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I am looking at with a different perspective: I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. And they are regulating developers and they have huge negoti

I am looking at with a different perspective: I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. And they are regulating developers and they have huge negotiating power because they are gateway to user’s phone. I don’t see them as market participant, I more likely see them as market regulator.

hellisothers 6y ago
It is wrong to deny me the free choice of an ecosystem with only one store then. You wouldn’t walk into a town with only one grocery store and car dealership and demand a second one open “because freedom”. Maybe that town likes it that way and if you don’t then you don’t need to live there.
Mindwipe 6y ago
> I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. Unions are broadly democratic institutions. Apple isn't.
realityking 6y ago
> I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. While I'm decidedly not Epic's side on this I think this is a misleading and dangerous argument. In a union, members get to vote to change the rules to benefit the membership. Apple never asked for my input on App Store rules.
- quesera 6y ago
  > Apple never asked for my input on App Store rules. But they really did. They asked "Walled garden, restrictive app publishing, no BS", or "Sideload to your heart's content", you choose! And Apple customers said "Walled garden, please and thank you!" This is a completely respectable choice -- but of course it is not everyone's choice! I was unintentionally (and unexpectedly) a unionized employee once. They didn't ask me to ratify their agenda, but they did require me to pay dues!
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > But they really did. No they didn't. Choosing whether there is a walled store and choosing what gets into the store are two different things. And on top of that, you didn't even get the first choice independent of a hundred other variables like hardware, operating system, app availability, the network effect of peers with iMessage etc. To really drive this home, keep in mind that the same argument could be applied to giving Comcast control over which websites and video streaming services you can use. If you don't like it, just choose to move out of their service area. So if you choose to subscribe to Comcast then you must want that, right? > They didn't ask me to ratify their agenda, but they did require me to pay dues! Actually they did. Union members get to elect the union leadership. Apple customers don't get to elect the Apple leadership. And if a union set your union dues at 30% of your salary, how long do you think it would take for them to get voted out?
    - quesera 6y ago
      This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area. Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget. ... Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area. That's why the analogy fits -- if you have an iPhone you're in Apple's service area. You can't get your apps from Google Play unless you move to their platform. But having both a cable provider and a telco in the same area is actually very common. And even if there is a strong competitor (singular), e.g. FiOS, it's still hugely problematic. You choose Comcast and you only get Comcast video service, you choose FiOS and only get FiOS video service, no option for Netflix or YouTube because there are still only two of them and neither of them want you to use that over theirs. The forces of competition don't actually work if they both know they can get away with it as long as the other one does and the market is concentrated enough with sufficient barriers to entry that they don't have to worry about newcomers. Which is true of both ISPs and phone platforms. > Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget. Buying a new phone (~$1000) compared to buying an app (~$1). Then re-buy all your existing apps, because new platform. Learn the other OS, training cost. Any apps that don't exist there, like iMessage? Problematic. Move all your data from iCloud to Google. It's very much like moving house. > Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored. Equivalency would be the customers electing Apple's board, which they don't. Equivalency would be an actual co-op store which you do get to elect the leadership of. The thing you're claiming is that it would be just as good to have an unaccountable union because you could always go work for another company (which had its own unaccountable union). And we could do even better -- because it's not like unions are a panacea -- and have a co-op store which isn't tied to specific hardware or a platform, which you can choose to opt out of without simultaneously opting out of anything else. Which is what you would be able to have in a competitive market.
