Apple-Commissioned Study Highlights Success of Third-Party Apps

[GermanSuplex]

The difference is that certain consumers are limited to only buying products from one supplier, and that limitation is a wholly artificial one introduced by said supplier. The difference is a pretty gaping one. The only way it would even be remotely comparable would be if you put it in the context of a completely ridiculous of a made up situation where consumers have no choice but to buy products from McDonald's or face some other inconvenience compromise or have to make some other, longer-term buying decision.

Like, maybe if McDonald's made a deal with the city of Chicago such that they were the only restaurant allowed to have Drive-Thru windows. Then people who live in Chicago would have to either buy food from McDonald's if they want the convenience of a Drive-Thru, or they would have to go into a restaurant, or they would have to go somewhere outside of Chicago. Or they could just move out of Chicago and somewhere else.

Either way, such a scenario would absolutely provide a legal justification for McDonald's to have to sell food from competitors.

Uh, there's other app stores. Just like there's other restaurants. If Apple was the sole provider of cell phones, or the sole marketplace for apps, or McDonald's was the only restaurant, your point would make more sense. Just because Apple is the most successful doesn't automatically make it a public utility or that they're so large other platforms automatically can't exist. Indeed, Android exists. Now, if Apple was making closed-room deals with Google execs to keep prices at a certain point, that would be anti-competitive behavior. But simply creating a successful device and opening up an app store where people are free to sell or not sell their apps - I don't get the need for strong-arming them.

I also 100% agree with Apple that forcing them to lower its commission, allowing sideloading, etc. takes away from the device and software it has created.

 

[vipergts2207]

That makes no sense. They aren’t acting anti-competitively now. Regulation changes the law to make the current behaviour anti-competitive only after the law has changed.

I mean anti-competitive in a practical sense, not a legal sense, since the latter is still being adjudicated in many places under existing law. If lawmakers didn't view what Apple and others are doing as anti-competitive, there would be nothing to codify into law in the first place. You don't try to change behavior you believe is acceptable, correct?

The only way for Apple to not have to change anything after new laws come into effect is if they’d already made the exact changes the law requires. In which case they are in the same position with our without the law being in place.

If Apple and others had changed their behavior before all of this, lawmakers likely wouldn't have opened up their investigations in the first place. Tech could've made real changes on their own terms but because they were bullheaded and insisted on continuing down the path they were on, now government is going to dictate how things are going to be. Think of it like speeding. If I pass by a cop while going 5 over the speed limit, as I frequently do, the likelihood of being pulled over is slim to none. They've got other drivers doing more dangerous things to worry about than me going 5 over. If I speed by that same cop at 20 over the speed limit though, chances are I'm getting pulled over and getting a ticket. What Apple and the other tech companies have done is gone too fast and now they've caught the attention of the cop and soon a ticket will be coming their way in the form of new regulations.

It's not like if Apple had made some token gestures a few years ago (which in fact they did) that regulators would suddenly look the other way and stop taking any action! American politicians might be bought and sold like that by European ones are definitely not. The regulation is/was going to happen regardless of what Apple did.

Do you think perhaps that part of the problem is precisely that? That Apple's changes have been token?

token - done for the sake of appearances or as a symbolic gesture

It's not exactly hard to see through that kind of thing.

 

[vipergts2207]

Incorrect. As an example, if nobody sped ever, there would still be speeding laws in effect. This legislation would be coming anyway to prevent new future "gatekeeper" from being that. Except in the future world the future "gatekeeper" will be much smarter to dodge this crap legislation.

Interesting coincidence, we both made speeding analogies at the same time. If there were no speeding laws, speeding wouldn't even be a thing. What would define speeding without a speed limit being in existence?

 

[mrochester]

I mean anti-competitive in a practical sense, not a legal sense, since the latter is still being adjudicated in many places under existing law. If lawmakers didn't view what Apple and others are doing as anti-competitive, there would be nothing to codify into law in the first place. You don't try to change behavior you believe is acceptable, correct?


