Spotify calls Apple's DMA compliance plan 'extortion''complete and total farce'
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The OS is something that gets actively managed by Apple. So they can argue that interacting with it has to follow certain rules.
Independent OSes would just use the hardware, which is fully paid by the user and does not change.
Or how about we go a step further and demand Apple open source everything so we can tweak just the parts that we want of our own phones?
Apple can "argue" all it wants, but at the end of they day they operate in our countries with our laws, and will be forced to behave the way we allow them to behave. They enjoy access to millions of customers in the EU because we let them, subject to very specific terms.
The overton window has shifted so far to the extreme, we're legitimately discussing whether laws still apply to them or whether the drivel that comes out of their lawyers' mouths will be allowed to just stand uncontested.
I’ve said all along, people are offended that apple is allowed to operate on a different business model from android. That’s the core thing, they don’t want to have a choice between open and walled-garden options, moreover they are annoyed that walled-garden continues to exist and be sustainable and people choose it. Therefore they have to remove that choice from the market so nobody can choose it.
This isn’t an exaggeration or misrepresentation - it comes down to people thinking that walled-gardens need to be regulated out of existence, the people in question would agree with that and think it’s a social good.
The same also applies to the debate between OEM-sourced first party parts and “Amazon bazaar” parts distribution, serialization, etc. It’s not enough that android provides the model you want - you have to eliminate the other model from the market, nobody else can be allowed to choose a product with a reliable first-party parts chain and optimize repairs (including third party) around that. A model that probably results in higher rates of repair and reuse than on android! The option needs to be removed from the market.
It’s a legislative solution to the android vs iOS debate. Just ban apple. Get the EU to do it for you.
You're also falling into the trap of only considering the end-user choice, but completely disregarding the other half of the equation, i.e. businesses that NEED to reach people who happen to be using Apple devices. They don't get a choice other than ceasing to exist, which obviously stifles competition and innovation. This is a problem which EU wants to fix. From the DMA:
> Gatekeepers have a significant impact on the internal market, providing gateways for a large number of business users to reach end users everywhere in the Union and on different markets. The adverse impact of unfair practices on the internal market and the particularly weak contestability of core platform services, including the negative societal and economic implications of such unfair practices, have led national legislators and sectoral regulators to act.
In other words, the EU won't allow Apple (and other gatekeepers) to hold the rest of the industry hostage.
> it comes down to people thinking that walled-gardens need to be regulated out of existence, the people in question would agree with that and think it’s a social good.
No, what I (and I think most people) are asking for is that Apple adds the equivalent of exit doors to their walled garden so that when there's a fire, we don't all burn to death.
Do you think walled gardens should be illegal? That is the only question that is necessary for me to be on-base. It seems like your answer is clearly yes just from the lede.
Again, this is very obviously not a misrepresentation of the position, it is a steelman - taking the idea to its logical conclusion.
I am happy to cite the rest of your post as supporting evidence:
> You're also falling into the trap of only considering the end-user choice, but completely disregarding the other half of the equation, i.e. businesses that NEED to reach people who happen to be using Apple devices. They don't get a choice other than ceasing to exist, which obviously stifles competition and innovation. This is a problem which EU wants to fix. From the DMA:
> In other words, the EU won't allow Apple (and other gatekeepers) to hold the rest of the industry hostage.
This is pretty obviously in favor outlawing the walled-garden model - there's already a gate and that's not enough. It's not walled if there's a section knocked out of the wall, at that point it's just a folly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly
Again, this is about the right of companies like Sony and Microsoft to exist within their own current business models - Epic has conspicuously avoided answering the question of how apple's walled garden is really different from any of the others. And the answer is that it is not, this is a thrust against that whole business model, and MS and Sony are just allies of convenience.
The point is outlawing walled gardens, by which I mean cracking them open using legal means such that third-parties are allowed to set up their own platforms outside the app store system and processes. And people (such as yourself) clearly believe this is a social good. That's fine, don't hide from your position, you should own it.
