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Steve Jobs: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010)

395 points by ece 5y ago

tvanderb 5y ago
I really don't understand why it's such a big deal Apple wants to restrict people to use their payment system. It's their platform and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?
- dheera 5y ago
  They charge a 30% cut of payments and they just want their money.
- bilekas 5y ago
  I believe they can.. but there's a fair use issue, I'm not sure if you can create a market and then just corner it. There was a recent supreme Court ruling I believe that suggested Apple have to allow other payment options. But they are free to kick off whoever they want..
- exit 5y ago
  in general then, do you think anti-monopoly & consumer protection regulatory efforts should be thrown out?
- advisedwang 5y ago
  Because it's bad for consumers. We will end up paying more for these services if we allow these kinds of practices to continue. We will lose the ability to keep content we have bought if we move between services or don't want to keep up paying subscriptions. Being a private company doesn't mean you just get to do whatever you want.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity, would you also say it’s within Apple’s rights to tax a portion of all transactions on the phone, including: 1. purchases of physical goods on the Amazon app 2. food deliveries on Doordash 3. money transfers initiated through the Chase banking app? If in future years all commerce moves to devices, Apple and Google have a duopoly, and they decide to tax the entire economy, is there any limiting principle? Or do they just get to take some % of GDP as profits? Is that a fair price for the contribution to society of getting to market first with smartphones and building a moat? If there is a limit, then we should figure out what it is.
  - shoto_io 5y ago
    Why shouldn't they? It's their platform. People could just not code apps for the iPhone and consumers could use other devices. Couldn't they?
    - HideousKojima 5y ago
      > It's their platform. And it's the user's phone, which they should be free to use however they see fit. Even if that means installing software from places other than Apple's store.
    - cool_dude85 5y ago
      How far down this rabbit hole are you willing to go? Can the electric company ask for a 30% cut on anything you buy using their electrons? People would just build their own distribution lines to the electric company down the road if they didn't like it. How about your landlord charging a 30% cut if you want to take your amazon package inside his house? Don't like it, go build your own home.
      - zchrykng 5y ago
        Don't forget the company that made your car, the company that supplied gas for that car, the company that built the refrigerator that keeps your food cold, etc when you go get groceries. I think that comes to 90+% going to other companies.
      - czzr 5y ago
        For the landlord example - sure, if for some bizarre reason a tenant would agree to that. Presumably no one would, and so the landlord would lose out and stop.
        yholio 5y ago
        It's all fun and games until a single mega real estate corporation owns 80% of all housing stock. In real estate that can't happen, in tech it can.
- can16358p 5y ago
  I totally agree with you personally, but unfortunately the antitrust law doesn't work that way. It's your company and you've put years and millions (if not billions) hours of human work and created a system, and others start having rights on something that you've created privately. But unfortunately this is the case and telling this simple fact gets you downvoted to otherside of Earth on HN.
  - oaiey 5y ago
    The same arguments is true for apps. You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue. Apps follow the AppStore law. Apple follows US law. And the later includes some social aspects like Anti-Trust laws, consumer rights, etc. Companies exist in a nation. A nation serves its citizens. So when a company is treating the citizens bad, a nation has all the rights to enforce whatever is needed. Hence antitrust laws.
    - nanidin 5y ago
      > You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue This seems a bit disingenuous. A more accurate take might be that you sign up for the Apple developer program, and in doing so agree to the terms of service including the cut that Apple will take from each sale. Then you begin working on the app, then you release the app, then Apple keeps the cut that was contractually agreed upon. There is no stealing, and anyone that puts in years of effort into an app is surely aware of the cut Apple takes before making that effort.
      - noptd 5y ago
        So if you knowingly open a store in a neighborhood "protected" by the mafia, it would be unfair to characterize a protection payment as stealing? Sure, they're providing a service but that service is only necessary because of the mafia's market capture and threat of punishment in the first place.
    - can16358p 5y ago
      Apple didn't treat anyone bad. They had the rules set up day 1, and there is always the option to switch to Android (both from a user or dev perspective). It's a private company, their store, their rules, which has roughly been always the same. And I'm saying this as an iOS developer. When I develop something I'm fully aware of what can be copied, what is allowed, what payment methods can be used etc upfront, and I accept the rules and don't try to change a private company's own platform's rules.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  "It's their X and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?" sounds like a really shitty world to live in. Imagine if your ISP could tax your data at different rates depending on where it originated from because "it's their copper and they're a private company", or if Nokia could charge Apple $1000 per device sold because "it's their patents and they're a private company". The latter example of course would have made it completely impossible for the iPhone to ever exist since Nokia could've just priced them beyond all reason.
  - czzr 5y ago
    Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents - so they charge a price the market will bear, that maximises their profit. Obviously the market can bear 30% for Apple. And this is actually unsurprising because the number used to be more like 50% when software was sold in physical stores. You’re free to think that’s too much, of course, and refuse to pay it.
