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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

See, this is your problem. Abhorrent business practices can exist alongside great products, just look at Nestle. Nothing will excuse them for pumping freshwater out of inland lakes, or paying for paramilitary organizations to oppress their slave labor camps. It just means that people are fine eating Hershey Bars without thinking about the child labor that made their chocolate.

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So, p0pcult cited with a Steve Jobs quote which, in this context, can only be understood to mean, "Apple is becoming/has become a company where sales and marketing people are running the companies, and the product quality is suffering for it". shepherdjerred points out that the product quality is still extremely high, so the quote doesn't seem apt.

"Apple makes some good products but is evil" is valid criticism of Apple, which shepherdjerred hasn't disagreed with. "Apple is making bad products these days because they are lead by marketing and sales people" isn't valid criticism of Apple (in shepherdjerred's, and my, opinion).

There is certainly proof of Apple's software quality declining in recent years (iTunes, MacOS, Xcode, APFS, Time Machine, oh god the list never ends) but there's a larger point to be made about how regulation can be a salve for our ills. Apple wouldn't need to be fighting this war if they played nice, but much like Nestle they refuse to heed our warning until it's too late.

Apple is at a scale where pithy Steve Jobs quotes don't aptly describe their relationship with the economy or world governments. We cannot trust them to do the right thing, so our best hope for turning them around is holding them accountable for the things we want.

> There is certainly proof of Apple's software quality declining in recent years (iTunes, MacOS, Xcode, APFS, Time Machine, oh god the list never ends)

Can you be more specific of the proofs you are talking about? I've been using Mac for 20 years and haven't noticed issues that indicate a declining trend.

As the GP mentioned there have been great products that Apple introduced in the last few years. So your evidence is wrong, or at most inconclusive, to show that marketing and sales people have taken over at Apple, resulting in worsening products and services.

> but much like Nestle they refuse to heed our warning until it's too late.

The fact is Apple has continued to grow phenomenally in the last decade. They may indeed head to a decline, but I can't see evidence of that. Can you? Are you confident that you can see the future where others can't?

Unless the defence for iTunes is "it was always crap" then I'd love to see the apologetic claiming it hasn't declined in quality. The last time it updated its UI was certainly a huge step backwards but if I could point at one thing it'd the persistent sign in pop ups any time I open it. I don't even use it as my main player anymore because of how crap it is.

What’s wrong with APFS?

It was a buggy rollout, but they managed to ship an entirely new file system to billions of devices while largely preserving user data. It should be heralded as a software achievement.

That was impressive, the less-impressive part was watching them completely fail to document the filesystem and (still) have yet to release the open source spec they promised. Par for the course with Apple, but still bothersome enough to mention.

I was expecting a Nestle product in your last sentence.

Also, pretty sure effectively all chocolate benefits from child labor because of where cocoa trees are located.

FWIW Hershey was also accused of child labor/slavery alongside Nestle, but you're right and I fumbled that one at the 95-yard-line.

Right. And that would be fumbling at the "5" yard line but the opponent touched and miraculously tipped the ball back to you, and you recovered and still made your points (puns intended).

there's no "the" 5 yard line, there's your 5 yard line and their 5 yard line, and there's 90 yard lines in between them.

oh gosh! I use to purchase hershey because i thought nestle bad others good :(

Is there any list of ethically sourced chocolate brands? The world is becoming stupid place to live with all these monopolies :(

When you dig deep enough into how manufacturing really works, there are few products, especially consumables, that are ethically sourced.

The show The Good Place explores this idea; it's impossible to live a good life because everything in the supply chain eventually has some bad aspect to it.

There has to be outliers worth avoiding.

Not when the countries that all the cocoa trees are in are known to have not so accountable governments.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263855/cocoa-bean-produc...

Same with mining for materials for electronics, as well as refining and manufacturing of them effectively happening in one country.

Is blocking Coinbase Wallet an abhorrent business practice?

They didn't block it, they just wanted a 30% cut. Yes it is abhorrent to rent seek 30% of every transaction when you literally contributed nothing whatsoever to that product.

I get why people have a negative reaction and it makes sense. Then I look at retail where there are several wholeseller adding a %, stores adding a %, drop ship sellers adding a percent

There was a documentary that showed the price of a chicken sold in a store and how much the chicken farmer makes vs the retail price and I can’t say the situation is wildly out of tune with retail or the big SAP/ERP consulting

They want 30% of the Network Fees which are paid to Validators (Ethereum nodes that staked 32ETH to help secure the network). Coinbase never get any of that, it's not their commission etc.