Just don't have any misapprehensions about what Meta and Google want to crack it open for, and what they will do with it. They're not on your side here, they want to crack it open so they can use network effect to bypass the app-review process. We're degrading and discontinuing our website for mobile users, either give our app full permissions or else you don't get to use facebook. You want to talk to your friends, don't you?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
Similarly, if consoles are cracked open, you will likely see console players' experiences degrade due to hackers/etc. Cracking open iMessage and bypassing device attestation will result in massive increases of spam for most users. These things do have consequences, they aren't just a knob labeled "freedom" that developers are just refusing to turn. And that is something that is continuously denied by the "open at all costs" faction - there are real downsides to having completely open systems, just like you can see from email/SMTP. Gatekeeping is actually good sometimes.
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Intellectually everyone understands and agrees with the idea that systems are always a tradeoff between security and freedom. With apologies to Robert Morris: the most secure system is the one where users are not allowed to log in, and certainly not allowed to run anything, let alone run something that isn't approved by the sys-op. It is self-evidently riskier to have to defend a full compiler/code ABI than a limited, secured userland (this is literally the entire reason SELinux exists - because a limited and secured experience is safer and more secure). Similarly, everyone in the defense community understands that the idea of Adverse Information or leverage/blackmail exist, and can get people to take actions that are against their normal interests. But when the rubber meets the road everyone acts like sandboxing should obviously be infallible and network-effect cannot be used to pressure people into agreeing to subvert the permissions. https://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/ensure-security-dont-own-...
Analogous to the defense community, this is already a solved problem: the answer is a third-party authority which makes sure users don't get tempted. You'll go to jail and lose your clearance, so you better not. Except in this case it has to be the devs who are responsible, and Apple and Google's review processes are that certification authority. Nor can you outsource this - it doesn't work if I am allowed to start my own Clearance Authority to approve myself, obviously that doesn't accomplish the purpose. Similarly, letting developers start their own app stores and "review themselves" is blatantly missing the point. Apple and Google have to be the review authority even for third-party stores.
And that is what people want to outlaw, the walled-garden itself. People fundamentally disagree with the idea that it should be legal to build a system without those escape-valves, because systems should be open. And that's fine but it's not self-evidently a better social balance. There are always consequences - "self-certified" security clearance is a misnomer and a joke, it's literally an "evil bit" level oversimplification and mockery of security processes. It's literally a "not-evil" bit, I signed that it's not evil, what more do you want?
There literally already are multiple such escape valves built into the system for small-time users to have freedoms on their own devices without enabling big abuses by commercial operators, and it's never enough. You can run whatever you want on a self-signed cert, or buy a developer license to get longer timeframes. Not good enough. But that's the last stop before you open up a big enough security hole for Facebook to drive a truck through. Which has been the point all along, and they've literally already been nabbed doing it before.
(In the bigger picture though it speaks to how much copyleft has actually won. People literally mentally operate in terms of open-by-default now and actually get angry and suspicious over things like "why are you not letting me run CUDA or imessage on my device". And the answer is "because that's a proprietary system they paid to build and/or operate themselves", obviously everyone wants free stuff but it's a little baffling on a startup incubator internet forum that people are so openly hostile to business-models that don't exactly align with a single "approved" formula. And that's the core of the problem: they want to outlaw anything that's not that formula, "because everything should be open". But that's the email model, and email is way worse than iMessage precisely because of the lack of gatekeeping.)
Again, dress it up however you like, but that's the core of the issue. You think the android business model is the only allowable one and any walled-garden alternatives should be outlawed, and that it's a social good to do so. That is not a misrepresentation and it's frankly a little tedious and disrespectful for you to pretend that it is. I'm not framing it the way you want it to be framed, but I haven't represented you as supporting anything you don't actually support either. That's actually mildly intellectually disrespectful to throw around false accusations so casually.
Have the courage to own your own position. And try to understand that people can see your points differently without it being intellectual dishonesty - it's called a disagreement, not misrepresentation.
