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> It's that they should operate in a competitive environment Apple operates in a competitive environment. There are hundreds of other options to choose from.

> It's that they should operate in a competitive environment Apple operates in a competitive environment. There are hundreds of other options to choose from. Unless you mean the App Store should be competitive within the iPhone. Why? How many layers deep do we need to ensure a perfectly competitive and open environment? If I put an app (say, a VM) on the App Store that has its own operating system and contained app store, am I now obligated to allow people to put their own app store in my app? > without unreasonable barriers to entry In what world is 30% "unreasonable?" Companies have the option of going to the App Store. There is no obligation for a company to use the App Store. They are not being cut out of the smartphone industry if they don't use the App Store. Apple is not a monopoly here - there are other options than the iPhone for you to sell your service on.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Apple operates in a competitive environment. There are hundreds of other options to choose from. For phones, not for App Stores. Which other viable store distributes iOS apps? > Unless you mean the App Store should be competitive within the iPhone. Why? Because iPhone users are a different app market with different customers than Android users. A customer who wants to buy a PC can easily buy it from Amazon, Walmart, Target, Newegg, etc. based solely on e.g. best price for the same product. A customer who has an iPhone is not going to buy a new phone just so they can buy the same app through Google instead of Apple. > How many layers deep do we need to ensure a perfectly competitive and open environment? What does it have to do with layers? The user should be able to control the product they bought, all the way down. You don't have to enable anything, just don't actively interfere with it. > If I put an app (say, a VM) on the App Store that has its own operating system and contained app store, am I now obligated to allow people to put their own app store in my app? Apple prohibits you from doing that to begin with, which is half the problem. > In what world is 30% "unreasonable?" The one where it bears no relation to underlying costs and is that high only due to the lack of effective competition. > Companies have the option of going to the App Store. There is no obligation for a company to use the App Store. They are not being cut out of the smartphone industry if they don't use the App Store. Apple is not a monopoly here - there are other options than the iPhone for you to sell your service on. Platform monopolies are like regional monopolies. Android customers are not a substitute for iOS customers in the same way that customers in Florida are not a substitute for customers in California -- because you sell to both of them, not one instead of the other. If Walmart had a retail monopoly in California, you can't argue that they don't by pointing to a competitor in Florida.
- xvector 7y ago
  > Which other viable store distributes iOS apps? In which world is "iOS apps" an industry? The industry here is apps in general. In which case you have hundreds of other devices and tens of other stores, of which Apple is a minority player in both. > The user should be able to control the product they bought, all the way down. To what degree? Should the user be able to swap out the kernel code? Should they be able to switch out the phone CPU? Clearly the notion is ridiculous. To enable the user to customize this deeply requires implementing additional functionality to do so. It is not as simple as "not interfering." > You don't have to enable anything, just don't actively interfere with it. And in doing so, you compromise the security of your product. If I allowed my consumer to edit (compromise) my product arbitrarily, I can never make a secure product, and making a polished product becomes that much harder. Integrating against a generic interface always requires more work and thought than integrating against a known one. > Apple prohibits you from doing that to begin with, which is half the problem. This is why I phrased it as a thought experiment and not a reality. You are sidestepping the question. > The one where it bears no relation to underlying costs and is that high only due to the lack of effective competition. Just about zero storefronts have commissions that even remotely align with business costs. Walmart's 12-17% commission is far in excess of the operating costs. So is the Play Store's 30%, or Amazon's own commission. > Platform monopolies are like regional monopolies. Android customers are not a substitute for iOS customers How? Moving from Android to iOS or the other way is trivial. It is not nearly like moving from state to state. You either buy an iPhone with an App Store, or an Android phone with something else. There is no artificial lock-in besides your own wallet. There is plenty of customer choice here.