Apple Discussed 'Punitive Measures' Against Netflix for Dropping In-App Purchases

cmaier said:
Who is “they?” One guy? Out of the 10s of thousands of employees? So now we’re thought police?
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Well, to be fair I think intent will be a central topic in the court case. Epic is clearly trying to picture Apple's intent negatively, namely enforcing strict control on a platform where they enjoy dominant position to stifle competition. Apple is likely to counter that their primary goal is to protect the users' privacy and security instead of being anti-competitive.

I don't think conclusions can be drawn by only a few emails, but Epic will likely try to dig up multiple instances of such internal discussions and present them to argue that they were not isolated cases but following a pattern.
 
Krizoitz said:
No one is arguing Apple can’t change the AppStore model, they are saying Apple doesn’t WANT to and shouldn’t be forced to just because some people don’t like it.

Apple believes (and many of us agree) that their approach offers a better experience than the alternative. And, conveniently enough, customers have the perfect opportunity to decide because it just so happens that Apples competitor (and the bigger owner of the market), Android, offers exactly the alternative that iPhone haters want! Customers have exactly the choice they should ideally have! They can choose between the two different approaches, Apples curated experience or Androids open one. It’s perfect!
Instead though you have a bunch of self entitled folks who believe they should be given whatever they want and Apple should be FORCED to cater to their demands. It’s utterly ridiculous yet here we are.
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Of course Apple doesn’t want to change. When does a business ever give up an anticompetitive advantage willingly?

Also, two options isn’t exactly what I’d call the ideal amount of choice. It’s actually the bare minimum to even be considered choice in the first place. But I guess some of us just love not having options.
 
cmaier said:
I’ve got one - the apple ebooks case.
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That was essentially a price fixing case though, a “per se” violation. My comment was in response to anti-trust being meant to force “powerful companies to do things they would not otherwise do” and the assertion that Apple is a “strong player” is sufficient justification.
 
Analog Kid said:
That was essentially a price fixing case though, a “per se” violation. My comment was in response to anti-trust being meant to force “powerful companies to do things they would not otherwise do” and the assertion that Apple is a “strong player” is sufficient justification.
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True, that’s different.
 
bsolar said:
Well, to be fair I think intent will be a central topic in the court case. Epic is clearly trying to picture Apple's intent negatively, namely enforcing strict control on a platform where they enjoy dominant position to stifle competition. Apple is likely to counter that their primary goal is to protect the users' privacy and security instead of being anti-competitive.

I don't think conclusions can be drawn by only a few emails, but Epic will likely try to dig up multiple instances of such internal discussions and present them to argue that they were not isolated cases but following a pattern.
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Not very helpful evidence if all they can dig up is Apple considering doing bad things and then *not* doing them.
 
This shows absolutely nothing to bolster Epic Games. Ultimately Netflix chose to stop in-app purchase, their app is still in the AppStore and Apple still promotes it.

Were people at Apple upset and wondered how to change it? Yes, they asked the question. BUT, is there evidence Apple actually bullied Netflix?

Netflix used Apple, Google, Sony etc to boost their brand. If Epic was smart they would’ve used just played the long game. Get your service on as many devices as possible. THEN drop in-app purchases.
 
Essential products and services are increasingly provided and distributed through mobile apps. Not only by private, for-profit enterprises but also by the government itself, quasi-governmental bodies and companies operating with government concessions. While you could argue people can live a without smartphones and mobile apps, it becomes less and less practical to do so (without becoming majorly disadvantaged, that is), if you look at the applications:
  • Public transport with journey planning and mobile ticket sales.
  • Ride-hailing and cab-hailing.
  • Mobile banking and credit cards.
  • Mobile payment.
  • Medical / health services.
  • COVID tracking and tracing.
  • Customs declaration and clearance.
  • Emergency and disaster alerts.
  • Videoconferencing for job interviews.
  • ID checking for residence permit / visa applications.
  • Tax account administration.
  • Personal messaging (iMessage, WhatsApp).
The majority of these apps is (at least in the Americas and Europe) distributed through just two "storefronts":
Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store, with the two companies (virtually) sharing a duopoly on the distribution of mobile apps.

