I think you may be confused about what a market is. There is a difference between a market and a shop/store.
No confusion. A market is malleable. Can be anything you want. For example the store Costco is part of a market of wholesale warehouses.
A market implies that there are multiple sellers (multiple shops if you will) and buyers.
It implies a product can be purchase from multiple vendors.
A shop on the other hand is one seller, multiple buyers. Now a shop may in both instances have one or more suppliers.
Sure - I see where you are taking this.
The App Store only has one seller, Apple, its one Shop. The rest are either suppliers or buyers. There is no market going on here. This can be easily verified by looking at the invoices people receive when they click buy In App or on the App Store.
The iOS App Store is part of a larger market of app stores where the product can be purchased from multiple vendors.
The idea of a, iOS app market its an illusion created around a very clever story line,
Only those who support the DMA seemingly.
also invented by Apple paired with the amount of suppliers.
There are many suppliers in the app market.
Now like any illusion it has material consequences. Some of them may be beneficial for some others aren't for some ...
The illusion is clubbing together everything to make it appear there is no market. Only two shops.
Have not read it. I think I missed it. Can you share a link to the post where you have explained it?
Well, the DMA as far as I understand it is requiring that prominent internet connected devices and operating systems to actually facilitate a digital market along, continuing all the technological work done on Internet for such purposes.
Exactly the DMA is playing Robin Hood with apples property.
A place anyone can legally sell their goods to their customers. A place where everyone can choose their suppliers for digital goods and whatnot, regardless of their internet connected device of choice (prominent, not niche). Single shops built on the back of prominent internet connected device will simply not be allowed.
It all depends on the definitions. If you want a nirvana marketplace, then build one an see how it really goes. don’t force apple to give away it’s IP to facilitate some ideal which may not be beneficial in the overall scheme of things.
Until prominent devices / OS do this, and steering measures to their own Shop are shown not to be in place, OEMs and what to will face regulators prosecutions, fines, etc etc.
Maybe, some place, maybe not all.
Everyone is focusing on supporting other App Stores inline with Apple. It is not the case. Say you make an App. The regulation gives you to right open a store for your App, distribute and sell, regardless of the device people use, or the technology used to build it. Furthermore, sell whatever through your App. If you want to use a third party shop, say Apple App Store or any other, you can. The regulation protects that right.
It also gives you the right to skip paying apple anything, include malware in the app, scamware etc. That is why the EU is playing Robin Hood.
The customer has a choices to be made, whether you are customer buying an Apps (buy what to whom), or a customer developing software using a prominent device API (a choice on how to market and their your products). Prominent internet connected devices should promote the continuity of the open market place fostered by Internet and Governments, case in case the EU governments.
As a consumer if I don’t like my choices I move on the to next choice. I on’t petition the government to force the business to change its choices for me. Maybe I should, it seems to be a great strategy.
EU regulators mistake in my opinion is that they letting other drag them into also regulate Apple App Store kinds of stores, a single Shop for a single device ... which is irrelevant. They are getting distracted with this. They should forget this, they will only get their feet full of cr...
They should stop and think rather than going after every single complaint or Apple counter measures, instead think of the market has a whole. Effective regulations for internet shops already exist and are sufficient.
They should instead focus on regulating internet connected devices operation in the EU marketplace in this context. In particular, requiring OEMs to decouple their prominent internet connected devices from any shop regardless of shop owner, and check for attempts of steering, that is all there is to it. Some prominent devices and OS already do this, others still don't this ... oh and others although already doing this, following the lead of you know whom, seam to be trying drift away from doing this ...
Steering is in the eyes of the beholder. Does Costco steer me when I enter an it promotes it’s own brand before other name brand items?
So how iOS effectively support what is known as a market is akin to Apple giving away its IP? I honestly don't understand your explanation. It looks more like a statement after a statement, rather than an explanation.
Check for instance Amazon.COM.
Amazon.COM is both a shop and a market place. Some goods found on it are sold by Amazon, other goods are sold by other sellers.
Amazon steers you toward their amazon basics merchandise, which is actually pretty good.
This can be clearly established by looking at the invoices. Furthermore, if a good listed in Amazon.COM, yet is facilitated and sold outside Amazon.COM, no fees are required.
Somebody pays fees, like the seller to Amazon. but it’s well known that the iOS App Store does not charge fees for physical items.
It may happen that the user found the good first on Amazon.COM but found a better deal elsewhere (there is why Price Comparators exist, some of them point to Amazon ... )
While the websites for 3d party products are on Amazon, they aren’t cheaper from what I can tell and what I’ve tried in the past. Maybe some collusion involved there.
. Furthermore, if Amazon.COM happens to sell a third party device or software, say an iPhone, and the user buys other goods through such device, it does not require a fee, even if it using AWS. Unless of course Amazon.COM is used in such device. This unlike Apple App Store policies ... after buying the device/app ... whatever is sold through that device/app (In App sale) is also charged a fee.
Not sure of what you are saying. Vendors can advertise on amazon and then steer customers to their own website for free? They pay Amazon $0?
Amazon also has another business. AWS. AWS is a platform to build and serve software applications. Amazon charges developers its use independently of Amazon.COM. Unlike iOS platform and App Store, amaon.COM and AWS policies are entirely unrelated.