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > In which world is "iOS apps" an industry? The one where the set of customers is almost completely disjoint. > To what degree? Should the user be able to swap out the kernel code? Should they be able to switch out the phone CPU? The vendor should take no measures to prevent the device owner from doing these things. > And in doing so, you compromise the security of your product. Products should not be "secure" against their owners. You need not concern yourself with the experience of people who willingly choose to take matters into their own hands. > This is why I phrased it as a thought experiment and not a reality. You are sidestepping the question. I answered the question. You should not take any measures to impair the owner from doing as they please. You don't have to make it easier, just don't actively make it difficult or take steps to purposely impair competition. > Just about zero storefronts have commissions that even remotely align with business costs. Walmart's 12-17% commission is far in excess of the operating costs. Competitive businesses have margins that align with business risk and the cost of required capital, because that's what competitive means -- it means that somebody else exists who is reasonably able to take your customers by undercutting your price as long as doing so is still profitable enough to exceed their own capital costs. > So is the Play Store's 30%, or Amazon's own commission. Google Play has a weaker app monopoly than Apple because their mechanism is different -- OS APIs that require Google apps, which in turn require Google Play and cause it to be the default app store on nearly all Android devices. But it's not as if that's the canonical example of a competitive market either. And then you look at some of the competitors they do have, like F-Droid, which operates with zero margin at all. > How? Moving from Android to iOS or the other way is trivial. It is not nearly like moving from state to state. You either buy an iPhone with an App Store, or an Android phone with something else. There is no artificial lock-in besides your own wallet. You can't be serious. Once you have one device or the other, your data ends up on that vendor's services in those data formats, the builtin apps are different and you become accustomed to them and incur retraining and data transfer expenses, both platforms don't have exactly the same apps so if you use an app which is only on one platform then you have to use that platform and are locked into that app store for all other apps, once you've paid hundreds of dollars for a phone the resale value drops immediately and switching would require eating the loss which can be more than $100 compared to an app cost of only $1. You may prefer one platform over the other for any number of reasons having nothing to do with the app store but those reasons discourage you from switching and thereby tie you to the app store of that platform. Its exactly like moving from state to state. The numbers aren't as big because a phone doesn't cost as much as a house, but they're the same relative to the cost of apps when an app costs around $1 compared to the typical trip to a grocery store of several hundred dollars, and have the same kind of switching costs where you have to move all your stuff and make labor-intensive changes to many other things that are independent of the app but not the location/platform.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> Apple operates in a competitive environment. There are hundreds of other options to choose from. For phones, not for App Stores. Which other viable store distributes iOS apps? > Unless you mean the App Store should be competitive within the iPhone. Why? Because iPhone users are a different app market with different customers than Android users. A customer who wants to buy a PC can easily buy it from Amazon, Walmart, Target, Newegg, etc. based solely on e.g. best price for the same product. A customer who has an iPhone is not going to buy a new phone just so they can buy the same app through Google instead of Apple. > How many layers deep do we need to ensure a perfectly competitive and open environment? What does it have to do with layers? The user should be able to control the product they bought, all the way down. You don't have to enable anything, just don't actively interfere with it. > If I put an app (say, a VM) on the App Store that has its own operating system and contained app store, am I now obligated to allow people to put their own app store in my app? Apple prohibits you from doing that to begin with, which is half the problem. > In what world is 30% "unreasonable?" The one where it bears no relation to underlying costs and is that high only due to the lack of effective competition. > Companies have the option of going to the App Store. There is no obligation for a company to use the App Store. They are not being cut out of the smartphone industry if they don't use the App Store. Apple is not a monopoly here - there are other options than the iPhone for you to sell your service on. Platform monopolies are like regional monopolies. Android customers are not a substitute for iOS customers in the same way that customers in Florida are not a substitute for customers in California -- because you sell to both of them, not one instead of the other. If Walmart had a retail monopoly in California, you can't argue that they don't by pointing to a competitor in Florida.