It's more like Apple demanding a cut of your call charges.

This might be a relevant comparison if the App Store had any businesses it competes with, like the ones grocery stores contend with.

I know we've debated this to death, but Android's market share is bigger than iPhone's.

The consumer owns one phone or the other, and the switching costs are ridiculously high (in no small part because of other properties of these anti-competitive store licensing models). The average consumer happily can shop at multiple grocery stores, even on the same day as part of the same trip... if isn't even uncommon. The segmentation of users into the ones that own an iPhone vs. the ones that own an Android device should be looked at as creating two separate markets, similar to how if you have a monopoly on groceries only in Wisconsin you somehow aren't considered a monopoly just because your national marketshare is small.

Yes, Android's share is much bigger, but the statement is too generalized to make a relative comparison. While Android has 70+% of global market share, it's important to understand how the users LTV of any consumer business varies based on geo dispersion, hardware price tier, user sophistication and sales distribution model. Apple delivers users that are quantifiably more valuable in every geo.

That said, Apple's monopolistic practices create a ripe oppty for Android to own web3's watershed moment

The equivalent situation would be if the world had two landlords which together owned essentially every single bit of commercial property on the planet (or at least most of the countries) and if you wanted to sell chicken, you'd have to agree to whatever terms those landlords set, which are mostly identical between them.

But it's ok because you have the option of building your own store on your own island and convincing enough people to relocate to your island to buy chicken direct.

If it actually mattered to enough people, they would sail over to that island. The fact that most don't is extremely telling about what people actually want, I think.

(F-Droid is right there. It's relatively trivial to install on an Android device. As is, last I checked, replacing the whole Android OS).

In the US a large portion of phones are via carrier contract and hardware locked. So no.

The law mandated phone number portability in 2003. Everything else is buyer beware. Why is the answer not just "Don't get in a contract with Apple hardware if you don't want to be stuck playing Apple's ballgame?"

In the US I can just buy an iPhone from Apple with no hardware lock. So no.

That's the responsibility of the consumer to read the contract. You also can leave with a penalty.

Libertarianism is like the tide on hackernews, it's quite confusing

Idk A chicken farmer doesn’t even dream of keeping 70% the retail price of a chicken

I think we are both pushing the metaphor beyond usefulness

The was a study in Denmark that from the money people pay in a supermarked 25% goes to advertising industry while the farmers receive less.

That’s not what rent seeking is. Apple has a very strong distribution channel, in part because of how trustworthy it is, that costs money to run, so it’s fair they take a cut of sales.

> contributed nothing whatsoever

The hardware it's running on?

I don't see an issue. If users have a concern, they can use another platform.

ETA: it does seem to be the kind of thing that the market will sort out... If apple is going to build a reputation for being hostile to use as a crypto transaction platform, then Android is just a quick trip to the nearest Best Buy away.

They didn't contribute that, the user already payed for it (and Apple pocketed ~40% of the MSRP). The hardware is paid for, same as the software it comes pre-installed with.

> If users have a concern, they can use another platform.

They can't. Apple locks the bootloader even after purchasing/unlocking the device. It would be nice if we could though!

> it does seem to be the kind of thing that the market will sort out...

No, I think the arbitrary limitation of what you can execute on hardware you purchased will be a bit more of a sticking point than that. At least when we're addressing the single largest corporation in modern American history, Europe seems to agree with me.

Another hardware platform, these days Apple functionally sells computing appliances, not general purpose computers. It's why I recommend Apple to all my relatives who don't want to think about the guts of the machine and I recommend windows or Linux to everyone I know who wants to write their own software.

That's great! Giving me bootloader access has nothing to do with how your grandma uses her iPhone though, at least if I'm understanding your grandma right.

It requires more than zero engineering effort on their part so they won't. It is also, technically, an attack vector... A sufficiently sophisticated phisher might be able to convince somebody to replace their bootloader, but we both know that's not why Apple does it.

They do it because it allows them to capture the revenue for use of their computing appliances and it saves them every headache of having to provide customer support for hardware they sell that isn't running an operating system they wrote.

Serving your use case isn't what they make computers for. Google does though. I recommend switching platforms.

