Dozens of U.S. states say Apple stifles competition, back Epic
reuters.com
reuters.com
> Epic's appeal is very much alive. Apple will use its market power and money to get support from all sorts of "friends of the court" as well, possibly even ridiculous astroturfing organizations. But it won't be able to counterbalance the support Epic received from 35 states, Microsoft, the EFF, and America's most cited and most authoritative antitrust law professor. It will probably be easy to see for the Ninth Circuit that those who support Epic do so because it's the right and necessary thing to do, while those who will support Apple are just going to have reasons to do Apple a favor.
Update: The U.S. federal government has now filed a brief as well:
> The United States enforces the federal antitrust laws and has a strong interest in their correct interpretation. The United States files this brief, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 29(a)(2), to address errors in the district court’s analysis of the Sherman Act, which, if uncorrected, could significantly harm antitrust enforcement. The United States takes no position on the merits of the parties’ claims.
Further analysis on the government’s brief specifically: http://www.fosspatents.com/2022/01/biden-administration-back...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/17/3250148/oracle-tells-cour...
And we didn't even know the identity of the person(s) behind Groklaw, much less if they were funded by a company, but that's totally fine because of the bias right?
This is a really strange and trivially disproven claim[1].
> It will probably be easy to see for the Ninth Circuit that those who support Epic do so because it's the right and necessary thing to do, while those who will support Apple are just going to have reasons to do Apple a favor.
It's the kind of thing I would definitely write if I were being paid to paint Epic as a humble yet valiant defender of the consumer.
Call me cynical but I have my suspicions about this claim.
Elsewhere in the article they write
> Those filings [by amici curiae] are not just a "nice to have." This kind of support is mission-critical, as I explained a few days ago.
And here is the blog post going deeper about what they are claiming. http://www.fosspatents.com/2022/01/can-superstar-lawyer-tom-...
Snapchat. I am willing to bet they will issues a statement, PR or whatever it may be just as they have been doing for the past 6 years. The whole PR and marketing operation from Apple is getting quite boring / tiring. Same old tricks, same people, same moves, same tactics, same PR.
It works for those who dont follow Apple closely, and just reading them off some mainstream media. But follow them long and detail enough you should notice the same pattern. They have learned nothing from Katie Cotton, the Master of PR. If they had done better, even if I disagree with them I could have at least given them credit for doing a good job spinning it.
b) Apple charges 15% for developers earning less than $1m a year.
I don't understand how even as low as 15% of all the apps revenue can be less than $1m a year though and, if it is, why would Apple even bother collecting it.
> Apple charges 15% for developers earning less than $1m a year.
As this:
> Apple charges 15% for developers, earning less than $1m a year.
When it actually means this:
> Apple charges 15% to developers who earn less than $1m a year (and still charge 30% to developers who earn more than that).
Recent changes to tracking and ads sent billion dollar ripples through the industry, forcing Facebook to seek a new business model. Even if you hate ads, the scale of this force is a sure sign of a monopoly. And of course Apple is free to monopolize and take advantage of this data for their own purpose and profit.
Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer. You'll have to use sign in with Apple, throwaway emails, Apple payments, subscriptions, etc. Customers are on loan, a grace from Apple, and you can be cut off anytime. Solid footing for any startup.
Apple loves to clone app ideas, remove APIs, etc. There are countless stories of small app devs going out of business thanks to the platform they built upon.
Apple is now becoming a payments company. Soon they'll own physical space and both sides of the relationship there too.
They're also a movie studio, potential automaker, and gaming company.
Companies shouldn't be able to get this big and control every aspect, every interface. Not of 50+% of American digital activity. The Internet is not Apple, and yet for many people, it is.
I'm scared of Apple. They can do my business in on a whim. Yours too.
We should ask for better regulation to support smaller business and innovation. We shouldn't have to run our ideas by Apple. We shouldn't have to pay them for providing no service or service we didn't ask for.
This one alone strikes me as the worst offender.
And to think, back in the 90s, people found it objectionable that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows. Apple's behavior now would be like if in addition to bundling, Microsoft also completely blocked the installation of any competing browsers.
And requiring that apps use the Safari Mobile browser engine doesn’t seem anticompetitive to me. I simply see the browser engine as yet another smartphone API that every smartphone OS requires that developers use (like a file system or a network API).
Modern browsers are a rats nest of complexity. I can’t go a day without HN-type people complaining about the resources that Electron apps suck up - full native browsers embedded into iOS apps would not be much different.
Lately I've been doing a lot of "self-hacking" on iOS and I'm quite satisfied with it. There are Python environments, some JS ones. Of course, they're not 100% desktop-like, but limitations aren't that different from various embedded systems. Those can be integrated into widgets/watch faces, on-demand and remote triggered scripts. There's also possibility to write webapps that run in full-screen form (good for calculators, small snippets, there's some iOS API to be used but I didn't bother that deeply to check). Some stuff can be ran completely, there's rich automation library and plenty more.
As for other things - I'm Shortcut user and there are few extension to it like Pushcut or Toolbox Pro which extend it. I have shortcuts that manage my devices at home, when I'm there or when I leave, plus stuff I automated some with NFC stickers & Watch. Usually I start with it, when I want to get something automated. Shortcuts + servers provides a lot of automation (especially since I can get the data for widgets or make an action through it).
As for the other (especially compiled) languages I'm not sure if it's possible even possible without more advanced tools (and as far as I remember jailbreak voids warranty, but is confirmed to be legal). One can, however, create iOS applications without being part of developer program (this requires re-signing every week or two, which is inconvenience, but still something that can be automated) and for those 99$/year you don't have to re-sign every period. AppStore presence is not obligatory so one can make use of all sensors and data iOS applications have and even more (as AppStore rules don't oblige to your own personal apps) - and even share it to a small group of friends assuming they trust you, as they'd have to manually accept your dev certificate - something you can quite easily do with family or friends. It works for me but YMMV.
In general I'd say that for power user Apple's ecosystem isn't that restricted as people make it. On MacOS you get widely supported AppleScript that I personally despise due to syntax (and it seems like Apple dropped the idea of supporting JXA lately), on iOS there's reasonable x-callback/Shortcuts automation framework and quite a lot of commercial tools.
