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I get that you're happy because Apple has now explicitly permitted what you were doing. I'm less clear on why you're happy that they didn't allow more stuff, l

I get that you're happy because Apple has now explicitly permitted what you were doing. I'm less clear on why you're happy that they didn't allow more stuff, like renting by the minute or for arbitrary purposes. You seem to depict companies that were doing this as "below board", while you as "above board". This is certainly true now, but before the changes both would have been a grey area - I don't see much of a difference. Would I be correct saying that you're happy because in one stroke Apple has moved you from grey area to explicitly permitted, and part of your competition from grey area to explicitly forbidden? For the record in no way I think that Apple took this decision to favor you or anyone else except themselves. It just seems that you won a regulatory lottery.

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
Why did you say he is happy that apple “doesn’t allow more stuff”?
pbronez 6y ago
Regulations benefit incumbents. That holds whether the regulations are national laws or corporate policies. When you make new rules, the established ecosystem adapts and doubles down while new players have a harder time getting started.
- addicted 6y ago
  This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents. An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company. If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations. The counterbalance to this should be public pressure and political action, but incumbents recognizing that do much to dissuade the public from pushing for such action, including convincing people of pithy, but 180 degrees wrong ideas such as “regulations always benefit incumbents”.
  - kgantchev 6y ago
    > This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents. The intended purpose is to help the new entrants, but I don't see Microsoft or AT&T losing anything or their smaller competitors gaining anything after the regulatory action against them. > An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company. That's a matter of negotiation. I always (successfully) negotiated with my employer to exclude my personal projects from the contract. I find that employees have a lot more negotiating power than they realize. > If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations. I think that's synonymous with the original statement made by OP. You're just providing another reason why it's true.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      I don't see ... AT&T losing anything AT&T lost big. It ended up going bankrupt. The "AT&T" you know today is not the same company. It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. It did so because AT&T was a more valuable brand than Southwestern Bell. Looks like it worked.
      - sea_level 6y ago
        Technically Southwestern Bell was spun off from the AT&T breakup from the 80's. So basically SBC was one of many companies spun off from AT&T, then it bought up several of the other Baby Bell companies spun off, too. Really, it was AT&T buying AT&T. It worked on paper, but the victor was still from the same tree.
      - kgantchev 6y ago
        Microsoft didn't lose anything. > It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. Southwestern Bell was the same subsidiary that broke off from AT&T Corporation. AT&T Inc was the merger of the companies that were originally broken up from AT&T Corporation. Here is the org chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bell... AT&T became even bigger after the breakup: https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bell-system-2018-02 https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bel... You think that AT&T Corporation going broke and selling to a company that originated from the AT&T Corporation, which later renamed itself to AT&T Inc is a good example of a government-imposed corporate breakup?! It literally divested from those companies only to have most of them merge under the same name again.
kgantchev 6y ago
> Would I be correct saying that you're happy because in one stroke Apple has moved you from grey area to explicitly permitted, and part of your competition from grey area to explicitly forbidden? I don't know how any competition would be negatively impacted by Apple implementing these terms, unless the competition was already selling services that were on a short-term basis (below 24 hours). And to circle back around, this EULA enables MacStadium's hardware hosting competition to enter the market... thus comes Amazon into the playing field. I just don't see how having to compete with Amazon is, all of a sudden, a better deal for MacStadium. If anything, it just highlights the volatile nature of running a business in the Apple ecosystem. > For the record in no way I think that Apple took this decision to favor you or anyone else except themselves. It just seems that you won a regulatory lottery. "Congratulations, you're a winner... your prize is to compete with Amazon!" Some would certainly wear it with a badge of honor!
- Alex3917 6y ago
  Why wouldn't Apple just let people rent out computers for any amount of time, as long as they don't contain music or movies? I can understand why Apple would wan't someone to pay $3.99 to rent a movie for 48 hours, and then sub-rent that movie a couple dozen times. But why do they care about someone running CI?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Because tens of thousands of devs working on other platforms would be able to rent a Mac for half an hour, build their cross-platform framework code as an XCode project, and then submit to the App Store, without ever touching a Mac, testing on a Mac, and so on. At least this puts a barrier to entry.
    - kgantchev 6y ago
      This one!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago

Why did you say he is happy that apple “doesn’t allow more stuff”?

pbronez 6y ago

Regulations benefit incumbents. That holds whether the regulations are national laws or corporate policies. When you make new rules, the established ecosystem adapts and doubles down while new players have a harder time getting started.

addicted 6y ago
This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents. An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company. If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations. The counterbalance to this should be public pressure and political action, but incumbents recognizing that do much to dissuade the public from pushing for such action, including convincing people of pithy, but 180 degrees wrong ideas such as “regulations always benefit incumbents”.
- kgantchev 6y ago
  > This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents. The intended purpose is to help the new entrants, but I don't see Microsoft or AT&T losing anything or their smaller competitors gaining anything after the regulatory action against them. > An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company. That's a matter of negotiation. I always (successfully) negotiated with my employer to exclude my personal projects from the contract. I find that employees have a lot more negotiating power than they realize. > If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations. I think that's synonymous with the original statement made by OP. You're just providing another reason why it's true.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I don't see ... AT&T losing anything AT&T lost big. It ended up going bankrupt. The "AT&T" you know today is not the same company. It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. It did so because AT&T was a more valuable brand than Southwestern Bell. Looks like it worked.
    - sea_level 6y ago
      Technically Southwestern Bell was spun off from the AT&T breakup from the 80's. So basically SBC was one of many companies spun off from AT&T, then it bought up several of the other Baby Bell companies spun off, too. Really, it was AT&T buying AT&T. It worked on paper, but the victor was still from the same tree.
    - kgantchev 6y ago
      Microsoft didn't lose anything. > It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. Southwestern Bell was the same subsidiary that broke off from AT&T Corporation. AT&T Inc was the merger of the companies that were originally broken up from AT&T Corporation. Here is the org chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bell... AT&T became even bigger after the breakup: https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bell-system-2018-02 https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bel... You think that AT&T Corporation going broke and selling to a company that originated from the AT&T Corporation, which later renamed itself to AT&T Inc is a good example of a government-imposed corporate breakup?! It literally divested from those companies only to have most of them merge under the same name again.

kgantchev 6y ago

> Would I be correct saying that you're happy because in one stroke Apple has moved you from grey area to explicitly permitted, and part of your competition from grey area to explicitly forbidden? I don't know how any competition would be negatively impacted by Apple implementing these terms, unless the competition was already selling services that were on a short-term basis (below 24 hours). And to circle back around, this EULA enables MacStadium's hardware hosting competition to enter the market... thus comes Amazon into the playing field. I just don't see how having to compete with Amazon is, all of a sudden, a better deal for MacStadium. If anything, it just highlights the volatile nature of running a business in the Apple ecosystem. > For the record in no way I think that Apple took this decision to favor you or anyone else except themselves. It just seems that you won a regulatory lottery. "Congratulations, you're a winner... your prize is to compete with Amazon!" Some would certainly wear it with a badge of honor!

Alex3917 6y ago
Why wouldn't Apple just let people rent out computers for any amount of time, as long as they don't contain music or movies? I can understand why Apple would wan't someone to pay $3.99 to rent a movie for 48 hours, and then sub-rent that movie a couple dozen times. But why do they care about someone running CI?
- coldtea 6y ago
  Because tens of thousands of devs working on other platforms would be able to rent a Mac for half an hour, build their cross-platform framework code as an XCode project, and then submit to the App Store, without ever touching a Mac, testing on a Mac, and so on. At least this puts a barrier to entry.
  - kgantchev 6y ago
    This one!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]