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      >Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents You have fun making a phone without any Nokia patents. Just as a reminder, Nokia has patents in 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, H.264, H.265, H.266 and WLAN. There's a reason why Nokia is not allowed to charge whatever they want. But hey, if you have an idea on how to make a phone without licensing any of Nokia's patents, go ahead.
      - czzr 5y ago
        Nokia entered into agreements promising not to charge excessive amounts, that’s why their patents were used in all those standards. If they hadn’t signed those agreements their patents would not have been used, and hence would actually have been worth much less.
- oaiey 5y ago
  They are not a "private company" in that sense. With their user segment, they form a market and the app store establishes a "legal" system. Basically their users are citizen of a Apple nation and whoever wants to make business with them, has to follow the "legal system". Consider the free market system (as the economic system of the western world), where you have choice between offerings, then the Apple ecosystem is the exact opposite.
- tengbretson 5y ago
  Yeah! If they don't like it then maybe they should make their own smartphone. Wait.
- pulse7 5y ago
  Apple operates within a country ("platform") and most follow the laws of the country ("platform rules"). Country laws are protecting consumers. So Apple can't do with their platform whatever they want... They could do so on a ship in the middle of the ocean - where no country laws apply - but then they wouldn't have so many customers there...
- dariosalvi78 5y ago
  The problem is that developers and companies are obliged to accept these practices because they control 50% of peoples' devices. It's not just a "private company" any longer, it has become a public infrastructure.
bilekas 5y ago
That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would violate their TOS by accessing a library of books. Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? Thus bypassing the apple payment option? If that is the case it seems like a bit of a stretch.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer going to fly. I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30% cut payment system.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook customers could be served by their own platforms just as well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.
- paxys 5y ago
  The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle iPhone app without using IAP. From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    This was before the iPad launched and right around the time that iPhone sales began to dwarf Kindle sales so you're close but not entirely correct.
post_break 5y ago
Don't forget Apple got caught red handed price fixing ebooks.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
  Don’t forget Apple got caught red handed fixing engineers’ salaries by colluding with Google.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Call Apple what it is. An evil, overpowered marketplace. Anti-stallman, anti-web, anti-computing freedom, anti-engineer, anti-privacy, spy panopticon. Poser.
    - askonomm 5y ago
      I wonder why HN folk are so bitter about Apple. Did you guys send your resume and they never got back to you or what's the reason? It seems just odd to me to hate on something to this level.
      - echelon 5y ago
        Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and serfdom. Why don't you see that? The only reason I'd work for Apple is to send the horrific things they do to my representatives and the Department of Justice. Emails. Meeting notes. Admissions of anticompetitive behavior. Not a bad idea, but I think I'll have more impact elsewhere.
        GiorgioG 5y ago
        > Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and serfdom. Why don't you see that? Amazon, Google & Microsoft are just as guilty of this with their cloud platforms.
        5y ago
twobitshifter 5y ago
This is not a good look for Apple but par for the course for a ruthless company. As an aside, it’s totally different seeing “Sent from my iPhone” when it’s Steve Jobs sending it from his iPhone.
- echelon 5y ago
  Apple is a ruthless company. We should stop personifying them and idolizing the products they make. Look at the chess moves. They're a monster. It should terrify you that some of the best products on the market are owned by a company that wants to extract as much as it can from the rest of us. They're no different from Oracle, just with good products. It's a winning strategy, and they're now positioned to sink their claws deeper. They've decimated the competition leaving you with a device that costs too much, isn't repairable, doesn't run untaxed software, and spies on you. The next moves will lock you down even harder. Like seriously people. We're empowering "I have no mouth and want to scream". We're making it come true. An Orwellian, Stallman-killing nightmare. The anti-web. In a posh, glossy finish.
  - czzr 5y ago
    Unlike Google and Facebook, say, Apple doesn’t have a strong network effect lock-in. If they stop making the best products they’re much easier to switch away from. They have some weak network effects with iMessage (in some markets) and convenience around iPhotos, but nothing serious.
    - twobitshifter 5y ago
      Socially it’s limited to iMessage and FaceTime, but I’d say the lock-in if you own a watch, MacBook, AirPods, and /or iPad is very strong. There’s no other company that offers that level of integration across your devices.
  - josho 5y ago
    > Look at the chess moves. They're a monster. Brilliantly said. In the early days of MP3s I ripped all my CDs and refused to get that content locked into Microsoft's platform as I wanted control. Today I find myself so deeply tied to Apple's platform that I don't think I can get out. I think we need the government to step in and require open APIs when a company is vertically integrated to allow competition in. E.g. you built the phone and the cloud service. Fine every cloud service app on the phone has to support an API that allows me to use the phone with a different vendor's cloud service. And we have precedent for this too, e.g. at one point I could only buy a landline phone from Bell, the gov. came along and told ATT they had to allow other companies to provide landline phones that would run on Bell's network. My photos library is larger than disk space, so if I wanted to export photos out of the cloud I'd probably have to do it manually in stages. And I've lost my original MP3s somewhere along the line. Yikes.