An example, hopefully valid but I didn't double check. Android provides a file system API but presumably I can do FUSE-type stuff in an app without it getting banned from the Play store, right? Maybe "mount" an iso image and let the user browse around in it?
That’s not what anti-competitive legislation says. You are making a cute argument using a slogan term and ignoring the definitions within the statutes.
The internals of a browser aren’t significant when it comes to product differentiation. They are significant when it comes to user-impacting features like battery life, security of data on the device outside of your app, and reasonable app sizes. These are the arguments I have seen that defend AAPL and their walled garden.
Anti-competition legislation is prosecuted based on whether prices for the end user are impacted, not whether there is freedom for a developer to rewrite some internal API that Apple already supplied.
There are much better arguments for anti-competitive behavior against Apple than the proprietary browser engine.
No, definitely not. Then again, very few people used computing technology in the 1990s and had no idea what Microsoft was up to, or cared. A computer was used sparingly. Today, you use one every waking minute in your pocket. So things change.
This is not true. Even in the mid-90s most things were computer based. Offices were full of them. A lot of people had them in their homes. Business software built in VB was a massive industry. I was getting paid to make websites in 1998, and they were immensely popular. People had LAN parties where they took their PCs to other peoples houses to play Doom on a network.
No doubt people use computers more now, but don't underestimate how much we sat in front of Windows 95.
Nothing fruitful came of the MS IE bundling antitrust lawsuit. The browser still came bundled with the OS and was the default.
OS X doesn’t have any App Store limitations and doesn’t restrict browsers to only use the safari engine, only iOS does that. But iOS is not a general purpose computing device. It is a very flexible embedded device. I want Apple to remain hands-off on restricting what I can install on my laptop and desktop, but I see the security and privacy value in having my smartphone apps being sandboxed.
I have always been heavily critical of MS and far less of Apple. People are tribal. I do see lots of value in Apple’s safeguarding of smartphones and the authentication + payments spaces, even if it comes at the expense of competition on their embedded platform.
Really anything with a browser is a general purpose computing device.
It is a proprietary device that runs a proprietary OS. The FCC doesn’t allow the average citizen to reprogram devices with cell phone modems. It is an embedded device with lots of capabilities.
Microsoft slaughtered companies that dared to compete with it in the bad old days, as noted in the findings of fact from the antitrust lawsuit.
>Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
There was also the contractual matter of forcing OEMs to pay for a Windows license on computers they shipped that didn't have Windows on them.
In the EU antitrust case, Microsoft was forced to open up the their client server protocols (too late to save Novell) but we did get a SAMBA implementation that works out of it.
And yes, time and again, fans of handcuffs are proving that they are willing to trade other people's freedoms for their own convenience.
My dad had a OnePlus phone from 2016 to 2018 or so and it was a mess. I don’t know what he clicks on, but he does not have those problems on iOS.
One plus phone was a mess because the product is mess. It wouldn't get any better if users weren't allowed using any other apps. For example, my wife's parents use Ubuntu desktop for many years, with next to zero maintenance. Ubuntu does have an ability to install other apps but through its software repository, but it is made in such a way that an unskilled user just can't break the system. A simple switch buried in the settings enabling third party repositories would be enough.
not as much momey as they could be making, but much more than without apple
Despite my objection to Apple in the recent post Steve Jobs era, they still make some of the best product in each category. Their attention to detail, while fallen from their peak, is still in a league of their own.
It is a rather sad state of things.
There are good parts about the way Apple operates, they execute well and in a consumer-friendly manner — that’s honestly pretty rare and one reason to like Apple.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210425
In a world where email address lists get sold, using the random address generated by Apple means that if that provider sells the list, you can disable the random address without exposing your real underlying address.
> Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer. You'll have to use sign in with Apple, throwaway emails, Apple payments, subscriptions, etc.
Sign In with Apple offers the user a choice whether to expose their email address to the application or whether to use a forwarding address.
Why? Well if you do what I do and register a different email address per application, you’ll quickly find that some applications either sell your data to spammers or get compromised and give it to the spammers for free. There’s nothing like registering for My Fitness Pal to track your progress and getting spam for Chinese casinos delivered to the email address you gave them and nobody else. And once they have your real email address, there’s no undoing that.
If Apple gives a forwarding address to those applications instead, when that email address starts to receive spam, the alias can be shut off to stop the spam to you, and even to everybody else who had their privacy compromised if it’s a widespread breach.
This is good for consumers, bad for spammers. If your users are given a choice between giving you their real email address and giving you a forwarding one, and they choose to keep their email address out of your hands, that’s not Apple being mean to developers, that’s your user’s privacy preference. Respect it.
Also, you don’t have to offer Sign In with Apple at all unless you also offer other social logins, like Facebook Login. Basically, if you’re going to centralise authentication with one of the giants, you have to offer Apple’s privacy-friendly option as well.
Apple payments? Nope, you don’t have to use them. Anything physical, you can use whatever you like. Many things digital, you can take payment outside the application using any system you like but have to use Apple within the application. Would it be better for developers if you could use whatever you like within the application? Sure! Is it the same thing as an unqualified “You must use Apple payments”? Not at all.
Subscriptions? Nope. Don’t have to use them at all under any circumstances. There’s loads of applications that are entirely free or have a one-time fee. You aren’t forced to use subscriptions at all.
But the anti-trust debate is not about that. It’s about whether or not the opportunities for companies to compete on finding overlapping interests with consumers are unduly restricted, which would indirectly be consumer hostile.
Consumer electronics is massive versus general purpose computing devices. Apple is big in the latter, but a much smaller market share of the former.
What you claim is a tax is (or was) the same rate as Google Play Store and Steam.
Scrutiny isn’t a terrible thing considering how weak app security is on some platforms. Also worth considering that OS X is a general purpose computing device (which doesn’t require the App Store), whereas iOS is an embedded device.
The “ask this app develop not to track me” seems to benefit and empower the user. In what antitrust framework would Facebook’s interest be defended? The US antitrust frameworks would have to be contorted severely to treat Facebook as the victim of antitrust behavior in this scenario.
