4 ms·

Apple has control of the iOS App market. It is a pretty large barrier for a customer need to switch platforms to get an app that Apple has denied access. I am

by oillio 6y ago

Apple has control of the iOS App market. It is a pretty large barrier for a customer need to switch platforms to get an app that Apple has denied access. I am not a lawyer, but that sure smells like the potential for monopolistic control.

snowwrestler 6y ago
This is like saying 7-11 has a monopoly on what is sold in 7-11 stores. If I want a copy of the King James Bible and 7-11 chooses not to sell that, I have to leave 7-11 and go find another store that does. Yes, that's a barrier I have to go through to get my Bible. Should the government make it 7-11's responsibility to solve that for me?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- munk-a 6y ago
  I'm not certain how this is considered to be analogous - is the assumption that other retailers would need to forward customers to 7/11 when 7/11 carries a good a client is interested in? As a possibly better analogy... Let's say I run a Flea market and also direct sell some items to customers. I charge independent retailers a fee for setting up a booth in my market space and don't excise that same fee from my own booths. Then I go to open a booth in a local mall to help sell some of my directly vendored items and raise an exception all the way to city hall that the mall attempting to charge me for running a booth in their property is impeding the free flow of commerce and hurting the local economy - while I continue to charge booths in my market space for operating.
  - tanjtanjtanj 6y ago
    > and raise an exception all the way to city hall that the mall attempting to charge me for running a booth in their property is impeding the free flow of commerce and hurting the local economy Except Apple has never made that argument to anyone. They simply added a way to pay for their subscription directly in their app rather than in the Play Store; Something Google allows.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      If I lease space to you on a profit sharing based model (i.e. you don't have to pay any standard rent but you need to forward 20% of what you make in lieu of rent to use the space) and you start giving product away to customers for "free" but then force them to pay the actual price under the table then you're committing fraud. Whether you think 30% of transaction value is a fair price or not for the costs of running an AppStore (I don't think so - it's ridiculously high proportion-wise) that's the agreement. Apple comes down hard on people who run microtransactions via alternate payment methods in application on their platform and yet that's exactly what they're doing in the Play Store - it is something that Google allows, but it would violate Apple's ToS.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        There is no prohibition to allowing subscriptions outside of the App Store - even at a lower price. Apple is saying you must also allow subscriptions in the store. Whether you agree or not is different.
- kelnos 6y ago
  I don't think this is a particularly good analogy. If 7-11 doesn't sell a bible and I want to buy a bible, I go to another store that sells bibles and buy one there. It's not like my house will refuse to allow me to bring a non-7-11 product inside. If the iOS App Store doesn't sell a particular app, then I have no alternative (aside from "buying a different house", which IMO is unreasonable), because Apple doesn't let non-App-Store apps onto iOS devices.
  - dwaite 6y ago
    For a literal bible you would have options, because you can use a standard format like ePub or PDF. Your limitations come if you try to mandate your own DRM, since the platform won’t understand it. For an annotated bible application, you would have the option of a web-based application, which has certain trade-offs.
bjt 6y ago
A big chunk of the arguing in an antitrust case is about how the relevant market should be defined. A plaintiff bringing a suit against Apple might define it as "the market for iOS apps", but Apple's lawyers would argue for something much more broad, like the "the market for computer software". My hunch is that the court would probably land somewhere in the middle like "the market for mobile apps." Apple's still a big player there but far from a monopolist.
scarface74 6y ago
Yes and the consoles have control of their market and Amazon has control over the Kindle.

by oillio 6y ago

snowwrestler 6y ago

This is like saying 7-11 has a monopoly on what is sold in 7-11 stores. If I want a copy of the King James Bible and 7-11 chooses not to sell that, I have to leave 7-11 and go find another store that does. Yes, that's a barrier I have to go through to get my Bible. Should the government make it 7-11's responsibility to solve that for me?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
munk-a 6y ago
I'm not certain how this is considered to be analogous - is the assumption that other retailers would need to forward customers to 7/11 when 7/11 carries a good a client is interested in? As a possibly better analogy... Let's say I run a Flea market and also direct sell some items to customers. I charge independent retailers a fee for setting up a booth in my market space and don't excise that same fee from my own booths. Then I go to open a booth in a local mall to help sell some of my directly vendored items and raise an exception all the way to city hall that the mall attempting to charge me for running a booth in their property is impeding the free flow of commerce and hurting the local economy - while I continue to charge booths in my market space for operating.
- tanjtanjtanj 6y ago
  > and raise an exception all the way to city hall that the mall attempting to charge me for running a booth in their property is impeding the free flow of commerce and hurting the local economy Except Apple has never made that argument to anyone. They simply added a way to pay for their subscription directly in their app rather than in the Play Store; Something Google allows.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    If I lease space to you on a profit sharing based model (i.e. you don't have to pay any standard rent but you need to forward 20% of what you make in lieu of rent to use the space) and you start giving product away to customers for "free" but then force them to pay the actual price under the table then you're committing fraud. Whether you think 30% of transaction value is a fair price or not for the costs of running an AppStore (I don't think so - it's ridiculously high proportion-wise) that's the agreement. Apple comes down hard on people who run microtransactions via alternate payment methods in application on their platform and yet that's exactly what they're doing in the Play Store - it is something that Google allows, but it would violate Apple's ToS.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      There is no prohibition to allowing subscriptions outside of the App Store - even at a lower price. Apple is saying you must also allow subscriptions in the store. Whether you agree or not is different.
kelnos 6y ago
I don't think this is a particularly good analogy. If 7-11 doesn't sell a bible and I want to buy a bible, I go to another store that sells bibles and buy one there. It's not like my house will refuse to allow me to bring a non-7-11 product inside. If the iOS App Store doesn't sell a particular app, then I have no alternative (aside from "buying a different house", which IMO is unreasonable), because Apple doesn't let non-App-Store apps onto iOS devices.
- dwaite 6y ago
  For a literal bible you would have options, because you can use a standard format like ePub or PDF. Your limitations come if you try to mandate your own DRM, since the platform won’t understand it. For an annotated bible application, you would have the option of a web-based application, which has certain trade-offs.

bjt 6y ago

A big chunk of the arguing in an antitrust case is about how the relevant market should be defined. A plaintiff bringing a suit against Apple might define it as "the market for iOS apps", but Apple's lawyers would argue for something much more broad, like the "the market for computer software". My hunch is that the court would probably land somewhere in the middle like "the market for mobile apps." Apple's still a big player there but far from a monopolist.

scarface74 6y ago

Yes and the consoles have control of their market and Amazon has control over the Kindle.