ignoramous 5y ago
Philip Schiller: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010) ftfy
- hitekker 5y ago
  The second screenshot shows Steve saying "force them to use our far superior payment system" and the fourth one is him ordering his subordinate to make it so.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    That part about the superior payment system cracks me up when we recently had this: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/02/each-twitter-super-follow-in-app-purchase/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/02/each-twitter-super-foll... >The App Store does not allow for multiple instances of the same subscription, leading other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch to get around this by effectively allowing users to buy a sub-token that can be directed toward a specific creator.
- Invictus0 5y ago
  The title comes from the second image.
TradingPlaces 5y ago
This email is Mecha Jobs
ydnaclementine 5y ago
Want to do a mini PSA that you should (probably) read Steve Jobs' biography if you haven't, it makes posts like this much, much more interesting when you have a fuller background. I wasn't a Steve Jobs fan so I never read it till recently. Still not a huge fan, but you can still see the tendrils of his influence that still affect today's world (adobe flash EOL last year, this stuff by not allowing you to buy books on the kindle/amazon app on iphone, continuing to control hardware and software experience). And you can see how it's gone (4 different ipads, etc)
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I'm not an Apple fanboy, but Jobs deserves all the credit that goes his way for killing Flash. It was a great product, but Macromedia / Adobe demonstrated subsequently that they were in no way a security-responsible long-term maintainer.
  - mrkramer 5y ago
    How many bugs Flash had? Hundreds? Thousands? Anybody knows?
    - bell-cot 5y ago
      From a quick CVE search, less than 1,200 bugs ( https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=adobe+flash https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=adobe+flash ). For practical purposes, ~Aleph-nought.
      - mrkramer 5y ago
        Over 300 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) in 2015 alone: https://www.gsmarena.com/over_300_flash_bugs_were_discovered_this_year-blog-15780.php https://www.gsmarena.com/over_300_flash_bugs_were_discovered...
  - yarcob 5y ago
    Poor performance on Mac was also an issue. Web browsers on the Mac were held back by the fact that Adobes plugin was extremely slow on the Mac, and Adobe didn't care. Apple could write the fastest web browser in the world, but it wouldn't matter if Flash on the Mac had only a fraction of the performance of the Windows version. It was a very smart move to not enable that dependency on the iPhone.
bob229 5y ago
It’s way past time to break up big tech
karaterobot 5y ago
I don't understand this series of emails. Schiller is saying he noticed that Amazon ran an ad where someone bought books on iOS and then read them on an Android. Jobs' response is "let's force Amazon to use our payment system". But weren't they already using it in this case? How does Jobs' point follow from Schiller's example? Schiller then brings up how there's a complementary ad in which an Android user buys books, then reads them on iOS. Jobs' point would make sense if that was the original example, but it wasn't brought up until after he'd responded. Weird. Maybe he was psychic? (j/k) Another thing that doesn't make sense is Schiller's recommendation to ask Amazon to "get in compliance with the rules". It sounds like they were in compliance with the rules, because an exception had been made for them. It seems (from those emails only) like the issue was that Apple made an exception for Amazon they no longer wanted to abide by.
- paxys 5y ago
  Apple made an exception for Amazon (to not have to use IAP for books purchased in the Kindle app). Amazon released an ad showing how easy it was to move books between iOS and Android. Apple didn't like this ad, so revoked the original exception. Amazon removed the ability to purchase books from the Kindle app. End result – experience is shittier for all users, but Apple gets a fraction of a percent more platform lock-in.
  - karaterobot 5y ago
    Thank you, but my question was more about the connection between email 1 and email 2 in that chain. Unless you're saying that Apple had already revoked the exception by the time these emails were sent?
    - VenTatsu 5y ago
      When the Apple App Store first came out there was no in app purchases. Amazon already had a payment infrastructure so when they released the free Kindle app on iOS it used the Amazon payment system. Apple later added in app purchases and changed the contract terms (as the were allowed to do) to require all apps to only use the App Store for IAP, they allowed Kindle to remain unchanged. The exception as just not forcing Amazon to change their app. It was allowed under the old rules, then the rules changed, then the Amazon ad these emails were referencing game out. So at the point of these email the Kindle app was out of compliance with the App Store rules, but Apple was allowing it as an exception because they viewed it as a promotion of Apple products. This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.
lol1lol 5y ago
lawl
pixiemaster 5y ago
Are C-Level Execs really down to that kind of operational detail level (watching a single Ad, etc)?
- cheeze 5y ago
  It sounds like he saw the ad on TV. Seems pretty normal to me?
purple_ferret 5y ago
It's amazing how 'crude' Jobs was. Perfect for chopping through the early 2000's technology frontier, but one has to wonder if he'd flounder in the modern environment.
- duxup 5y ago
  His history indicates Steve was pretty flexible in his POV too over time too. Opinionated for sure, but adaptable.
Valkhyr 5y ago
Despicable.
wefarrell 5y ago
The FTC has been asleep at the wheel with tech companies in the 21st century and consumers have suffered as a result. Apple's locking consumers into their platform, Google's steering traffic towards its sites, Amazon's forcing its merchants to give them preferential treatment. These companies have too much power and we need a government who's willing to take bold steps to curb them.
