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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

> so much of this is focused on the developers, and that is the problem here. How many users actually want this?

How many users actually understand the issues at stake, though? I don't say that to be patronizing but it's a nuanced, thorny problem. I bet if you simply asked "do you think it should be allowed to download porn apps?" a good number of users (if asked anonymously!) would say yes. How many users understand why they can't subscribe to Netflix through the iOS app? How many know what Apple's cut even is? The government has all kinds of regulation in what my utility providers can and can't do, in ways I'm not fully clued into. I see this as similar.

> I have less control over my phone, not more.

> Developers I also hope quickly realize that if they try to push me to subscribe outside of the App Store they will get $0 from me instead of 70%.

To my mind all of this comes back to the free market: you're free to ignore all this stuff and keep getting everything through the App Store. If you and many others do the same thing then the market will prove the idea to be a dud.

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> How many users actually understand the issues at stake, though? I don't say that to be patronizing but it's a nuanced, thorny problem. I bet if you simply asked "do you think it should be allowed to download porn apps?" a good number of users (if asked anonymously!) would say yes. How many users understand why they can't subscribe to Netflix through the iOS app? How many know what Apple's cut even is?

The iPhone isn't a new platform though. I feel like people well understand what they can and cannot download through the App Store by this point.

While I do completely agree that Apple needs to loosen the control on things like porn apps, that is a different issue.

As far as Netflix, that is ultimately Netflix choice. They could allow you to subscribe through the App Store if they really wanted.

As far as Apple's cut. I mean I don't ask my grocery store what their cut is, or target, or any other store. I don't ask what Steam's cut is, or Xbox, or Playstation, even though all 3 of those are similar cuts. As a user, that number really doesn't mean anything to me.

> To my mind all of this comes back to the free market: you're free to ignore all this stuff and keep getting everything through the App Store. If you and many others do the same thing then the market will prove the idea to be a dud.

That is the problem, how free am I really to ignore it if the only way to get by budget app or whatever other app that I have come to rely on is suddenly a different store or they just don't want me to subscribe through the App Store anymore.

This isn't hypothetical, if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me? Instead of being able to choose if I want to play Fortnite or not, I instead am choosing if I care enough to download an alliterative store. Why is that ok? Instead Epic is making the choice for me, and it is up to me to decide if I care enough.

And then it becomes normalized and just accepted because most users who don't understand the risks of alternative stores, just go with it.

>I mean I don't ask my grocery store what their cut is, or target, or any other store

It's 1-3% for your grocery store. Compare that to Apple's 30% and maybe you'll wonder why you didn't ask your grocery store sooner, especially if it's a local grocer with an owner and workers you might even personally interact with because they're all scraping by splitting that 1-3% while listening to you defending Apple's 30% cut.

If Apple is so reasonable here, why not offer to pay 27% more to your grocer and their workers so they can get in on some of this reasonable 30% cut you so adamantly support. Nah, eff them, right? The real human beings bringing you literal sustenance for life for a 2% markup. They'll be totally fine, right? But multi-trillion dollar mega-corporations facing some downward pressure on their 30% cut, the big man's gotta draw the line at that. At least people know where your head's at.

I swear y'all really like putting words in my mouth. I am not advocating for the 30%, no where am I saying that. I am saying that as the consumer it is not part of my concern.

Just like if I go and buy frozen fries at the grocery store I don't care how much they spent buying the potatoes. That is all the business deals that largely as a consumer is irrelevant to me.

However since you missed the entire line, it is worth mentioning that Steam also takes 30% cut from developers and I believe Microsoft and PlayStation are the same (likely Nintendo but I don't know).

steam takes a 30% cut but valve isnt strongarming every game dev on PCs to use their store, they can go to alternate places or even just do it themselves directly. the playstation, xbox and switch are also problematic for the same reason the iphone is. i think all 3 of them should be forced open too, and i think they will be shortly after apple is

> if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me?

Yes? So far Apple hasn't had any trouble making that choice for you, letting Epic offer another option is not equivalent to taking away choices. You might as well be complaining that Epic or Apple's EULA is limiting your decision. It's a you problem.

Epic was the one that made choices that pushed apple to remove Fortnite.

Let's not twist history and say that Apple just suddenly chose to remove Fortnite. Epic made certain choices likely knowing what the outcome would be.

Epic is the one that is removing my choice to play Fortnite through the App Store if I choose. If I want to play Fortnite on my iPhone I will have no choice but to use the store.