The “Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer” is the best point you made. I’m not familiar with how the Apple contract leverages that off-app. Yet it is still the user’s option to use Login with Apple or ApplePay from outside of an iOS app.
I don't need to use Steam to play games on PC or OS X. I can get them from anywhere else.
Heck, Steam allowed me to activate my Humble Bundle keys on steam for free allowing games to be enabled on their platform when they are bypassed as the sourcing medium.
There is no way Steam can be compared to a monopolist like Apple. .
> whereas iOS is an embedded device.
In your opinion. For lots of people that is their main computing device and that is how they access a lot of services. iOS on iPad Pro is frequently advertised at replacing even laptop like use cases.
Even for people using laptops, it is hardly an "embedded" device as such, the same editing docs, crafting emails, editing photos is done on it as a complementary device.
> The “ask this app develop not to track me” seems to benefit and empower the user.
Yes, it does and it is good for the user to have control. But here is the deal, Apple has their own ad platform, in fact if memory serves me right, they used to have their Ads SDK in form of iAds as well which didn't do well so they scaled it back. The rules will help Apple the most in expanding their ad presence as personalised ads was where they struggled.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/16/hatred-sh...
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/valve-has-been-quietly-ch...
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/steam-is-removing-nft-g...
But the good thing is that even if Steam doesn't distribute them, these devs can distribute it through other stores or on their own, that is simply not an option on iOS.
And come on, iOS is not an embedded device, this joke of a defense has to die. These are very expensive general purpose handheld computers with processors having insane performance, not your smart fridge.
For all practical purposes, one who bought such a device should have control over what gets installed on it. Sideloading should be mandated by law. They could be free to put it behind any warning/setting so that your granny won’t install some scammy program, but it should be a right.
wait what? are you a lawyer or trying to sound like one?
"The ask this app develop not to track me seems to benefit and empower the user"
ofcourse, if you phrase it like that but if you phrase it as "ad personalization" it'll feel different
Embedded in what? Is it part of a car? That word means exaclty what it sounds like, this game of 'personal dictionary' is preposterous.
"An embedded system is a computer system ... within a larger mechanical or electronic system."
They can't. My business is manufacturing for wholesale, nothing whatsoever to do with computers.
These kinds of over-generalizations and FUD only serve to reduce your credibility.
No it's not, it's an oblate spheroid!
These kinds of over-generalisations and FUD only serve to reduce your credibility. Now I can't take your warning about climate change seriously!
Personally I’d never choose to use rhetoric like this. (“My life is in danger because of X, and so is YOURS!”/“They are coming for you and yours next!”) - that’s the kind of thing leads to the worst of humanity. Good for you if you like that (and who wouldn’t, when you have a personal hatred of X, right?), but some people have to stand against it.
I think most people are perfectly capable of processing this statement correctly, it's up their with 'videogames cause crime and violence'.
The iTrashBin will get a software update to DNA scan your garbage and report to the police if it sees something suspicious.
Apple can continue to mandate Apple payment options are as an option in every app, but let's watch as that 30% drops to nothingness once they face real competition.
And I think you're confused because Apple will still receive their commission irrespective of which payment provider a developer chooses to use.
Still absurd rent seeking behavior without real competition
> And I think you're confused because Apple will still receive their commission irrespective of which payment provider a developer chooses to use.
Keep pushing then
* Announced as a change by Apple in November 2020, after this lawsuit was filed in August 2020.
https://www.makeuseof.com/microsoft-confirms-its-selling-xbo...
Nintendo (like Apple) needs to recoup R&D and software development costs, and their business model is based on charging platform fees.
It's completely unsurprising that Apple's gaming handheld uses a similar walled garden/platform fee business model similar to Nintendo's.
It's baffling that on HN of all places I see people actively making this argument that you should NOT be able to install whatever the hell you want on your personal pocket computer that just happens to have an Apple logo on it. It doesn't make you more secure. It just doesn't. A locked down operating system quite literally makes you LESS secure because there's fewer people poking holes.
They JUST a few days ago patched a critical zero day. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/apple/apple-silently-f...
The ubiquity of Apple devices makes them a gigantic target for hackers.
As a developer I own both devices but the iPhone I have is quite literally a really really nice toy. All the apps I use are free. It's literally a social networking box with an excellent camera.
Meanwhile my Android does the exact same thing but I install and use open source apps on it to read manga that are simply not available on iOS.
The whole "does twitter owe someone a platform" conversation is fascinating.
Our computer companies have stopped selling parts for repair because 'safety' but any housewife can buy breaks or engine block and offer a commercial repair service without any training or certification
It seems to reduce to bickering about the perception of a fuzzy line. My back yard is not a public space. A government owned city park is a public space. What if that park was owned by a private corporation but left open to the public? What if all the parks in the city were owned by the same private corporation? Clearly there's more to "public vs private" than just ownership but where exactly should we draw the line?
I find it tiring as opposed to fascinating. It distracts from the real issue. Why such reliance on centralized walled garden communication infrastructure? At the core, how is Twitter functionally different from sending emails to a public listserv in the 90s? How is following an account different from polling an RSS feed?
Sometimes it really seems like we're moving backwards, all the while loudly arguing over the precise direction to cede ground in. Has anyone perhaps considered going forward instead?
That neither supports nor refutes your point.
First:
Almost all useful software gets patched frequently, from closed source things like Duolingo (and wow, do I wish I could edit that app’s code to get rid of the animations and the news tab and a few other things), to entirely permissive open-source projects like most of any Linux distro.
Better would be a comparison of the black market cost of zero-days. It’s been a while since I heard news about them (and I have not only no inclination but also don’t even know where to go to find ground-truth info), but a while ago that was Apple 0-days being cheaper than Android ones, i.e. implying they were more common.
If that’s still true, that would support your point.
Second:
One of these is about the apps, the other is about the OS itself, the only overlap is the OS refusing to let you install arbitrary apps.
Except you can install arbitrary apps on iOS in much the same way you can install them on Linux: get the source code and compile yourself, just (unlike e.g. Steam on Linux) there are no convenient pre-compiled app stores besides Apple’s.
Sort of. You can do this, but only for three apps at a time. And you have to be tethered to a PC that does the compiling. And you have to validate your credentials with Apple online for them to let you sign the app (which is required for running it on your phone). And the app will refuse to open after seven days have passed.