- ece 5y ago
  Completely agree here. If you think the acquisitions have been the problem, splitting up those parts makes sense, primarily for Facebook, and possibly certain Amazon/Google/Apple acquisitions too. I think a separate Instagram, Waze, even Youtube, and PA Semi would all be successful on their own currently. The other common problematic trait I'd say is some form of bad, lack of or preferential moderation with search results, misinformation, products, and apps. I think regulation like "American Innovation and Choice Online Act[1]” handles this well. If you want to be specific about Apple/Google, the OAMA[2] is good too IMO. [1] https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/documents/American%20Innovation%20and%20Choice%20Online%20Act%20-%20Bill%20Text.pdf https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/... [2] https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8.11.21%20-%20Open%20App%20Markets%20Act%20-%20Bill%20Text.pdf https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8.11.21%20-%...
- llampx 5y ago
  Sometime after 9/11, the US realized that it was in their best interest to have American tech juggernauts, and if they hamstrung their own tech companies with antitrust and anti-competition laws, other countries (China) would not. That was the end of antitrust enforcement on a larger scale for US companies.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    That's a backwards projection. In the early 2000s we were still blithely confident that China would just slot into a world order dominated by us. The end of history and all that. The record was that the Bush administration came in and immediately dropped the MS antitrust case because they were 'pro-business'. I suspect GWB genuinely believed in all this.
sorenjan 5y ago
Schiller comes across as needy and with a very low confidence in their own product. Some other company shows that their product works equally well on both Android and iPhone, and his response is that it's not fun to watch? Also, this should be shown to everyone that says they prefer the Apple ecosystem because "it just works". You really can't get more user hostile than this, where you care more about extracting money from transactions that you're not a part of than making life easier for your paying customers. Apple let Amazon sell books using their own payment system because Amazon sold a lot of books on their own Kindle platform that Apple wanted users to be able to read on iPhones, but as soon as Apple's platform was the biggest one they altered the deal to squeeze more money out of it. Like a monopoly would do.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  Exactly, this was all about leverage, not about the user.
- azinman2 5y ago
  > his response is that it's not fun to watch I read that in reference to it being easy to switch from an iPhone to an Android device.
  - sorenjan 5y ago
    Yes, me too. Is that all he thought it would take to switch? Wasn't Apple's offering good enough that such an insignificant action was all it took for him to get nervous about user flight? I get that he wants his users to be locked in as tightly as possible, but again, it comes across as very low confidence in their own product.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  Ironically, the experience of using the Kindle app on Android has been superior to the experience of using the Kindle app on iOS devices ever since this email thread.
guiomie 5y ago
This twitter account is awesome! I thought this email between Steve Jobs and Adobe CEO was hilarious, the CEO of Adobe refers to his employee as 'population'. https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1407016788240576512 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1407016788240576512
ajaimk 5y ago
These seem like reasonable arguments. An exception was made and times are changing.
- grishka 5y ago
  It's unreasonable for Apple to assume they own a relationship they had no role whatsoever in establishing.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    That's exactly what they were debating. The entire point of this exchange was that the initial agreement was about Kindle customers using iOS devices. Once it changed to iPhone customers buying Kindle books, it absolutely was a relationship they established.
    - grishka 5y ago
      What role did Apple have in establishing it? It's not like people are installing the Kindle app thanks to the app store alone. It's thanks to Amazon's own marketing. Apple made the hardware and the OS, and developers are only publishing their apps on the app store because they have to in order to get them onto iOS devices, not because the app store offers such a great service. I'm pretty sure that given the technical capability, many would bypass the app store with its ridiculous policies and serve the app package straight from their websites. Which, by the way, is exactly what's happening on macOS. Apple is going out of its way trying to make mac app store happen, but developers are clearly having none of it.
      - dkonofalski 5y ago
        If the customer's first point of contact is through an iOS app, then Apple established that relationship. Apple is serving their iPhone customers to Amazon. That's the entire crux of the change. Amazon initially presented their Kindle app as a way for existing customers to read their books on iOS. Once it changed to the point where customers were entering Amazon's ecosystem with iPhone as the first point of contact, Amazon was benefiting from both Apple's customer base and their relaxed terms.
nokya 5y ago
Just curiosity: it seems SJ was including himself in cc to his own emails. Why was that? I can only guess another email address, or some productivity technique to make sure he also had is own emails sorted in specific folders (i.e., not the "sent items").. Anyone has the information?
- 93po 5y ago
  The previous messages don't list recipients. Someone likely emailed SJ at both his personal and professional email at the same time and it just remained due to reply-all. Rich and powerful people deliberately separate personal and work emails (e.g. Hillary Clinton). It helps create privacy, control, and legal protection.
  - nokya 5y ago
    Thanks. I see you included sarcasm but I can't tell up to which point ;)

