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What should be the price of accessing a billion users? Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform? Nevermind chargi

What should be the price of accessing a billion users? Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform? Nevermind charging, does -any- platform allow anyone to interact with its users at all without adhering to the platform's terms and conditions? Can we post anything we want on HN? How about spamming Patreon or GoFundMe links on forums and servers? Why not?

aikah 6y ago
> Can we post anything we want on HN? How about spamming Patreon or GoFundMe links on forums and servers? Why not? You are free to put a gofundme link on your profile page on HN. People who make interesting, thought provoking, constructive comments and avoid sophistic arguments and strawmen certainly have their profile page checked by other users who want to follow the commenter on other plateforms.
TakawaraJu 6y ago
> What should be the price of accessing a billion users? The $99 developers licence seems like a pretty fair price for access.
hirako2000 6y ago
The price should be zero. Then platform can offer a service e.g payment gateway at a price but not prevent other payment gateways. Google search and other search engin do allow. They are platforms, not purely marketplace, so what. The problem is not whether it is legitimate for a platform to enforce terms and conditions, the problem is what are those terms and conditions. A physical market place can and probably should have some terms and conditions, such as rules around how to not dispose of trash and sanitary, but a term that force participants to purchase a cleaning service only from the marketplace manager is where it would be crossing a line. That is what is being criticized here. Not the existence of terms and conditions to use the app store, it is the restriction to use any other payment gateway, the restriction from communicating that there is an apple tax of 30% and offer an alternative route to the end customer. Apple has the right to monetise its platform of course, but with a fair business model, not an abusive business model.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  > The price should be zero. I don’t know if this is what you meant, but this reads as if you’re implying that Apple should host free apps absolutely free. Which makes no economical sense.
  - hirako2000 6y ago
    No, I'm saying they should build a business model that doesn't abuse participants. They can certainly make money by offering a great payment gateway and other services that developers and/or buyers would prefer to opt for than any alternative. Instead they simply charge for the privilege to be on their platform.
- nicky0 6y ago
  Google Search absolutely charges its customers, who are advertisers. It charges them a lot of money to show their ads to the billions of users.
  - hirako2000 6y ago
    Yes and we are free to also let other search engines index the sites. I can use any device including Google devices and access Google search or any other search engines and pay producers of content or software. Google doesn't force anyone to use its search, it doesn't make an exclusive deal to be indexed either, despite their dominance. Not saying Google act like saints with its ad system these days, but I simply cited an example of a Platform that built a business model where nobody is being excluded from the platform because they somehow circumvent payments going to Google (via ads). We can block the ads, we can ignore the ads, we can use another search engine to access the same content. Power and freedom to the participants.
kalleboo 6y ago
> Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform? Microsoft Windows?
- Razengan 6y ago
  The only operating that still costs money and still spams its users with third-party ads. In any case, you can publish for macOS without paying Apple anything too, you just have to convince your users to bypass Gatekeeper for your app.
  - nguyenkien 6y ago
    Apple also spam users with ads. And yes they devices is far more expensive
    - Razengan 6y ago
      Apple does not put ads on any of their operating systems.
      - nguyenkien 6y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/18/18145289/apple-iphone-ios-push-notifications-carpool-karaoke https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/18/18145289/apple-iphone-io...
    - Razengan 6y ago
      There are no ads in any Apple OS.
      - nguyenkien 6y ago
        https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push-notifications-advertising https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...

aikah 6y ago

> Can we post anything we want on HN? How about spamming Patreon or GoFundMe links on forums and servers? Why not? You are free to put a gofundme link on your profile page on HN. People who make interesting, thought provoking, constructive comments and avoid sophistic arguments and strawmen certainly have their profile page checked by other users who want to follow the commenter on other plateforms.

TakawaraJu 6y ago

> What should be the price of accessing a billion users? The $99 developers licence seems like a pretty fair price for access.

hirako2000 6y ago

The price should be zero. Then platform can offer a service e.g payment gateway at a price but not prevent other payment gateways. Google search and other search engin do allow. They are platforms, not purely marketplace, so what. The problem is not whether it is legitimate for a platform to enforce terms and conditions, the problem is what are those terms and conditions. A physical market place can and probably should have some terms and conditions, such as rules around how to not dispose of trash and sanitary, but a term that force participants to purchase a cleaning service only from the marketplace manager is where it would be crossing a line. That is what is being criticized here. Not the existence of terms and conditions to use the app store, it is the restriction to use any other payment gateway, the restriction from communicating that there is an apple tax of 30% and offer an alternative route to the end customer. Apple has the right to monetise its platform of course, but with a fair business model, not an abusive business model.

colejohnson66 6y ago
> The price should be zero. I don’t know if this is what you meant, but this reads as if you’re implying that Apple should host free apps absolutely free. Which makes no economical sense.
- hirako2000 6y ago
  No, I'm saying they should build a business model that doesn't abuse participants. They can certainly make money by offering a great payment gateway and other services that developers and/or buyers would prefer to opt for than any alternative. Instead they simply charge for the privilege to be on their platform.
nicky0 6y ago
Google Search absolutely charges its customers, who are advertisers. It charges them a lot of money to show their ads to the billions of users.
- hirako2000 6y ago
  Yes and we are free to also let other search engines index the sites. I can use any device including Google devices and access Google search or any other search engines and pay producers of content or software. Google doesn't force anyone to use its search, it doesn't make an exclusive deal to be indexed either, despite their dominance. Not saying Google act like saints with its ad system these days, but I simply cited an example of a Platform that built a business model where nobody is being excluded from the platform because they somehow circumvent payments going to Google (via ads). We can block the ads, we can ignore the ads, we can use another search engine to access the same content. Power and freedom to the participants.

kalleboo 6y ago

> Does any platform allow anyone to charge its users without going through the platform? Microsoft Windows?

Razengan 6y ago
The only operating that still costs money and still spams its users with third-party ads. In any case, you can publish for macOS without paying Apple anything too, you just have to convince your users to bypass Gatekeeper for your app.
- nguyenkien 6y ago
  Apple also spam users with ads. And yes they devices is far more expensive
  - Razengan 6y ago
    Apple does not put ads on any of their operating systems.
    - nguyenkien 6y ago
      https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/18/18145289/apple-iphone-ios-push-notifications-carpool-karaoke https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/18/18145289/apple-iphone-io...
  - Razengan 6y ago
    There are no ads in any Apple OS.
    - nguyenkien 6y ago
      https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push-notifications-advertising https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/18/18229492/apple-music-push...