If Apple and others had changed their behavior before all of this, lawmakers likely wouldn't have opened up their investigations in the first place. Tech could've made real changes on their own terms but because they were bullheaded and insisted on continuing down the path they were on, now government is going to dictate how things are going to be. Think of it like speeding. If I pass by a cop while going 5 over the speed limit, as I frequently do, the likelihood of being pulled over is slim to none. They've got other drivers doing more dangerous things to worry about than me going 5 over. If I speed by that same cop at 20 over the speed limit though, chances are I'm getting pulled over and getting a ticket. What Apple and the other tech companies have done is gone too fast and now they've caught the attention of the cop and soon a ticket will be coming their way in the form of new regulations.


Do you think perhaps that part of the problem is precisely that? That Apple's changes have been token?

token - done for the sake of appearances or as a symbolic gesture

It's not exactly hard to see through that kind of thing.

This does not make any sense.

The 'acceptable' behaviour is what the law states is required (and we can say that is the acceptable behaviour as it'll be the law). Therefore the only action Apple could have taken to avoid regulation is to take the same action the new laws will require them too. Anything short of that would see them regulated anyway.

It's not like Apple saying 'we'll only take 15% commission if you earn under £1m but you still must use our payment system' has resulted in regulators turning their heads away. The only 'acceptable' behaviour in this situation as far as the regulators are concerned is Apple cannot say developers must only use Apple's payment system. So the only way for Apple to have avoided that becoming law would be for Apple to have voluntarily made this change ahead of time. In either case Apple would have had to make the exact same change, except if Apple had done it voluntarily ahead of time they then couldn't challenge it in a court of law the way they can if regulators try to force them to do it.

I would be interested to know what changes you think Apple could have made that aren't as draconian as what regulators are trying to push through that would have stopped regulators from even investigating the issue. I suspect your voluntary solutions will be surprisingly close to the involuntary solutions.

 

[suns93]

Doesn’t the video game console model provide a firm precedence for Apple?

Company locks down hardware ✅
Company locks down OS ✅
Company develops own software for device and collects additional revenue for it ✅
Company allows third parties to develop and sell software for device but must abide by the Company’s guidelines and pay the Company a % of sales ✅
Can make the argument that if it wasn’t for the success of the 3rd party software the Company’s hardware wouldn’t be nearly as successful ✅

I’m sincerely interested to hear the counter-argument.

 

[jakey rolling]

I would be interested to know what changes you think Apple could have made that aren't as draconian as what regulators are trying to push through that would have stopped regulators from even investigating the issue. I suspect your voluntary solutions will be surprisingly close to the involuntary solutions.

"Draconian"? You mean like <gasp> allowing people to have a choice in where they are allowed to source their software? Or to allow software publishers to choose how to interact with their customers? Those kind of "draconian" solutions?

 

[mrochester]

"Draconian"? You mean like <gasp> allowing people to have a choice in where they are allowed to source their software? Or to allow software publishers to choose how to interact with their customers? Those kind of "draconian" solutions?

The suggestion is that the regulator’s measures are more draconian than what Apple would have voluntarily had to do to avoid those more draconian measures. Im wondering what measures this person thinks Apple should have taken to avoid the regulators more draconian measures.

 

[vipergts2207]

This does not make any sense.

The 'acceptable' behaviour is what the law states is required (and we can say that is the acceptable behaviour as it'll be the law). Therefore the only action Apple could have taken to avoid regulation is to take the same action the new laws will require them too. Anything short of that would see them regulated anyway.

Acceptable and legal are often very different, so don't conflate the two. Before the Clean Water Act in 1972 (or it's predecessor FWPCA) was it acceptable for companies to pollute our waterways just because it was legal? No. I don't know about you, but I think most of us rather enjoy clean water and would find such actions unacceptable, regardless of its legal status. In fact new laws often arise because of behavior that is seen as unacceptable being legal. New distracted driving laws being a relatively recent example.

