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Comment by andai | Hacker News Reader

If Apple can decide what you can publish on alternative stores, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having alternative stores?

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I believe it was the Apple fee monopoly that was the central thrust of the anti-trust case, not open distribution of apps themselves. The goal was to allow storefronts to compete on fees.

If Apple was banning apps from alt stores but keeping them listed in their own store, then it would be a legal issue.

I personally I think it defeats the purpose as well, but I'm more concerned with the right for people to do what they wish with their own device. These antitrust court cases can get pretty specific with what they are addressing.

Aren't they both anti-trust problems? Suppose Apple bans apps that compete with some service they offer themselves. Allowing them to be banned in alternate stores as long as Apple also bans them in their own store is clearly not going to make that better, right?

> compete with some service they offer themselves

if you move from ban to, systematically hinder updates, despotic interpretation of store TOS/Guidelines/Rules, APIs their apps can use and others can't which affect competitiveness of the apps, not having to pay their own fees, randomly removing top apps from the app store front/ranking/promotion, TOS which make competing impossible etc.

then they have been doing exactly that for years

i.e. "not ban but market wise not that different"

> I believe it was the Apple fee monopoly that was the central thrust of the anti-trust case, not open distribution of apps themselves.

This was not just subject of the anti-trust case, it's Apple being expected to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act.

(The DMA defined objective criteria to identify a scaled market of digital goods with an uneven playing field for all players. Apple was found to have created such a market and was ordered to rectify this)

You're talking about the US case I believe. Alternative app stores were born out of the EU Digital Markets Act which Apple has been brazenly violating since day 1.

The purpose of the DMA is to eliminate gatekeepers' stranglehold over the market and promote competition by forcing them to compete on equal footing. Apple's compliance strategy thus far has been to create an appearance of compliance (alternative app stores, what more do you want??) while fully retaining their chokehold in strategic areas like notarization and core technology fees which completely undermine the goals of the DMA. They remain a gatekeeper who imposes taxes on competition and retains the ability to kill your project (or business) without a due process.

How can a storefront compete on fees if apple can wake up one day and tell the other storefronts “none of your apps are available for sale anymore”.

Totally, the only ""freedom"" that they have is the free development program... But they can cancel your account at any time if they wish for "abusing" it, and you even have to refresh apps every week.

Apple does not get to decide what‘s published on alternative stores, but they can revoke certificates still.

A distinction without a difference.

Difference is in the fact they don’t have any incentive in checking submitted apps to alternative stores. Does it even launches? Does it use private APIs that will break tomorrow? Who cares. Surely not Apple. It’s on that alternative stores.

But if they asked to block an app due to breach of a law, they will oblige.

You argue that they have no incentive to look through all the apps submitted to other app stores. I disagree with this premise.

And even if it were true, it is not a counter argument to my assertion that Apple has complete control over what apps exist on every App Store.

No app goes live or stays up on any App Store without Apple’s explicit consent.

Your argument was that this is a distinction without a difference. I pointed out the difference: apps on alternative app stores exist until Apple is legally forced to remove them.

Yes

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