Serving my use case is what computers are. If Apple doesn't make those devices, then why are their devices capable of doing everything I described? They already wrote the bootloader. They already wrote the sideloading code, app sandboxing model, filesystem isolation APIs and even the packaging standard needed to distribute iOS applications. What's the major engineering hurdle they're struggling with, relative to everything they've already done?

I don't follow. They don't let you replace the bootloader; I thought that was your concern. So they can't do everything you want them to.

I can run Doom on a refrigerator but it's still a refrigerator. Apple makes computing appliances.

I don't follow either. If this refrigerator got an update that started showing you advertisements, you'd want the manufacturer to have some form of accountability that they don't further degrade the experience. Having multiple choices benefits everyone and forces the OEM to not make bone-headed moves. You're arguing that Apple shouldn't do good things because... Apple doesn't care? I already know that. I own many of their devices and experience it first-hand.

> If this refrigerator got an update that started showing you advertisements, you'd want the manufacturer to have some form of accountability that they don't further degrade the experience.

Me personally? I might just let it happen (especially if it goes hand-in-glove with some other benefit, like lower cost). Or if it's too annoying I'll switch refrigerators.

> Having multiple choices benefits everyone and forces the OEM to not make bone-headed moves

That's the business model of the alternatives to Apple. Apple's business model is value delivered through vertical integration. For their end-users, they're building a better product because they own and control the hardware, OS, and software ecosystem.

It's Nintendo-Seal-of-Approval thinking, and it's not inherently wrong so long as there are alternatives (and there are many, just none that have a supported path to using Apple's hardware).

> You're arguing that Apple shouldn't do good things because... Apple doesn't care?

I don't think Apple sees opening the bootloader as a good thing. It increases the ways the machine can be in a broken state with the only benefit to people tech-savvy enough to just use other hardware. And, of course, from a pure-business standpoint, it might kick a leg out from under the money-made-through-vertical-integration stool, which is of concern to them.

> Or if it's too annoying I'll switch refrigerators.

You think that having to switch a working major appliance for another because of a post-purchase update by the manufacturer is an acceptable cost for consumers to have to take on? I assume this is because you think the free market forces always end up optimal in the end somehow, and that regulation will cause more harm than good?

Just the second part in this case. Specifically because the customers for Apple products are those who want Apple making these decisions for them.

People buy into Apple for a certain security that the company does its best to vet the store contents. Stepping on their ability to do that diminishes the product value for the intended consumer.

Do you have the authority to speak for all Apple customers? Aren't the people complaining also Apple customers?

I specifically buy Apple phones for this reason. I have read the T&C and have agreed that I don't get access to specific things - I don't want to ever think about it. I don't want there to be an option to unlock the bootloader, or change the store. I buy an iPhone for a family member and I'm sure there is no way they get scammed like they used to on Android by installing "the new OS update from their computer but they need this downloader or their photos will get deleted - just go in settings and enable this setting".

I want this lock-in because THAT is what I want. THAT is what I bought and THAT is why I went Apple and not Android.

If someone asks me what phone to get I say iPhone most of the time because I know their needs and that they don't want to deal with headaches. If they need more stuff I'd recommend either G Pixel or Fairphone but they I tell them to do the research.

Definitely, but they seem misinformed about the goals of the product they bought.

> I recommend switching platforms.

Well, there are other options.

Other options, such as how the EU is going to force Apple under threat of government force to make changes.

Anti trust laws have existed for a century now. We can make new ones, or use those existing uncontroversial laws to apply to the newer tech monopolies.

If Apple doesn't like it's then they can stop selling their product in every country where this is the law. (So that includes the entire EU, and hopefully the USA soon, as there are laws in Congress being considered right now).

EU antitrust differs from American antitrust, IIUC, because American is couched in harm to consumers while Europe is couched in harm to merchants.

So I can see how the EU might see a way towards saying "Your ownership of the vertical stack makes you a market-maker and market-caller on a very lucrative app market; you bear some responsibility to making that market fair and competitive." This is the same kind of thinking that caused France to crack down on Amazon offering discounts on books that undercut local booksellers because they could collapse the booksellers' guild (even though Amazon's shipping integration means they actually can afford to charge so little).

But in the US, the first hurdle such a case has to cross[1] is "Why doesn't the user and app maker just go to Android if Apple's so bad?" Which, indeed, is the question I'm asking myself here; Coinbase could just jump ship and offer their app only on Android, and then, hey, the Android ecosystem is slightly better than their competition.