395 points by ece 5y ago

I really don't understand why it's such a big deal Apple wants to restrict people to use their payment system. It's their platform and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?

dheera 5y ago
They charge a 30% cut of payments and they just want their money.
bilekas 5y ago
I believe they can.. but there's a fair use issue, I'm not sure if you can create a market and then just corner it. There was a recent supreme Court ruling I believe that suggested Apple have to allow other payment options. But they are free to kick off whoever they want..
exit 5y ago
in general then, do you think anti-monopoly & consumer protection regulatory efforts should be thrown out?
advisedwang 5y ago
Because it's bad for consumers. We will end up paying more for these services if we allow these kinds of practices to continue. We will lose the ability to keep content we have bought if we move between services or don't want to keep up paying subscriptions. Being a private company doesn't mean you just get to do whatever you want.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
Just out of curiosity, would you also say it’s within Apple’s rights to tax a portion of all transactions on the phone, including: 1. purchases of physical goods on the Amazon app 2. food deliveries on Doordash 3. money transfers initiated through the Chase banking app? If in future years all commerce moves to devices, Apple and Google have a duopoly, and they decide to tax the entire economy, is there any limiting principle? Or do they just get to take some % of GDP as profits? Is that a fair price for the contribution to society of getting to market first with smartphones and building a moat? If there is a limit, then we should figure out what it is.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  Why shouldn't they? It's their platform. People could just not code apps for the iPhone and consumers could use other devices. Couldn't they?
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    > It's their platform. And it's the user's phone, which they should be free to use however they see fit. Even if that means installing software from places other than Apple's store.
  - cool_dude85 5y ago
    How far down this rabbit hole are you willing to go? Can the electric company ask for a 30% cut on anything you buy using their electrons? People would just build their own distribution lines to the electric company down the road if they didn't like it. How about your landlord charging a 30% cut if you want to take your amazon package inside his house? Don't like it, go build your own home.
    - zchrykng 5y ago
      Don't forget the company that made your car, the company that supplied gas for that car, the company that built the refrigerator that keeps your food cold, etc when you go get groceries. I think that comes to 90+% going to other companies.
    - czzr 5y ago
      For the landlord example - sure, if for some bizarre reason a tenant would agree to that. Presumably no one would, and so the landlord would lose out and stop.
      - yholio 5y ago
        It's all fun and games until a single mega real estate corporation owns 80% of all housing stock. In real estate that can't happen, in tech it can.
can16358p 5y ago
I totally agree with you personally, but unfortunately the antitrust law doesn't work that way. It's your company and you've put years and millions (if not billions) hours of human work and created a system, and others start having rights on something that you've created privately. But unfortunately this is the case and telling this simple fact gets you downvoted to otherside of Earth on HN.
- oaiey 5y ago
  The same arguments is true for apps. You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue. Apps follow the AppStore law. Apple follows US law. And the later includes some social aspects like Anti-Trust laws, consumer rights, etc. Companies exist in a nation. A nation serves its citizens. So when a company is treating the citizens bad, a nation has all the rights to enforce whatever is needed. Hence antitrust laws.
  - nanidin 5y ago
    > You put years in effort and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue This seems a bit disingenuous. A more accurate take might be that you sign up for the Apple developer program, and in doing so agree to the terms of service including the cut that Apple will take from each sale. Then you begin working on the app, then you release the app, then Apple keeps the cut that was contractually agreed upon. There is no stealing, and anyone that puts in years of effort into an app is surely aware of the cut Apple takes before making that effort.
    - noptd 5y ago
      So if you knowingly open a store in a neighborhood "protected" by the mafia, it would be unfair to characterize a protection payment as stealing? Sure, they're providing a service but that service is only necessary because of the mafia's market capture and threat of punishment in the first place.
  - can16358p 5y ago
    Apple didn't treat anyone bad. They had the rules set up day 1, and there is always the option to switch to Android (both from a user or dev perspective). It's a private company, their store, their rules, which has roughly been always the same. And I'm saying this as an iOS developer. When I develop something I'm fully aware of what can be copied, what is allowed, what payment methods can be used etc upfront, and I accept the rules and don't try to change a private company's own platform's rules.
Hamuko 5y ago
"It's their X and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they want?" sounds like a really shitty world to live in. Imagine if your ISP could tax your data at different rates depending on where it originated from because "it's their copper and they're a private company", or if Nokia could charge Apple $1000 per device sold because "it's their patents and they're a private company". The latter example of course would have made it completely impossible for the iPhone to ever exist since Nokia could've just priced them beyond all reason.
- czzr 5y ago
  Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents - so they charge a price the market will bear, that maximises their profit. Obviously the market can bear 30% for Apple. And this is actually unsurprising because the number used to be more like 50% when software was sold in physical stores. You’re free to think that’s too much, of course, and refuse to pay it.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    >Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their patents You have fun making a phone without any Nokia patents. Just as a reminder, Nokia has patents in 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, H.264, H.265, H.266 and WLAN. There's a reason why Nokia is not allowed to charge whatever they want. But hey, if you have an idea on how to make a phone without licensing any of Nokia's patents, go ahead.
    - czzr 5y ago
      Nokia entered into agreements promising not to charge excessive amounts, that’s why their patents were used in all those standards. If they hadn’t signed those agreements their patents would not have been used, and hence would actually have been worth much less.
oaiey 5y ago
They are not a "private company" in that sense. With their user segment, they form a market and the app store establishes a "legal" system. Basically their users are citizen of a Apple nation and whoever wants to make business with them, has to follow the "legal system". Consider the free market system (as the economic system of the western world), where you have choice between offerings, then the Apple ecosystem is the exact opposite.
tengbretson 5y ago
Yeah! If they don't like it then maybe they should make their own smartphone. Wait.
pulse7 5y ago
Apple operates within a country ("platform") and most follow the laws of the country ("platform rules"). Country laws are protecting consumers. So Apple can't do with their platform whatever they want... They could do so on a ship in the middle of the ocean - where no country laws apply - but then they wouldn't have so many customers there...
dariosalvi78 5y ago
The problem is that developers and companies are obliged to accept these practices because they control 50% of peoples' devices. It's not just a "private company" any longer, it has become a public infrastructure.