What’s the point. Companies can have multiple business lines?
Is Amazon giving up any of its IP for free?
We’ll maybe.
If it is, shareholder should tell them, it's inadmissible, bad management. It seams that Amazon in this context has no IP problems.
The EU doesn’t care about shareholders.
Every big company in the world has some legal issue going on somewhere.
It depends on what is a big marketshare for you. I would say a OEM supplier an internet connected device with 18% of market share ... world wide ... is a pretty large marketshare.
I would say it’s a minority market share.
This is of course an average, some regions are way over 50% market share, others may be bellow 4%.
But that is not so much the issue here.
You see, Verizon has 37% marketshare in the US yet does not charge Apple a fee for their devices ability to connect to their network.
In the US for cell phone service both the source a target pay, while traditional landlines only the source pays. Different rules there, can’t say everything is not the way apple does business.
Vodafone for instance, as 20% and 30% in the Germany, same thing.
Not that they wouldn't mind doing so, is not if they did not invented the Verizon Network or the Vodafone Network …. In fact, especially in the US they have been campaigning hard for regulations to be drop so they could do this … but damn regulations and regulators … they know nothing. Maybe with Trump they will be able to achieve their intents.
Absolutely. The DMA does not affect at all such a premise. It just making sure that prominent Internet connected devices actually foster a market on the back of the Internet ecosystem. Continuing the work for which such ecosystem was built for.
there is a difference between prominent, influential an being accused of being a monopolist, anticompetitive, tax cheat and so on.
Now you seam to be applying a different logic here. Because people buy a specific smartphone, case in case, they are voting for the companies practices as a whole.
No people could be buying the best of the worst as opposed to voting for the best.
Including policies that don’t affect them specifically. That is silly mate. Most people just focus on the product they just bought, if it works well etc etc. Consumers aren’t required to be activists, thank the lord for that.
For instance:
- just now you thought that Apple has created a market.
Well I think they legitimized the App Store market concept. But app stores have been around for decades. It’s that they evolved with the times.
Well it has not. It created an internet connected device and put a Store or its back. Most Apple Ads, market the devices well rounded user experience and its ability to run Apps and access the Internet. That is why people buy it , and will keep on buying.
- Some people, may think that they have customers under such regime. Well they do not. They are simply suppliers of a single shop,
The are one shop like Costco that is part of a broader market.
the App Store. The customers aren’t theirs. Some learned that the hard way and expanded to other platforms were they could sell themselves, getting some claw … the ones that didn’t, some very successful, vanished to the oblivion.
Others, simply still do not know that and don't care as far as they feel nice because bought a car and house , employed some people, ... they will worry when they face the fact that the IP in practice is not theirs
- Some people may think that the App Store just sells Apps they don't.
Not sure where that line of thinking comes from. People know the App Store (like a website) provides a service. People are getting apps for the service they provide. If the service is games, and IAP then there is a commission due apple.
They sell of books, videos, dating arrangements, video conferences, tutoring lessons, you name it ... al on the back of third party IP.
And on the back of apple ip.
What they do not sell is down to the simple fact they do not want to sell. The infrastructure, policies and agreements is there to sell whatever ... all they need to enforce is the use of some OS API. If policies aren't there yet, well these can always be unilaterally change at any time. For instance, recently they required each game stream to be published and charged independently, and be subject to their approval ... compare that with Apple Arcade mate. They don't charge for Uber rides, but they could, everything is there at the distance some new lines in the policy.
You can agree or disagree with the App Store rules and regulations.
Since inception has been the source of several lawsuits regarding its practices. Simply because, some businesses were caught of guard given the perception fostered by the company.
So people didn’t actually know how the darn thing operated? It’s like signing a contract without reading it.
The only ones who haven't reached the wall, are the ones that don't think that have much IP to protect.
Nonesense.
The name itself, App Store, conveys an illusion, not reality.
No, it’s exactly what the name implies. With millions of apps, it’s not an illusion. The only illusion is some of the thinking around this.
Have fun.
PS: Talking about what a market actually is. The EU is a market so big that hosts markets.
If we are going in that direction the world market is staggering. Going back to the beginning one could define a market as anything. Such as the North American market.
It has been there before iOS/IPhones and Apple App Store came to town. The digital market has whole has been before these things were thought.
I agree the concept of a digital market has been around for decades. Apple legitimized it.
Heck, the software market has been before. The Internet ecosystem has been before. No one is forcing Apple to be or produce things for this.
No one is forcing anybody to sign up with, pay for, interact with or use anything an everything apple either.
Not taking merit out of Apple innovations. But I do think you maybe taking far greater achievements for granted
I think many hear have way too much bias.
you maybe too easily inclined to let be siphoned for by a smartphone and then maybe a laptop, and than maybe some glasses … who knows. Achievements that touch lives in way more profound ways. You know, the difference between Ambulances and its tripulants, saving lives every second of the day, and the occasional achievement of the Apple Watch alerts. You may take this for granted as the air you breathe, but be careful, without it … Perceptions, perceptions.
All of that has nothing to do with the premise of this thread.
As always, thanks for the interesting thoughts.