So I have the choice I want to make "Do I want to play Fortnite" and then the choice I am forced to make by the developers "Do I want to download the Epic store".

That is removing choice from me.

I'm surprised that the iPhone is over 10 years old now and you still think all software is obligated to get distributed via the App Store. If you only download software from the App Store, that's your choice - the world does not revolve around you or Apple's decisions though.

Look on Mac - you don't have a choice if you want to play Java Minecraft through the App Store. If you don't sideload, that "choice" has already been made for you. And it's certainly not because Mojang is going out of their way to spite Apple fans. Specifically, professionals avoid the App Store because it has been a bad deal on every platform it's appeared.

You want your choice? Your choice is to not use that software at all, and find an alternative. That's what you decide when you die by the sword of a third-party's whims.

> Epic is the one that is removing my choice to play Fortnite through the App Store if I choose

Yes and no. I get what you’re saying. But Apple demanding a 30% cut is just as much of a reason for your choice being removed. If they didn’t demand that then Epic wouldn’t have done anything.

Neither party is innocent here, they’re both multinational tech giants fighting over our money.

> Neither party is innocent here, they’re both multinational tech giants fighting over our money.

That is true, people seem to think that just because in this particular case I prefer the way that Apple is doing this as a user it means that I necessarily agree with everything that Apple is doing or that they are saints or whatever.

My problem here is that so much of this is focused on Developer choice, but no one is talking about user choice. Or developer somehow twist this into a thing that users care at all about. When most really don't.

Is Apple's cut high? Sure. But it is lines up with the rest of the game industry with Steam, Consoles, etc.

There is an important part of this that I feel like developers are missing, I feel like they think that every user will just go over and give them the same amount of money where for me I will just not give them my money.

Which I fully realize I have the choice to do that and not give them money. And that is great. But That still means I cannot make the choice to use something I want without also being forced to make a decision that I don't want to make (use an alternative store).

I fully realize that I am not being forced to download Fortnite. But my concern is that as this becomes more and more normalized that the idea that I could only get my budgeting app, instagram, banking apps, or whatever other thing that I am used to using now only outside of the App Store becomes a reality. And again this isn hypothetical, look at Epic with Fortnite. Apps like Fortnite, Facebook, and others will be the gateway app that normalizes other apps not shipping through the App Store. Since they will already be on your phone.

Hopefully, it will motivate Apple to make the App Store more competitive. The existence of third-party options will really make them work to make that 30% fee look attractive.

On the PC gaming side, Valve regularly gets developers to abandon their own storefronts and pay their fee instead. Valve has huge market penetration, offers App Store-like services and has invested in a truly feature-complete platform. Because they have all this, publishers like EA and Ubisoft almost have no choice if they want to compete. Their own storefronts completely failed, despite continued investment and even the occasional attractive deal/title.

I really do hope Apple is afraid of these consequences. They will be forced to differentiate themselves in more meaningful ways, and move past their obsession with service revenue and distribution control. If users are able to get a better experience by avoiding the App Store, I'd say that's Mission Success for the DMA.

> Which I fully realize I have the choice to do that and not give them money. And that is great. But That still means I cannot make the choice to use something I want without also being forced to make a decision that I don't want to make (use an alternative store).

Can you not see how you're being unfair here? You're saying you would not buy something not distributed through the App Store which is fine and a valid choice but on top of that you want others who've made a different choice to be forced to distribute their work through the App Store and give up 15-30% of every transaction to Apple. Would you agree to pay that markup for having that choice?

No, I am not.

I am advocating for the choice of the User. My first sentence in my original post. To me that is all that matters, I frankly don't care what the developer may or may not be forced to do if it comes at potential harm to the User.

A developer choosing to only put their app on another store, regardless of the reason, is removing a choice from the User.

Is 30% high, sure. But I also don't fully buy it being the end of the world considering it is the same cut that Steam, Xbox, and Playstation take.

> I am advocating for the choice of the User.

But you aren’t, though. You’re advocating for a user to be able to download their app of choice through the App Store. But in advocating for that you’re advocating against the user having choice of which App Store they use.

The reality is there is no perfect solution.

But people, like myself, bought an iPhone knowing about the App Store and the restrictions it has. If I wanted a more open platform I could have gotten an Android phone.

Those restrictions do not harm me.

What would harm me is apps suddenly not being available through the App Store because developers are the one that choose to distribute on another store.