bilekas 5y ago

That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would violate their TOS by accessing a library of books. Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on Android and then accessed on an iPhone? Thus bypassing the apple payment option? If that is the case it seems like a bit of a stretch.

Hamuko 5y ago
As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer going to fly. I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30% cut payment system.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook customers could be served by their own platforms just as well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.
paxys 5y ago
The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle iPhone app without using IAP. From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  This was before the iPad launched and right around the time that iPhone sales began to dwarf Kindle sales so you're close but not entirely correct.

post_break 5y ago

Don't forget Apple got caught red handed price fixing ebooks.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
Don’t forget Apple got caught red handed fixing engineers’ salaries by colluding with Google.
- echelon 5y ago
  Call Apple what it is. An evil, overpowered marketplace. Anti-stallman, anti-web, anti-computing freedom, anti-engineer, anti-privacy, spy panopticon. Poser.
  - askonomm 5y ago
    I wonder why HN folk are so bitter about Apple. Did you guys send your resume and they never got back to you or what's the reason? It seems just odd to me to hate on something to this level.
    - echelon 5y ago
      Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and serfdom. Why don't you see that? The only reason I'd work for Apple is to send the horrific things they do to my representatives and the Department of Justice. Emails. Meeting notes. Admissions of anticompetitive behavior. Not a bad idea, but I think I'll have more impact elsewhere.
      - GiorgioG 5y ago
        > Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and serfdom. Why don't you see that? Amazon, Google & Microsoft are just as guilty of this with their cloud platforms.
        5y ago

twobitshifter 5y ago

This is not a good look for Apple but par for the course for a ruthless company. As an aside, it’s totally different seeing “Sent from my iPhone” when it’s Steve Jobs sending it from his iPhone.

echelon 5y ago
Apple is a ruthless company. We should stop personifying them and idolizing the products they make. Look at the chess moves. They're a monster. It should terrify you that some of the best products on the market are owned by a company that wants to extract as much as it can from the rest of us. They're no different from Oracle, just with good products. It's a winning strategy, and they're now positioned to sink their claws deeper. They've decimated the competition leaving you with a device that costs too much, isn't repairable, doesn't run untaxed software, and spies on you. The next moves will lock you down even harder. Like seriously people. We're empowering "I have no mouth and want to scream". We're making it come true. An Orwellian, Stallman-killing nightmare. The anti-web. In a posh, glossy finish.
- czzr 5y ago
  Unlike Google and Facebook, say, Apple doesn’t have a strong network effect lock-in. If they stop making the best products they’re much easier to switch away from. They have some weak network effects with iMessage (in some markets) and convenience around iPhotos, but nothing serious.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    Socially it’s limited to iMessage and FaceTime, but I’d say the lock-in if you own a watch, MacBook, AirPods, and /or iPad is very strong. There’s no other company that offers that level of integration across your devices.
- josho 5y ago
  > Look at the chess moves. They're a monster. Brilliantly said. In the early days of MP3s I ripped all my CDs and refused to get that content locked into Microsoft's platform as I wanted control. Today I find myself so deeply tied to Apple's platform that I don't think I can get out. I think we need the government to step in and require open APIs when a company is vertically integrated to allow competition in. E.g. you built the phone and the cloud service. Fine every cloud service app on the phone has to support an API that allows me to use the phone with a different vendor's cloud service. And we have precedent for this too, e.g. at one point I could only buy a landline phone from Bell, the gov. came along and told ATT they had to allow other companies to provide landline phones that would run on Bell's network. My photos library is larger than disk space, so if I wanted to export photos out of the cloud I'd probably have to do it manually in stages. And I've lost my original MP3s somewhere along the line. Yikes.

ignoramous 5y ago

Philip Schiller: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010) ftfy

hitekker 5y ago
The second screenshot shows Steve saying "force them to use our far superior payment system" and the fourth one is him ordering his subordinate to make it so.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  That part about the superior payment system cracks me up when we recently had this: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/02/each-twitter-super-follow-in-app-purchase/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/02/each-twitter-super-foll... >The App Store does not allow for multiple instances of the same subscription, leading other platforms such as YouTube and Twitch to get around this by effectively allowing users to buy a sub-token that can be directed toward a specific creator.
Invictus0 5y ago
The title comes from the second image.

