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Comment by crowcroft | Hacker News Reader

The difference (or at least what would be argued as a difference) is that you have no other choice with Apple (Amazon maybe in a similar situation).

If I didn't like AirBNB I could use VRBO/whatever else, or I could use both even.

I can understand Apple's cut for app developers who solely create apps and distribute them through Apple.

Where it becomes a problem is a large number of apps are just a way for the iPhone to connect to a larger product (Spotify, Basecamp, most SaaS companies), and I don't know why Apple should feel entitled to own the relationship with a businesses customers because they also use an iPhone when it's an ancillary part of the product.

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> The difference (or at least what would be argued as a difference) is that you have no other choice with Apple (Amazon maybe in a similar situation).

> If I didn't like AirBNB I could use VRBO/whatever else, or I could use both even.

Read what you wrote again, and think about it. If you don't like AirBnB you can use one of the competitors, but there are no competitors to Apple? Would you consider that you might have a blind spot to something very obvious?

For AirBnB (temporary lodging), if you don't like it, typically you're only stuck with it for a few days and you can make a different choice afterwards.

Phones, for many people, are something they will use for years so they're essentially locked in a lot of the time. It's more like long term rentals, where the renter usually gets stronger protections too.

I think we're defining markets differently which is where this is debatable.

If you say that the App Store is an extension of the iPhone and you're buying into that when you buy a phone, sure I can see the argument that the App Store by default has no competitors on the iPhone and people are agreeing to that when they buy an iPhone/develop for the iPhone, and so the competition is Google (and by extension the Play store.

I just don't think we should accept the tight coupling of hardware and software distribution by default though.

Even then if you do, the strongest argument for Apple gives us a duopoly that both exhibit strong anti-competitive behaviours.

I do have some sympathy for Apple here though. When Nintendo takes tight control over distribution on the switch is that also a monopoly? When your product essentially becomes a utility though I think some form of regulation ends up being good for society as a whole.

> If you don't like AirBnB you can use one of the competitors, but there are no competitors to Apple?

There isn't enough competition. Apple is in a monopolistic market position. AirBNB isn't, at least not yet. That's a contingent fact about the current state of affairs, but I think it's true - there's a lot of pressure to be on Apple, whereas there's not much pressure to be on AirBNB.

Why is Apple in a monopolistic position and why is AirBnB not?

The effect of AirBnB on everyday life of people and the economy is in my opinion at least a thousand times larger than any effect that Apple has.

> The effect of AirBnB on everyday life of people and the economy is in my opinion at least a thousand times larger than any effect that Apple has.

How do you figure? I'd say the effect of AirBnB is pretty much zero; they're an interchangeable provider in what's fundamentally a commoditised business. If you can't or don't want to go to an AirBnB then you go to OwnersDirect or Booking or Agoda or worst case someone's individual website, and you have a virtually identical experience. And if you're a property owner you also don't care and probably list your place on a bunch of different sites.

There are thousands of cities and towns all over the world, where short term rentals – accelerated by AirBnB – has made it impossible for young workers to afford to live where they were born. Real estate prices and rent prices are much more important in the everyday life for all of us, than all information technology combined. Unless you are a multimillionaire in tech stocks. But there aren't so many of them around.

A normal worker today in the US or Europe could if they want afford to buy all top Apple devices or equivalent PC devices, as well as every paid app on the App store. That same normal worker in the US or Europe today can never afford to buy a home, unless he/she goes into lifelong debt, or gets help from family that owns real estate.

> There are thousands of cities and towns all over the world, where short term rentals – accelerated by AirBnB – has made it impossible for young workers to afford to live where they were born.

That has very little to do with short term rentals, and even less to do with AirBnB specifically. Much like "foreign investors", it's just a convenient scapegoat when the real problem is basic supply and demand: there simply isn't enough housing to go around.

> A normal worker today in the US or Europe could if they want afford to buy all top Apple devices or equivalent PC devices, as well as every paid app on the App store. That same normal worker in the US or Europe today can never afford to buy a home, unless he/she goes into lifelong debt, or gets help from family that owns real estate.

And yet Apple's annual revenue is about 30x AirBnB's, and the numbers are similar for profit. That should tell you something about how much of the device/app market Apple controls compared to how much of the housing market AirBnB controls.

I think it has a lot to do with short term rentals, and this is how it works: When a homeowner dies, usually the heirs would go live in that home or sell it on the open market. Maybe using that money to pay off another mortgage.

Today, the heirs will instead keep the inherited home, rent it out seasonally on AirBnB to earn a little money, keep any mortgage they have on the place they live, and reap the value increase of their AirBnB unit every year. That value increase can be used as collateral for many things. In the industrialized world, your yearly salary (value increase) is much higher from earning real estate and doing nothing, than it would be from working any skilled job. AirBnB is an important piece of that whole equation, because it makes it much easier for people to hold onto extra property instead of selling it to somebody who needs a place to live. There is no shortage of housing.

> And yet Apple's annual revenue is about 30x AirBnB's

This has nothing to do with it. Real estate prices and values are much more important in the daily life of people than any consumer product such as Apple. AirBnB does not own the properties, but if you add up the value of all properties listed on AirBnB, that amount would dwarf not only Apple, but the entire stock market.

> Today, the heirs will instead keep the inherited home, rent it out seasonally on AirBnB to earn a little money, keep any mortgage they have on the place they live, and reap the value increase of their AirBnB unit every year. That value increase can be used as collateral for many things.

Money is fungible, finance people can do this kind of transformation with anything and do, all the time. Ever heard of a company or rich individual doing a sale-and-leaseback transaction? That's the same thing in reverse.

