Elon Musk: Apple's App Store Fees Are a 'De Facto Global Tax on the Internet'

[duffman9000]

Elon just mad that Tesla can't even get FSD to work. Apple will be the company that actually gets FSD working right. 🤘

Tesla’s Full Self Driving* definition doesn’t mean what most people think it means. It’s more full of **** than self driving.

Tesla FSD* does not mean autonomous EV. That’s straight from Tesla engineering.

 

[spiderman0616]

But Sandy Monroe says things are much much better now. I guess you are talking about Tesla problems from years ago.

Nope—these are recent things. The paint is still garbage and the whole top of someone’s car flew off on the highway just a year or so ago.

 

[Glideslope]

this clinches it for me that Cook told Musk to f**k off. Musk is obsessed like a grade schooler over Apple.

It’s partly his Aspergers. Typical fixation on one event.

 

[NyCeEvO]

Just like repairing your MacBook cuts of your warranty

This isn't hard.

Apple is no saint compared to Tesla here folks

Elon is criticizing Apple and stating that Apple’s way of running their business is wrong.

Apple is not criticizing Elon/Tesla; they’re not claiming to be better.

Elon is the only one who can be seen as hypocritical, since Apple isn’t making claims of ethical superiority.

 

[stevet]

Yet you still can't get CarPlay on a Tesla or have anyone EXCEPT a Tesla Service Center work on your Tesla vehicle. One man in a walled garden throwing trash into another man's walled garden. 🤣

This actually isn't true. You can have 3rd party garages work on a Tesla, I have one of the most popular ones in my area.

 

[NyCeEvO]

Yes, he may be a megalomaniac that gives his kids funny names, promotes online pyramid schemes (…coins), lead a company that has had its own walled garden approach at car service.

He‘s not wrong about Apple though.

Although I‘d rather call it a tax on smartphones, not the internet.

Taxes aren’t inherently bad though.

IMO, the problem isn’t whether there should be a “tax”. Of course, there should be. Apple provides a service and deserves to be paid for it.

However, because Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store, it is in the best interest of app developers and consumers that the price/“tax” for entry into the market to be regulated.

Apple is just like a public utility, except over a digital App Store. If public utilities weren’t regulated, utilities would use their monopoly power to charge consumers a lot more to use their service. The same approach should be applied to the App Store.

 

[NyCeEvO]

Isn't this the same guy that charges $10,000 for FSD? Removes features and raises prices at his whim?

While still bad, it’s not even the fact that prices change and features are removed at a whim that makes me angry.

It’s that the Tesla community finds out what’s missing after having received their car and confirmed with others online that a feature is gone. Tesla doesn’t say anything in advance and only when buyers message Elon enough and he feels like answering, he’ll say “We removed the feature because no one was using it.”

Where’s the transparency? People are spending 50,000+ USD on these cars. They deserve to know everything they’re getting and not getting in their cars in advance. It’s ludicrous!

 

[DanTSX]

Just because he said it (likely strategically) - it doesn’t make him correct.

Agreed. He’s saying this for a reason (that might not yet be entirely clear even to him).

He’s full of crap on this one. Taxes function entirely differently.

I’m still ordering a model 3 in a few months. (Already have electrician upgrading electric panel). I like Elon. I like how mad he makes people. Tesla, and his other companies wouldn’t be the same without him.

 

[DanTSX]

While still bad, it’s not even the fact that prices change and features are removed at a whim that makes me angry.

It’s that the Tesla community finds out what’s missing after having received their car and confirmed with others online that a feature is gone. Tesla doesn’t say anything in advance and only when buyers message Elon enough and he feels like answering, he’ll say “We removed the feature because no one was using it.”

Where’s the transparency? People are spending 50,000+ USD on these cars. They deserve to know everything they’re getting and not getting in their cars in advance. It’s ludicrous!

We are still in early adopter phase (late early adopter actually) with Tesla.

We are still in (very early) early adopter phase in general for EV’s in general.

Tesla automobiles are the single American (or western) automobile upstart in at least five or six decades (10 decades for American auto companies). This is a market structure that Barrs entry.

Tesla doing weird, unorthodox, or seemingly unexplainable things is the cost that the consumer has to pay for Tesla being the outside upstart, and not GM/Ford/Chrysler, who would had given us flawed, boring, halfassed compliance products designed to meet federal mandate quotas while they happily sold ICE pickup trucks to the masses. Tesla will fall in line eventually, but this is the price to pay to break away from the legacy automotive industry and ICE and hybrids.

In other words, be happy and appreciative to put up with Elon and Tesla’s BS, because it’s a lot better than putting up with whatever crap Ford, GM, or the Euro or Asian producers were going to eventually come up with for moving away from ICE.

there is always a used toyota for sale for people that don’t like surprises like this (and I am one of them until my recent decision to go BEV with Tesla).

