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Phil made it sound like he didn't like the ad, but the reason for the removal of the exception was that Amazon was advertising that people could buy books from

Phil made it sound like he didn't like the ad, but the reason for the removal of the exception was that Amazon was advertising that people could buy books from their phones, clearly promoting the phone-first use case. If you have any business understanding that you should understand that no business is a charity: neither Amazon nor Apple. Any money left on the table is just free money for the shareholders of another company. They made the point that Apple devices were more popular than Kindle, implying that Amazon was basically using Apple devices for lead-gen for book sales without paying Apple their cut. Their original deal was that Kindle was supposed to be a device where you bought the books, and you could just read them through the phone app as a convenience. Since the primary use case shifted they began enforcing that fee. This seems to be a consistent app store policy, however it's been spun over the years.

dkonofalski 5y ago
I wish more people understood nuance the way you do. Apple's deal was made only because Amazon claimed that their books were purchased on Kindle and that they wouldn't advertise other platforms. As soon as they broke that part of the agreement, Apple was not going to continue to appease them.
yunohn 5y ago
> If you have any business understanding So I assume that you’re an investor in $AAPL, and not a user of Apple products? Nobody is arguing that these lock-in moves won’t make them money, but that their greed does harm the user experience - the result being that you can’t buy Kindle books on iPhone now (and countless other such examples).
- chrischen 5y ago
  Your assumptions are wrong about me, so you may want to revise your position because it’s based on a misguided characterization of my motivations. It’s up to Apple to improve their own user experience, or suffer the lack of sales otherwise. It’s nonsensical that the government should step in to improve the user experience for private products… especially to the benefit of a third party private company. Framing “you can’t buy Kindle books on iOS” as Apple’s fault is spinning it because you can also say it’s Amazon’s fault for reducing their user experience by refusing to pay Apple’s platform fees. Sure, making Apple products all free would be great for user experience, but is not only non-sustainable but non-sensical business practice.

dkonofalski 5y ago

I wish more people understood nuance the way you do. Apple's deal was made only because Amazon claimed that their books were purchased on Kindle and that they wouldn't advertise other platforms. As soon as they broke that part of the agreement, Apple was not going to continue to appease them.

yunohn 5y ago

> If you have any business understanding So I assume that you’re an investor in $AAPL, and not a user of Apple products? Nobody is arguing that these lock-in moves won’t make them money, but that their greed does harm the user experience - the result being that you can’t buy Kindle books on iPhone now (and countless other such examples).

chrischen 5y ago
Your assumptions are wrong about me, so you may want to revise your position because it’s based on a misguided characterization of my motivations. It’s up to Apple to improve their own user experience, or suffer the lack of sales otherwise. It’s nonsensical that the government should step in to improve the user experience for private products… especially to the benefit of a third party private company. Framing “you can’t buy Kindle books on iOS” as Apple’s fault is spinning it because you can also say it’s Amazon’s fault for reducing their user experience by refusing to pay Apple’s platform fees. Sure, making Apple products all free would be great for user experience, but is not only non-sustainable but non-sensical business practice.