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This is long overdue and I'm hopeful that it extends beyond app stores. The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are me

This is long overdue and I'm hopeful that it extends beyond app stores. The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are members of the union to be disabled remotely by vote should companies overstep. I find it interesting that they are starting with the low-hanging fruit of something like free demos. I don't think Apple realizes the burden that things like managing two versions of an app (free/paid) or implementing in-app purchases imposes on developers. Apple has lost touch with developers in how it emphasizes enterprise approaches for things that could have much simpler APIs. They have hundreds of billions of dollars, so why force developers to deal with push notification servers? There's a lot of buck-passing and not a lot of service happening. The red tape has been reduced in recent years due to better Xcode integration of things like provisioning. But I personally find the way that they've implemented entitlements for all of their niche services to be overly pedantic. I recommend scrapping all of it and moving to a data-driven approach where all entitlements are available and it becomes more of a fill-in-the-blank approach. As in, generate sane defaults and provide tools to do this stuff for us instead of throwing manuals at us. Look to things like Unity and Steam for examples of how to accomplish a lot with a little. Calls for satisfaction have largely fallen on deaf ears, hence the need for a union like this. I don't mean to pick on Apple, I still think they are doing better than most companies, but they certainly have the resources to treat their developers as well as their users. Also to the original poster: drop the "the". It's cleaner :-P

gizmo385 8y ago
> The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are members of the union to be disabled remotely by vote should companies overstep. That sounds like a good way to piss off customers, rather than piss off Apple and Google. If an app stops working, do you think people are going to blame Apple/Google or the company that actually pulled the trigger on disabling their favorite app?
- jadedhacker 8y ago
  Gaining the sympathy of the public is an important elements in organizing a strike. For brick and mortar business, a strike shuts down the business and prevents serving customers. This isn't much different. I would think tho that the SDK shouldn't disable local functionality, just remote functionality. Disabling e.g. a calculator app on a phone seems too invasive and over the line to me.
solomatov 8y ago
>This is long overdue and I'm hopeful that it extends beyond app stores. The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are members of the union to be disabled remotely by vote should companies overstep. And then Apple can issue refunds for non functioning apps and ban developers forever. Also, if these apps are popular, expect class action lawsuits. In the US law there's a thing which is called a promissory estoppel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/promissory_estoppel.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/promissory_estoppel.asp) and it can be argued that if you buy an app, you expect that it keeps working. P.S. I am not a lawyer
- zackmorris 8y ago
  That's their (Apple's) prerogative yes, but typically when a workforce unionize, everyone unionizes. So the threat of lawsuits is more Apple's concern than developers'. Of course if it gets to that point, then arguably the app store itself is going to be in trouble and everyone could find themselves out of a job, which has certainly happened in the past. I'd also like to point out that there's some antitrust stuff at work here too, because the app store probably shouldn't be coupled to a specific company/device in the first place. The idea that every app developer everywhere is beholden to Apple, Microsoft (and now Google and Amazon) is just as much of a problem today as 30 years ago. 30% (this might be 15% now?) or more is being skimmed off everyone's profit margin, which is stifling innovation across the board. I think that's what we're really talking about here, and why it's threatening to the status quo. I'm not saying any of this is good or bad, just that, there are many ways to structure the economy of the future and we're in one that favors multinational corporations with a trillion dollars of combined wealth. Meanwhile individual workers have almost no solidarity, which leaves them with little or no recourse for handling grievances. I'm just surprised that with the unprecedented concentration of intelligence on forums like these that any thought of organizing seems completely out of the question. That's quite a code smell and a rather large untapped market when you stop and think about it.

gizmo385 8y ago

> The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are members of the union to be disabled remotely by vote should companies overstep. That sounds like a good way to piss off customers, rather than piss off Apple and Google. If an app stops working, do you think people are going to blame Apple/Google or the company that actually pulled the trigger on disabling their favorite app?

jadedhacker 8y ago
Gaining the sympathy of the public is an important elements in organizing a strike. For brick and mortar business, a strike shuts down the business and prevents serving customers. This isn't much different. I would think tho that the SDK shouldn't disable local functionality, just remote functionality. Disabling e.g. a calculator app on a phone seems too invasive and over the line to me.

solomatov 8y ago

>This is long overdue and I'm hopeful that it extends beyond app stores. The primary leverage here will (inevitably?) be an SDK that allows all apps that are members of the union to be disabled remotely by vote should companies overstep. And then Apple can issue refunds for non functioning apps and ban developers forever. Also, if these apps are popular, expect class action lawsuits. In the US law there's a thing which is called a promissory estoppel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/promissory_estoppel.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/promissory_estoppel.asp) and it can be argued that if you buy an app, you expect that it keeps working. P.S. I am not a lawyer

zackmorris 8y ago
That's their (Apple's) prerogative yes, but typically when a workforce unionize, everyone unionizes. So the threat of lawsuits is more Apple's concern than developers'. Of course if it gets to that point, then arguably the app store itself is going to be in trouble and everyone could find themselves out of a job, which has certainly happened in the past. I'd also like to point out that there's some antitrust stuff at work here too, because the app store probably shouldn't be coupled to a specific company/device in the first place. The idea that every app developer everywhere is beholden to Apple, Microsoft (and now Google and Amazon) is just as much of a problem today as 30 years ago. 30% (this might be 15% now?) or more is being skimmed off everyone's profit margin, which is stifling innovation across the board. I think that's what we're really talking about here, and why it's threatening to the status quo. I'm not saying any of this is good or bad, just that, there are many ways to structure the economy of the future and we're in one that favors multinational corporations with a trillion dollars of combined wealth. Meanwhile individual workers have almost no solidarity, which leaves them with little or no recourse for handling grievances. I'm just surprised that with the unprecedented concentration of intelligence on forums like these that any thought of organizing seems completely out of the question. That's quite a code smell and a rather large untapped market when you stop and think about it.