TradingPlaces 5y ago

This email is Mecha Jobs

ydnaclementine 5y ago

Want to do a mini PSA that you should (probably) read Steve Jobs' biography if you haven't, it makes posts like this much, much more interesting when you have a fuller background. I wasn't a Steve Jobs fan so I never read it till recently. Still not a huge fan, but you can still see the tendrils of his influence that still affect today's world (adobe flash EOL last year, this stuff by not allowing you to buy books on the kindle/amazon app on iphone, continuing to control hardware and software experience). And you can see how it's gone (4 different ipads, etc)

ethbr0 5y ago
I'm not an Apple fanboy, but Jobs deserves all the credit that goes his way for killing Flash. It was a great product, but Macromedia / Adobe demonstrated subsequently that they were in no way a security-responsible long-term maintainer.
- mrkramer 5y ago
  How many bugs Flash had? Hundreds? Thousands? Anybody knows?
  - bell-cot 5y ago
    From a quick CVE search, less than 1,200 bugs ( https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=adobe+flash https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=adobe+flash ). For practical purposes, ~Aleph-nought.
    - mrkramer 5y ago
      Over 300 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) in 2015 alone: https://www.gsmarena.com/over_300_flash_bugs_were_discovered_this_year-blog-15780.php https://www.gsmarena.com/over_300_flash_bugs_were_discovered...
- yarcob 5y ago
  Poor performance on Mac was also an issue. Web browsers on the Mac were held back by the fact that Adobes plugin was extremely slow on the Mac, and Adobe didn't care. Apple could write the fastest web browser in the world, but it wouldn't matter if Flash on the Mac had only a fraction of the performance of the Windows version. It was a very smart move to not enable that dependency on the iPhone.

bob229 5y ago

It’s way past time to break up big tech

karaterobot 5y ago

I don't understand this series of emails. Schiller is saying he noticed that Amazon ran an ad where someone bought books on iOS and then read them on an Android. Jobs' response is "let's force Amazon to use our payment system". But weren't they already using it in this case? How does Jobs' point follow from Schiller's example? Schiller then brings up how there's a complementary ad in which an Android user buys books, then reads them on iOS. Jobs' point would make sense if that was the original example, but it wasn't brought up until after he'd responded. Weird. Maybe he was psychic? (j/k) Another thing that doesn't make sense is Schiller's recommendation to ask Amazon to "get in compliance with the rules". It sounds like they were in compliance with the rules, because an exception had been made for them. It seems (from those emails only) like the issue was that Apple made an exception for Amazon they no longer wanted to abide by.

paxys 5y ago
Apple made an exception for Amazon (to not have to use IAP for books purchased in the Kindle app). Amazon released an ad showing how easy it was to move books between iOS and Android. Apple didn't like this ad, so revoked the original exception. Amazon removed the ability to purchase books from the Kindle app. End result – experience is shittier for all users, but Apple gets a fraction of a percent more platform lock-in.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  Thank you, but my question was more about the connection between email 1 and email 2 in that chain. Unless you're saying that Apple had already revoked the exception by the time these emails were sent?
  - VenTatsu 5y ago
    When the Apple App Store first came out there was no in app purchases. Amazon already had a payment infrastructure so when they released the free Kindle app on iOS it used the Amazon payment system. Apple later added in app purchases and changed the contract terms (as the were allowed to do) to require all apps to only use the App Store for IAP, they allowed Kindle to remain unchanged. The exception as just not forcing Amazon to change their app. It was allowed under the old rules, then the rules changed, then the Amazon ad these emails were referencing game out. So at the point of these email the Kindle app was out of compliance with the App Store rules, but Apple was allowing it as an exception because they viewed it as a promotion of Apple products. This ad changed their view and now though that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it was to move to Android.

lol1lol 5y ago

lawl

pixiemaster 5y ago

Are C-Level Execs really down to that kind of operational detail level (watching a single Ad, etc)?

cheeze 5y ago
It sounds like he saw the ad on TV. Seems pretty normal to me?

purple_ferret 5y ago

It's amazing how 'crude' Jobs was. Perfect for chopping through the early 2000's technology frontier, but one has to wonder if he'd flounder in the modern environment.

duxup 5y ago
His history indicates Steve was pretty flexible in his POV too over time too. Opinionated for sure, but adaptable.