The real disagreement is, as is usually the case, a values disagreement. Freedom vs quality-of-experience. Apple is a great experience, but it's limited and constrained. And I think that's fine in a phone, I have PCs for tinkering. You'd rather be able to flash anything. I see consequences in that that will reduce my quality-of-experience. And there are very good reasons to believe this - SELinux exists for a reason.
But the underlying problem is - I am comfortable to let you have your own experience, while the reciprocal is not true. You are not ok with letting me have my experience, you think it should be taken away legislatively. That's not a misrepresentation - you should own it.
If you stopped perverting the meaning of freedom and stopped stuffing so many words in my mouth, you'd realize that I'm not hiding from my position, you're just taking my stance on Apple's destructive role as a personal attack on your way of life. I never suggested that iMessage should be opened free for all, or consoles for that matter, or any of the other things you listed.
I was exclusively talking about app distribution and any associated payments.
If "your experience" is dependent on Apple seeking rent in every transaction tangentially related to its platform, and Apple applying its moral compass in interactions between pairs of consenting adults, then yes, I do think that should be illegal just like lead paint, dumping trash in the rivers, or the mafia threatening to burn down your business if you don't pay for protection. I'm not hiding from that.
That aspect of their monopoly is destructive to the wider economy and society, so frankly, it's not a matter of preference anymore.
Rather than pleading with Apple to save you from Facebook, why don't you do something more productive, like demanding that they secure their OS so that apps can't do anything nefarious with your data without your explicit approval, regardless of installation source and their superficial review process? Process, mind you, that has repeatedly approved malware to be released on their own app store.
Why the flying fuck should I care that a business is so desperate to need to reach me?
Hit me, what's next, why do we (strive to) have a free market rather than a planned economy? 10 positive things to say about a world where a single corporation owns the world?
(If they really wanted to be taken seriously I'd insist they apologise and rescind their Luddite foolishness around cookie notices.)
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
Whenever I mentioned this online over the years no one else seemed interested. Perhaps Apple's now more visible stanglehold on the hardware after purchase is a critical part of its "business strategy".
Apple has always had nice hardware. It's all the other nonsense that has become too much to bear. Wish there was company that made Apple-quality hardware without bundling it with pretentious, presumptuous BS.
Apple once sold a computer that ran a NetBSD 6.1 kernel. People used it as a router and I never read any bad reviews of it. It shows what is possible.
Then how can Apple still charge them?
For what?
And how could Apple force them to pay?
And apps still need signing, that’s how Apple still interact with the apps.
It’s fine to pay for the cloud services but those are low value.
I think Apple would argue that the developer fee was previously $99 + 30% of app sales, and that the developer fee is now $99 + $0.5 per install.
After the first 1 million installations they will be charging a Core Technology Fee, which is a flat €0.50 per install. Every installation still needs to talk with an Apple server it seems (not 100% sure on this), so Apple should be able to track it.
An app like Spotify is using a bunch of Apple’s technology in their iOS app. UIKit and CoreAudio almost for certain.
I thought the whole point of alternative appstores is to do away with that?
* App approval is a lower bar to pass than App Store approval.
* Alternative stores can have different policies for which types of content are prohibited or for how monetization works. For example, they could allow R18 media, or accept payment via additional payment methods.
* Alternative stores can be cheaper.
* Alternative stores could also enforce their own rules that are superior to Apple's - for example you could have a store that guarantees everything on it is open-source and has been fuzzed, and they could promote that on some sort of a security basis.
But yes in practice "Apple still gets to decide whether you can put apps on iDevices, and you have to pay them for that" does defeat a lot of the purpose of the DMA.
Apple should be completely free to charge as they like for their toolchain.
But other toolchains will arise. And Apple's doesn't half stand on the shoulder of others.
Apple has structured this so that you still need an Apple developer account to release an app (because apps still have to be notarized to run on iOS regardless of where you download them, which is a process they control). So, they're still the gatekeeper, and can impose rules on you to pass through that gate on pain of having your access revoked.