The three app limit is lifted and seven day killswitch changed to a 365 day one if you pay Apple $100 annually. Even then the other restrictions remain, so you can't, for instance, have your apps auto-update.
Compare to Android, where you can download an f-droid.apk, hit a switch or two in your settings, and get untethered app installs with semi-automatic updates. Unfortunately Android restricts fully automatic updates to preinstalled stores.
Android 12 has improved this a bit by allowing automatic updates from user-installed third-party app stores in some situations:
https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...
Imagine an F-Droid for iOS, with or without automatic updates. Not having to pay the $99 fee per year to keep apps in the App Store would encourage many developers to publish free and open source apps, expanding the selection of ad-free apps for iOS users. Not being beholden to App Store rules means that useful apps like NewPipe, apps banned by certain governments, and apps with GPL licensing conflicts would finally be made available to iOS users again.
If you have a Mac, and you renew the license every 7 days.. I would hardly put it in the “can install” category.
It's certainly true of the white-hat market:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/zerodium-make...
The community famous for 'mah free market' does not believe in your right to control your private property, its a paradox. Up there with 'freedom of speech' people burning books.
So Apple is not paying US taxes on that specific revenue stream.
And the big argument against Apple is that you can't have the same for iPhones.
Oh the illusion of choice. Nobody* is sideloading an appstore on their phone to have access to a new catalogue of apps.
What is beyond comprehension to me is why Apple doesn't take notice on google playbook and put the option to sideload apps/stores behind 20 menus deep and 5 warning screens. It would applacate a lot of people, keep nerds happy and 0.001% would do this.
* Outside technically inclined folks.
So yes, I do hope the US govt forces Apple to un-clench a bit.
You’re probably right, but how many of these >200 millions are users that installed said third party store after going through the speed bumps that google put there. And how many of these are people that their phone came with said third party store? For instance fire tv, fire tablet, Chinese phones etc?
Even though I’m being heavily downvoted I still think that 0.001% would actually install third party stores as apple is the sole provider of iOS (no one else could bundle their store with iOS devices).
If you have statics that shows that most of these >200 millions (didn’t check) are users that went though the phone settings, activated developer settings, downloaded apk from amazon and installed on their phones I would be happy to be proved wrong.
Edit.
> Would love to have something like f-droid for iOS.
> So yes, I do hope the US govt forces Apple to un-clench a bit.
We’re not in disagreement here.
On Android, it's not much more difficult than installing any other app (with a couple additional prompts to accept).
Between the Amazon app store (pre-installed on Amazon Fire devices), the Samsung Galaxy store (preinstalled with Samsung phones), the alternative Chinese app store(s) (used by basically the entirety of China), F-Droid (used by the technically inclined folks you mentioned), and raw apks downloaded straight from the internet, a substantial percentage of Android phones have at least one non-Google-Play app installed.
The important part is that distributing an app to a Android phone without Google's blessing is at least _possible_, and this gives them a bit of an out for charging whatever they want on their app store. You don't like their fee, fine - you're free to try to distribute your app via another store. For most people paying the Google fee is worth it, that's their choice.
None of this is true on phones made by Apple. You either pay Apple, or they'll do everything in their power to ensure your app can't run on any phone that was made by them, despite the fact that _they no longer own the phone_. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that they're finally catching some flack in the courts for this.
Apple just seems to be an odd foe for the U.S. to fight in this area. I'll get the tin foil.
Apple? The largest company in the world? A company 7x larger than walmart? Why would it at all be odd to accuse them on antitrust grounds.
What's best for any country is creating a healthy ecosystem that is long term competitive. We already went through 20 years of shitty cars because of Japan scares in the 80s, wasn't that enough?
American cars had a bad rep internationally (and domestically) probably until the mid 2000s when the industry started to become more competitive again.
Today Tesla is probably one example of an American carmaker that is innovative and I doubt you'll see them demand protectionist measures. International competition remains one of the best drivers for better products.
For certain values of "American carmaker". It already manufactures more cars in Shanghai than in Fremont, it is controlled by a South African who is certainly not beholden to US interests, and whenever convenient can do a tax inversion to move abroad easily...
They're an international company. Apple has already demonstrated a willingness to bow to pressure from China and censor apps etc. China is where their manufacturing and supply chain is, and the consumer market in China is nearly as big as it is in the US.
So it seems more of a liability than a benefit in a geopolitical conflict.
What is there gonna be no geoopolitical tension, in 20 years? Untill then theybcan get away with murder?
That's how a lawsuit would have to work, the courts don't typically like ruling on hypotheticals between two private entities.
IIRC the legal community used to kind of dislike these, and I think there might have been a penalty for doing it. But obviously that’s no more
Epic must violate Apple's terms of use in order to be injured by the application of them, in order for Epic to have standing to allege those terms are an abuse of monopoly power.
There is absolutely no reason in a well functioning market for this to occur.
Then I realized electric distribution is a canonical example of natural monopolies....
So instead you've convinced me inverse pricing is at least a good heuristic.
This is because the arguments made in this brief are fairly limited in scope to specific procedural details for how antitrust analysis should be conducted in cases like these, and in essence can be summarized as: "the district court needs to go back and analyze this in more detail".
To elaborate further, the two arguments made are:
> 1. The district court erred in holding that Section 1 of the Sherman Act does not apply to “unilateral contracts.”
A section 1 claim requires the plaintiff to prove (1) the existence of an agreement and (2) that the agreement was an unreasonable restraint of trade. The district court ruled that Epic had not satisfied (1) because the agreement was a "unilateral contract". The states disagree. Even if they are right, Epic still faces the uphill burden of moving to the next step and actually proving (2).
> 2. The district court’s rule-of-reason analysis failed to balance the overall competitive effects of Apple’s restraints.
Under the rule of reason the district court applied a "three-part burden-shifting" test to the question of whether Apple's contractual restraints of trade were unreasonable. First, the burden was on Epic to prove that the restraints had an anti-competitive effect. The court agreed. Second, the burden shifted to Apple to prove there was a pro-competitive justification for the restraints. The court agreed. Third, the burden shifted back to Epic to prove that those pro-competitive justifications could have been achieved through less restrictive means. Here, the court did not agree with Epic and thus the three-part test failed.