It's not like Apple saying 'we'll only take 15% commission if you earn under £1m but you still must use our payment system' has resulted in regulators turning their heads away. The only 'acceptable' behaviour in this situation as far as the regulators are concerned is Apple cannot say developers must only use Apple's payment system. So the only way for Apple to have avoided that becoming law would be for Apple to have voluntarily made this change ahead of time. In either case Apple would have had to make the exact same change, except if Apple had done it voluntarily ahead of time they then couldn't challenge it in a court of law the way they can if regulators try to force them to do it.

I would be interested to know what changes you think Apple could have made that aren't as draconian as what regulators are trying to push through that would have stopped regulators from even investigating the issue. I suspect your voluntary solutions will be surprisingly close to the involuntary solutions.

If Apple insisted on being the only source of apps, they could've lowered their fees to just above cost to run the program and allowed developers to inform consumers of their offerings outside of the iOS App Store system. Or they could've kept the terms of their store as is, but allowed software to be installed from outside their own store. Though Apple is far more creative and resourceful than I, so I'm sure they could've come up with additional and likely even better ideas that I did in all of 5 minutes.

 

[mrochester]

Acceptable and legal are often very different, so don't conflate the two. Before the Clean Water Act in 1972 (or it's predecessor FWPCA) was it acceptable for companies to pollute our waterways just because it was legal? No. I don't know about you, but I think most of us rather enjoy clean water.


If Apple insisted on being the only source of apps, they could've lowered their fees to just above cost to run the program and allowed developers to inform consumers of their offerings outside of the iOS App Store system. Or they could've kept the terms of their store as is, but allowed software to be installed from outside their own store. Though Apple is far more creative and resourceful than I, so I'm sure they could've come up with additional and likely even better ideas that I did in all of 5 minutes.

And how do you know that would result in no regulation?

What benefit does Apple gain from voluntarily making very little from the App Store vs being compelled by law to make very little from the App Store? This is the problem with your argument.

 

[vipergts2207]

And how do you know that would result in no regulation?

How do I know? I don't know, but neither do you. However the logic of not drawing the attention of regulators to yourself through your actions (or the police in the speeding analogy) would seem to be pretty consistent with real world experience. We're both talking about what could have been, not what would have been.

What benefit does Apple gain from voluntarily making very little from the App Store vs being compelled by law to make very little from the App Store? This is the problem with your argument.

Apple doesn't have to have made very little from the App Store. If Apple had chosen the route of keeping the iOS App Store rules and fees as they saw fit, but allowed software to be installed through other sources, they would still have been able to make a bunch of money. The just need to make sure their store, even with their fees, is a better and more desirable way to distribute apps versus the other methods. Instead they just decided to prevent competition at all.

 

[mrochester]

How do I know? I don't know, but neither do you. However the logic of not drawing the attention of regulators to yourself through your actions (or the police in the speeding analogy) would seem to be pretty consistent with real world experience. We're both talking about what could have been, not what would have been.


Apple doesn't have to have made very little from the App Store. If Apple had chosen the route of keeping the iOS App Store rules and fees as they saw fit, but allowed software to be installed through other sources, they would still have been able to make a bunch of money. The just need to make sure their store, even with their fees, is a better and more desirable way to distribute apps versus the other methods. Instead they just decided to prevent competition at all.

Your logic is still flawed here. You are suggesting to avoid regulation Apple should have taken the very actions that the regulations will require them to take.

My question remains to you, what action could Apple have voluntarily taken that is less draconian than the regulations, to avoid regulation?

 

[MastersoftMobile]

So developers, what would you like to see from 3rd party app stores? This could be a great way to get more and fairer exposure.

 

[mrochester]

So developers, what would you like to see from 3rd party app stores? This could be a great way to get more and fairer exposure.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how they live or die!