As such mobile apps are becoming more pervasive such that people are - maybe not legally or technically but quite practically - forced to use them in their everyday lives, Apple and Google have become gatekeepers controlling public / consumer access to such services and products - and by extension to access to other media content (music, games, movies).

As such, the two companies' and their app stores should be regulated (rather than being allowed to operate on a it's-our-platform-take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards app developers).

And they will be.
 
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I feel like a lot of these cluster posts around the same time are bots.
I also cannot wrap my head around how you can pump money into creating the best of something and then people then believe they’re entitled to it for free or name their own price. I don’t see how this is even going to trial.
 
ouimetnick said:
Don’t you look at your CC statement before paying it? Unless Netflix offers a yearly subscription, I see $8.99 on my CC statement monthly, so it’s hard to forget.
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You'd probably be surprised how many people don't tend to look at their monthly statements, in detail or at all.
 
Analog Kid said:
Do you have a good example of a minority player being sanctioned under anti-trust?
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Better than that, I have an article from the Department of Justice discussing in great detail this very topic. Some excerpts:

Use of market share as a proxy for market power has rightfully been criticized for ignoring other important market information such as the ability of competing firms to expand or of new competitors to enter. At the extreme, the theory of contestability shows that even a firm with a 100% market share may have no ability to raise price or collect monopoly profits under certain, albeit highly restrictive, circumstances.
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Contrary to Judge Hand's intimation, there should be no explicit market share requirement in a section two exclusion case, although one may wish to create a 'safe harbor' for cases involving trivial market shares. The inquiry should instead focus directly on the ability of the firm to raise its price by raising its rivals' costs. Market share, therefore, provides some useful information for the analysis of Bainian market power. However, it should be one factor to consider, not the focus of the analysis.
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Market power and monopoly power, as those terms are employed in antitrust law, are not separate and distinct concepts but should be understood to refer to the same phenomenon - the ability to price above the competitive level. For purposes of antitrust analysis, the crucial distinction is not between market power and monopoly power, but between two fundamentally different ways in which a firm or group of firms may exercise anticompetitive economic power - raising one's own prices (classical Stiglerian power) or raising competitor's costs (exclusionary Bainian power).
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IMHO a very interesting read.
 
bsolar said:
Furthermore it's not clear yet whether the "100% on iOS" argument stands or not.
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No, it’s clear. It doesn’t. There’s a reason why it hasn’t been a major point of this trial, the lawyers understand that once you start putting forth the absurd definition of a “market”, everything falls apart (even more than it already has).
 
Unregistered 4U said:
No, it’s clear. It doesn’t. There’s a reason why it hasn’t been a major point of this trial, the lawyers understand that once you start putting forth the absurd definition of a “market”, everything falls apart (even more than it already has).
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What are you talking about? This is straight from the Complaint for Injunctive Relief filed by Epic against Apple, which started the whole lawsuit:

Apple has a monopoly in the iOS App Distribution Market. This is because the App Store is the sole means by which apps may be distributed to consumers in that market.
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The argument is definitely a major point of the lawsuit and definitely a point Epic's lawyers are bringing to the table to support their case.
 
AppliedMicro said:
Essential products and services are increasingly provided and distributed through mobile apps. Not only by private, for-profit enterprises but also by the government itself, quasi-governmental bodies and companies operating with government concessions. To name some:
  • Public transport with journey planning and mobile ticket sales.
  • Ride-hailing and cab-hailing.
  • Mobile banking and credit cards.
  • Mobile payment.
  • Medical / health services.
  • COVID tracking and tracing.
  • Customs declaration and clearance.
  • Emergency and disaster alerts.
  • Videoconferencing for job interviews.
  • ID checking for residence permit / visa applications.
  • Tax account administration.
  • Personal messaging (iMessage, WhatsApp).
While you could argue people can live a without smartphones and mobile apps, it becomes less and less practical to do so. Without becoming majorly disadvantaged, that is.
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What it seems like to me you’re asking for, is for the government to create a smartphone platform to compete against Google and Apple. Sure. I’m good with that. I’m sure it won’t be pleasant to use (it IS the government) but if it’s critically important for every human in the United States to have a smartphone (not cell phone, smartphone… that the government can track… for official government business of course), complete with data plan that can allow them to do ALLL this critical government business, then the government should start making that happen. I’d imagine the cell phone companies wouldn’t be too happy about it, so a hefty subsidy to them, too. Boy this is getting expensive.