The states argue that, after having failed that test, the district court needs to take the additional step of analyzing the anti-competitive effects vs the pro-competitive justifications to determine whether the net result is pro or anti-competitive. In other words, they are asking for the appeals court to remand the case back to the district court for further analysis. Again, there is no guarantee that this analysis would come out in Epic's favor.
Of course, all this is predicated on the appeals court agreeing with the arguments made in the brief. They may very well disagree, in which case this whole argument is moot. Overall I believe Epic is still fighting a huge uphill battle here and the current antitrust laws (not to mention the current makeup of the Supreme Court) are not likely to be on their side.
The fact web developers have to use open standards to support iOS is basically the only reason we have open standards on the web today.
Chrome is not popular because people like it. Chrome is popular because Google forces over 80% of phones on the planet to ship with it as default, and because people trying to install Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player would suddenly discover their default browser was now Google Chrome. And then, once they had a decent install base... a lot of other people installed Chrome because some poorly written website that didn't follow web standards told them it'd only work well if they installed Chrome. Like Gmail, the world's most popular email client.
This is false. Yet, even if it were true, Chrome's 75% marketshare outside of mobile is strong evidence that it's pretty popular.
What's false about it? It's either chrome or chrome-based, isn't it? Or can you actually get the play store if you have a default browser of firefox?
> Chrome's 75% marketshare outside of mobile
Is covered by the rest of the sentence.
One of the rare cases where a non default option overtook the defaults.
Also IE felt years behind the competition and the situation isn't even remotely comparable to Safari. It seems like the Safari team made some efforts to catch up. While they aren't at the same point as Firefox or Chromium they did catch up a little bit over the last year.
The situation with IE was completely different. Microsoft used IE to push proprietary standards like ActiveX and it felt like there wasn't really a active development team for Internet Explorer or that Microsoft IE wasn't a priority. The first thing isn't true for Safari and while it feels like Safari wasn't a priority for Apple they announced making more of an effort if I remember correctly and if they don't Safari will probably go down the same road as IE.
This is the equivalent of just like 'well he stabbed a man, but the guy deserved it and was a filthy pleb"
It doesn’t change my opinion that Chrome has the best performance, developer experience, and latest API features. It’s the only browser trying to give web apps access to the expensive hardware I paid for.
I know it’s a hot take to like that, but unfortunately tons of my desktop software must be connected to the internet anyways to make sure I’ve paid a subscription bolted on a few versions ago :( I prefer the sandbox and portability of a web app when that’s my alternative.
This is the root of the problem: Google isn't the open web, Google is the one closing it.
Also, Chrome's notification API is, in practice, that thing I have to shut off when people keep asking why porn ads are constantly popping up on their PC in the bottom right corner. Probably not a great model for others to follow.
https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/
The largest Safari complaint is unrelated to experimental features from the Chrome team: it's the showstopping bugs in implemented features, made worse by Safari's slow release cycle.
A privacy-invading feature like FLoC which thankfully has been disbanded. And Google even controls specs. Thankfully, due to safari web is free from the monopoly of Chrome. Today some website doesn't work in firefox. Do you think that is good for the web?
I understand the shenanigans of Apple here. They just want to make sure people make apps instead of the website so, that they can egregiously charge a yearly fee + 30% of revenue. But safari does protect the web in some way by challenging Google.
They cannot.
Edge - Google Chromium
Vivaldi - Google Chromium
Opera - Guess what? Yes its Google Chromium
Electron - Google Chromium
The only two other engines are: Webkit Firefox
Firefox is barely surviving and is using funds from Google. If Google stop those funds, its gone. Webkit is from Apple and if you look on my apple it is only alternative till today. If IOS allow other browser then you should know web will be in hands of Google.
Google can do whatever they like. And web being in hands of Google is dangerous.
Even spinning off Chrome might not be enough: Even if it's not Google, it'd still be the entire web platform controlled and implemented by one group.
As for 'over group' - no, with the crucial advantage of Chrome bundled with Android and Google gone, other players will pick up quickly, competing for those lucrative deals with the search engines. Currently this space is dead because nobody dares competing with Alphabet.
Yes.
They all do. Also only Safari can have extensions. Every other browser is blocked from doing so. Every time I bring this up, I’m told it’s okay because Apple has only 50% market share. I don’t understand why your market share matters when it comes to anti-competitive practices.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ty...
The fact that courts turned competition law into some toothless tool only highlights the problem.
It completely fails to account for the relatively recent platform lock-in and network effects which dramatically amplify the leverage and impact of the platform owner not only on the end users (who could with great effort choose a different platform and migrate all their data and services) but also the third parties who need access to the platform in order to enter a market.
I don't think any of these are strictly limited to Safari. As far as I can tell, every feature you mention could be implemented by the third-party browsers.
> Only Safari can have extensions
The Orion browser [1] supports extensions, although I suppose the App Store rules could prove to be a problem with executing arbitrary code as it hasn't run through the full review process yet.
> only Safari can have iOS Content Blockers
Brave blocks content and ads.
> only Safari supports Screen Time
There is new API [1] for this and I believe everything you mentioned is available to developers, although I haven't used it myself.
> only Safari is allowed to launch apps
This should be possible to implement by checking the `.well-known/apple-app-site-association/` and calling `openURL:` on matches. It might be difficult to know for sure if some apps were installed or not, but that doesn't seem to be the key issue here.
[2]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/deviceactivity/dev...
A prototype with support for extensions already went through full review process https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kagi/id1484498200
I've been enjoying Orion a lot so far. Thanks for all of your work on building something new!
Reimplemented. iOS builds these mechanisms in, but many (seemingly) can't be used by other browsers.
> The Orion browser [1] supports extensions, although I suppose the App Store rules could prove to be a problem with executing arbitrary code as it hasn't run through the full review process yet.
Safari Extensions, from the iOS App Store, have a UI optimized for iOS/mobile. I tried installing 1Password for desktop Chrome on Kagi mobile, didn't work since it couldn't communicate with the 1Password iOS app (might be a problem on Kagi's end though). 1Password's iOS WebExtension seemingly only works with Safari.