xvector 7y ago
> Which other viable store distributes iOS apps? In which world is "iOS apps" an industry? The industry here is apps in general. In which case you have hundreds of other devices and tens of other stores, of which Apple is a minority player in both. > The user should be able to control the product they bought, all the way down. To what degree? Should the user be able to swap out the kernel code? Should they be able to switch out the phone CPU? Clearly the notion is ridiculous. To enable the user to customize this deeply requires implementing additional functionality to do so. It is not as simple as "not interfering." > You don't have to enable anything, just don't actively interfere with it. And in doing so, you compromise the security of your product. If I allowed my consumer to edit (compromise) my product arbitrarily, I can never make a secure product, and making a polished product becomes that much harder. Integrating against a generic interface always requires more work and thought than integrating against a known one. > Apple prohibits you from doing that to begin with, which is half the problem. This is why I phrased it as a thought experiment and not a reality. You are sidestepping the question. > The one where it bears no relation to underlying costs and is that high only due to the lack of effective competition. Just about zero storefronts have commissions that even remotely align with business costs. Walmart's 12-17% commission is far in excess of the operating costs. So is the Play Store's 30%, or Amazon's own commission. > Platform monopolies are like regional monopolies. Android customers are not a substitute for iOS customers How? Moving from Android to iOS or the other way is trivial. It is not nearly like moving from state to state. You either buy an iPhone with an App Store, or an Android phone with something else. There is no artificial lock-in besides your own wallet. There is plenty of customer choice here.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > In which world is "iOS apps" an industry? The one where the set of customers is almost completely disjoint. > To what degree? Should the user be able to swap out the kernel code? Should they be able to switch out the phone CPU? The vendor should take no measures to prevent the device owner from doing these things. > And in doing so, you compromise the security of your product. Products should not be "secure" against their owners. You need not concern yourself with the experience of people who willingly choose to take matters into their own hands. > This is why I phrased it as a thought experiment and not a reality. You are sidestepping the question. I answered the question. You should not take any measures to impair the owner from doing as they please. You don't have to make it easier, just don't actively make it difficult or take steps to purposely impair competition. > Just about zero storefronts have commissions that even remotely align with business costs. Walmart's 12-17% commission is far in excess of the operating costs. Competitive businesses have margins that align with business risk and the cost of required capital, because that's what competitive means -- it means that somebody else exists who is reasonably able to take your customers by undercutting your price as long as doing so is still profitable enough to exceed their own capital costs. > So is the Play Store's 30%, or Amazon's own commission. Google Play has a weaker app monopoly than Apple because their mechanism is different -- OS APIs that require Google apps, which in turn require Google Play and cause it to be the default app store on nearly all Android devices. But it's not as if that's the canonical example of a competitive market either. And then you look at some of the competitors they do have, like F-Droid, which operates with zero margin at all. > How? Moving from Android to iOS or the other way is trivial. It is not nearly like moving from state to state. You either buy an iPhone with an App Store, or an Android phone with something else. There is no artificial lock-in besides your own wallet. You can't be serious. Once you have one device or the other, your data ends up on that vendor's services in those data formats, the builtin apps are different and you become accustomed to them and incur retraining and data transfer expenses, both platforms don't have exactly the same apps so if you use an app which is only on one platform then you have to use that platform and are locked into that app store for all other apps, once you've paid hundreds of dollars for a phone the resale value drops immediately and switching would require eating the loss which can be more than $100 compared to an app cost of only $1. You may prefer one platform over the other for any number of reasons having nothing to do with the app store but those reasons discourage you from switching and thereby tie you to the app store of that platform. Its exactly like moving from state to state. The numbers aren't as big because a phone doesn't cost as much as a house, but they're the same relative to the cost of apps when an app costs around $1 compared to the typical trip to a grocery store of several hundred dollars, and have the same kind of switching costs where you have to move all your stuff and make labor-intensive changes to many other things that are independent of the app but not the location/platform.