> In the industrialized world, your yearly salary (value increase) is much higher from earning real estate and doing nothing... There is no shortage of housing.

On the contrary, the shortage of housing is the underlying reality that makes all the flashy transactions on top work. Why does the value of housing keep going up? Because demand is going up and supply is staying approximately constant, or even going down. Everything else is window dressing.

> if you add up the value of all properties listed on AirBnB, that amount would dwarf not only Apple, but the entire stock market.

Maybe, but those properties are listed on a bunch of AirBnB competitors at the same time. AirBnB has very little market power over them; if they try to hike up the rates or anything they'll lose their customers. The real estate market is important. AirBnB isn't.

How can that be when at least 30% of consumers visiting airbnb.com do so using Apple hardware, OS and browser?

Difference is that AirBnB hosts can put their properties on multiple short let services, and access broadly the same market.

The same simply doesn’t apply to App on iPhone. AirBnB would only be equivalent if it was impossible for hosts to list their properties in multiple places and AirBnB customers where effective tied into the AirBnB platform where they would have do something ridiculous like change their electricity supplier to use an AirBnB competitor (because for some reason AirBnb have figured how to build a tightly integrated ecosystem of utilities and services that effectively force you to use them all together to get the most benefit).

And I say this as someone who’s fallen a long way down the Apple rabbit hole, and quite likes it down here. If multiple options for app stores and payment mechanisms existed, I would probably stick with Apple and happily pay a premium, because I value the convenience and peace of mind that comes from only having to trust Apple with my data. But that doesn’t mean that I think Apples behaviour is any reasonable or acceptable.

> I don't know why Apple should feel entitled to own the relationship with a businesses customers because they also use an iPhone when it's an ancillary part of the product.

Apple provides a custom operating system (frameworks, drivers, security updates, backwards compatibility, etc) to make that business's app function, and continue to function, at all.

You can write and maintain a website instead of an app to avoid that.

Your electricity company and your internet provider are also making your use of that app possible. In fact, they've invested trillions to accomplish that. Shouldn't they be entitled to extract a percentage from each transaction?

Because if these companies would think there's even a remote chance of this being legal, I'm sure they'd not shy away from investing even more trillions in making some sort of digital enforcement system.

Would be fun. Your power outlet only providing power to certified devices! All in the name of protecting consumers of course.

Landlords provide infrastructure (wall, roofs, electrical systems, plumbing, fire systems) needed for shops to function, or continue to function at all.

Shops could just build their own market stands to avoid their landlords owning the relationship with their customers.

Huh, that argument doesn’t seem as reasonable when applied to landlords and buildings.

And yes, many app developers don’t pay much or anything to Apple, and shops always pay rent. But here’s the thing, as an Apple customer I pay Apple when I buy my phone. Why should Apple be allowed to double dip? It never seems reasonable when ISP want to charge their customers and content providers for bandwidth, so why is it reasonable for Apple to do something similar with Apps?

Oh like a PWA? That Apple can cripple and has crippled at a moment's notice?

This would be a better argument if Apple didn't also lock down the capability of web browsers not called Safari.

On the bright side, having only one browser to support makes life a lot easier, too.

> website

I tried that route. You need an Apple developer account to get your web features only partially crippled, and the "sell your soul" part of the exchange doesn't happen till _after_ money has left your account (which is on a screen promising that you're done, and the payment is the final hurdle, not that it would make it much better if you _knew_ you were paying for the opportunity to perhaps complete the transaction if Apple deems you worthy and accepts your additional offerings).

Maybe that's fine in your world, but the status quo isn't as simple as "just write a website instead."

You don’t have to pay Apple a penny to run a website. I’m talking plain HTML5 / JavaScript and a URL.

Perhaps you’re assuming I mean a PWA, Apple sign-in, or Apple Pay? I believe those are non-standard integrations with the OS provided by Apple, for the convenience of developers.

It would be great if everything was standardized from the start, but standardization can also hinder technological progress and creativity. It’s a trade-off.

Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I don’t bemoan paying for development tools. I pay about $60/year for a JetBrains IDE because it makes my life easier and that’s how I make money. Devs pay for APIs and SaaS to make their lives easier too.

How, exactly, is any of that relevant?

Apple locks decade-old web features (say, e.g., web notifications) behind a contract wall and handles that contract wall exceptionally poorly, taking your money in exchange for goods and services only to later add additional terms and requirements and not refund your money without two court orders.

It leaves an especially sour taste in your mouth when you note that users paid a premium for devices which, at a minimum, ought to be able to do decade-old web things. Developers are paying for the privilege of maintaining that facade.

Separately, yu're not paying for development tools; you're signing a highly imbalanced contract (with a well-funded entity with a history of enforcing those imbalanced terms) and paying to give iPhone owners the sort of software they were implicitly promised when buying a top-of-the-line phone. "Apple Pay" is even worse since that same contract forbids you from using other options; it's not for your convenience, it's just obfuscated pricing with some legalese in the mix.

For the record, paying for development tools is fine. JetBrains offers actual benefits instead of abusing the courts for rent-seeking. Plus, their contracts are (comparatively) very reasonable (and also rarely enforced, so terms you don't like are less important). You could probably put together a financial argument against Apple's behavior here, but that's not their worst offense by a long shot.

> I believe those are non-standard integrations with the OS provided by Apple, for the convenience of developers.

Other developers would love to provide these integrations (as they could on any of the more open platforms), but that option has been cut of by Apple as well.

And what does 'non-standard' mean here? We're talking about web standards that are about a decade old at this point.

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