> Brave blocks content and ads.
Not through iOS Content Blockers; Brave had to reimplement that. BTW, Brave on Android lets you add custom filters, but doesn't on iOS; not sure if that's Apple's fault.
> There is new API [1] for this and I believe everything you mentioned is available to developers, although I haven't used it myself.
Hadn't seen this, thanks.
> This should be possible to implement by checking the `.well-known/apple-app-site-association/` and calling `openURL:` on matches. It might be difficult to know for sure if some apps were installed or not, but that doesn't seem to be the key issue here.
Interesting. It's sad though that of all browsers I've tried, none supported this; it's a sad statement on the quality of non-Safari browsers on iOS.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/preparing-yo...
> Apps that have the com.apple.developer.web-browser managed entitlement may not claim to respond to Universal Links for specific domains. The system will ignore any such claims. Apps with the entitlement can still open Universal Links to other apps as usual.
[0]: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#2.5...
Last time we had someone arguing with a dozens of comment saying he is using a third party browser on his iPhone. Before we finally got to the point and realise he didn't know every iOS browser is based on the same webkit.
This also completely ignores the distinction that it's the App Store which doesn't allow third party rendering engines and not iOS itself (you could create a free developer account and build and run a version of Chrome using Blink if you'd like). So this comes back to the larger question of whether Apple should be allowed to so heavily restrict the installation of software to its own distribution mechanisms.
It's hard to write a web browser that doesn't download and execute JavaScript code from random places.
There has been a bit of wiggle room added on that in recent years. Pythonista offers the ability to write and execute your own Python code, they just don't make it easy to import and run code from random places.
>Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
Can you clarify your legal background and/or expertise on competition law and the technical specifics that you believe makes this definitive statement hold true.
My understanding is that WebKit is the only rendering engine permitted on iOS as a security precaution, ostensibly taking Apple at face value and in good faith.
Numerous zero-days on iOS have targeted WebKit in the past, and to a large extent this makes sense to me. Browsers have become one of the most common malware vectors in the modern era, which isn’t surprising given their entire purpose is to access and execute/render external code.
Given that fact, and the significant attack surface area that opens up, Apple’s stance, in my nebulous interpretation, is that having any other rendering engine permitted to run in iOS presents an unmanageable number of potential vectors for more widespread malware on the platform. (Arguments about their resources aside, we know adding engineers to a problem space doesn’t scale in linear fashion towards solving those problems.)
Apple’s vocal focus on privacy and safety constitutes a significant aspect of their product marketing, and it makes sense they’d want to walk-the-walk, so to speak, to ensure their product lives up to the claims they make.
Now, given that Apple already have trouble keeping up with WebKit vulnerabilities, it’s believable that they’re being entirely genuine* in arguing against the addition of additional browser engines that they’d need to keep up with, on the grounds that doing so presents a real risk to their product’s core value proposition, and by extension, their users.
*However, it’s also important not to over-ascribe anthropomorphic traits to a corporation, and it’s completely valid to argue that Apple benefit heavily from this narrative. Indeed, both can be true.
The solution for anyone who wants this is to not use any browser other than Apple's. It's no excuse for not giving the customer a choice. They can still choose the existing thing if they want it; just don't install anyone else's browser.
Either way, intent shouldn't matter here. What matters more is their actual damage to competition which is apparent.
Look at mac. Do we have a problem with firefox on mac? Both mac and iOS share the same OS kernel. Using security as an excuse is laughable.
I once read on twitter from a mozilla dev saying they were even willing to build a browser engine without JIT just to satisfy the security requirement. But eventually they went with webkit to build Firefox for iOS.
Uh, yes? There's 18 here (just for January 2022, mind) of which only 4 don't affect the Mac version.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2022-0...
December 2021 has 13, only 1 doesn't affect the Mac.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2021-5...
etc. etc.
2019: Safari: 166, Chrome: 312 2020: Safari: 76, Chrome: 228 2021: Safari: 33, Chrome: 309
> Safari is much less secure than Chrome
Not by CVE metrics? Which metric are we talking about here?
From today:
>A fake two-factor-authentication app that has been downloaded some 10,000 times from Google Play surreptitiously installed a known banking-fraud trojan that scoured infected phones for financial data and other personal information, security firm Pradeo said.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/2fa-a...
A 30% cut for small developers makes a certain amount of sense. It enables a lot of developers who would otherwise be unable to get a payment pipeline (or at least easily get one) to have a revenue model on the App Store. But it makes absolutely no sense to big publishers like Epic, Apple, Netflix or Amazon, who all have their own payment processors already.
A 30% cut on billions a year in revenue is a big incentive for challenging Apple's payments monopoly.
Apple instead should've offered volume discounts for "Partners", scaling down to 10% or even less. Being a Partner means abiding by certain contractual conditions. Challenging Partnership terms ends your sweetheart volume deal. This simply changes the math from:
- Win: Pay less than 30%
- Lose: Keep paying 30% (ie no loss). To anyone who thinks the likes of Amazon would be kicked off the App Store, you're crazy.
to:
- Win: Pay less than 10% (so the upside is smaller)
- Lose: Have to pay 30% instead of 10% (huge downside).
The truth is that Apple uses that 30% as a slush fund. it makes it's way back to bigger publishers in backroom deals ("incentives"). You, as a smaller publisher paying 30%, are paying for that.
Unfortunately I believe short-term greed got a hold of Apple management. When it was 30% of a new, much smaller market it made more sense. There are costs involved in running the App Store, vetting apps, hosting apps, etc. But 30% now? It's become a huge profit center.
So Apple may well lose control over payments because they're trying to hold on too tight to that cash cow.
Personally I don't think users want or would benefit from alternative App Stores. But being able to buy digital goods on Amazon like I can with physical goods (which was another carved-out exception) with my Amazon payment information? That's entirely reasonable and I think Apple is making it inevitable.
It's been 15% for over a year now[1]. Plus it's 15% for all subscription fees after one year for all developers. I think they actually forced Google to reduce developer fees to remain competitive.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...