Which again is not a hypothetical concern when you look at Fortnite.

That isn't giving me more choice, that is giving the developer a choice and I just have to choose if I want to follow along or not if I want to use a specific app.

Would it be great if I really did have that choice and every app was still available on the App Store and I could use Apple's billing if I want. Yes! And if that was the case I would not care at all. But it's clearly not going to be that case for at least one app and possibly others if it becomes normalized.

The most likely reality is that it will be a developers choice not the users, if an App Store from Facebook or Epic become big enough why would they force themselves to play by Apple's rules?

I feel like I just watched you go through every stage of grief. Yes, there is no perfect solution - that's the nature of authoring solutions in the first place.

The status-quo is not perfect either though, and some might say it's imperfections are expressly anticompetitive. The existence of nice features like free long-distance calls on Bell telephones is not an argument against fundamental infrastructure problems. You're making a rallying-cry that avoids even accepting the EU's criticism on it's merits.

> But it's clearly not going to be that case for at least one app and possibly others if it becomes normalized.

I don't know which planet you live on, but that has never been a thing. Your payments aren't all routed through Apple unless you sustain yourself off Genshin Impact draws somehow. You buy food, you pay rent, you pay taxes and exist in a non-Apple world and non-Apple context. Not exclusively relying on Apple to aggregate your payments is the norm, you're steelmanning a nonexistent lifestyle.

You can keep repeating the "I could have gotten an Android" line until your face turns blue, but the DMA is not about enabling Android phones to run iOS apps. It's about directly addressing Apple's internal market neglect, and their refusal to compromise on a clearly-anticompetitive distribution scheme. Every single defense that does not mention how it directly relates to distributing iOS apps is a strawman that is unrelated to the text and intent of Europe's DMA.

> I don't know which planet you live on, but that has never been a thing. Your payments aren't all routed through Apple unless you sustain yourself off Genshin Impact draws somehow.

I... never claimed it was? I am talking about my iPhone. That's all... I never even claimed that all software I bought were through iOS.

I buy games through Steam, Xbox and Playstation fairly regularly.

I feel like you are trying to somehow catch me in not understanding what I am saying or something, but bringing up food makes zero sense.

To be clear, I accept what the EU is criticizing. However I will once again ask why the focus is on the developers so much, and not the users. That is my problem here, developers cried and now we got something that users were not asking for.

> Every single defense that does not mention how it directly relates to distributing iOS apps is a strawman that is unrelated to the text and intent of Europe's DMA.

That is not true, because the how something is distributed also includes the rules and restrictions put in place by the place that is doing the distribution.

We have to be able to analyze the repercussions of other stores and not just diminish them to "well it's a different server" as you seem to want to do. When in is far more than that.

The fact remains, you could have gotten an Android phone. If as a user I wanted a more open platform, I could have gone that route. But I didn't. I chose to get an iPhone due to the restrictions put on developers by the App Store.

The vast majority of the complaints are from developers, and I frankly don't see why they are the ones that somehow get to determine that a reason I bought my device is no longer valid. Apple has that privilege because again, I bought my device for that reason.

So yeah, is the status-quo perfect right now? No, never claimed it was. Is it better than developers having all of the power and choice and I have to just follow along with their decisions with the illusion of choice of downloading other stores. 100%

> However I will once again ask why the focus is on the developers so much, and not the users.

Because users don't create an anticompetitive system. Users buy things, they are ostensibly the customers that the market protects. It's akin to asking why Boeing is being lowlighted by the government while passengers are still buying 737 tickets. There is no correlation between the righteousness of a business and the desire for customers to patronize them.

> I... never claimed it was? I am talking about my iPhone.

Even on iPhone, nobody I know is refusing to buy Amazon Prime or Netflix because it goes through the browser. It might be a legitimate complaint, but it feels entirely tangential to how Apple chooses to implement their payment API.

> The fact remains, you could have gotten an Android phone.

Sure could - and the fact remains, it would have nothing to do with the regulation of the digital markets therein.

> Is it better than developers having all of the power and choice

There is literally not a single platform, even Linux, that exists with such a security model. Your hyperbolic misrepresentation of the situation is why I can so confidently and repeatedly say that you're wrong.

Obviously, iOS does not give developers "all of the power and choice" by forcing Apple to comply with the DMA. Apple still gets to choose whether they participate in the market, as well as how they implement compliant features. They can ship iPhones that default without sideloading features, and craft their user-experience however they see fit. The only caveat is that there has to be room for fair competition at the software level, or they can't operate in Europe. If that's equivalent to surrendering to developers, then it's proof that Apple was never competitive in the first place.

