Yep, the "Stockholm Syndrome" is very widespread among some users...
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Epic Games and Spotify Say Apple's Latest DMA Changes Are 'Illegal' and 'Deliberately Confusing'
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Of course it’s not the investigation, but the results. It’s the outcome.
This is a bunch of whining, imo. It’s not about living under a rock, it’s about legitimate complaints which these are not.0 Signing up voluntarily and then complaining is ludicrous.
That does not mean the complaints are legitimate. And of course filing a lawsuit is easy, winning not so much.
Home - Coalition for App Fairness
App developers deserve a level playing field The Coalition for App Fairness is an independent nonprofit organization founded by industry-leading companies to advocate for freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem. Contact Us our vision Learappfairness.org
There are 15 different companies involved with the coalition for app fairness, several of which testified against Apple and Google to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Very much the precursor to the current US v Apple suit
My advice, form your own mobile market. It it still doesn’t mean the complaint to are legitimate.That has since been expanded to tens of thousands of others that are in favor of regulating mobile app stores.
Thousands of European Small Businesses and App Developers Join CAF in Growing Movement
Thousands of European Small Businesses and App Developers Join CAF in Growing Movement By CAF Admin / January 23, 2024 BRUSSELS – Today, the Coalition for App Fairness …www.egdf.eu
It’s bizarre. I bought a car that can go 200 mph. It’s bizarre the police think they can ticket me for speeding. The police don’t own me.
Apple aren't the police, they are the people who made and sold the car. HTH
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This should be obvious. You cannot legally use Apple’s software for any purpose, let alone making money, without having a valid license from Apple.
Do Uber, Doordash or Booking.com make money through their iPhone apps?
Yes. It does include a licence to use apps for commercial purposes, to make money.
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No citation needed for an opinion. The coalition was a fraud imo. HTH.
You either aren't a developer or you don't pay attention to the licenses you sign. Schedules 2 and 3 of the Apple Developer Program License (aka Paid Applications Agreement) must be signed before apps can be distributed through the App Store. Don't confuse the fee that is paid for access to the developer website and resources with the licenses you must sign before you can sell an app.
You and I both know that is not what is being asked here.
How profitable Apple hardware is is immaterial. There is no obligation for Apple to subsidise the cost of their software and services indefinitely just because. Nobody raises a stink about Apple absorbing the costs of services like Maps, Siri and iMessage, yet I am pretty sure that if they choose to offer Apple Music for free or at a heavily discounted price (and Apple likely has the resources to sustain this indefinitely), Spotify would be the first to cry foul, because it would be a direct threat to their business model.
On second thought, perhaps Apple should do precisely that, just to turn the screws on Spotify a little.
Anyways, I also wish to point out that based on my understanding of the DMA, Apple is not expected to do so either. I don't happen to disagree with that Apple is choosing to do here, because I continue to assert that iOS is Apple’s intellectual property, and if they wish to charge for it, they can. To insist otherwise is akin to taking their property and basically nationalising it (while demanding that Apple continue to foot the bills of taking care of it). Is it frustrating that Apple refuses to show any quarter? Maybe, and the DMA isn’t going to change that.
So humour me here. Let's say Apple is determined to continue monetising their IP after the sale. They are not going to do a Google. What's your threshold?
The past few years have taught me that many people are too quick to yell "unfair!!!" when they really mean "not to my advantage". After all, consoles charging 30% hasn't stopped developers from releasing games from their platform (in part because the sort of software you would find on them has zero marginal costs), and Steam accounts for a fair amount of games sold on PCs.
If Microsoft charged every app developer 15-30% of revenue, then it's not really a matter of fair or unfair. It is simply what it is (a cost of doing business on their platform), and businesses will adjust accordingly. Apple might simply elect to not release iTunes for Windows, or perhaps find a way to eschew payments. Maybe the iPhone never took off, and maybe we are here still using Symbian phones running JAR applications, and developers think nothing about paying mobile carrier stores 50-70% of revenue. And life goes on.
