Apple prevented Android from selling apps? The government should really look into that!
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Proton Sues Apple Over 'Artificial and Arbitrary' App Store Fees
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Sued for blocking other shops… Apple’s store terms wouldn’t matter in a competitive marketplace. The terms matter and they are being sued because there isn’t that competitive marketplace.
Just because you declare "I'm only shopping at Walmart" doesn't mean other stores don't exist.
This isn’t about hosting the app. This is about the service that this company hosts on its own servers that Apple has nothing to do with. It’s like Microsoft taking a 30% cut of your iCloud+ subscription because you’re using the Windows app to sync files to iCloud if you signed up to the service while using a PC. Microsoft has nothing to do with that service, so why should they get a cut? Likewise, Apple isn’t involved in hosting email from Proton, so why should they get anything?
Everyone pays a developer fee to get their apps on the App Store. It’s only $99 a year. Maybe Apple should look at increasing that fee based on how many installs a developers app gets. As I’ve always said, Apple doesn’t deserve a 30% cut of a service that they don’t provide. If the developer wants to use Apples payment method due to ease of use and it’s the most competitive, great. But for most large developers, a percentage of services makes no sense.
If your app is a one time purchase, yes, Apple should get a cut of sales. They’re hosting the app, and you’re buying from their store. But for services? No.
lol the price of anything is "Artificial and Arbitrary", Proton.
Yet other stores do not exist when it comes to iOS.
Proton is a normal public limited liability corporation, but fully owned by a non-profit, the Proton Foundation. But legal is typically part of expenses of a company, and many non-profits exists solely just to provide legal help for certain causes.
This is the opposite order of operations, though. Your analogy is flawed. It's more like you I bought the house in the middle of the shop knowing that I had to use your shop. I also had full access to the policies by which you had run that store since its inception, with only minor, immaterial modifications. I also have and always have had the option to move to another, cheaper house with dozens of stores close by.
You bought the house knowing full well that was the arrangement, and that it was likely to continue.
They might as well not exist. Sure, I could buy a ton of apps in the Play Store, but that won't make them run on my iPhone.
I'm sympathetic to Proton's stance when it comes to privacy and fighting big data. I don't want my loss of privacy to be the profit center for evil megacorps. That's why I buy Apple devices, and avoid anything from Amazon or Google.
Android and iOS are more like countries (with a billion plus users each). For a developer, selling in one country doesn’t give you access to market in the other country. They are different markets. You have to develop apps for both markets if you want access to all users. If it was one market, they’d only have to make one app.
No one is declaring they won’t shop at one store or the other. They simply can’t shop at the other store without moving and incurring the associated costs of doing so. That is what it means to be part of separate markets.
The App Store and Google Play don’t compete with each other. That’s why they aren’t on a race to the bottom on commissions and both instead focus on keeping actual competitors out, and/or extremely disadvantaged.
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You’re saying that as if people have suddenly been imprisoned into iPhones and the App Store.
Meanwhile, the iPhone has had the app store, and iOS app store rules, since 2008.
And each user (and developer) has explicitly agreed to these rules the moment they get past the T&C’s on the setup screen on any apple device.
I didn’t buy an iPhone, or develop an app for iOS, and suddenly get surprised by the revelation that I can only use the app store and hence need to abide by the app store operational fees. It has always been this way, since the very first app download.
Success in the industry does not mean that they now need to change the fundamentals of the devices that made them successful, when perhaps, these very such rules played a considerable part in generating this success in the first place.
If I didn’t want to be on a platform where the only apps I can get come from the app store, I wouldn’t get an iPhone. If I didn’t want to develop apps for a platform that only has one app store, I wouldn’t develop iOS apps. But many consumers and developers make this conscious decision, in part due to the benefits of it.
Sure apple has a load of products actively being used in the world, but that’s because they work their ass off to make the products good. And as a developer, if you want to tap in to selling your own products on apple systems to apple customers, you gotta make some compromises. There is no reason why apple shouldn’t be allowed to make executive decisions over how the process functions on their own systems.
GO PROTON, GO!! LEt's break Apple's monopoly
This is a really good way to think about it.
The two factions (or Countries, as you said) are so large and important that I think we have trouble conceptualizing some aspects of this discussion.
“Proton believes that Apple's control over the App Store gives it too much power over app distribution, which Proton says is an issue when Apple has to comply with government app removal requests in different countries”
I support this Lawsuit against Apple just for this.
I support this Lawsuit against Apple just for this.
Abusing that success after having achieved a dominant position in a market means that.
Any landlord or supermarket can set their own rules and rent/prices/fees.
But when they control the market in a duopoly, government should and will impose rules on them.
Imagine buying a fridge and only being able to stock it from the shop you got it from.
Imagine if there were only two fridge manufacturers.
Imagine if one allowed you to put what you what want in your fridge, but monitored your fridge and slapped adverts across the door trying to sell you stuff, and made money of letting other people advertise to you by selling them their knowledge of what’s in your fridge.
The other, controls what you can put in there, and if they or your government or anyone else decides that you shouldn’t have something, they can stop you having that product.
Neither of those are great options. And that’s the problem with mobile OS’. That ridiculous control, or that ridiculous invasiveness are the two options.
It’s simply not a case of switching to ‘the other side’. The ridiculous situation on both sides needs absolutely addressing.
For Apple that means releasing some of the abusive control they hold over their ecosystem.
Yeah, but the house comes with the shop and it’s rules pre installed from the moment you even look at buying it. And by accepting the keys to the house, you accept these rules.
Hence I would simply not buy this house if I didn’t want it to work that way?
The app store is not a recent development lol..
Why should there be competition to sell access to Apple’s platform?
Because those are mostly physical goods and services. The App store only takes a cut of anything that can be delivered digitally, if the vendor allows it. Amazon Kindle books are an example where they are not purchasable through the App but are from a web browser. You also cannot subscribe to Spotify through the App, you must use a web browser.
I thought everyone knew this, but perhaps Proton has a point.
Not compared to the billions of customers it’s found itself with, no.
Proton have something of a point. The 30% fee was arbitrarily decided upon based on the revenue sharing deal they had with record companies through iTunes.
Apple shouldn't really be charging developers anything more than cost and there is no transparency as to how much it costs to host apps, process payments and pay staff. Yes, developers should pay something to Apple for that service but that could be as low as 5%.
The rest of the commission is money straight from the pockets of developers and into the pockets of shareholders. Someone explain to me how that is fair?
Imagine your government only spending 5% of your taxes on running the country and then using the rest to just line their own pockets. I can't imagine many voters justifying that one.
Apple shouldn't really be charging developers anything more than cost and there is no transparency as to how much it costs to host apps, process payments and pay staff. Yes, developers should pay something to Apple for that service but that could be as low as 5%.
The rest of the commission is money straight from the pockets of developers and into the pockets of shareholders. Someone explain to me how that is fair?
Imagine your government only spending 5% of your taxes on running the country and then using the rest to just line their own pockets. I can't imagine many voters justifying that one.