These are the developers you want to support the most in the hope that they don't die before they become bigger and generate more revenue for you. They also don't generate that much revenue for you right now, so overcharging them isn't nearly as profitable as overcharging the big players.
And overcharging the little guy but not the big guy is bad PR. There are a lot of them and they'll spend their lives complaining to anyone who will listen that you're destroying their business and making it impossible to compete against "volume discount" conglomerates.
> Apple instead should've offered volume discounts for "Partners", scaling down to 10% or even less.
So then they lose most of the money anyway because the "volume discounts" go to the people with the most revenue. Might as well lower the price for everyone.
I agree but I really think Apple has backed themselves into a corner now. Their App Store revenue is such an enormous chunk of their income (direct and indirect) that to remove their monopoly on distribution and payments now would cut their profits by double digits. Their stock price would plummet. I don't think they have a choice but to drag this out for as long as possible, in every country they can. I think it is inevitable that many countries will order Apple to unbundle the App Store and allow competitors, but many will not, and the process will take years or even decades. In the mean time, Apple stands only to gain.
In terms of strategic calculus, I think this makes sense, even if it means they will eventually receive worse strategic positions in certain countries.
Governments no longer have a teeth, pro-users will be happy, and for apple everything will remain the same as even the pro-user will continue to use the AppStore for nigh everything.
(And in case you missed it, he didn't suggest it as the best moral/legal outcome, but as a better strategy for Apple Inc to continue abusing their monopoly unchallenged).
https://github.com/tomkidd/Quake-iOS
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...
- GPL does not allow any restrictions on usage or distribution;
- App Store restricts installation to 5 devices.
So they're clearly incompatible. I was confused about why Apple would be the one to pull the app, as it's the GPL that's being broken, but I guess from Apple's perspective they just don't want the hassle of anyone claiming they're breaking the GPL.
But can't it all be resolved just by having the App Store version of the app contain a link to the open source?
Edit to add: is this a GPL vs LGPL thing, where the GPL build of an app would include some Apple code and they don't want to have that claimed by the GPL?
Things get trickier with multiple contributors. The app store submitter would need to get permission from all contributors to dual license the code for the App Store, and the easiest way to do this is to require each contributor to sign a CLA granting permission for this before accepting their pull request.
If the submitter can't secure dual licensing permission from all contributors, the code needs to be refactored to remove the parts without the necessary permission. If this isn't possible, then the app can't be published in the App Store.
The first conflict between the App Store terms of service and the GPL concerned the GNU Go app, which was removed from the App Store in 2010. The FSF explained the conflicting provisions: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...
Is this how we play this game?
Also, even had they lost the case, Epic still essentially won the case: They made the god bleed. The data revealed in the lawsuit which was previously outside the view of regulators is now public, and lawmakers and regulators will act on them, regardless of the decision of this particular case. A lawsuit is an excellent way to bring garbage to light that you were told you had to keep confidential.
Even if Epic ultimately loses the suit, within a couple years the facts revealed in the case will render most of Apple's practices regarding the case illegal. Apple might win the case, but they also might have half a dozen countries pass laws to cap their app store tax rate at 3%.
Apple phones use Apple payment solutions and Apple's app store.
What is wrong with this?
If Apple had a change of heart tomorrow and opened up app distribution, they probably would still charge 30% - because everyone does, even things like Steam which runs on platforms Valve doesn't own. However, that doesn't change the fact that Apple can gain competitive advantage over their own partners by utilizing their app distribution chokepoint.
I’m not sure about “vast majority”, but I’m sure that lots of devs are making no money purely because they sell basically no copies. But if a game has even a moderate success, it looks like Steam’s cut will be 30%
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/tying_arrangement#:~:text=An....
Sure, Apple should have reduced they cut to 5% years ago. I don't really see what service Apple provides that justify 15 or 30%.
Allowing third party app stores, and alternative payment solutions, isn't something I can see benefiting anyone. There might be countries where credit/debit cards aren't accessible to most, and that's a problem Apple should have dealt with.
Having multiple payment option and stores bypassing Apple will result in people getting scammed and that will hurt Apple. Right now people complain about Apple having total control over the platform. When a third party payment provider or alternative App Store starts selling information stealing credit card numbers or when Epic won't refund some kids $5,000 spending on in game purchases, Apple WILL be criticized for not doing more to protect users.
Imagine in the limit that 100% of computing was Apple iPhone. If you couldn't do anything without Apple's blessing. Totally absurd and nonsensical, right? It's a dark ages fiefdom. Now scale that back to a gentle 60% of Americans, because that's the grip Apple has over our country and our small businesses.
Apple shouldn't be able to keep my "Steve Jobs is a Dingo" game off of their devices. That's just not their job in a well regulated economy. They also shouldn't be able to tell me when I can or cannot emergency hot fix my "Serious Business Software" when there's a bug that needs to be fixed yesterday. They have no place between me and my critical business function.
Apple has gone too far, and it's time to roll back to a sane, regulated, and fair position. It isn't going to hit their bottom line at all.
Honestly had it been Microsoft (or even Google) behind the lawsuit I would have been more positive. The gaming industry however is going to misuse the everlasting shit out of a victory.
We live in a world with lots of risks (cars, guns, drugs, people), but we mostly manage with rules and guidelines instead of strict nannying. Software can be dangerous, but there are lots of guard rails and safety nets for banking, dating, and the other sharp areas.
Software systems are getting safer, too. There's sandboxing, fine grained permissions, vuln scanning, central command and control to remove known malware, multi factor auth, and so on. Lots of tools to leverage.
I wouldn't be opposed to Apple monitoring the software that runs on my device and having an (opt-outable) automatic means of killing it remotely in the event it should violate heuristics or be reported as malicious.
Apple's interests in protecting consumers aligned really closely with their interests in protecting their platform economics. While it seems risky, I think both Apple and consumers will do fine with an opening up. It won't preclude protective measures, and it'll make Apple leaner and more focused on new products and features. They'll still make a killing selling their best of class hardware.
I want Apple to succeed. Just not at the expense of everyone else, consumers and small businesses alike.