 

[bookofxero]

Do not use ASD as an excuse for his nonsense.

He is a privileged son who was able to use his connections and access to generational wealth to eventually achieve success. He does not even have any ideas that don't come out of old PopSci magazines.

Just because he is rich Diane man he actually has any idea or credentials about anything of which he speaks.

 

[lederermc]

Yet you still can't get CarPlay on a Tesla or have anyone EXCEPT a Tesla Service Center work on your Tesla vehicle. One man in a walled garden throwing trash into another man's walled garden. 🤣

What if Apple wanted to sell their Auto Drive software to Tesla owners are half the cost of Tesla software... what would happen?

 

[Maconplasma]

Getting so tired of these childish public attacks against Apple from other big companies. I do wish Apple would fire back at these people. They are certainly in their rights to do so.

 

[Maconplasma]

I agree, the developers should stop developing for iOS. That would drop the fees in no time.

Oh yeah they should because even though the App Store makes them a boat load of money they should just give up all their income to make a point against Apple. 🙄

 

[spiderman0616]

Getting so tired of these childish public attacks against Apple from other big companies. I do wish Apple would fire back at these people. They are certainly in their rights to do so.

I think they think of firing back as just playing into what people like Musk want. If someone is attacking their products or services, they speak up. If someone is just being a petulant child, they tend to take the high road and let the temper tantrum burn itself out.

 

[Smith288]

Yet you still can't get CarPlay on a Tesla or have anyone EXCEPT a Tesla Service Center work on your Tesla vehicle. One man in a walled garden throwing trash into another man's walled garden. 🤣

Well I sure as **** don’t want Billy Bob’s Shady Tree Car Service working on them.

 

[I7guy]

[…]

Tesla doing weird, unorthodox, or seemingly unexplainable things is the cost that the consumer has to pay for Tesla being the outside upstart, and not GM/Ford/Chrysler, who would had given us flawed, boring, halfassed compliance products designed to meet federal mandate quotas while they happily sold ICE pickup trucks to the masses.
[…]

So Tesla is excused from anticompetitive practices because they are an upstart?

 

[cmaier]

Well I sure as **** don’t want Billy Bob’s Shady Tree Car Service working on them.

Sure, because those are the only two choices. Billy Bob’s Shady Tree Car Service, or Tesla.

I’ve had a *lot* of experience with Tesla service, and let me tell you, I’d be quite happy to take my car to the guy who works on my other cars if only he could buy the parts and have access to the service manuals and service equipment.

 

[0924487]

Its a fee for services rendered not a tax.

Forced service is tax.

Just like using your employment power over your subordinates for voluntary sexual favours is still sexual harassment, if not rape.

 

[10anta]

This is the same guy who founded Paypal. That’s notoriously fee free, right?

 

[PC_tech]

This is the same guy who founded Paypal. That’s notoriously fee free, right?

Yes, he founded, he sold it a long time ago, he has nothing to do with those fees now.

 

[10anta]

Yes, he founded, he sold it a long time ago, he has nothing to do with those fees now.

And was it fee free under Elon’s management?

 

[jz0309]

Taxes aren’t inherently bad though.

IMO, the problem isn’t whether there should be a “tax”. Of course, there should be. Apple provides a service and deserves to be paid for it.

However, because Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store, it is in the best interest of app developers and consumers that the price/“tax” for entry into the market to be regulated.

Apple is just like a public utility, except over a digital App Store. If public utilities weren’t regulated, utilities would use their monopoly power to charge consumers a lot more to use their service. The same approach should be applied to the App Store.

Apple is NOT like a public utility. They do NOT sell products or services you need to to survive on a daily basis… in that context Apple sells “luxury” items.
For 99%+ of all mankind, public utilities provide you with water, electricity and such, granted you could survive without electricity, you cannot without water supplied to your place if living…

 

[jz0309]

Forced service is tax.

Just like using your employment power over your subordinates for voluntary sexual favours is still sexual harassment, if not rape.

No one “forces” you to use Apple products or services - you have choices at your disposal

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Yes, he founded, he sold it a long time ago, he has nothing to do with those fees now.

No, Peter Thiel founded PayPal via Confinity as a service, and Musk acquired Confinity via X.com, then was forced out very shortly afterwards with Thiel running it strictly with the services of PayPal—they renamed the company PayPal—and shortly after that PayPal was bought by EBay.

 

[4491275]

Tesla cars are the most "walled-garden" EVs. I deeply admire Elon as an engineer, but this guy should stop acting like a celebrity and should really ****.

“Engineer” lmfao