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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

It's so good... but also it has taken so, so long to get here. The US should've done something about the app store tax a long time ago. People thought Apple won their case, but it... really just took time to get here. You get to try malicious compliance with judges exactly once, and then you're over.

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Shoot me down with examples here, but my impression is that the US (historically, not just in the last three months) will never hurry to curtail the ability of a US company to make profit. With the possible exception of when a US company egregiously flouts laws that already exist.

Effective regulation isn't a strength of the US.

The US has no problem with regulating its industries. It just doesn't do it pre-emptively out of fear the way the EU does. It actually lets business develop before assessing any damages.

So you're arguing that it's s still to early to assess Google, Meta, Amazon and other big tech? Somehow I don't think that's right and EU realized the need of regulation much earlier.

Not arguing that it's still too soon. The anti-trust litagations are obviously underway. But the EU themselves only started cracking down within the last decade, which is still relatively recent.

The problem is the damage was obvious in 2014, and it took until 2025 for us to do anything about it. In the tech cycle, that reaction time is way, way too slow. Honestly, the biggest part of the problem is not when they started investigating, it's how long they allowed these companies to abuse the process.

This case started in 2020. What companies like Apple and Google have done in most of these cases has been to abuse the court's willingness to provide extensions to create an incredible amount of delay. One of the tactics they use both here and in the EU is to say they need more time, and more time, and more time, and then on the very last day of the last extension just say "nah, we don't think we're doing anything wrong". They didn't need the extensions, they were just wasting time. Because the amount of money they make on the status quo is worth drawing out as long as possible.

If anything, I think the biggest reform would be to say that large companies do not get to ask for extensions on court deadlines. They have literally billions of dollars, hundreds of lawyers, there is no reason they cannot manage to get what they need to do done on schedule. Asking for more time should be viewed as bad faith.

> and then you're over What does this mean in practice?

Apple is still doing business, has three years of profits from the malicious compliance, and appears to have attracted not much more than a sternly worded letter from a judge, and possible criminal contempt charges for a couple of individuals.

What real world consequences does Apple face for this behavior?

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