 

[I7guy]

Interesting coincidence, we both made speeding analogies at the same time. If there were no speeding laws, speeding wouldn't even be a thing. What would define speeding without a speed limit being in existence?

Because at a future point in time, it could be a thing. As in the future a law could prevent a “thing” that hasn’t happened yet , in the present.

 

[vipergts2207]

Your logic is still flawed here. You are suggesting to avoid regulation Apple should have taken the very actions that the regulations will require them to take.

My question remains to you, what action could Apple have voluntarily taken that is less draconian than the regulations, to avoid regulation?

They clearly would've had to have taken some of the actions the regulations will require, but not necessarily all of them. And with legislation there's the additional burden of the letter of the law to follow, rather than having more flexibility in your voluntary implementation. Apple could've simply allowed software installations from other sources and it would have taken care of many of the issues on their end. For example, the new EU law would not allow tech companies to rank their own products or services higher than those of others. But if Apple had allowed other sources of software, regulators would likely have less of an issue with that. I certainly would have. It wouldn't bother me if Apple preferences their own offerings on their own store, as long as other stores were allowed to exist and compete with them. If consumers or developers didn't like Apple's self-preferencing, they could distribute or shop for apps using other stores. Instead of tech companies getting to choose their own path to fair play, regulators will now be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem to get that result. To be fair, Apple couldn't have avoided this fate on their own. It would've required most of big tech not acting the way they are. But Apple deserves no tears to be shed, as they didn't even try, they only exacerbated the issues.

 

[vipergts2207]

Because at a future point in time, it could be a thing. As in the future a law could prevent a “thing” that hasn’t happened yet , in the present.

Huh? I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. Are you saying regulators should be expected to regulate things that don't exist yet?

 

[mrochester]

They clearly would've had to have taken some of the actions the regulations will require, but not necessarily all of them. And with legislation there's the additional burden of the letter of the law to follow, rather than having more flexibility in your voluntary implementation. Apple could've simply allowed software installations from other sources and it would have taken care of many of the issues on their end. For example, the new EU law would not allow tech companies to rank their own products or services higher than those of others. But if Apple had allowed other sources of software, regulators would likely have less of an issue with that. I certainly would have. It wouldn't bother me if Apple preferences their own offerings on their own store, as long as other stores were allowed to exist and compete with them. If consumers or developers didn't like Apple's self-preferencing, they could distribute or shop for apps using other stores. Instead of tech companies getting to choose their own path to fair play, regulators will now be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem to get that result. To be fair, Apple couldn't have avoided this fate on their own. It would've required most of big tech not acting the way they are. But Apple deserves no tears to be shed, as they didn't even try, they only exacerbated the issues.

Your suggestion is STILL what the regulations will require. Plus the regulations don’t just apply to one company or are based on the behaviour of one company. Self-preferencing is predominately a Google issue but Apple will be subject to the same regulation.

 

[vipergts2207]

Your suggestion is STILL what the regulations will require.

No actually my suggestion was one component of what the regulations will require, not all of them. I literally even gave a specific example of a limitation Apple could have potentially avoided if they'd just have simply allowed the distribution of apps through other sources.

PLus the regulations don’t just apply to one company or are based on the behaviour of one company.

Yes...
I even acknowledged this by saying it would've required all of big tech to change their practices in some way and to be less greedy. Like I said though, Apple didn't try either so they get their fair share of the blame. If they had tried I might feel some pity for them getting wrapped up with the others, but nope, they themselves are a gigantic part of the problem.

 

[TechnoLawyer]

All I know is that not being able to buy Kindle/Audible directly from within the app in iPhone is ridiculous. Google and Amazon worked it out years ago.

 

[mrochester]

No actually my suggestion was one component of what the regulations will require, not all of them. I literally even gave a specific example of a limitation Apple could have potentially avoided if they'd just have simply allowed the distribution of apps through other sources.