> So I have the choice I want to make "Do I want to play Fortnite" and then the choice I am forced to make by the developers "Do I want to download the Epic store".

> That is removing choice from me.

Would you mind elaborating on this? Which choice do you have today regarding Fortnite on iOS that would be removed if Epic had its own iOS store?

> that pushed apple to remove Fortnite.

There was no law that forced Apple to remove fortnight.

They could have just left it on the store.

>This isn't hypothetical, if I want to play Fortnite I will have to get the epic game store when that comes out. Is that really a choice for me? Instead of being able to choose if I want to play Fortnite or not, I instead am choosing if I care enough to download an alliterative store. Why is that ok? Instead Epic is making the choice for me, and it is up to me to decide if I care enough.

NO. Apple made the choice to push Epic out of the App Store by force or by cost of rent. Apple makes all the choices here and you're trying to shift blame. Had Apple a 3% fee, Fortnite would be in Apple's App Store but Apple made the choice to charge 30% and refuse sideloading. That's on Apple not Epic but you can't see past your Apple blinders to get the fundamental issue here that Apple controlled everything and the EU is trying to fix some of that. Apple is both the original sin and the ongoing sin here and everyone else is literally the victim, in higher prices and fewer choices-- BECAUSE OF APPLE, not Epic and not the EU.

And Epic made the choice to try to get around the rules of the store that they chose to enter.

Epic is not without blame for not being on the App Store. They could have played by the rules and not try to get around this rules.

If it’s enforced by regulations, by definition it’s no longer a “free” market. It’s a regulated one.

>If it’s enforced by regulations, by definition it’s no longer a “free” market. It’s a regulated one.

By that definition there are no free markets nearly anywhere (save for illegal markets). At least not in modern, well-functioning economies.

(Attention pedants: I said nearly)

The regulations made the smartphone/mobile OS market non-free in order to make the "apps for <insert OS name here>" market free.

Just no. You can twist it all you want. The app market in the EU is no longer a free market in any sense.

Except that the free market has already shown that users prefer the walled garden, because they keep buying iPhones. If you don't like the App Store limitation, then you're free to go buy an Android.

>Except that the free market has already shown that users prefer the walled garden, because they keep buying iPhones.

That's assuming they're buying iPhones because of the walled garden and not because of other reasons.

Yes, and I think that the benefits gained by the walled garden are a big part of the iPhone's popularity. It's simple, it works, the scams are kept to a minimum, and it's a consistent, well-integrated experience. Those are all true of iPhones because of the walled garden; Android can't boast any of that.

99% of Android users never install an app from outside the app store either, Apple just does a better job filtering scams etc. out of their app store. If Google did a better job of curation it would be a comparable experience for the overwhelming majority of users.

The ability to install 3rd party apps has effectively zero effect on how well Apple curates their official app store.

All you're actually describing is that there's way less pressure for apps on the Google side to be as high quality as the Apple stuff. (Given the existence of the store alternatives, even if Google did enforce higher quality, those apps have plenty of other options to get on user's phones.) And that's kinda par for the course for the level of marketing-savvy that Google exhibits.

> The ability to install 3rd party apps has effectively zero effect on how well Apple curates their official app store.

You're missing the forest for the trees. Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.

> You're missing the forest for the trees. Apple offers a curated environment largely through the curation of the app store. That curated environment is massively valuable to the average user. That's the asset Apple is trying to protect.

I am a big proponent of curation and one of the reason I'm an apple user is the high number of quality apps on the platform. But after encountering the apple publication process, it definitely feels like censorship and the lack of other options, even for applications I wrote, is stifling. I think it's better to encourage computer literacy than pretend that the outside world just does not exist (especially when there are so many scamming schemes on the app store).

Yeah, but Apple isn't hurting for devs or apps. It sucks for us trying to make apps, but that's our problem and it's not the actual principle being argued here. I do think it's telling though, that our motivation for opening up the app store is orthoganal to the justification being supplied.

> Apple just does a better job filtering scams etc. out of their app store.

Well, sometimes: https://www.pcmag.com/news/beware-theres-a-fake-lastpass-app...

Just make sure that Grandma knows any of her security apps could be a Trojan, and she should be safe.

