4 ms·

In the same way, though, that you can suggest I work somewhere else, I can suggest that you run your app business on another platform, so that doesn't seem to a

by wcarey 6y ago

In the same way, though, that you can suggest I work somewhere else, I can suggest that you run your app business on another platform, so that doesn't seem to advance the argument very much? Plenty of folks make a living on the web or by selling Windows or Linux software. Having choice about some things is better than not having one, all around. But some people choose (!) to delegate their choosing to others in certain fields. For example, the choice of whether to purchase safe meat or unsafe meat is a bad choice to have. It's doubly bad if you aren't skilled at determining the safety quality of meat. That's a choice I'm happy to outsource to a third party. Similarly, I'm happy to outsource a variety of choices about app terms of use to Apple.

wayneftw 6y ago
> I can suggest that you run your app business on another platform... Did you miss the part where I said that 50% of my customers use an iPhone? To be clear: 50% of the general population in the United States uses an iPhone. 90% of the youth market uses an iPhone. That doesn't leave much of a choice for developers at all. You simply cannot have a successful app business in the US without being on Apple's app store. Meanwhile, there are millions of potential employers in the United States.
- wcarey 6y ago
  For some definition of "app business", sure. But there are plenty of companies making plenty of money in software without touching any app store. To be sure, Apple's popularity puts them in a really good negotiating position with respect to developers who want to sell certain kinds of software.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    Agreed. But, for the sake of those app businesses that fit the right definition, we should allow for a choice of sideloading or competing app stores. And no harm would come to consumers by giving them that choice.
    - wcarey 6y ago
      My argument is that some harm does befall at least some consumers. You might judge that harm worth the other tradeoffs, but it’s not zero.
      - wayneftw 6y ago
        And my argument is that some harm is already happening to some consumers [0, 1] and some more harm is already happening to the many, many developers who have complained about Apple's reprehensible behavior surrounding their app store. With a law that requires Apple to open their platform to allow actually usable sideloading and/or competing app stores, we'd have removed more harm than we've added. [0] Me, for example since I can't even comfortably put a program, that I wrote, onto my own device without paying Apple $100 a year. [1] Every one of my business customers who wants a native app for their customers who they already had a relationship with before Apple came along and stuck their nose in to say what we could and could not do with our customers customers devices.
        wcarey 6y ago
        That's good - we've moved from no harm to a balancing competing harms, which I think reflects the reality of the situation. There's a spectrum of what you're allowed to do software-wise with various computing devices you purchase. One the one extreme, you have something like a washing machine. It's a computing device running a particular suite of software that is essentially impossible for the end user to modify or replace. Many (most?) embedded systems are like this. On the other extreme, you've got open hardware platforms like the Arduino where you can do whatever you want with the software for a very large value of "whatever you want". The Raspberry Pi is in the middle, but very close to the Arduino. A Nintendo is somewhere in the middle but close do the dishwasher. Android devices are somewhere in the middle, but closer to the Arduino than the dishwasher (though this varies between devices and manufacturers). iOS devices are, again, somewhere in the middle. Much is allowed. Some things are not. OS X devices are closer to the Arduino than iOS devices are. That's also an intentional choice by Apple. The placement of iOS along that spectrum is an intentional choice by Apple that customers have proven to support by buying iOS devices in prodigious quantity. It's not obvious to me that taking a market leading choice in that spectrum and removing it produces less harm in the balance. It might, but it also might not. I'd be inclined to let people vote with their wallet as long as viable alternatives abound, which they do.

by wcarey 6y ago

wayneftw 6y ago

> I can suggest that you run your app business on another platform... Did you miss the part where I said that 50% of my customers use an iPhone? To be clear: 50% of the general population in the United States uses an iPhone. 90% of the youth market uses an iPhone. That doesn't leave much of a choice for developers at all. You simply cannot have a successful app business in the US without being on Apple's app store. Meanwhile, there are millions of potential employers in the United States.

wcarey 6y ago
For some definition of "app business", sure. But there are plenty of companies making plenty of money in software without touching any app store. To be sure, Apple's popularity puts them in a really good negotiating position with respect to developers who want to sell certain kinds of software.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  Agreed. But, for the sake of those app businesses that fit the right definition, we should allow for a choice of sideloading or competing app stores. And no harm would come to consumers by giving them that choice.
  - wcarey 6y ago
    My argument is that some harm does befall at least some consumers. You might judge that harm worth the other tradeoffs, but it’s not zero.
    - wayneftw 6y ago
      And my argument is that some harm is already happening to some consumers [0, 1] and some more harm is already happening to the many, many developers who have complained about Apple's reprehensible behavior surrounding their app store. With a law that requires Apple to open their platform to allow actually usable sideloading and/or competing app stores, we'd have removed more harm than we've added. [0] Me, for example since I can't even comfortably put a program, that I wrote, onto my own device without paying Apple $100 a year. [1] Every one of my business customers who wants a native app for their customers who they already had a relationship with before Apple came along and stuck their nose in to say what we could and could not do with our customers customers devices.
      - wcarey 6y ago
        That's good - we've moved from no harm to a balancing competing harms, which I think reflects the reality of the situation. There's a spectrum of what you're allowed to do software-wise with various computing devices you purchase. One the one extreme, you have something like a washing machine. It's a computing device running a particular suite of software that is essentially impossible for the end user to modify or replace. Many (most?) embedded systems are like this. On the other extreme, you've got open hardware platforms like the Arduino where you can do whatever you want with the software for a very large value of "whatever you want". The Raspberry Pi is in the middle, but very close to the Arduino. A Nintendo is somewhere in the middle but close do the dishwasher. Android devices are somewhere in the middle, but closer to the Arduino than the dishwasher (though this varies between devices and manufacturers). iOS devices are, again, somewhere in the middle. Much is allowed. Some things are not. OS X devices are closer to the Arduino than iOS devices are. That's also an intentional choice by Apple. The placement of iOS along that spectrum is an intentional choice by Apple that customers have proven to support by buying iOS devices in prodigious quantity. It's not obvious to me that taking a market leading choice in that spectrum and removing it produces less harm in the balance. It might, but it also might not. I'd be inclined to let people vote with their wallet as long as viable alternatives abound, which they do.