They can have either the same level of control, less, but never more. As it stands right now, Apple and pretty much all Android manufacturers have more control (Yes, I said Android too. Good luck trying to mod the bootloader itself or gaining access to the TEE)
This would be a great thing because that way you don't force any company to modify their app plattform or change their normal user-facing software in any way, yet those who wish so can do with the device whatever they want in the same fashion the manufacturer could before (and even after) the sale.
iPhone had 47% market share in the US last quarter.
So shouldn't it be that an Android is America's computer ?
Take PinePhone for a example. They aren’t being sued by any top players, and they certainly aren’t being banned at the domain level.
If you want to exclusively download apps from the App Store and exclusively make in-app purchases through Apple's payment system, you are 100% free to do so, even if others are able to choose differently.
My point with PinePhone is that if someone wants to make their own platform that uses a different payment processing system, they are free to do so, much like PinePhone has done.
This isn’t comparable to the railroad monopolies of the 1800s like these anti-trust laws were intended to effect. Because no one is forcing anybody to use Apple products. If you don’t like it, simply use something else. No one anywhere is being forced to use Apple products. The idea that the government should force Apple to make changes to its systems both sickens and disgusts me.
There is no U.S. antitrust provision that would force Apple to place a backdoor in iMessage. And if iMessage is compromised in certain countries where secure messaging apps are banned (such as China: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...), iOS users would benefit from having the option to sideload apps like Signal and use them to communicate securely.
Forbidding one company from taking anti-competitive actions against smaller companies that increase the prices its users pay for products and services is not taking away from your rights. If you don't want to download or purchase anything through means not endorsed by Apple, you're not being forced to do so. The App Store and Apple's payment system are still available to you. The idea that others should conform to and pay for your preferences is antithetical to the notion of freedom.
https://www.scribd.com/document/555427906/22-01-27-Utah-Et-A...
U.S. antitrust law does not require the existence of a monopoly for a violation, just sufficiently anti-competitive behavior. High market power strengthens an antitrust claim, and iOS being part of a duopoly fits the mold.
What you are suggesting is in fact special treatment, for Apple.
You’re not paying for transactions, you’re paying a platform commission. Calling it a transaction fee is simply an attempt to make it sound like they’re being overcharged.
Keep in mind that to many of the younger generation, smartphones are their singular computing device.
The App Store protections are part of the platform value proposition. Please don't respond with "they don't have to install third party store" nonsense, because for many people if (say) google docs puts itself in its own store they will have no choice.
What, you don't like Internet Explorer? Apple exists, buy a Mac! Or better yet, delete Windows and install Linux! See, there's no monopolistic behavior at all, provided that number of competitors is greater than zero!
They did. They were pointing to MacOS and Sun Solaris and all of them as supposed competitors, even though they didn't run on the same hardware as Windows did and apps for Windows didn't run on them.
The court didn't buy it.
It's because other app stores are providing better value or better apps? Well that's why Apple preventing other app stores is anti-competitive.
If someone picks Apple over Android is being of value and therefore should be allowed, how is someone picking Google Docs over every other Apple App Store office suite not also because of value?
Oh wait, you mean give up all that stuff to 'switch to android'. To most people that like suggesting that they learn how to write with their left hand by cutting off their right hand; Not even close to tenable.
Yet I still get the opportunity to install whatever program I want to on a device I payed a huge sum of money.
And no, switching between 2 things is not consumer choice, so with all due respect, saying switching to android is disrespectful.
Of course they did, all the big tech firms do but Apple is perhaps the most egregious. Whenever Apple acquires a company it shuts that company down and integrates all the IP and talent into the Apple walled garden (e.g. Dark Sky), by comparison many of the other big firms are often happy to let their acquisitions remain available to users of all platforms e.g. Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Github etc.
> In general, any business — even a monopolist — may choose its business partners. However, under certain circumstances, there may be limits on this freedom for a firm with market power.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
Also, this starts getting into the “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” mindset, which is a really bad lens to view politics through.
Of course it’s probably best left to our imagination…
But, don't let a bad precedent define you. Given that consoles are also basically general purpose computers I don't see why users shouldn't be allowed to sideload games / apps on the consoles they own.
If the manufacturer can digitally sign an app to make it run on the console, users should also get a signing key upon purchase.
A sensible argument to shut that down too.
> You’re not paying for transactions, you’re paying a platform commission. Calling it a transaction fee is simply an attempt to make it sound like they’re being overcharged.
They are being overcharged. It's leveraging a monopoly over the users of the platform against the app developers who are customers of software distribution and payment services.
Consoles are Gaming. I have no problem with Apple charging 30% on Games or In Games transaction. As it is the norm in Gaming market. The console 30% or higher commission was determined in an open market. And shows 30% is not an arbitrary number.
Why do they need to charge 30% of an Online Teaching Glass ( currently exempted ), or 30% of tips going to creators? Are those market the same as gaming? They are not, as any sane person should agree and as defined in court by Judge YGR.
Edit: On that note I still dont understand why Apple doesn't break the Games into a separate store. Continue to charge 30% of it, which protect 80% of their current App Store revenue. And let the App Store to charge at a lower rate.
30% in the rest of the market is also not an arbitrary number. The App Store charged 30% to compete with brick-and-mortar retailers charging 70% on all software - not just games. Apple has charged the same rate since the store's inception. If developers are complaining about the 30% after 15 years of agreeing to it in the first place, then Apple isn't the cause of their woes. Apple is not obligated to change it's rate simply because developers have retroactively deemed it unfair anymore than developers are obligated to change their prices because the consumers should deem those to be unfair.
And everything running linux would be a general purpose computer? The console only run games. And that is their model. You dont sell productivity and content creation or other social / business apps on it, nor are those allowed on their "App Store".
> The App Store charged 30% to compete with brick-and-mortar retailers charging 70% on all software - not just games.
It absolutely make sense then. Because brick and mortar was at the time how majority of software distribution works. Again, suggesting 30% on software completely neglect the terms on services. You charge 30% on software, by none of that software charge 30% when I try to teach kids online during a pandemic.
>15 years of agreeing to it in the first place,
Because 15 years ago there wasn't a digital services industry on top. Why is domain name registration inside Apps exempt from 30% services fees and not other fees like email hosting? How did that exempt came from?
Apple should charge for access to their software IP, but not for access to their customers.