It really feels like the DOJ has it out for Google here. Apple's behavior is far more monopolistic, and Microsoft is no saint either.
Like, you can have a free app in the store, with a website where you can purchase premium, and then in the app have an "upgrade" button that just displays the error "You cannot upgrade to premium in the app" and hope users find your website.
You aren't allowed to have "You can upgrade to premium using our site, at https://site.com" message because if you can pay money on site.com, having that error message is seen as evading the app store tax.
In both of those cases though, apple did the same amount of work, so the justification you sometimes hear, that "30% is fair because you're paying for app store resources and apple to advertise your app", seems like it doesn't really apply.
Like, spotify is a perfect example of this. They don't let you upgrade on iOS because paying 30% to apple would mean they'd lose money on every sell (music has very thin margins), and spotify isn't even allowed to display a good error message because linking to their webpage, or mentioning the app store tax, would be against app store ToS.
And then apple music also exists, and ignores the 30% tax. It seems so blindingly obviously harmful to consumers.
This all applies to the google play app store too, but at least on the google play app store, there's no "thought crime" of informing your users they can go punch in a credit card on the web.
Also from that article:
> Apple allowed developers to include [information about other payment methods] but required that developers give Apple 27% of all sales made within seven days of being directed to these sites
That doesn't really sound like losing, a 27% penalty if you "steer users" is effectively the same as steering not being allowed.
So steer away, but pay your dues manually if you do so.
I'm honestly shocked how many people thought that the outcome would have been anything else. Apple has been very consistent in emphasizing that the 30% is not the payment processing fee, so the idea that getting paid with your own payment processor would bypass the fee was always absurd.
The best developers can hope for is for US regulators to follow the EU and force Apple to allow alternative stores with lower fees. There was never a chance that the government would ban Apple from charging its fee.
You keep showing up in these threads to repeat the same "this is how it is" shtick, but you're seemingly terrified of the "what could be" aspect. Apple's abuse of their coalesced power is still illegal in Europe and Apple is still in the process of designing their remediation. If the US wasn't fundamentally corrupt Apple would have been put on trial years ago - citing America's preliminary rulings is less of a feather in Apple's cap and more an example of how far consumer protections have fallen in the West.
You have to understand the way that things are in order to effectively advocate for the way that things should be. If you approach the world with a broken mental model and try to use that broken mental model to advocate that the world needs changing, you'll accomplish nothing.
We have spent years with people thinking that if they could just charge for their apps outside of the App Store that they'd magically be able to avoid the fee. That was never the case, it was never going to be the case, and I'm just here to clear that up. If you want to abolish the 30% fee, you need to ask for something besides abolishing the anti-steering provisions because the fee was never about the payment method.
People can advocate for whatever changes they want, I'm sincerely just here to try to make sure we're all talking about the way things really are, because otherwise it's just hot air.
The only difference is if the app error says “You can’t pay in-app” or if it says “You can’t pay in app, you can pay on our site”
Restricting apps from informing users still seems like obvious harm to users, like if a retail store made a rule that “the manual that comes with your product can’t contain your homepage because you have an online shop that might have better prices than us”
If it were the cost of running the store, truly, it would charge based on app downloads or such. Not based on if users click a link to amazon.com in the kindle app and then buy 2 books or 3.
I think Apple said something like SDK fee, which should even apply outside app store.
As others have mentioned, the government can do more than one thing at a time. Here is a list: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/business/antitrust-.... Perhaps Google's case had just progressed faster, and perhaps it was more clear-cut or easier to prove.
Google's records retention policies were also over the top and perhaps hurt it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitru...:
> But Google has faced the broadest criticism for its actions, with the judges in all three antitrust cases chastising the company for its communications practices.
And they engaged in some pretty sketchy practices:
> If using the right words and deleting messages did not keep Google out of the courthouse, the company concluded, invoking the lawyers would....
> A message surfaced in the Epic trial in which a Google lawyer identified the practice of copying lawyers on documents as “fake privilege” and seemed rather amused by it. Mr. Walker said he was “disappointed” and “surprised” to hear that term....
> Last month, three advocacy groups, led by the American Economic Liberties Project, asked for Mr. Walker to be investigated by the California State Bar for coaching Google to “engage in widespread and illegal destruction” of documents relevant to federal trials.
> Google's records retention policies were also over the top and perhaps hurt it: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitru...:
If you're intentionally hiding things from government investigators, the legal presumption is there's a good reason. Judges are allowed to impute things from destroyed evidence. Otherwise, everyone would destroy evidence.
Priority matters, and picking Google as the first high profile target is bizarre.
The only market where Apple has a monopoly is the marketplace that they created for themselves, and a high profile case already tried and failed to use that definition of the market to argue antitrust. The DOJ is trying again anyway, but it made perfect sense for them to wait until Epic vs Apple was decided before starting work—why waste time on something that could be moot by the time they finish?
If google gets restrictions, then it makes apple look even more monopolistic. Like a trimming the hedges
That's a weirdly specific way to label the 5th largest public company on the planet, by market cap.
... yes, it is smaller than the 2nd largest public company.