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Proton Sues Apple Over 'Artificial and Arbitrary' App Store Fees

I've been a long time fan of Proton. Love what they're doing and their services, but I'm also in the e-commerce world. I find all these complaints of Apple taking a piece of the pie so interesting.

Anyone sell on Amazon or eBay? What do Amazon or eBay do? They take a piece of the pie. If you develop a game for PS or the Switch, Nintendo or Sony takes a piece of the pie. This is the same business model that SO many companies employ, and yet people like to single out Apple (or Google) for that matter for trying to take a cut. Apple has developed a platform that has traffic and a means of selling a product (in this case an app). If you want to play in their playground, you have to pay for that. Yes, I recognize it's a separate service beyond on app, but they are choosing to be on that platform to distribute.

Why doesn't anyone get mad at Amazon for taking 15%+ of my selling price for an item I've sold on Amazon? It's the same thing. It might be a one-time sale on Amazon, but if that customer keeps coming back and buying the same thing from me time and time again on Amazon, should Amazon not take their 15% cut?
 
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cupcakes2000 said:
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.
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Sure, and yet the vast, and i mean vast majority of the human population, is completely fine with this current system of “fridges”, pleased even.

Hence why the amount of people desiring change is minuscule compared to the majority that simply don’t even care about this situation. And in a democratic society, the popular vote will always succeed.

If neither option was good, a third fridge would arise, as people would simply not buy or make food for the inferior fridges, and would opt for the one that accomplishes what they need.
 
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TheSynchronizer said:
Sure, and yet the vast, and i mean vast majority of the human population, is completely fine with this current system
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I don’t think you can possibly know whether anyone is completely fine with it, let alone the ‘vast vast majority’. What you do know is the vast majority are stuck with it if they want an iPhone. That’s all you know.

And that doesn’t mean it’s right or just in any case.
 
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cupcakes2000 said:
I don’t think you can possibly know whether anyone is completely fine with it, let alone the ‘vast vast majority’. What you do know is the vast majority are stuck with it if they want an iPhone. That’s all you know.

And that doesn’t mean it’s right or just in any case.
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Except we’ve had alt stores available on android for more than a decade and the vast, vast majority didn’t care. ;)
 
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cupcakes2000 said:
Anyone can walk into any of those and buy anything. That’s not remotely the same as a single store being the only option.
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You're looking at it at the wrong way. If you can walk into a website, I'd love to know how you to that. I guess Tron is reality for some. :)

How is Apple the only single store being the option? I can go to Disney+ on their website and subscribe. Like someone mentioned before, Safari exists. Apple isn't taking anything for that.

I recently picked up a Pixel 9, and downloaded Disney+ from the Play store.. How's Apple involved there?

There are more options than Apple to subscribe to Proton.
 
All these politically charged threads are a fun debate. But I still can't get my head around why an otherwise faceless citizen, a number on a spreadsheet like you or I would stick up for and defend the actions of any monolithic tech panopticon that isn't a friend to anyone but their shareholders.

Many of these companies make great products, run great services and make our lives a lot easier. There is nothing wrong with brand loyalty of course but none of these entities give two figs about us as users really and are not our friends. It's one thing to recommend a product because of its features and another entirely to enlist in their internet militia.

For example Apple exploit people's paranoia about data collection to sell them more stuff almost as much as Google exploit the data itself. They're all as bad as each other on some level.
 
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cupcakes2000 said:
And what other options exist for iOS, which is the market place we’re talking about?
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Again, if you limit yourself to only shopping at Walmart, you can’t complain when Walmart doesn’t offer the product you want.

Apple has worked the same way forever. Amdroid used to run ads about it. No one is surprised. This is not something the government needs to be regulating.
 
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Ctrlos said:
All these politically charged threads are a fun debate. But I still can't get my head around why an otherwise faceless citizen, a number on a spreadsheet like you or I would stick up for and defend the actions of any monolithic tech panopticon that isn't a friend to anyone but their shareholders.

Many of these companies make great products, run great services and make our lives a lot easier. There is nothing wrong with brand loyalty of course but none of these entities give two figs about us as users really and are not our friends. It's one thing to recommend a product because of its features and another entirely to enlist in their internet militia.

For example Apple exploit people's paranoia about data collection to sell them more stuff almost as much as Google exploit the data itself. They're all as bad as each other on some level.
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You're right. Dozens and dozens of companies employ this same tactic. It's been around for decades. I think Apple and Google get singled out because they're huge monstrous companies.

I'm not saying change is bad. Perhaps the 30% is too much and should be diminished, but the fact of the matter is, this business model is here. If it has to change for Apple, I don't see why it shouldn't change for the dozens of other companies doing the same thing for allowing someone to sell through their platforms.
 
cupcakes2000 said:
I’m being limited. I’m not limiting myself.
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You knew how the product worked when you bought it. This entitlement that Apple should run its business the way you want, against the preferences of most of its customers, is incredibly selfish.

Just by an Android. You’re not entitled to have your cake and eat it too. You don’t know better than Apple and most of its customers.
 
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BaldiMac said:
Why should there be competition to sell access to Apple’s platform?
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You’re making a moral arguement, not a legal one. This is of meaningless importance, but I’ll engage. It’s only Apple’s platform in the sense that they hold the keys to it.

Apple didn’t build it alone. Third party developers have collectively put way more time into the platform than Apple has. If we were awarding money based on merit, developers would be getting a cut of iPhone sales instead of Apple getting a cut of app sales. The iPhone would only exist in history books today if they didn’t open up to third party apps when they did.

Again this doesn’t matter. What matters is that Apple is the gatekeeper to a market with a GDP greater than many small countries. How they came to be a monopoly doesn’t really matter. What matters is how they are leveraging that position to isolate themselves from competition and market forces.

This is easy to understand, but that’s a step you have to take yourself.
 
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jadehsn said:
No, but I can still use the service on iOS just fine, can't I?

My wife chooses to only login to Facebook via Safari vs the app.
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It’s a web browser. So yes obviously. I’m not sure what you’re getting at. It’s not very relevant to the AppStore and apples vice like grip on it.
 
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Everyone's just trying to get their payments down to zero. At some point the courts will get sick of these arguments, if they're not already. Every judge on earth knows that Apple deserves to be paid for the work they literally do to even make the app store and the platforms happen.
 
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