It's the same thing here. It's not that companies like Epic and Spotify can't pay. Given the option, they would rather choose not to, which is why they are lobbying so hard for measures which would allow them to step around Apple's iron-fisted control of the App Store. It's like me saying that while I am okay paying as much taxes to the government as I do every year (high relative to my peers, because I am single without kids), but I would probably jump at an opportunity to get away with paying less taxes if I thought I could get away with it. Money is money at the end of the day, so who decides what is "right" or "wrong" here?
And they do so in a manner which basically freezes innovation in their region. It will be interesting to see whether over time, the EU region will receive fewer new features and new companies simply don't bother to do business in said region.
Is it any surprise why the tech giants being regulated are almost all US companies, with none emerging from the EU? Companies like Apple and Facebook are not going anywhere; they are already there and likely won't face competition even as they are forced to weaken their offerings or withhold them from the region altogether.
Which raises the question - if legislation is passed, but ends up not applying to any entity, does it exist?
Wrong.
You either aren't a developer or you didn't pay attention to the licenses you agreed to.
Free apps can be distributed through the App Store according to Schedule 1 of the agreement.
Uber does not sell their app.
Neither do Doordash or Booking.com.
They're all free apps.
Does Uber use Apple's libraries to make money? Yes.
Do they use the Apple App Store and their app to acquire customers? Yes.
Is their app a for-profit app? Yes.
Are they charged "additional amounts" for their for-profit app (beyond the developer fee?) No, not that I'm aware of.
Does the $99/year fee cover everything that's needed for such for-profit apps in Apple's ecosystem? Yes.
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Fraud as in whining. It's similar to going to a "fancy" restaurant, knowing the higher prices and then complaining the prices were too high.
But we will go around in circles. The DMA is there, but it doesn't make the legislation good or that it will service it's intended purpose which is to strip apple of profits and control of it's app store. Thus making the EU playing "robin hood" on someone else's dime.
It has become so important for other business users and consumers that government regulation of their property is appropriate.
But don't conflate that with nationalisation. This has got very little to do with nationalisation. Apple can sell their iPhones and operating systems for any price they like.
The EU simply enacted a limited set of rules to prevent them from abusing their market power on other markets - such as the one for online music streaming.
It's not unfair given how Microsoft has offered access for free to crowd out almost every other competitor in the desktop operating system space to make theirs the dominant OS if not (nearly) a monopoly. Otherwise... whether fair or unfair, such a pricing model is undesirable for society and the economy.
The government does, with regards to Microsoft and Apple.
Quite the contrary - they're encouraging innovation from non-gatekeeping firms by providing them a level playing field.
The U.S. has historically been the primary driver of the personal computing revolution. And their lack of government oversight and regulation has contributed to these tech giants becoming so big. That doesn't mean that "tech giants" and everything they do is "good" or desirable.
👉 And that, precisely, is why government regulation is warranted: "They won't face competition" - combined with their gatekeeping power as intermediaries between other businesses and consumers.
You may want to live in dystopian future where a handful "big tech" control your every step, transaction, social interaction and businesses' access to consumers like you - becoming every more powerful in the process and subjugating every other (digital) business.
The European Union has decided it doesn't want to.
So they've enacted rules for the business conduct of big tech companies - whether they're from the U.S. or elsewhere. And those rules are relaxed enough to still leave them plenty of room to "charge for their IP".
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Well just claiming 'it's Apple's IP they can monetize it however we want' is just erroneous.
Eventually Apple will comply. They might resist, they might drag their feet, they might need to pay several large fines but they will comply.
Regulators have every right to dictate how businesses operate in their jurisdiction.
Yeah, I think the opposite is true. Apple's app store rules are so silly and restrictive they are harmful to innovation.
The cloud gaming thing is a perfect example of this, Apple insistence that Microsoft had to submit every game individually for app review basically made it impossible for the service to exist at all on iOS for years. Apple only relented when it was clear they were about to get the regulatory book thrown at them.
This is purely a consequence of the major platforms all being run by US companies (Apple/Google/Microsoft).
The idea that this is some kind of EU protectionism is a very flimsy argument, almost all of the companies that have been target for EU regulators are also being looked at to one extent or another in the US.
