Arizona Advances Bill That Will Let Developers Skirt Apple's In-App Purchase Rules

[BuffaloTF]

@Michael Scrip

Oh for sure - We are just Apple focused here (obviously), but overall there is a massive monopoly problem and total lack of meaningful antitrust enforcement.

It all seems great -- until it's really not (we are getting much closer to the latter than the former I think).

“we have explicitly rejected the proposition that a firm can be said to have monopoly power in its own product, absent proof that the product itself has no economic substitutes.”

Elliott vs United Center. Among many others.

There is nothing to enforce here.

 

[turbineseaplane]

“we have explicitly rejected the proposition that a firm can be said to have monopoly power in its own product, absent proof that the product itself has no economic substitutes.”

Elliott vs United Center. Among many others.

There is nothing to enforce here.

We'll see what regulators ultimately attempt to get done I guess

I wonder if perhaps there are ways to attack some of these issues from some other angles?

I'm curious - is this stuff along the lines of your professional work?
Always great to get informed opinions!

 

[BuffaloTF]

What exactly disappoints you so much? That a trillion plus dollar company (Apple) will have more difficult time exerting rent on digital goods and services they had absolutely nothing to do with creating? Don’t worry, Apple will be OK, and so will you.

But they do have a huge part in their creation... if they didn’t... Epic wouldn’t have had a problem when the Unreal developer account got yanked.

And that’s not even taking into account everything else they offer.

 

[BuffaloTF]

We'll see what regulators ultimately attempt to get done I guess

I wonder if perhaps there are ways to attack some of these issues that perhaps are beyond or of a different scope of what you quoted?

I'm curious - is this stuff along the lines of your professional work?
Always great to get informed opinions!

Dreams of professional work many moons ago. Law was a passion, for sure. Research comes quick and easy to me. I’m in banking now with that abandoned. Technical integration... API deployment... other industry standard file development (ISO20022, for example).

Thanks for asking.

 

[turbineseaplane]

@BuffaloTF

For sure! Very much appreciate your informed and well articulated opinions and observations.

 

[mattspace]

It's 👏 not 👏 "skirting" 👏 if 👏 it's 👏 the 👏 law👏. *facepalm*

 

[scottsjack]

The Arizona bill is a good step towards crushing the ever-hardening monopolies that the big tech companies will use in the future to thwart legislation to bring fairness to the marketplace. I would go even further by not allowing Apple, Google, Amazon et al to participate in every last marketplace while absorbing competitors.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Lmfao. You can't be serious. Hurt consumers? How so?

Very serious. For one, user has no way of knowing how secure their data is with the developer. Developer could be storing their debit card number in plaintext in a SQL table. Among many other reasons.

 

[I7guy]

The Arizona bill is a good step towards crushing the ever-hardening monopolies that the big tech companies will use in the future to thwart legislation to bring fairness to the marketplace. I would go even further by not allowing Apple, Google, Amazon et al to participate in every last marketplace while absorbing competitors.

What monopolies and where has the US legal system declared Apple (to name one) as being in a monopoly? That word has become an internet meme at this point.

 

[farewelwilliams]

...and we've acknowledged that using these platforms is essentially a requirement of modern life...

certainly have not. get on a bus or subway in Japan and you'll see plenty of basic phones. even saw a 60 year old grandma speed typing via t9 on a number pad on her flip phone a couple of years ago.

Poor Apple.
I sure hope they are able to cobble together a few sheckles and pull through

no biggie, they'll just past those few sheckles, few billions of dollars in cost onto you, the customer. hope you enjoy paying for more on your next Apple product.

 

[turbineseaplane]

no biggie, they'll just past those few sheckles, few billions of dollars in cost onto you, the customer. hope you enjoy paying for more on your next Apple product.

Luckily we are all acclimated to them passing on fairly exorbent costs to us already

(see Ram and SSD upgrades for one)

 

[turbineseaplane]

get on a bus or subway in Japan and you'll see plenty of basic phones. even saw a 60 year old grandma speed typing via t9 on a number pad on her flip phone a couple of years ago.

I don't doubt there are some out there doing that.
But I think you know that's not the future, nor really the present, for modern life and its expectations.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Luckily we are all acclimated to them passing on fairly exorbent costs to us already

(see Ram and SSD upgrades for one)

So your plan is to stick it to Apple by...giving Apple more money. That's great.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I don't doubt there are some out there doing that.
But I think you know that's not the future, nor really the present, for modern life and its expectations.

You're saying "modern life" doesn't currently exist in Japan?

 

[turbineseaplane]

You're saying "modern life" doesn't currently exist in Japan?