Their argument is implicitly that they're allowing what the EU has required them to allow, and so anything else is fair game. In particular, that so long as they're allowing people access according to the EU's requirements, they're allowed to charge them for use of the platform.
I imagine that there'll be lawsuits / regulatory action from the EU to work out whether they're right, of course.
But the moment a device is dominant in the market and allows third party on the platform it results asking legitimate questions about competition.
By continuously installing/uninstalling the competitor's app they can even make their business unsustainable. And more, what would stop apple from hiring a third party to do that, just to inflate their own profit?
If you've seen people say updates cost money, it's because an update counts as another installation of the app. But because you're only billed for the "first annual install", this just means that someone who installs an app and leaves it installed for years will still wind up counting against your annual install-count so long as you're updating that app. You can release an update of your app every day of the year and it won't cost you anything extra.
Sure:
https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/#...
And from the FAQ:
"What is Apple doing to prevent ‘install bombing’ — efforts from bad actors to increase install numbers to increase the Core Technology Fees developers owe to Apple?
Already, Apple takes a number of steps to prevent fraud and scams and protect developers’ intellectual property. Apple is implementing additional measures to monitor, detect, and prevent install abuse, including:
An install verification mechanism to ensure all installs come from real Apple devices
Limits on the number of first annual installs that can come from a single device Investigating, and potentially terminating, user or developer accounts that engage in suspicious behavior"
Apple mentions it in their FAQ, and says it's a thing they'll be watching out for: https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/#...
As far as I can tell, their only hope is if copyright terms are drastically shortened, so a good portion of the music they need to stream is public domain.
With that in mind it’s difficult to feel too much sympathy for them. It’s too bad that more open streaming services (which ironically includes Apple Music, which allows third party clients) haven’t usurped it yet.
If Apple is going to allow sideloading, how exactly are they able to charge all these fees? Doesn't this make staying with the App Store even less appealing? Are they trying to force users to sideload or something?
Article 6 sub 4, second and third paragraph:
> The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures to ensure that third-party software applications or software application stores do not endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall not be prevented from applying, to the extent that they are strictly necessary and proportionate, measures and settings other than default settings, enabling end users to effectively protect security in relation to third-party software applications or software application stores, provided that such measures and settings other than default settings are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
According to Apple, the notarization requirement and the soft requirements for “software application stores” to be able to ensure users are safe, fall within this exception that the DMA provides.
Other than that, the DMA doesn’t contain price regulation, so Apple would be in the clear here with the fees they intend to charge. Especially when the new fee structure is similar to (or I’d argue, a little bit more competitive than) current market rates.
> 4. The gatekeeper shall not engage in any behaviour that undermines effective compliance with the obligations of Articles 5, 6 and 7 regardless of whether that behaviour is of a contractual, commercial or technical nature, or of any other nature, or consists in the use of behavioural techniques or interface design. [...]
> 6. The gatekeeper shall not [...] make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users' autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof.
> 7. Where the gatekeeper circumvents or attempts to circumvent any of the obligations in Article 5, 6, or 7 in a manner described in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this Article, the Commission may open proceedings pursuant to Article 20 and adopt an implementing act referred to in Article 8(2) in order to specify the measures that the gatekeeper is to implement.
Applying an unfair price structure might well be considered a contractual measure that undermines effective compliance, as it imposes an unfair burden on businesses and consumers. Notarization might also be considered "making the exercise of rights unduly difficult".
This is going to be a long process, and Apple starting it in an adversarial manner (as they did) is not going to help their case.
People think the opinions of giant corporations means they're somehow more valid so it hits every single form of media. So really, its news outlets that are shouting louder.
This is a skewed way of looking at it, that highlights the positive and ignores the negative.
It’s a lot harder to turn musical talent, productivity (writing & performing songs), and popularity into money than it used to be. Spotify is a big part of that change—and yes, it probably would have been a different company if it weren’t Spotify, but so what? In our history, it’s Spotify.