- gwd 6y ago
  But that's part of what you're buying when you buy Apple. It would be one thing if Apple controlled 86% of the mobile phone market, and you as a consumer (or an app developer) didn't have much choice; but actually Apple only controls 14% of the smartphone market[1]. Both consumers and developers have lots of other options. [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share...
  - nvrspyx 6y ago
    I think we're mostly contextualizing this to the US, where Apple has over 50% (~58% last I checked) of the market, which is where most competition of their own apps exist. Last I checked, iOS had ~24% of global market share. Regardless, 14% of 3.5 billion is still so ridiculously large that each phone OS should be considered their own market, not competitors within the same market. You wouldn't consider a microwave and a toaster oven to be in the same market, even if they're both kitchen appliances that heat up food because they're individual markets. Not all people want a microwave and not all people can afford a toaster oven due to space or financial priorities. In the world of tech, where there's no real definitive line between markets and any one company can have an audience of more people than any monopoly in the past, the old ways of drawing a line in the sand based on a percentage no longer works.
    - gwd 6y ago
      > Last I checked, iOS had ~24% of global market share. The link in my reference showed Apple at 14% of the global smartphone market for many years. Do you have a reference you think is more reliable? Similarly, they have Apple in the US at between 40-49% the last 6 quarters: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh... While that's not 14%, it's certainly not a monopoly. Consumers don't have to worry that if they switch to one of those 51% that they're on a platform that nobody else will use. Epic and Spotify and Kindle could make tons of money selling to the other 51% of phones in the US; and if Apple's terms were actually difficult for them to make money from, they could just not make iOS apps, and be perfectly healthy companies. The fact that they do sell on iOS shows that they are making plenty of money, just not as much as they'd like.
nvrspyx 6y ago
> I don't see them as market participant But they are. There are competing apps to Apple's own apps on the App Store. Apple Music is an obvious example, but there's also web browsers, email clients, calendar clients, cloud storage, etc. Through their "market regulation" and using privileged APIs, they can artificially hold competitors back from reaching or surpassing parity of said competing apps. Their "regulation" has forced all web browsers to use Safari on the backend without the benefits of things like content blockers. Their "regulation" has forced all apps to not be able to cut off a trial if they cancel the subscription renewal while hypocritically doing just that for things like Apple Arcade and Apple TV if you cancel the subscription before the trial is over. Their "regulation" has blocked out any competition to Apple Arcade like xCloud or Stadia. Their "regulation" has, until iOS 14 (still in a limited fashion), kept any other app from being a default and if those stock apps are deleted, annoy users to the point of reinstalling them due to popups when tapping an email address, date/time, or street address. These are all ways that they secure their spot above the competition on their own devices and hold progression back until they're ready to implement competitive features (read: probably when competition starts poaching users from them despite the disadvantages they impose on said competition). A participant in the market, which they most certainly are, should not be regulating that market and also profiting off of that regulation. This is how a manufacturer of only 3 types of devices is the most valuable company in the world. I can't think of any other company that has an entire market, or at least the size of App Store market, completely enveloped under their reign.