I'm not going to go around in circles with you.

You and I both know that smartphone usage is increasingly a modern life expectation for people interacting with all the touch points of socializing, commerce, job hunting, on and on. Anyone not doing that en masse yet, will be - just a matter of time.

Thank for the replies (and the 10+ "dislikes" - lol)

Have a good night

 

[AdonisSMU]

It won't - People are shilling for Apple

In this case it actually will because it was written in a hamhanded way. The legislation doesn’t address the downstream effects. The big players want this more than the little guys...that should tell you this does not benefit the consumer. This is a way to get at users personal information more directly.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Do you even really use smartphones before the iPhone and Android were first delivered? I don’t think you recall when developers had to 1) upload their software to various sites, or b) having to maintain each version that is uploaded to sites they’ve agreed to or running around with lawsuits and cease and desist letters to domain admins of rogue sites making a killing n not paying you for pirating your developer hard work.

N-Gage anybody?
N-Gage QD AND ALL THE GAME DEVELOPER houses that lost millions cause Nokia had several other devices running S60 that were perfect to run the specific ROM loaded on and downloading pirated games off of Symbian-Freak or countless other sites for various smartphone OS.

You guys really slept on 1998-2006 didn’t you?

Lmao chill nobody here’s asking for 0% flat rate. The only argument being made is one size doesn’t fit all, and misrepresenting the opposition’s argument isn’t gonna win brownie points

 

[leman]

What exactly disappoints you so much? That a trillion plus dollar company (Apple) will have more difficult time exerting rent on digital goods and services they had absolutely nothing to do with creating? Don’t worry, Apple will be OK, and so will you.

This has already been written dozens of times, and I don't really feel like repeating it in detail again. Please look at my previous posts in this thread if you are interested. A short summary: allowing third-party purchases will likely destroy the economic model of the App Store and punish smaller developers, it disproportionately favors big devs like Epic and it has major security and privacy implications to the end user.

I also had to laugh a bit at "digital goods" bit. Manipulating teenagers into being pixel hats is not "producing digital goods", it's making money out of thin air. Epic is pushing these changes just so that they can make more %%% of their billions of revenue. While at the same time engaging into anti-consumer activity like locking in game developers.

 

[leman]

Lmao chill nobody here’s asking for 0% flat rate. The only argument being made is one size doesn’t fit all, and misrepresenting the opposition’s argument isn’t gonna win brownie points

Why you say is reasonable but how do you see a realistic implementation? Currently, the economic model of App Store is based on taking a percentage of the revenue. This model is simple, transparent and it has a beneficial side effect of encouraging new developers. You only pay if you are successful, which makes it cheap to try and less devastating to fail (compare it to "traditional" models where you have to pay a listing and distribution fee without knowing if your product will be successful).

Simply lowering the fee won't work since Epic will still complain that they are giving away profits from their "digital goods". They will still continue their crusade even if Apple lowered the fee to 5% for them... as they could still make more money by using their own payment system. Removing "tax" from digital goods won't do any good — because then everyone will release "free" apps with in-app purchases. Negotiating terms with each dev individually? How would that work? Who would regulate it? Who would pay for the army of lawyers need to maintain them? Epic's argument is already based on the notion that Apple's demand of a profit share is unlawful. If they win this round, good luck getting any money from them. No matter how I look at it, the end result is that the basic economic model of the App Store is breaking down. This means higher costs for small devs, this means less innovation, this means crappier apps.

What is really funny is that Epic and their buddies are claiming to do all this "for the little guy", because 30% is apparently too much to bear for a small dev. Well, Apple has addressed it — the small dev now only pays 15% (Epic themselves charges 12% but offers less service). So Epic should be happy, right? Nope, they are not happy, because they are leaving $$$ on the table.

 

[JordanNZ]

In this case it actually will because it was written in a hamhanded way. The legislation doesn’t address the downstream effects. The big players want this more than the little guys...that should tell you this does not benefit the consumer. This is a way to get at users personal information more directly.

Absolutely.

 

[BvizioN]

So essentially this means that a developer can get filthy rich by using a platform that a company has invested tromendous amount of time and money and not pay that company a dime! I don't get the logic here!! This is not how things work in the world I live in.

 

[leman]

Absolutely.

And there you have it. Wha more proof people need?

 

[chucker23n1]

Why you say is reasonable but how do you see a realistic implementation? Currently, the economic model of App Store is based on taking a percentage of the revenue. This model is simple, transparent and it has a beneficial side effect of encouraging new developers. You only pay if you are successful, which makes it cheap to try and less devastating to fail (compare it to "traditional" models where you have to pay a listing and distribution fee without knowing if your product will be successful).

