Your definition of competitive is irrelevant. There are plenty of legal non competitive markets. Is the iOS App Store the only way to distribute one’s wares? No?
For mobile applications and many online services, it - together with Google Play - is de facto an essential requirement.
...such as?
No it isn’t de facto essential. Maybe to you but not to me. And to society at large, no.
Cable franchises, telecom companies…
The “Mobile Applications” market is an insanely competitive one. Apple doesn’t have anywhere close to a monopoly on anything.
Spotify and Netflix don’t pay Apple one cent outside of the $99 developer fee and continue to serve Apple’s customers. The Play Store, that is by your definition “open” to competitors, charges the same commissions. Which strongly implies what Apple is charging is indeed competitive in the market.
Competition already exists. Android exists, web apps exist etc. The reason developers don’t want to use the web app option is because what Apple provides those who use in app purchases is a significant value - a value Apple should be compensated for.
Actually agree with you here, but with 25% of the market (or even giving you your 50% of revenue argument, which is irrelevant but giving it to you none the less) Apple is nowhere close to a monopoly. And again, the pricing is extremely competitive, given it’s what the Play Store charges - if it really was so anticompetitive developers would have escaped the play store en masse for a cheaper store, but they haven’t.
It isn’t essential. Plenty of companies, including many of Apple’s competitors, don’t pay Apple one cent and have apps serving their customers on iOS.
It's essential for the developer/operator to compete with competing services.
Wholesale as well as consumer rate have gone down considerably (and speed/data volume increased massively) over the last 17 years. On wireless as well as landlines.
They literally pay more than "one cent" for their developer subscription, don't they?
Again, no one forces them to use Apple’s in app purchase APIs. They’re welcome to require signing up and paying on their website like Spotify, Netflix and others.
And Apple’s rates have gone down by more than 50% for large swaths of developers. And again, the fact that Goole’s Play Store has extremely similar pricing despite being “open to competition” shows Apple’s rates are competitive in the market.
Fair enough. Slightly under 10,000 of them per year.They literally pay more than "one cent" for their developer subscription, don't they?
I’m against Apple’s anti-steering in apps (I believe developers should be able to suggest signing up on their websites and advertise that it is cheaper to do so - although I’d prefer apps offer both options), but the fact that paying in app is the preferred point of interaction proves there is value in Apple’s IP - value that developers shouldn’t be able to freeload off of and that Apple should be compensated for.
No it’s not. It’s someone or a business owners choice to compete on a given platform.
And yet they do exist without native apps; eg youtube or facebook or WhatsApp.
Consumers hardly use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger without app.
When they want to make paid transactions, Apple forces them to do.
Not before impending regulatory scrutiny. And not for most transactions.
There's consumer preference to interact in apps that provide value.
👉 Should owners/providers of telecommunications infrastructure be able to charge Apple different prices?
Moving the goalposts. Seems like the argument for side loading.
Someone should tell that to Netflix and Spotify. I suspect they’re going to be very surprised to find out they’re using Apple’s In-App purchase APIs.
Apple reduced subscription pricing to 15% in 2016 - so almost a decade ago. Long before inviting regulatory scrutiny. And Google responded shortly after doing the same, which suggests that market pressure from the other platforms do influence pricing.
Given Apple provides the APIs and OS that allow said apps to function, firmly within their rights to ask for compensation for said functionality given consumers prefer it.
In theory, I have no issue with ISPs trying to do this. I suspect that would not be a good business decision, but have no issues with them trying.
Right, WhatsApp literally would not exist without the iPhone. Probably more like without Steve Jobs as it was his personal appeal to AT&T’s leader, without even a product to show, that convinced them they should make unlimited data a “thing”. Would anyone else have had the ability to make a cellular service owner take on THAT huge of a risk?
Why would it be a bad decision? If owners of physical infrastructure have a monopoly?
Surely he could use a wireless (or satellite) connection instead!?
Is the Apple’s anticompetitive conduct really that bad?
does make you wonder what agenda someone on this group would have to be trolling old f***apple sites for supportive info...That subreddit has been inactive for over a year and does not appear to make any mention of the iOS App Store.
I am pretty sure that comment was made in jest. Like he wasn't really referencing that particular subreddit, but I thought it would be funny to search for it and lo and behold, such a community does exist. 😝does make you wonder what agenda someone on this group would have to be trolling old f***apple sites for supportive info...
Right?
