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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I hope the EU doesn't flinch. I'm on the side of the DMA on this particular issue, and would very much like to see Apple get its bluff called.

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I don't think they will. This is significantly less scary for upholding the DMA than the current US government threatening the EU with fines for having it in the first place. (And the DMA is the one thing the EU is entirely unwilling to negotiate on; it's seen as a key component to the EUs sovereignty from other major world powers.)

They didn't blink when it came to the GDPR either for big tech (most of the problems on the level of the EU for GDPR have been that they themselves are subject to it, leading to the occasional "egg on face" situation + the EU/US privacy laws being fundamentally incompatible.)

The EU has to flinch. Sure the entire HN demographic may not give a shit, but they literally don’t matter. The masses of constituents will be pissed.

Depends on whether we'll be more pissed about not having an iPhone or about having to give 30% of all purchases to Apple.

It'll also take a lot for Apple to be able to spin this as "the EU is banning us from selling iPhones" when it's their decision.

Let me break it to you, Play store also has a 30% tax. So does Steam, Playstation store, Xbox store, Meta quest store, Nintendo, Samsung etc. Why do people only complain about Apple and everybody else gets a pass?

Because I have the option of using an alternate app store on my Android phone or computer, and I do. Meta, PlayStation, Nintendo, all companies that force me to pay them a cut to install something on my device need to go the way of Apple.

I'm not sure why you thought your point was such a checkmate, as if I have a problem with the company itself, rather than the practice.

The practice as well as the percentage is industry standard by now but i have never heard of anyone complaining about the Meta tax or the Sony tax. It’s always the Apple tax which is a bit weird.

That's probably just because Apple sells more than the other two combined. I find the practice reprehensible no matter whether it's Apple or Amazon doing it.

Did you know that the Meta Quest has sideloading, too? https://sidequestvr.com/

One of the only reasons I use the damn device.

So if the alternate App Store doesn’t take a 30% cut, but also the products charge more than the Apple App Store, you’d still rather use them?

That's how it works on macOS, so... sure.

You’re arguing with people who think Apple charging a business $100 a year to publish Apps on their AppStore is the epitome of corporate greed.

You are hard straw-manning the other side. Please stop.

No I’m not, there’s endless people who crow at the idea of paying a small yearly fee to publish their apps. Search Hackernews.

> Why do people only complain about Apple and everybody else gets a pass

Because mobile phones are not gaming consoles, and are an essential device for everyday life?

Because Steam doesn't prevent you from installing and using games from any other store and doesn't claim it is entitled to a cut?

Apple doesn’t need to spin anything. EU consumers will be pissed about having to travel to another country to buy an iPhone. And Apple will make the revenue anyway.

Yeah, but the question is whether they'll be pissed at Apple.

People were pissed on Microsoft due to BSODs on Windows. Microsoft bent over backwards to test drivers to prevent BSODs and give Windows better name, despite the fact that it was not a problem of Microsoft, but sloppy programmers of those drivers causing BSODs.

Yeah I can almost guarantee that people are going to be mad at Apple.

Yep, hence the question whether they'll be able to spin it to direct this outrage toward the EU.

That's why they have been complaining about the EU and DMA for several years now. They are trying to build public support for their case.

This time they are having a bit of a hard time as a lot of people are clearly sick of their shenaningans. However, we are in a bubble of our own, and it's hard to say what the general public will think of it.

The issue for Apple is that in the EU, they're still mainly characterized as the company that dragged their feet on using standardized chargers, leading to there being a law on the books that mandates USB-C. (As in, it's obvious to literally everyone that if Apple just used USB-C, that law wouldn't exist, since literally everyone else was willing to use microUSB and then USB-C for their regular charging devices; without Apple, there'd be no incentive to do it, but because they're a major player that refused to co-operate, it's now required.)

That law axed a lot of the second-hand grey market for cheap Apple cables of poor build quality (something Apple also worked towards because their official cables have had poor build quality since forever), and is generally seen as a positive for most people, since everyone who's ever had an Apple device is also familiar with the growing collection of cheap chargers that are varying degrees of functional that comes with it; instead a USB-C charger can often be repurposed to charge e-readers, tablets, lights and so on, while Apple chargers could only be used to charge Apple devices. It also eliminated all the problems with audio docks, where before you had to pick between buying one for Apple and one for Android/everything else.

Basically it's made less e-waste people directly have to engage with, and is generally seen as a good thing... but Apple kept whining about it, so their reputation as a customer-friendly company is in the gutter as a result; even most Apple users I know of still don't even bother trying to defend the company on how bad they are at interoperability/standardization.

To be fair, poor-quality cables are a more recent development at Apple. It basically follows the Tim Cook takeover, where full on greed has become the "raison d'être" of Apple at the expense of everything else.

I had the 1,5G iPod (10GB variant) which was sold with all the accessories, including a carrying pouch, very nice quality remote (that could be used with any headphones, not just the ones included) and a very nice FireWire cable. It was literally one of the best quality cable I ever used.

The first iPhone also had a pretty decent quality cable (and included a dock). Back then, iBooks/PowerBooks also included many adaptors for the various video-out standard of the time, that is to be contrasted with their all USB-C release MacBooks, where they basically told their customers: "fuck you, buy the necessary dongles at a nasty markup".

It all went to shit when Apple became very successful with the iPhone and the bean counter fully took over, saving pennies everywhere he could (at scale it does makes a lot of money).

And this is what feels so bad with Apple today, you pay a premium price, only to be taken for a fool and have a mediocre experience in the name of "ecology" (who are they kidding, seriously).

Microsoft does not have anywhere near the cultish following of Apple. They cannot get away with BS like that.

Only Apple can be Apple.

Only Jobs could be that Apple.

Have you looked at enterprise business people / analysts? They would riot if you took their Microsoft products from them. Apple is much easier to get out of for society as a whole since its not nearly as integrated with deep corporate bureaucracies.

I kind of understand them. There is a meme of Microsoft being bad / making bad software but the reality is that they actually make pretty good software with a lot of functionalities that others fail to properly replicate / implement correctly.

The office suite is very strong. You may not see it like that, but for some it doesn't really have any proper equivalent, a lot like some Adobe software. Some get close, but still come up short in many ways.

And Microsoft is pricing their stuff very well. I think that's actually the problem, they can use their hegemony that gives them insane volumes and allows them to set prices at a level so competitive no young outsider can meaningfully compete.

Network effects in computing/software are really nasty since there is a very real lock in effect. We can force format standardization (we dit that!) but that's only one part of the equation. One still has to build the software and that requires a lot of upfront capital cost (to pay the devs) before you can even sell your first unit.

And if we look at what Apple has done with their own Office suite, it's not even close. It's "pretty" but nowhere near a true replacement. It's actually sad that with all the cash Apple has, they are unwilling/unable to really invest in a proper competitive alternative.

They wont. Do you really think people are going to storm Brussels because they have to buy a Samsung or Motorola phone instead of an Iphone?

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