The consistent well integrated experience is mainly from apple controlling the entire technology stack, rather than the App Store being closed. People buy macs for the same reason but they aren’t walled gardens.

You are free to think what you like but absent evidence, it's just more claim chowder.

My claim chowder: I have never once in my life heard an iPhone user say to me "I'm sure glad I can't turn on a buried setting and install apps from the web like Android users" or anything remotely like that, young or old.

I have heard a bunch of kids on this forum with trumped up claims about poor senior citizens uncle or granny who can't be trusted with this because they'll be socially engineered into digging into their iOS settings, flipping switches with scary warnings, then visiting a random scary website and downloading a package, and then agreeing through install dialogs all to get an app on their phone so the crook can steal their bank info.

The truth is, to anyone whose thought about it for more than a minute, that same scammer will literally just call up such an exceedingly naive person on the phone part of that smartphone and ask tech illiterate grandpa directly for his bank credentials and a claim that the crook's from the bank will work far more often than getting the old man to operate his smartphone in such a sophisticated and confusing way to get that malware installed. And he's not gonna find that setting and accidentally stumble through all the warnings unless he's being socially engineered so the whole idea is a silly edge case.

More anecdata: I've played with my parents' Android phones every couple years when visiting them over the last 12 or 13 years, they were born in 1945, and their phones are always in better shape than mine, with fewer apps installed, and a more organized set of app launchers than I have. And neither has enable a third party app store despite my making them fully aware of the possibility on several occasions. This infantalizing of old people is a tired trope that gets dragged out far too often on HN. The people born before every office worker in the country had a computer, they're all dead. The Boomers hitting 80 years old today, they were working on Windows 7 before retiring. Blaming them for your resistance to change is silly and sad. That Boomer's parents, if they're still alive at about 100 (my grandma made it that long) those people had Windows too, it was Windows 3.1 but they know what "installing" something means because guess what, you could install programs on Windows 3.1 and you had to do it without the safety of an app store or even basic sandboxing. Enough with the "think of the seniors" trope, it's far worse than "think of the children" who haven't lived through computers for many many decades yet.

Here's the thing - someone who is familiar with the process of figuring out what about a 'thing' represents the actual 'value to the user' (i.e. marketing) would find all this kinda self-evident.

> My claim chowder: I have never once in my life heard an iPhone user say to me "I'm sure glad I can't turn on a buried setting and install apps from the web like Android users" or anything remotely like that, young or old.

Of course they wouldn't say that - most people don't care enough.

This only really creates no impact to users if Apple were to force all apps to also be listed in their App Store.

If, e.g., Facebook were to decide they don’t like existing App Store policies and start their own store and only list their apps there, for a large portion of people using Facebook’s store would effectively be a requirement (in many places WhatsApp is a requirement).

What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store? You don’t have a choice there either. (Besides returning the hardware if you have the option.)

I’m with the GP here. I don’t own any other Apple hardware, but bought my phone (after a long line of Android hardware starting from the original ADP1) specifically to not have to deal with any of this. I don’t have the time and energy to deal with any of this anymore. I have paid a premium to have these choices taken away from me and the decisions made for me.

Sorry I’m ruining the world, but if people want a phone they can install arbitrary binaries on I really don’t understand why they can’t just go buy an Android. As you say, free markets… if this _actually_ mattered to people then Apple should take a hit in the market and either change their behavior or disappear entirely. Yet here we are.

> What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store? You don’t have a choice there either. (Besides returning the hardware if you have the option.)

Surely that's more choice than if the app for some piece of hardware you bought is not on iOS at all because Apple refuses to approve it?

What happens when the app for some piece of hardware you bought is on a 3rd party store?

What happens if the app is only available for iOS? What happens when all your friends use iMessage and Facetime? Apple isn't saving us from platform lock-in; they're benefiting hugely from it.

I don’t own any other Apple hardware, but bought my phone (after a long line of Android hardware starting from the original ADP1) specifically to not have to deal with any of this. I don’t have the time and energy to deal with any of this anymore.

What is "this"? My Android phone works fine with zero maintenance, but when I occasionally want to do hacky things with it I can.

a question, is facebook on the google play store, which has the standard 30% cut? netflix? discord? just because the option is there doesnt mean every app is just going to up and leave, it just means they have a choice, and if apples curation is so great, the reputation of being on the app store will be a value add that may make it worth it to stay, even ignoring the fact that the app store is already just people's default way to find apps on their iphone.

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