Amazon, Google and Apple all sued by the US government in recent years also.
I have faith in Apple's ability to navigate the DMA at minimal cost to themselves. It's still early days.
And as the saying goes - there is good in bad, just as there is bad in good.
Perhaps in the short run, the EU legislation appears to be a net good, with the iPhone 15 getting USB-C and consumers being able to access apps they otherwise wouldn't. At the same time, we are starting to see the unintended consequences creep in, from Apple Intelligence possibly being delayed (due to uncertainty as to whether Apple can adhere to the interoperability requirements of the DMA), to Microsoft blaming the EU in part for the fallout from Crowdstrike, to Meta's Llama model not being available. This is not a void that can be readily filled by smaller developers who simply don't have the system access to take the place of said features.
At the same time, what does it say about the EU's ability to compete on a global stage, because their legislation applies only within their borders (I don't think we will see a repeat of the cookie banner fiasco where everyone around the world ended up being spammed with endless meaningless popups), or of new companies' willingness to enter an increasingly regulated environment. After all, if developers can choose not to release apps for the iOS App Store, it stands to reason that people can also choose not to do business in the EU.
I suppose as long as people in the EU are cognisant of the tradeoffs the DMA will entail both in the short and long run, and are fine with it. I suspect the full ramifications have yet to unfold, with regards to what it means for new features from current entrenched businesses, pricing levels, as well as businesses that could have set foot in the EU (but ultimately didn't).
Time will tell.
Time will certainly tell.
The EU were just first out of the blocks, the idea that Apple is going to have this two tier system where they just make the concessions in the EU and nowhere else. Neeever happening.
It's on borrowed time everywhere else.
"No Apple does not." vs. "you enter into an agreement [to only purchase apps from Apple's store]."
Careful dude. Your other face is making you look bad.
"Don't like the price of gas, make your own oil company."
Seriously, you sycophants are a riot.
Which would also explain why Apple has chosen to respond the way they did.
Just as the DMA may form the template with which the rest of the world adopts, Apple is also testing their response to the DMA for the eventuality that they have to roll it out to other regions besides the EU. One side wants the ultimate concession, while the other side is determined to concede as little as possible.
A small part of me wonders if the natural end state for all of this is Apple announcing a pulling out of the EU (and truly having the intention to leave if push comes to shove) and then having the European Commission come back to the table offering more lenient DMA enforcement terms. Especially if this threatens to cause a domino effect involving other Big Tech companies pulling out. I believe that Apple should support its ~100M iOS users in the EU by continuing to operate in the market, but you should all be overjoyed over this possibility, right? Apple can't break the rules in the EU if it ceases to operate there, they likely take a significant hit to their quarterly profits (further fuelling the "Apple is doomed" narrative), Tim Cook gets raked over the coals, and you can all finally migrate over to Android and enjoy the sideloading and third-party app stores that you have all been clamouring for since day 1.
This is an interesting little fantasy you've woven for yourself. It naturally assumes that the EU needs Apple more than Apple needs the EU (spoiler alert - this couldn't be farther from the truth) or that other tech companies who are not in violation of the DMA would pull put in solidarity with their biggest competitor.
Or people can continue to buy Apple's products for their own merits and not have to be beholden to an abusive monopolist the likes of which we haven't seen since 1990s Microsoft.
Consensus is a political term not an economic one. Economists are even unable to agree whether the field of economics itself is either a priori or empirical science.
Every company, hell even people, will try to gain an advantage by standing on their prior work and rightfully so but you call it “entrenching themselves.” Shouldn’t either people or companies —essentially a group of people— be allowed to do that? And how exactly will they prevent any competition, new or old, from gaining ground in a free market? Please explain the mechanics exactly.
Monopoly doesn’t always imply stagnation. Standard Oil; in spite of being the dominant player, kept increasing efficiency of refining and lowered its cost to a tenth in span of thirty years. They indeed passed on this savings to the customers and this in turn brought about critics’ accusations of “predatory“ pricing. Read the history of Standard Oil which dispels any myth of predatory pricing and has been instrumental in shaping the Anti-Trust laws in US.
So the future isn’t preordained.
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