Valkhyr 5y ago

Despicable.

wefarrell 5y ago

The FTC has been asleep at the wheel with tech companies in the 21st century and consumers have suffered as a result. Apple's locking consumers into their platform, Google's steering traffic towards its sites, Amazon's forcing its merchants to give them preferential treatment. These companies have too much power and we need a government who's willing to take bold steps to curb them.

ece 5y ago
Completely agree here. If you think the acquisitions have been the problem, splitting up those parts makes sense, primarily for Facebook, and possibly certain Amazon/Google/Apple acquisitions too. I think a separate Instagram, Waze, even Youtube, and PA Semi would all be successful on their own currently. The other common problematic trait I'd say is some form of bad, lack of or preferential moderation with search results, misinformation, products, and apps. I think regulation like "American Innovation and Choice Online Act[1]” handles this well. If you want to be specific about Apple/Google, the OAMA[2] is good too IMO. [1] https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/documents/American%20Innovation%20and%20Choice%20Online%20Act%20-%20Bill%20Text.pdf https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/... [2] https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8.11.21%20-%20Open%20App%20Markets%20Act%20-%20Bill%20Text.pdf https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8.11.21%20-%...
llampx 5y ago
Sometime after 9/11, the US realized that it was in their best interest to have American tech juggernauts, and if they hamstrung their own tech companies with antitrust and anti-competition laws, other countries (China) would not. That was the end of antitrust enforcement on a larger scale for US companies.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  That's a backwards projection. In the early 2000s we were still blithely confident that China would just slot into a world order dominated by us. The end of history and all that. The record was that the Bush administration came in and immediately dropped the MS antitrust case because they were 'pro-business'. I suspect GWB genuinely believed in all this.

sorenjan 5y ago

Schiller comes across as needy and with a very low confidence in their own product. Some other company shows that their product works equally well on both Android and iPhone, and his response is that it's not fun to watch? Also, this should be shown to everyone that says they prefer the Apple ecosystem because "it just works". You really can't get more user hostile than this, where you care more about extracting money from transactions that you're not a part of than making life easier for your paying customers. Apple let Amazon sell books using their own payment system because Amazon sold a lot of books on their own Kindle platform that Apple wanted users to be able to read on iPhones, but as soon as Apple's platform was the biggest one they altered the deal to squeeze more money out of it. Like a monopoly would do.

jonny_eh 5y ago
Exactly, this was all about leverage, not about the user.
azinman2 5y ago
> his response is that it's not fun to watch I read that in reference to it being easy to switch from an iPhone to an Android device.
- sorenjan 5y ago
  Yes, me too. Is that all he thought it would take to switch? Wasn't Apple's offering good enough that such an insignificant action was all it took for him to get nervous about user flight? I get that he wants his users to be locked in as tightly as possible, but again, it comes across as very low confidence in their own product.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lern_too_spel 5y ago
Ironically, the experience of using the Kindle app on Android has been superior to the experience of using the Kindle app on iOS devices ever since this email thread.

guiomie 5y ago

This twitter account is awesome! I thought this email between Steve Jobs and Adobe CEO was hilarious, the CEO of Adobe refers to his employee as 'population'. https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1407016788240576512 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1407016788240576512

ajaimk 5y ago

These seem like reasonable arguments. An exception was made and times are changing.

grishka 5y ago
It's unreasonable for Apple to assume they own a relationship they had no role whatsoever in establishing.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  That's exactly what they were debating. The entire point of this exchange was that the initial agreement was about Kindle customers using iOS devices. Once it changed to iPhone customers buying Kindle books, it absolutely was a relationship they established.
  - grishka 5y ago
    What role did Apple have in establishing it? It's not like people are installing the Kindle app thanks to the app store alone. It's thanks to Amazon's own marketing. Apple made the hardware and the OS, and developers are only publishing their apps on the app store because they have to in order to get them onto iOS devices, not because the app store offers such a great service. I'm pretty sure that given the technical capability, many would bypass the app store with its ridiculous policies and serve the app package straight from their websites. Which, by the way, is exactly what's happening on macOS. Apple is going out of its way trying to make mac app store happen, but developers are clearly having none of it.
    - dkonofalski 5y ago
      If the customer's first point of contact is through an iOS app, then Apple established that relationship. Apple is serving their iPhone customers to Amazon. That's the entire crux of the change. Amazon initially presented their Kindle app as a way for existing customers to read their books on iOS. Once it changed to the point where customers were entering Amazon's ecosystem with iPhone as the first point of contact, Amazon was benefiting from both Apple's customer base and their relaxed terms.

nokya 5y ago

Just curiosity: it seems SJ was including himself in cc to his own emails. Why was that? I can only guess another email address, or some productivity technique to make sure he also had is own emails sorted in specific folders (i.e., not the "sent items").. Anyone has the information?

93po 5y ago
The previous messages don't list recipients. Someone likely emailed SJ at both his personal and professional email at the same time and it just remained due to reply-all. Rich and powerful people deliberately separate personal and work emails (e.g. Hillary Clinton). It helps create privacy, control, and legal protection.
- nokya 5y ago
  Thanks. I see you included sarcasm but I can't tell up to which point ;)