That's why platforms are so powerful.
Highly motivated users like kids who want to install Fortnite on their phones? That would give an "iOS Epic Store" a foot in the door, and while I'm not a huge fan of Epic, I think that would at least introduce some competition for Apple.
I don't see Netflix pulling out of the App Store if there alternatives. Right now, this is the only thing they can do to retaliate.
This doesn't really match what's happened with the PC gaming marketplace. Facebook pays for exclusives to the Oculus Store, Epic (whose lawsuit brought this e-mail to light) pays for exclusives on their store. A fair few major developers only release through their own store. Cases that buck this trend (like Halo releasing on Steam) tends to be news rather than typical.
The increasing trend of app stores on PC moving towards being silos is very worrying and harmful to consumers, but it's still a great deal better than what happens in competitive device-specific markets. Unless people like buying 3 separate gaming devices to get access to every console game that's released.
That many apps are available for both Android and iOS really has more to do with a lack of competition and a set of consumer expectations about availability than it has to do with platform management. There was a period where most PC games only released on Steam, too. But I personally enjoy being able to opt out of that store/DRM in favor of stores like Itch/GoG without losing access to every single new game that gets released. And I think my consumer choices have generally increased with the addition of newer storefronts that offer me different features that Steam refuses to offer.
It's easy to talk about the harms of fragmentation when you're happy with the status quo. But nobody who grew up protesting Steam's DRM is unhappy that more PC stores exist now, even if the market is more fragmented. And I similarly suspect that the people arguing that more choices on the iPhone would be bad for consumers are people who are happy with the app selection already, they're probably not the people who are frustrated that apps like NewPipe, Firefox, or emulators can only be accessed by moving to a completely separate ecosystem and buying a new device.
So we have to get a law against a "monopoly that arises after you've bought a product".
Alternative to what? A law that says apple must allow alternative App Stores? I'm ok with that, and it might be useful to some people. I just don't think it will affect the market much.
The App Store "market" is not going to become a competitive market with a quick fix like that. Any solution that does make it a competitive market also tanks the business model. 30% to deliver an app is many times what a competitive rate would be. The competitive rate might be 0. We didn't have app stores before app stores.
Any kind of antitrust effort would need to start from the understanding that this is not a competitive market. Apple has all the power. A few app devs have the leverage to negotiate and everyone else is a price taker. You could "solve" it by regulating prices, enforcing a single price or otherwise limiting apple's choices directly. Or... you could leave it as is, which is (IMO) about the same as ruling that they must allow side loading or alternative app stores.
Similarly, it will be very hard to limit fb from making their app addictive, shrill or other such problems. Their incentives are very strongly tied to these.
In a weird way, I think Apple and Google proved it would have significant impact, at least enough for them to put sizable effort in stopping it from happening.
Otherwise Apple wouldn't be fighting tooth and nails to keep it at bay. Google also went pretty great length, through bundled contracts, backroom deals and scaremongering to dissuade partners and users from choosing the alternative means that are available.
From the "follow the money" perspective, it seems there's hope in that corner.
I mean, I agree that if Apple abandoned trying to control app delivery it would be a big deal. I just don't think a simple rule gets us there.
Obviously Netflix would have more negotiating power if there were more alternatives. Netflix has enough leverage with Apple now that they pay half what regular developers pay. The dynamics play strongly in Apple's favour. 15% (or 30% for shmoes) may be a large slice. But even if the alternative app store is free for developers,
In any case, I'm not arguing that a competitive market would not be better. I'm arguing that it takes more than a minor rule to get there. The dynamics play strongly in the platform's favour. 15% (or 30% for shmoes) may be a large slice. But, unless you take the vast majority of users with you, that will add up to less revenue.
There just isn't a whole lot of middle ground, compatibility between a world with competitive dynamic and play store's business model. To the extent that a law would be successful in creating competition, the play store business model fails. It's premised on monopolism, more or less. I mean, payment processing and such obviously exist outside of a captive market... but in a competitive market, rates probably resolve to <50% of the current rate.
You could submit paid products to default Cydia repositories, where you personally handled payments. There was no commission in such scenarios. If you opted for payments to be handled by SaurikIT, a 30% fee was in place.
Cydia had special deals in place for Intelliborn products, I dont think this extended to other groups. Intelliborn previously operated Rock Your iPhone, which was acquired by Cydia and this was a negotiated term.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27615663 <- some commentary I wrote about Apple's negotiating position with respect to the 15% discounts for anti-bulk sales (which is weirdly backwards) where I touch on special deals (and tie in how Intelliborn's special deal was in some sense due to store competition).