Simply lowering the fee won't work since Epic will still complain that they are giving away profits from their "digital goods". They will still continue their crusade even if Apple lowered the fee to 5% for them... as they could still make more money by using their own payment system. Removing "tax" from digital goods won't do any good — because then everyone will release "free" apps with in-app purchases. Negotiating terms with each dev individually? How would that work? Who would regulate it? Who would pay for the army of lawyers need to maintain them? Epic's argument is already based on the notion that Apple's demand of a profit share is unlawful. If they win this round, good luck getting any money from them. No matter how I look at it, the end result is that the basic economic model of the App Store is breaking down. This means higher costs for small devs, this means less innovation, this means crappier apps.

What is really funny is that Epic and their buddies are claiming to do all this "for the little guy", because 30% is apparently too much to bear for a small dev. Well, Apple has addressed it — the small dev now only pays 15% (Epic themselves charges 12% but offers less service). So Epic should be happy, right? Nope, they are not happy, because they are leaving $$$ on the table.

The "basic economic model of the App Store" isn't really anyone's problem but Apple's. They can either make their store work or they can't; they don't have a right to economic success. For example, does Apple also need to subsidize developing their SDK through App Store sales? Sure, but that's a self-inflicted problem. They didn't have to reduce annual membership fees; there used to be tiers of free, "Select" ($499/yr) and "Premier" ($3499/yr), which came with some perks like hardware discounts and more support incidents. They can go back to offering such higher tiers if that helps; I have no doubt some teams would spring for it.

I can see the privacy and security arguments for keeping the App Store the exclusive delivery mechanism, but I don't think that's a tenable position in the long run.

 

[leman]

The "basic economic model of the App Store" isn't really anyone's problem but Apple's.

I am not sure I agree. The model has deep implications on the developer ecosystem. Right now, its essentially proportional tax, so whoever is more successful contributes more (in absolute terms). One could argue that it is "unfair" to the big developer, but this is a topic that has been widely debated. There is a good reason why virtually every tax system in the world is either proportional or progressive — it improves the economic power of those will less money and enable them to seek opportunities.

You are of course right that its Apple's problem how they use their revenues from the App Store. But then again, if you want to push that argument, it's also the developer's problem whether to accept Apple's terms or not. Nobody forces them to publish their apps with Apple. The thing is, App Store works — and it works reasonably well (with some limitations of course). What Epic wants is to make money off the system without contributing back. They want free (or at last dirt cheap) access to a multi-million strong customer base that someone else has built. Surely the maintainer of the platform should be able to dictate terms for such access. Frankly, that there is even a discussion around it is borderline insanity. I should go an boycott my local TV station because they don't give me a free advertising spot.

 

[chucker23n1]

I am not sure I agree. The model has deep implications on the developer ecosystem. Right now, its essentially proportional tax, so whoever is more successful contributes more (in absolute terms).

I wish that were so — plenty of big apps like Facebook rarely pay anything to Apple at all, because they're "free".

One could argue that it is "unfair" to the big developer, but this is a topic that has been widely debated. There is a good reason why virtually every tax system in the world is either proportional or progressive — it improves the economic power of those will less money and enable them to seek opportunities.

Yes.

Of course, actual tax systems, at least in democracies, actually involve input from the people. Apple, OTOH, can unilaterally decide these rates as they see fit.

You are of course right that its Apple's problem how they use their revenues from the App Store. But then again, if you want to push that argument, it's also the developer's problem whether to accept Apple's terms or not. Nobody forces them to publish their apps with Apple.

This is only true if you contend that smartphones are a luxury item that people don't really need.

Which, frankly, people have argued on that point with me in another thread this week and it's just exhausting.

Plenty of apps on iOS are optional, but IMHO, having a smartphone in 2021 by and large isn't. It then follows that Apple and Google need to make concessions for basic consumer rights.

The thing is, App Store works — and it works reasonably well (with some limitations of course). What Epic wants is to make money off the system without contributing back.

To be clear, I'm not here to defend Epic.

They want free (or at last dirt cheap) access to a multi-million strong customer base that someone else has built.

Who is that "someone else"? Apple would never have been able to build this by themselves. Apple doesn't provide an SDK out of goodwill; they provide it because it's vital to a healthy app ecosystem.

Surely the maintainer of the platform should be able to dictate terms for such access. Frankly, that there is even a discussion around it is borderline insanity. I should go an boycott my local TV station because they don't give me a free advertising spot.

If that local TV station is in a duopoly, they probably should be required to at least air PSAs, yes.