Music isn’t just hit-driven. There used to be more house bands, more bands who could make a living from tours, that sort of thing. These days, musicians try to find an audience on Spotify and social media and make money doing performances, selling merch, and going on tour, but the amount of revenue you make from that kind of work is a lot less.
If you’re productive and put out two albums per year, and you want to make half of your money from streaming, let’s say $40k per year from streaming, you end up needing somewhere around 10 million streams per album (somewhere around $2500 per million streams).
That’s just for one person to get by. If you sold digital copies of your album, you’d only need to sell 6,000 copies per album to make the same amount of money (around $7 per digital album sale).
I remember being really happy to pay $10 for an album, just ten short years ago. (Yeah, I was a little slow to get a streaming subscription.)
That’s by design. The distributor benefits from this arrangement.
> The fact that these artists are there, still making new music, suggests to me that they are making it work one way or another.
We could say the same about, say, chickens laying eggs in factory farms.
That doesn’t match my impression at all—where I’m sitting, I heard artists complaining about how they’re unable to recoup album production costs, and how going on tour has turned into a grind, or artists are even losing money going on tour. I’ve seen people make Twitter posts or YouTube videos talking about how they can’t afford to make music any more. I guess you haven’t seen those posts—I think a couple have gone by the HN front page, but you see them more elsewhere.
It’s not just about being rich—recording a small band could easily cost, say, $2,000 if you do it for super cheap. If you’re not making any money from your music, then your music turns into just another expensive hobby, and you need to spend more of your time doing some other job. Your music ends up competing with family, relaxation, relationships, and personal health.
I don’t understand where you’re getting this impression that musicians are fine, that they’re doing ok, because it is just so different from what I see. There are some musicians who have steady work or have enough draw to make money on tour or through streaming, but the rest of the artists are just getting squeezed out, and it seems like it’s getting worse every year.
It seems impossible to square the fact that my listening is comprised of small acts who would never get mainstream radio time in a million years with the idea that it is harder to be a musician. What were those bands doing before, with, at best, a small local following? There’s just no way that the bands I like would reach me in the old days. How could a band have an easier time in a world where they have no exposure? How could harder dynamics result in a massive wave of more bands making music than ever before?
I’m not seeing this explained in your posts.
Nonsense. It's never been easier, and the change is so dramatic that it's an entirely different world than it used to be.
Anyone at all, alone, with no agent, label, production team, or any support whatsoever, can create and publish music and videos, for free, upload them to free hosting services, where they will live indefinitely and be available to a global audience on-demand. And if they're even a little popular, they can get paid. If they're really popular, they can get paid a lot.
Exactly when and how was it ever easier than this? Before, you needed an army of people and companies on your side, and had to be exceedingly popular to stand any chance of earning a penny. There were dozens of gatekeepers between artists and the fame and fortune they sought.
Before, you could play to local audiences. You even stood a decent chance of making a living doing that, or maybe enough that you could do that and have a part-time job. Nowadays it’s a lot harder.
This is where a lot of our big stars came from, in the first place. Some were in cover bands, or played piano in local bars for small audiences.
It’s easier than ever to get popular, but harder than ever to earn money.
> into fiscal gains
That does not contradict pay per stream, at all.
The new streaming model also isn’t going away because it’s changed the way consumers engage with music. Before I would have to gamble on CDs/records in a pretty high-friction process. You would pay for the big names because you knew they would put something quality out, so it wasn’t as risky to buy their stuff. Now the cost for me to switch to other songs is basically 0, so I’m much more easily able to find stuff I like.
I’d argue that this new streaming model is incredibly valuable and warrants Spotify’s high valuation. Though, I agree with your sentiment here. Artists and their music power Spotify, so it seems fair that they get the lions share of value. Right now, it doesn’t feel like that. However, I think in the long run artists will win because their music is truly inimitable. Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal, etc. are all fiercely competing on this distribution model. I haven’t seen a single feature that can’t be copied on any of these platforms. On the other hand, it’s basically impossible to copy another artist’s music (and make real money). Over time, I think streaming services’ margins will slim down because they must compete on price if they can’t compete on unique features. This will ultimately allow more artists to earn more money which is something I think we both can agree is what we want out of the music industry.