hellisothers 6y ago

It is wrong to deny me the free choice of an ecosystem with only one store then. You wouldn’t walk into a town with only one grocery store and car dealership and demand a second one open “because freedom”. Maybe that town likes it that way and if you don’t then you don’t need to live there.

Mindwipe 6y ago

> I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. Unions are broadly democratic institutions. Apple isn't.

realityking 6y ago

> I am thinking Apple is like a union for their users. While I'm decidedly not Epic's side on this I think this is a misleading and dangerous argument. In a union, members get to vote to change the rules to benefit the membership. Apple never asked for my input on App Store rules.

quesera 6y ago
> Apple never asked for my input on App Store rules. But they really did. They asked "Walled garden, restrictive app publishing, no BS", or "Sideload to your heart's content", you choose! And Apple customers said "Walled garden, please and thank you!" This is a completely respectable choice -- but of course it is not everyone's choice! I was unintentionally (and unexpectedly) a unionized employee once. They didn't ask me to ratify their agenda, but they did require me to pay dues!
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > But they really did. No they didn't. Choosing whether there is a walled store and choosing what gets into the store are two different things. And on top of that, you didn't even get the first choice independent of a hundred other variables like hardware, operating system, app availability, the network effect of peers with iMessage etc. To really drive this home, keep in mind that the same argument could be applied to giving Comcast control over which websites and video streaming services you can use. If you don't like it, just choose to move out of their service area. So if you choose to subscribe to Comcast then you must want that, right? > They didn't ask me to ratify their agenda, but they did require me to pay dues! Actually they did. Union members get to elect the union leadership. Apple customers don't get to elect the Apple leadership. And if a union set your union dues at 30% of your salary, how long do you think it would take for them to get voted out?
  - quesera 6y ago
    This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area. Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget. ... Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > This is nothing like Comcast. There are very rarely two cable providers in a given area. That's why the analogy fits -- if you have an iPhone you're in Apple's service area. You can't get your apps from Google Play unless you move to their platform. But having both a cable provider and a telco in the same area is actually very common. And even if there is a strong competitor (singular), e.g. FiOS, it's still hugely problematic. You choose Comcast and you only get Comcast video service, you choose FiOS and only get FiOS video service, no option for Netflix or YouTube because there are still only two of them and neither of them want you to use that over theirs. The forces of competition don't actually work if they both know they can get away with it as long as the other one does and the market is concentrated enough with sufficient barriers to entry that they don't have to worry about newcomers. Which is true of both ISPs and phone platforms. > Moving house is not equivalent to buying a different consumer gadget. Buying a new phone (~$1000) compared to buying an app (~$1). Then re-buy all your existing apps, because new platform. Learn the other OS, training cost. Any apps that don't exist there, like iMessage? Problematic. Move all your data from iCloud to Google. It's very much like moving house. > Union members get to elect union leadership. Phone customers get to elect phone manufacturers. Equivalency restored. Equivalency would be the customers electing Apple's board, which they don't. Equivalency would be an actual co-op store which you do get to elect the leadership of. The thing you're claiming is that it would be just as good to have an unaccountable union because you could always go work for another company (which had its own unaccountable union). And we could do even better -- because it's not like unions are a panacea -- and have a co-op store which isn't tied to specific hardware or a platform, which you can choose to opt out of without simultaneously opting out of anything else. Which is what you would be able to have in a competitive market.
gwd 6y ago
But that's part of what you're buying when you buy Apple. It would be one thing if Apple controlled 86% of the mobile phone market, and you as a consumer (or an app developer) didn't have much choice; but actually Apple only controls 14% of the smartphone market[1]. Both consumers and developers have lots of other options. [1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share...
- nvrspyx 6y ago
  I think we're mostly contextualizing this to the US, where Apple has over 50% (~58% last I checked) of the market, which is where most competition of their own apps exist. Last I checked, iOS had ~24% of global market share. Regardless, 14% of 3.5 billion is still so ridiculously large that each phone OS should be considered their own market, not competitors within the same market. You wouldn't consider a microwave and a toaster oven to be in the same market, even if they're both kitchen appliances that heat up food because they're individual markets. Not all people want a microwave and not all people can afford a toaster oven due to space or financial priorities. In the world of tech, where there's no real definitive line between markets and any one company can have an audience of more people than any monopoly in the past, the old ways of drawing a line in the sand based on a percentage no longer works.
  - gwd 6y ago
    > Last I checked, iOS had ~24% of global market share. The link in my reference showed Apple at 14% of the global smartphone market for many years. Do you have a reference you think is more reliable? Similarly, they have Apple in the US at between 40-49% the last 6 quarters: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh... While that's not 14%, it's certainly not a monopoly. Consumers don't have to worry that if they switch to one of those 51% that they're on a platform that nobody else will use. Epic and Spotify and Kindle could make tons of money selling to the other 51% of phones in the US; and if Apple's terms were actually difficult for them to make money from, they could just not make iOS apps, and be perfectly healthy companies. The fact that they do sell on iOS shows that they are making plenty of money, just not as much as they'd like.

nvrspyx 6y ago

> I don't see them as market participant But they are. There are competing apps to Apple's own apps on the App Store. Apple Music is an obvious example, but there's also web browsers, email clients, calendar clients, cloud storage, etc. Through their "market regulation" and using privileged APIs, they can artificially hold competitors back from reaching or surpassing parity of said competing apps. Their "regulation" has forced all web browsers to use Safari on the backend without the benefits of things like content blockers. Their "regulation" has forced all apps to not be able to cut off a trial if they cancel the subscription renewal while hypocritically doing just that for things like Apple Arcade and Apple TV if you cancel the subscription before the trial is over. Their "regulation" has blocked out any competition to Apple Arcade like xCloud or Stadia. Their "regulation" has, until iOS 14 (still in a limited fashion), kept any other app from being a default and if those stock apps are deleted, annoy users to the point of reinstalling them due to popups when tapping an email address, date/time, or street address. These are all ways that they secure their spot above the competition on their own devices and hold progression back until they're ready to implement competitive features (read: probably when competition starts poaching users from them despite the disadvantages they impose on said competition). A participant in the market, which they most certainly are, should not be regulating that market and also profiting off of that regulation. This is how a manufacturer of only 3 types of devices is the most valuable company in the world. I can't think of any other company that has an entire market, or at least the size of App Store market, completely enveloped under their reign.