[1] ... unless the law changes, of course, as you've observed. I can imagine something coming out of the John Deere tractor "right to repair" angle, though I haven't been following this space.

> They can't. Apple locks the bootloader...

There are other hardware manufacturers than Apple?

Nope. Choosing your software platform on iPhone isn't an option though, if it was then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

I mean yes they are - there are so many manufacturers.

With the same argument you can say - open access to every device which will diminish a lot of the security by increasing the attack vector.

Why isn't my TV open or my Xbox or my PS? Why can't I edit the code of Windows is not such a stretch based on your arguments?

Also why should companies be forced to open stuff? They market it as a closed system - maybe respect the consumers who like closed systems. There are options for you - it's other vendors. So you have a choice. But even if you didn't there is no reason or expectation you should have a choice if the market doesn't want to cater.

One possible solution is for apple and other manufacturers to be forced to sell developer devices where the restrictions are minimal or non-existent. That I think will solve your quarrel.

Would you be ok to paying 30% more rent to use a bank app from an iphone to pay the rent?

This analogy doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t a bank transfer, it’s a purchase of a digital artifact. Is Apple wrong to ask for 30% of IAPs in Candy Crush? Because this seems pretty much the same to me.

So what makes digital artifacts (especially those that don't have anything to do with Apple's platforms) different from physical products. Would Apple be wrong to ask for 30% of purchased made through the eBay or Amazon apps?

It seems like it's their product and their right to draw the line wherever they see fit. They risked investing a lot of time and money into a platform that apparently now counts as best user experience. There is no ethical challenge, software developer gets access to wealthy customers thanks to Apple's decades of work.

30% seems a lot though. Credit card processors take somewhere around 2-3%.

Then don't use Apple - who is forcing you to build for their OSes? Your customers are there? Well maybe they have made a choice to be there for some reason. Respect that or don't go after those customers.

I have made a choice to use apple because I know all purchases for digital products go through iAP so my card details are never passed to the developer in any way. It makes me sleep better at night. I don't want other options.

I don't want to be offered the choice with 28-27% discount because it will make me share my creds (we know most ppl will choose the cheeper option and I admit I will do so as well from time to time).

I don't need the additional cognitive overhead because some developers are unhappy they have signed up to terms they don't like.

Honestly everyone that complains about the 30% so far hasn't given me a good reason other than greed. It's not a better UX, it's not a more secure option, it's not in my best interest (except the argument it will be cheaper but we all know that if possible most if not all companies will just pocket the 28-27%), it's not respectful of my choice of OS (again my reason is that I WANT the iAP as the only option).

How is this an argument for whether it's abhorrent. I would love to pay zero for all products and services.

No. That's why I don't use iPhone.

But it's just capitalism. I'm not going to take the phone out of the hands of those for whom the answer is "Yes."

But most people don't even know.

Didn't apple ban that game company because of showing an itemised bill to customers, showing how much apple was getting at every purchase?

Which company? I'm very curious actually?

But devil's advocate - It's agains apple's Dev ToS and I don't get an itemised bill showing me a breakdown of how much Visa or MS charge me when making other payments.

I want to know the name of the company to see if they do the same when I make a purchase with a debit card.

The problem is either you go with iPhone or android. And, android is rife with so much ads, we can't even use phone properly.

We need something to break this duopoly mobile market otherwise it is always gonna be problematic.

I've seen exactly zero apps on Android in the last 5 years. I understand there's a lot of apps infested with ads out there, but why would you install those?

Agreed on breaking duopoly though. I'm pretty hopeful about Linux on mobile these days, there's some pretty big developments lately.

> exactly zero ads

Fixed :')

Hershey bars are made by Hershey, not by Nestle.

There is the oddity of KitKat in the US being made by Hershey but Nestle internationally.

Is it really their problem? Blaming the consumer has consistently proven the least effective way to effect change.

Exactly, so we need to stop blaming the consumer and start making systemic change with regulation. If the largest player doesn't agree to play nice, then it's time that we change the rules.

What products do Nestle make that you consider "great"?

When I'm hacking? Coffee-mate and Perrier.

When nobody's looking I've been known to enjoy a Hot Pocket or two, though... I can feel my dignity slipping through my fingers as I type this.

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