Yes...
I even acknowledged this by saying it would've required all of big tech to change their practices in some way and to be less greedy. Like I said though, Apple didn't try either so they get their fair share of the blame. If they had tried I might feel some pity for them getting wrapped up with the others, but nope, they themselves are a gigantic part of the problem.

Your suggestion was that Apple could have avoided regulation by allowing apps to be installed outside of the App Store voluntarily. This is a nonsense argument because Apple fundamentally does not want that to happen. The voluntary action would have to be something that is both palatable to Apple and would make the regulators turn the other way.

 

[vipergts2207]

Your suggestion was that Apple could have avoided regulation by allowing apps to be installed outside of the App Store voluntarily. This is a nonsense argument because Apple fundamentally does not want that to happen. The voluntary action would have to be something that is both palatable to Apple and would make the regulators turn the other way.

No because Apple trying to have their cake and eat it too is exactly what got us to where we are today. Yes Apple would have had to make some decisions that they didn’t want to make; they weren’t going to get there through meaningless token actions. But now instead of picking and choosing their most reasonable and least damaging path forward, they’re going to be told exactly how things are going to be whether it’s optimal for them or not. So now instead of solely allowing other methods of distribution they’re going to have to do that as well as a whole slew of other things as well. Big tech decided to play a game of chicken and instead of swerving and avoiding the crash, they’re going to be bloodied and on the pavement. Should’ve swerved and took the L. They would’ve been in a better position at the end of the day.

 

[mrochester]

No because Apple trying to have their cake and eat it to is exactly what got us to where we are today. Yes Apple would have had to make some decisions that they didn’t want to make, but now instead of picking and choosing their most reasonable and least damaging path forward, they’re going to be told exactly how things are going to be whether it’s optimal for them or not. So now instead of solely allowing other methods of distribution they’re going to have to do that as well as a whole slew of other things as well. Big tech decided to play a game of chicken and instead of swerving and avoiding the crash, they’re going to be bloodied and on the pavement. Should’ve swerved and took the L. They would’ve been in a better position at the end of the day.

Which is precisely why the idea that Apple voluntarily taking action that would have avoided regulation is nonsense. Apple DID take voluntary action but are STILL facing the prospect of being regulated. The ONLY action Apple could have voluntarily taken to avoid regulation is the very same action that regulators will be enforcing.

 

[vipergts2207]

Which is precisely why the idea that Apple voluntarily taking action that would have avoided regulation is nonsense. Apple DID take voluntary action but are STILL facing the prospect of being regulated. The ONLY action Apple could have voluntarily taken to avoid regulation is the very same action that regulators will be enforcing.

Because as you yourself admitted, they were token actions, aka meaningless. That wasn’t going to cut it. What’s nonsense is your black and white false dichotomy that the only only two options were either new regulations enforced by the government or big tech voluntarily implementing everything exactly as the law dictates anyway. That’s what’s nonsense.

 

[mrochester]

Because as you yourself admitted, they were token actions, aka meaningless. That wasn’t going to cut it. What’s nonsense is your black and white false dichotomy that the only only two options were either new regulations enforced by the government or big tech voluntarily implementing everything exactly as the law dictates anyway. That’s what’s nonsense.

Yet here we are where you haven’t been able to say what Apple could have done that isn’t what the regulations would require but which would have stopped regulators.

If Apple had voluntarily reduced App Store fees but still maintained being the only place to get iOS apps they'd still face regulators because they specifically don't like the App Store being the only place to get iOS apps (and some app developers would still be making the same complaints).

If Apple had voluntarily allowed 3rd party app stores that is precisely what regulators are going to require anyway.

I fail to see what action Apple could have taken that would have made regulators look the other way.

 

[vipergts2207]

Yet here we are where you haven’t been able to say what Apple could have done that isn’t what the regulations would require but which would have stopped regulators.

Again, allow other sources for software. Is this the same as what the regulations require? No, the regulations require substantially more than that. Does this stop regulators? Possibly, as it solves many of the issues regulators were trying to fix in the first place.