> while filling their own pockets nicely
Spotify loses money every year. Sure it has a market cap in the billions, but if it never makes money that wont last long.
As Apple pays almost nothing to developer the DMA seems a step in the right direction.
If you put an app in the App Store, at least you get to determine the price point—you get to determine whether you want to charge up-front, make an ad-supported app, or rely on IAPs. Spotify doesn’t let you set the price of your song.
iTunes Store does offer you some control, within certain limits. You can set the “price tier” for different songs, which is why you see some songs for 69¢, some for 99¢, and most for $1.29. If you’re a prog-rock band who put out an album with 20-minute songs, one song per side, then you mark the songs as “album-only” and set the price for the album (or at least the price tier). Or you can divide the song into segments and let people buy those as individual tracks. I’ve seen both approaches.
Perhaps that percentage is not because it's closed and a monopoly. Perhaps that percentage is a fair-market price.
Apple Music is available on the Google Play store. It does not pay Google their 30%, because they have a link in their app allowing users to pay Apple directly.
Here is example of how much labels music are in the big playlists several years ago. I can’t find anything from last year though. But we do know that payments are about to get a lot worse for smaller artists.
https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2022/05/major-labels-control...
So the critique should be aimed at labels, not Spotify.
Why do you have to make that sound so dismissive? Is it that bad to let people pay a pittance for what they use?
Or are artists less deserving of that 30% than developers?
Official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39148422
I appreciated his point that anti-big-business isn't necessarily the same as pro-consumer.
Having to pay for updates seems a bit weird.
Also, I can’t tell if I’m glad apps where I live won’t be redirecting me to the web for payment or not. On one hand it’s giving the web a bit more utility, on the other hand it makes it easier to scam people across platforms… idk.
It’s really too bad we can’t intact regulation that puts the interests of companies like Apple and their users more inline.
The opposing force is their competitors, governments and the collective action of people who think Apple is on the nose.
I really don't care about Apple, they were great in the 80's but now they are just an evil corp whose deep pockets have gone to their heads. It is beyond hubris.
What I do care about is any evil corporation, defined as those that are not held in check by competition or regulation and who act evil, pushing around the little guys such as consumers and smaller businesses. That behavior must be punished, otherwise we'll all end up at the mercy of sociopathic corporations that seek only to get as big and powerful as possible and control whatever they want to control.
When corps like Apple think they are beyond the control of government regulation and are somehow politically untouchable then it is time to take action against them, whatever that needs to be. As both a US and EU citizen I'm looking for the most effective ways to take direct action against Apple via those who represent me. As a consumer I'll be spreading the word about Apple and the contempt it has for those that do business with it.
While custom ROMs exist you’re then at the mercy of cat and mouse hacks to evade security checks from bank apps and the like, something that many don’t have the time or energy for.
This is simply the tyranny of the minority.
Why would you think someone who knows about the (evidently) minutae of what Android advantages over Apple are would be surprised at that?
> Apple is doing everything they possibly can to suck every single penny out of it, at huge economic burden
The advantages you list, which are supposedly creating huge economic burden, are actually the very reasons that Apple is a huge economic success both for itself and its customers. Many people have decided they get more value by not having these things. And people like you who do want these things have great alternatives .
This is the definition of functional market and is how economic value is created.
EDIT: sorry, thought it was COGlory who replied. The rationale is the same.
This is pure marketing talk, and something I'm not sure people actually ask for. People have been buying PCs forever, where you can install anything you want without permission from anyone.
While I have other machines, I still run Windows 7 on my main PC, often install random freeware on it and guess what? It's not just that the world doesn't end -- nothing happens.
The main purpose of this endless talk about "security" is to scare people into compliance.
