Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

People are arguing for that tax because they genuinely believe that Apple will somehow respond to this in a way that will cause their own income stream to be affected negatively (for instance: if Apple decides to raise the 30% to make up for the shortfall of companies that go outside of their platform).

It's Stockholm Syndrome.

Apple got away lucky that they weren't ordered to be split up and to run their payment service provider as an independent entity. It could still happen, the EU is pretty aggressive when it comes to monopolies overreaching their legal limits or abusing their position.

The various phone operators here have been smacked down pretty hard time and again on things like roaming, service fees and so on. Apple is no different.

View on HN

I’m arguing for the tax because it provides a strong incentive for app developers to stick to Apples payment systems, that’s good for me as an end user.

I’m also arguing for the tax because I believe that Apple has the absolute right to collect such a tax, why wouldn’t they? They’re far from being a monopolist.

Stockholm syndrome? Mobile app development sounds like the last thing I’d want to have anything to do with.

> I’m arguing for the tax because it provides a strong incentive for app developers to stick to Apples payment systems, that’s good for me as an end user.

You as an end user are not party to the agreement that Apple has with the developers. You are of course free to choose not to do business with parties that do not support Apples payment system, but the same goes for Stripe, PayPal, Adyen and all the other PSPs.

> I’m also arguing for the tax because I believe that Apple has the absolute right to collect such a tax, why wouldn’t they?

Because they are abusing their position to do so.

> They’re far from being a monopolist.

Your understanding of what constitutes a de-facto monopoly is broken.

> Stockholm syndrome? > Mobile app development sounds like the last thing I’d want to have anything to do with.

That is your choice and your right, but plenty of high performance and/or low level applications have no choice but to go native.

> You as an end user are not party to the agreement that Apple has with the developers. You are of course free to choose not to do business with...

Under the same logic, you, as the developer is also free to not do business with Apple and build on iOS.

Or you could see it with the angle that Apple is in effect hired by us, the end-users, to negotiate on our behalf to ensure the ecosystem cannot dictate unilateral terms unfavorable to us.

>Or you could see it with the angle that Apple is in effect hired by us, the end-users, to negotiate on our behalf to ensure the ecosystem cannot dictate unilateral terms unfavorable to us.

Then continue to only use Apple App Store and Apple Payments. Free market says if all the end-users truly believe that, all the others will fail from no users. So why is Apple so afraid of a little fair competition?

I don't think your description of "free market" with some arbitrary constraint on singular party, i.e. Apple, is quite self-consistent, but I digress; the argument is not hinged on holding "freeness of the market" as self-evidently good.

> if all the end-users truly believe that, all the others will fail from no users

Not necessarily. There is a possibility that each individual user may not be valuable enough to the developer to negotiate the Terms of Service imposed on them by the developer. Nor does logistics allow for such negotiation. By voting with our wallets, Apple acts on behalf of all of us securing some of our interests, meanwhile pocketing some money for their mediation service, just like a lawyer, non-profit, union, lobby group, co-op, or agent would do.

I mean free market as opposed to a monopoly market.

>By voting with our wallets, Apple acts on behalf of all of us securing some of our interests, meanwhile pocketing some money for their mediation service, just like a lawyer, non-profit, union, lobby group, co-op, or agent would do.

If you vote against the other options, they'll fail is my point. But by preventing me from being able to vote for other options, Apple is being anti-competitive.

Otherwise, I'm not quite sure what you're saying.

Sure you have a choice--most obvious is Android and in fact that is what most people use. I really don't understand how you can call Apple a monopoly unless you call all vertical integration such. You don't have a choice of your own seat manufacturer when you buy a vehicle either. That's not particularly "anticompetitive".

In any case, this is beside my original point. My original comment was addressing a specific argument that suggested users are not a stakeholder in this matter because the agreement is between developers and Apple, which I find to be a ridiculous characterization. I am not holistically evaluating Apple's market positioning here. As one other comment points out, this is ultimately a broad political choice for the society at large, not necessarily one that could be concluded one way or the other by abstract analysis.

[My personal opinion on this matter is pretty much orthogonal to the "payment methods" debate which I find to ultimately be a negotiation between corporate entities on who earns how much. What I do want for the society to regulate is the ability for the end user to run their own software stack should they choose to, on a device they pay for. I am comfortable with the fact that should you choose to run iOS, you get the entire iOS experience.]

