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Ultimately the Apple App Store isn’t a commons and Apple has no obligation to host your app there. Likewise iOS is their product and they have no obligation to

by taneq 5y ago

Ultimately the Apple App Store isn’t a commons and Apple has no obligation to host your app there. Likewise iOS is their product and they have no obligation to grant any third party access to it. Whether they should be reclassified as some sort of public utility is another discussion.

danShumway 5y ago
Woah, classifying the store as a commons or turning it into a public utility is a pretty big leap over any interpretation of this ruling I had seen from any news outlet. The question I have is whether or not this ruling opens the door for collecting commissions made on other platforms outside of iOS, or whether we think that's likely to be something Apple can get away with if apps like Netflix or Gacha games start linking to their websites. Currently, Apple does not attempt to do anything like that. There is a pretty big gulf between a judge saying "anti-steering is anti-competitive" and a judge saying, "you can't decide what apps go in your store." I haven't seen any interpretation of this ruling that says the latter happened.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Judges just apply the law as it is. We want to change the law.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    Okay, but I don't think that's really the current discussion? It feels to me like a lot of people are talking about separate things here and trying to kind of mash them together. I'm interested in this ruling. I'm not saying that the ruling means that Apple isn't anti-competitive in general or in other ways, I'm not saying that an anti-steering ban would solve the entire situation, I'm not telling activists to go home, I'm not advocating for a specific solution. I'm asking about what the current implications are of this case. The parent poster was not saying that they wanted the App Store to be turned into a public utility, they were pointing out that this ruling didn't turn it into a public utility. Which... correct, but I don't think anybody anywhere was claiming that it did. A judge restricting anti-steering rules or ruling that a specific business practice is anti-competitive is not even remotely equivalent to turning the App Store into a commons.

by taneq 5y ago

danShumway 5y ago

Woah, classifying the store as a commons or turning it into a public utility is a pretty big leap over any interpretation of this ruling I had seen from any news outlet. The question I have is whether or not this ruling opens the door for collecting commissions made on other platforms outside of iOS, or whether we think that's likely to be something Apple can get away with if apps like Netflix or Gacha games start linking to their websites. Currently, Apple does not attempt to do anything like that. There is a pretty big gulf between a judge saying "anti-steering is anti-competitive" and a judge saying, "you can't decide what apps go in your store." I haven't seen any interpretation of this ruling that says the latter happened.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Judges just apply the law as it is. We want to change the law.
- danShumway 5y ago
  Okay, but I don't think that's really the current discussion? It feels to me like a lot of people are talking about separate things here and trying to kind of mash them together. I'm interested in this ruling. I'm not saying that the ruling means that Apple isn't anti-competitive in general or in other ways, I'm not saying that an anti-steering ban would solve the entire situation, I'm not telling activists to go home, I'm not advocating for a specific solution. I'm asking about what the current implications are of this case. The parent poster was not saying that they wanted the App Store to be turned into a public utility, they were pointing out that this ruling didn't turn it into a public utility. Which... correct, but I don't think anybody anywhere was claiming that it did. A judge restricting anti-steering rules or ruling that a specific business practice is anti-competitive is not even remotely equivalent to turning the App Store into a commons.