It's not marketing talk. My mom is terrified of clicking on the wrong thing on her PC. She doesn't know what she can trust. Ads masquerading as official Windows notifications, etc.
She is totally comfortable browsing and installing from the app store.
It's really almost like HN has learned nothing since the infamous Dropbox comment.
The iPhone is already dangerously capable, Apple can't have their cake and eat it too.
Some of you have incredible confidence to be shouting at hundreds of millions or billions of people and telling them they are wrong.
You. Are. The. Minority.
Expand your mind.
The only person I've ever known who exclusively used Apple-native apps was my ex-boyfriend who wrote Mac software. I've never known anyone else who refused websites or calls on the basis that Apple doesn't review it - I think that mindset is far in the minority.
Imagine if your refrigerator charged your grocery store $0.50 every time you opened the door?
Food producers and sellers need to meet certain standards to sell their food. We take these standards for granted but they aren’t without cost. We like the standards because it means that we can generally trust the safety of the food we buy without needing to know much about it.
This is the point Apple sells on. Users are able to download apps and configure their phones without _any_ concerns of compromising their device.
Not everyone wants these guidelines and protections but for a large number of people they are worth a premium.
Imagine if every time you installed software on your Mac, they charged a $0.50 fee to the software maker. Even for a shell script.
How is that ANY different?
They're only doing this with iPhone/iPad because they can, because by the time they realized it could be a profitable business for Mac the expectations with their customers had already been established, and they had too much competition.
As soon as they had a competitive edge with iPhone, they resorted to rent seeking.
That's not historically accurate, and I worked in a core engineering group at Apple. An early concern on battery-dependent devices was that the software running on them would not deplete battery wastefully, and the famous/infamous offender giving rise to what you (understandably) question was the Flash runtime. The upshot of poorly written software (which gave rise to attempts to test and charge for access, which you dislike) was customers in a competitive landscape (Symbian and Android) thinking Apple hardware sucked, while that was not the hardware reality.
So, I get your perspective but it's overlooking the early and very real problems which caused this gateway/gauntlet to attempt improving user experience as a higher priority over developer inconvenience.
I do appreciate the ability to control the software on my devices but I'm worried that soon you won't be able to do banking without an official fully locked down device.
People keep falling for the just-world fallacy[1], and companies exploit this through the use of propaganda (ads, marketing, yadda yadda) and most people eat it up. No company (not Spotify, not Apple, not the woke-est, most DEI company out there) cares about anything other than profits at the end of the day under capitalism, because capital rules everything and politicians are not exempt from the rules of capital.
They have decoupled their incentives from their users incentives to extract more profit, and then they lie and use scare tactics to gaslight their users into thinking this what they want.
Asymmetries need to be balanced, such as the balance between labour and capital. Unions help labour, but thanks to a decades-long propaganda campaign against unions, we no longer have that push back against capital.
Personally I think the problem will only get worse, so I'd suggest buying the S&P 500 with as much cheap leverage as you can afford.
This is reductionist, like saying all biological behavior is about reproducing. Yes there’s a primary goal. No, that does not define or dictate the how. There are people making decisions about what to fight and where to spend the effort. Fighting and weaseling pro-consumer regulations is a choice, obviously, since Apple is being a much bigger crybaby than even other big corporations.
Purdue Pharma (opiates) is a good example of a company following its incentives that eventually was brought down for violating broader common sense values.
The values Apple are violating come close to being just as widely held ("something I buy should be mine") though perhaps you need some expertise or professional experience with tech to see the violation clearly enough to be as horrified.
Still, values held within communities of experts (like this one) can also have the power to correct incentive-chasing behavior when it runs amok, if only because sufficient misbehavior can make it harder to hire and retain the best experts. So it's wonderful this conversation is happening here!
My Android phone does the same thing :).
If you don’t reward invention you get China, where inspite of everything, can’t seem to come up with new ideas of significant impact.
Exception for Apple themselves, of course.