>Sure you have a choice--most obvious is Android and in fact that is what most people use. I really don't understand how you can call Apple a monopoly unless you call all vertical integration such

And what's wrong with more choice?

Because it's about defining the market. To me the market is iOS apps. Not Android apps. I can't get Android apps on iOS nor vice versa. The EU has ruled similarly when using anti-trust against Google: "Google's app store dominance is not constrained by Apple's App Store, which is only available on iOS devices." [0] It's about barrier of entry. "Android device users face switching costs when switching to Apple devices, such as losing their apps, data and contacts, and having to learn how to use a new operating system". A monopoly in California wouldn't be considered okay because you can always move to Florida.

And if you wanna bring up that car analogy, no car manufacturer has monopoly power. Using the term the way the FTC uses it: "a firm with significant and durable market power" [1], not an actual monopoly. You can't really say that Apple, the most valuable company in the world, isn't.

US anti-trust has ruled against vertical integration before when it has harmed competition in the "Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948". Even if you say Apple isn't a monopoly, movie studios were an oligopoly like we have now with Google and Apple.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Yes, you could see it that way. I'd ask for better glasses though, in that case.

> You are of course free to choose not to do business with parties that do not support Apples payment system

Take a look at the videogames landscape on PC. There is an ever-growing amount of game launchers because each company refuses to pay that 30% to someone (e.g. Steam). Having the option to create a store means almost everyone that can WILL create one. Not having that option forces everyone to play by the rules of the existing store.

As a consumer, I like Steam's policies about refunds, I like being able to buy any game with the same in-store credit or the same credit card, I like their client's features like download throttling or scheduling.

I certainly do not like that each half-assed client comes up with a bare bones implementation of the same thing and calls it a day. If Rockstar shits the bed and launches a terrible game, I can refund it on Steam but not on the Rockstar launcher.

Same case for Apple, the minute they allow external stores, half the apps will be pulled from the App Store into their own proprietary store and all the consumer protection would go out the window

>Not having that option forces everyone to play by the rules of the existing store.

So what you want is a convenient monopoly, when there is no such thing (unless it's under heavy government regulation). As a consumer, I like Epic's free games. GoG's policy of DRM-free. Which is why competition is good.

As a consumer, what I want is for Apple to have the right to curate their platform so it doesn’t become a huge mess like desktops have.

> You as an end user are not party to the agreement that Apple has with the developers

In the end this will be a political decision. I vote.

> Your understanding of what constitutes a de-facto monopoly is broken.

The monopoly argument may work in the US, but not in the EU. Apple may be up to nasty stuff that legislators should act against, but they’re certainly not a monopolist.

You are getting quite tiring.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_101_of_the_Treaty_on_t...

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-eu/competit...

“Monopoly” is a word with a specific meaning, lets try to not use it as a catch-all for any trade practices you’re unhappy with.

I wrote 'de-facto monopoly'. That was for a reason.

I think you might have misunderstood what de facto means?

Wouldn't 50 % provide an even stronger incentive? Why is it that 30 % is the perfect number?

Apples seems to have that right, but some people are saying that they shouldn't have that right. Laws are possible to change.

Apple can charge 99% if they’d like, but that’ll probably cost them developers and make me an unhappy customer.

So as far as I’m concerned it probably should be left up to Apple to decide how much they charge, if they screw that up I can always switch to Android.

> * that’s good for me as an end user*

You're probably paying 27% more for your app stuff than you would have to, though. Is that also good for an end user?

That’s not true though, if the Apple tax disappeared app prices wouldn’t suddenly (or gradually) drop by anything near 27%.

How much money did app developers make before and after the existence of the App Store?

Do the math.

Yeah but how much money did Apple make before the iPhone? Maybe they should be paying the telecoms for all this data use.

If my math checks out, it comes out to...? Trust-busting an Abusive Rent-Seeking Monopoly?!?

Yes I’m sure app developers were making tons before Apple and their rent seeking abusive monopoly.

If it’s so abusive for the developers why do they stay on it?

If it were only abusive for the developers, why is EU intervening on behalf of all users, including developers? It’s harmful to competition, and the harm to developers is the cherry on top.

No, people are arguing this because they think the 15% represents good value compared to what you would have to do as an indie developer to support multiple stores and payment methods.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com