Taxes will have to go up, absolutely, for the research and development of this new platform AND to subsidize the data plans. Likely to be a pretty penny. BUT, if you say it’s critically important, then that’s what we’ve got to do!
 
cmaier said:
Not very helpful evidence if all they can dig up is Apple considering doing bad things and then *not* doing them.
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Especially when "bad things" is defined as not giving valuable marketing real estate to a product that generates no revenue.

The problem here is one employee incorrectly used "punitive" in an email. "Global featuring" is a reward or a priviledge, pulling it isn't punishment. People keep saying this is something Apple discussed doing "to" Netflix, when what was being discussed was no longer doing something "for" Netflix.
 
bsolar said:
What are you talking about? This is straight from the Compliant for Injunctive Relief filed by Epic against Apple, which started the whole lawsuit:

The argument is definitely a major point of the lawsuit and definitely a point Epic's lawyers are bringing to the table to support their case.
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The argument is not being argued at this point in the trial I mean, at THIS point, they can’t even keep Sweeney on track with his own testimony. Maybe it comes up next week? I’ll be happy to hear THAT bit of gold. :)
 
if anything this shows Apple is willing to go out of their way to please an "app developer." and that an "app developer" can successfully use an alternative payment system while completely removing Apple as a middleman.

And it actually brings up a good pt that while the internet may be more of a hassle for signing up for a subscription service. IT's also more of a hassle to cancel.

That was the highlight for me. ...that Netflix found less churn from those signing up via the internet.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
Where did this “general purpose computer” nonsense come from? Oh, Epic. Prior to this, no one considered that as a serious claim.

I mean. I could say, “The PS4 doesn’t start with ‘A’ and contain 5 letters. Neither does ‘Switch’ and neither does ‘Xbox’ so of COURSE they’re in a different category” It makes precisely the same amount of sense.
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No, it didn’t come from epic. It doesn’t take much to put that together on your own. It doesn’t take much to look at iOS and the switch OS to realize, outside of how they look visually, the purpose of each is wildly different with iOS being insanely more capable than what the switch can do.
 
I guess Apple doesn't understand what "punitive" means. There's nothing to make an example of Netflix of.... They didn't do anything damaging to society.
 
MacFabulous said:
THEY were considering it??? What are you talking about? No, it says… Carson Oliver considered it! That’s different. And it was only a question! “Do we want to take any punitive measures”. You can’t blame a whole company for ONE MAN’s CONSIDERATION/QUESTION. Actually one shouldn’t blame anyone for asking a question… for discussing options! It’s not like he decided what the company actually should do. And who’s to say he didn’t send other mails earlier or later on with totally different (stand points) angles! It’s what is finally decided and officially made public by the company that should truly be scrutinized or criticized. Every company would stop any kind of brainstorming or tactical thought process if questions and individual employees considerations was a no go. From the facts we have you hardly can determine wether Apple as a company was going too far or not! Maybe Carson Oliver did. But even that we DONT KNOW!
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****ing relax. We’re talking about a tech company, not a goddamn religion or your personal beliefs that guide your life. Jesus Christ.
 
bsolar said:
Better than that, I have an article from the Department of Justice discussing in great detail this very topic. Some excerpts:

IMHO a very interesting read.
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First, it's not "an article from the DoJ", it's a journal article from the Georgetown Law Review, and I've read it.

Second, what does it have to do with the discussion? It's not a policy document. It's not a law. It's some lawyers from the late '80s giving an opinion. And it contains no evidence of any minority player being sanctioned for anti-trust which is what you claimed and the question I asked.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
No, it’s clear. It doesn’t. There’s a reason why it hasn’t been a major point of this trial, the lawyers understand that once you start putting forth the absurd definition of a “market”, everything falls apart (even more than it already has).
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If Epic went down this path, they would be de facto implicated as well since the Epic store is the only place one can purchase Epic things. slippery slope.
 
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