Hacker News Reader

Comment by tech-no-logical | Hacker News Reader

maybe I'm a cynic, but why should I care that Evil Corp A tries to rip off Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C ?

At the end of the day the consumers also hurt, so you should care. If basic economic theory puts the optimal price for this service at 10$ without the middleman, then perhaps it becomes 12$ with the middleman.

that's implied by every Evil Corp, but yes, you are correct. still, to the consumer it does not really matter which of the Evil Corp gets the money since they will pay it anyway. I don't, for a minute, think that the 30% would not be paid by the end-user if Evil Corp A was not in play. B and C would just raise prices.

> I don't, for a minute, think that the 30% would not be paid by the end-user if Evil Corp A was not in play. B and C would just raise prices.

That's what I hint at with "basic economic theory". Evil Corp X wants maximal returns and there is a price point at which they get maximal returns. They can't just raise prices infinitely, because nobody will buy the service. If a middleman takes a cut then that optimal price point moves. Explaining it as the cut being shifted onto the consumer is too simplistic of a model. A part of the cut is shifted onto the consumer and the rest is lost by Evil Corp B, to maximise their total revenue.

I get your point. still, in this case B and C are, in my opinion, equally evil in exploiting their workers. so having them raise their optimal price to something the consumer would not buy their service would be, in essence, a good thing.

Yes, all "evil" should be eliminated. I don't think they're evil in the sense of Hitler or anything like that, they've just learned to play by the current rules and maximize their power under them. I don't think ultimately that it's ethically correct to do so, but it's understandable, and I'm sure a lot of the actions come from a place of wanting to do good. Nevertheless, I wish the world becomes a better place on this aspect as well.

> I'm sure a lot of the actions come from a place of wanting to do good

although wholeheartedly I agree with your sentiment, that's where our opinions diverge... none of the parties mentioned in the original issue are 'wanting to do good' in my opinion, even thoug it _is_, as you say, understandable that they do what they do.

> none of the parties mentioned in the original issue are 'wanting to do good' in my opinion

Yes, for the immediate issue at hand they just want to make money right, but they might be seeing their greater mission as extremely good, for example in providing the best handheld computing platform to the world or whatever it might be and that makes it all OK. To which level that is delusional thinking I'll let you decide for yourself, but I have a lot of first hand experience of how the mind operates in top level C-suits. They almost have to fool themselves to be able to operate and at their core believe without a shred of a doubt in what they do. Whether this comes from starting each morning with Tony Robbins affirmations I do not know.

I doubt the customer's cost goes up by 20%. That seems pretty extreme. In fact, I'm not sure of the mechanism that makes that costs go up by that much. I guess it depends on the number of Uber drivers around, maybe? In economic theory, it would primarily come out of Uber's profit margin.

Because monopolistic business practices tangibly hurt consumers by reducing incentives to produce a good product and by artificially raising prices that get passed to the consumer

> Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C

Because Evil Corp B and Evil Corp C will pass the 30% commission on the consumer.

But also because Good Small Corp D and Good Small Corp E would have to follow the same rules.

now _this_ is something I can agree with. which is why I try to support Small Corp D and E outside of any store, by directly buying from them (if at all possible)

It's like the model of the world of a turtle resting on another turtle's back, which is itself atop another turtle, but instead composed of FAANG C-levels doing dickish things to each other (and by follow on effect, the end user)

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

Beyond caring about the larger issues at play here, the way it can effect you is if you have to pay 30% more for every subscription because companies need to account for paying Apple so much

This is not theoretical. In 2018 Netflix would've paid Apple around 256m [0] and Netflix also had a fair number of price raises in the past few years. Obviously the app store commission was not the only factor in these price raises, but it's clearly a factor the tune of about 250 million per year.

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/netflix-stops-paying-the-a...

personally, knowing the cuts that either app/play store take, I would _never_ subscribe to a service through either of them, that's luckily still an option. netflix raising prices _because_ of a store tax, even for users subscribing outside of them, would be worrying, but your link has no evidence of that, right ?

Sorry, I should have been a little more careful with my wording. You are correct in that there isn't a direct quoted link. But, Netflix raised subscription prices to pay for more content...obviously paying 250 million to Apple (for basically nothing?) doesn't help their balance sheet.

I guess not everyone would look at it this way, but from a big picture standpoint it all adds up to the bottom line.

A 15% to 30% cut of all revenue punishes small businesses and makes many businesses infeasible, especially low margin businesses, as that 30% cut cuts into margins. Loss of competition hurts entire markets, including consumers.

agreed. but neither Lyft nor Uber are not small businesses. they also just exploit their workers.

Yes, they do, but the problems they're getting publicity for are the same problems many small businesses owners have who won't get any publicity.

the negative publicity regarding Evil Corp A is certainly a good thing, agreed. and like I said in another reply, I tend to try to support the smaller businesses _outside_ of the stores, knowing they would benefit that much more.

If you think that every corporation is an Evil Corp and actions are evil because evil entities do them then there's no reason you should care.

But if you ascribe the degree of evilness to the action rather than the actor, then you absolutely should care because it's anti-competitive and poisons the general health of the market.

true. in general I would agree any party taking a 30% cut (whether app store or play store or whatever) would be the supreme evil. but since all three parties involved in this instance are of the same caliber, I don't care, and I choose to use none of them.

It's a fair choice to use none of them, but the problem with large entities making decisions you don't like is that the next step from "large" is "institution" (which Apple arguably already is) and then sometimes "dominant institution."

So if you buy the slippery slope argument (which you don't have to), then if there are objections you want to make about that dominant-institution-in-progress, now is probably a good time to think about what they're doing and what you wish would change.

What's missing is that companies don't pay the 30% -- it's the end-users that do. Every user of iOS pays 30% of every app and IAP to Apple. The other company never even sees this money.

If MegaMegaCo forces MegaCo to give up X dollars, MegaCo isn't going to declare instant bankruptcy, it's going to use that as justification to raise its prices to you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com