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> They included a complaint from Match Group, owner of the popular dating service Tinder, which said Apple's rules were hindering it from direct communications

> They included a complaint from Match Group, owner of the popular dating service Tinder, which said Apple's rules were hindering it from direct communications with its customers about payments. As the Alien vs. Predator tagline said: whoever wins, we lose.

isaacfrond 5y ago
> The Dutch investigation into whether Apple's practices amounted to an abuse of a dominant market position was launched in 2019 but later reduced in scope to focus primarily on dating market apps. Apple might just remove dating apps from the app store for the Netherlands. Problem solved.
- emn13 5y ago
  I suspect your comment isn't entirely in good faith, but that might well be considered strong evidence of anti-competitive behavior.
emsy 5y ago
It didn’t have to be that way. If Apple had sensible policies that stand the test of regulatory scrutiny this wouldn’t happen. Now that lawmakers get involved I will expect the worst outcome for customers, or as you succinctly put it „we lose“.
- halostatue 5y ago
  From a purely consumer perspective, Apple's policies are eminently sensible. Allowing external IAP makes it harder if not impossible to enforce simple cancellation. If Apple allows external IAP, but _also_ requires strict dispute resolution and simple subscription cancellation, that would probably be deemed anticompetitive as well, even though it's thoroughly pro-consumer. The problem here is that the regulatory scrutiny is only on one dimension, not the full picture. And in the full picture, Apple's policies are eminently reasonable—if their fees are a bit high.
  - shagie 5y ago
    > Allowing external IAP makes it harder if not impossible to enforce simple cancellation. Thus the looming changes: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28776960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28776960
  - jorams 5y ago
    > If Apple allows external IAP, but _also_ requires strict dispute resolution and simple subscription cancellation, that would probably be deemed anticompetitive as well, even though it's thoroughly pro-consumer. Why would that be considered anticompetitive?
    - halostatue 5y ago
      I personally don’t think that it would be. I also have very little problem with Apple’s current stance on IAP and _who_ actually owns the customer relationship. (Quibbles can be made about percentages. If 30% is too high for Apple, maybe we should be taking a much closer look at a _lot_ of retailer relationships.) However, the same people who say that it’s anticompetitive for Apple to control the payment flow are likely to say that _any_ impingement of Apple on the customer relationship is anticompetitive. These are the people who don’t actually _care_ about the customer relationship, like the NYTimes subscription department, or the companies that bank on customers forgetting to cancel their subscription for months at a time or not wanting to spend time on the phone to fight over a $1.29/month subscription fee. IMO, antitrust/anticompetition investigations tend to be _far_ too limited in their scope (they look only at one or two aspects and not the big picture of what's happening). I remember a few years ago when Apple had worked with publishers to establish a new standard ebook contract for publishers and marketplaces. It was one that would have (slightly) raised the prices of ebooks, but replaced the unilaterally imposed contract that Amazon provided. Apple got in trouble over it, even the result would have been a _better_ and more _competitive_ marketplace and not one controlled by Amazon. I have opinions on what should be done with the app stores that would _probably_ fix a lot of the issues, but any changes to the app stores need to look at whether it would be a _better_ situation for customers or just a more lucrative situation for publishers. And the customer impact would not just be measured on “choice”, but on overall price/privacy impact. Measured by that, there’s no question in my mind that Apple’s doing a better job than people give them credit for.
- emsy 5y ago
  There’s a lot of room for compromise between „you are not allowed to even mention external payment systems“ and „everyone has their own IAP system“.
echelon 5y ago
Do you lose with the web?
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  We certainly didn't win.
  - oblio 5y ago
    It's the biggest repository of knowledge in history. It facilitates communication and trade on an unprecedented scale. Despite all the negative externalities that it also causes, I fail to see how they could outdo its positive aspects.
    - oarsinsync 5y ago
      > It's the biggest repository of knowledge in history This is totally true. Unfortunately, it's also the biggest repository of misinformation in history as well. > I fail to see how they could outdo its positive aspects On a macro scale, you're likely correct. If you're one of the unlucky people that suffers a significant negative consequence, your view may differ.
      - oblio 5y ago
        > On a macro scale, you're likely correct. If you're one of the unlucky people that suffers a significant negative consequence, your view may differ. That could be said for anything, though. There isn't a thing on this planet that hasn't hurt anyone during its creation.
- tl 5y ago
  We don't know yet. We live in a world where the web is seeing increased centralization on a variety of fronts with Google and Facebook among those leading the charge.
- CuriouslyC 5y ago
  Have you seen the web lately? I'll take the small, vetted, fan crafted internet of the late 90s over this SEO written content mill garbage mountain we have now.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
015a 5y ago
Yup. I fully understand the complaint from Match (and others, like Netflix). Apple's app store payment policies are obviously and blatantly anti-competitive. But if you've ever tried to cancel an AT&T internet line or New York Times subscription, you begin to understand Apple's position. Consumers oftentimes have no recourse; Apple's (and, similarly Google's) subscription framework is the first time in history many of these companies have experienced the powerlessness their users feel when dealing with recurring payments. They don't like giving up power. It should come as no surprise that the companies most vocal about the payments monopolies are the ones who want to abuse the freedom Governments will hand them, in the name of maintaining a healthy competitive landscape. I think a balance needs to be struck; Apple needs to have its power reigned in, and I think that takes the form of a forced reduction in revenue share to 10% max (Visa maintains a global network of hundreds of thousands of diverse swipe terminals at ~3%; if Apple can't maintain some servers at 10%, they're incompetent and deserve to be driven into bankruptcy by this totally reasonable legislation). I don't feel that allowing alternate payment methods / subscription frameworks would actually benefit users/consumers, across any length of time, in any fashion whatsoever. I think subscription/payment management needs to be delegated to user accounts outside of any control of the service providers taking payment, as its an intrinsic and irreducible conflict of interest. Maybe that means Visa or whoever should start a "subscription and payments portal" that service providers have to integrate with. I don't know. But the way we've done it for 20+ years doesn't work, and Apple's way is absolutely better; its just not the best it can be, right now.
- shadilay 5y ago
  This is such a bizarre response. You recognize there's a problem with cancelling subscriptions and instead of to the government to regulate the markets (which is their job) and mandate easy cancelling of subscriptions, you want Apple to do it? Do you want a government run by a corporation?
  - ThatPlayer 5y ago
    For example, California has already passed laws to make cancelling subscriptions easier.

isaacfrond 5y ago

> The Dutch investigation into whether Apple's practices amounted to an abuse of a dominant market position was launched in 2019 but later reduced in scope to focus primarily on dating market apps. Apple might just remove dating apps from the app store for the Netherlands. Problem solved.

emn13 5y ago
I suspect your comment isn't entirely in good faith, but that might well be considered strong evidence of anti-competitive behavior.

emsy 5y ago

It didn’t have to be that way. If Apple had sensible policies that stand the test of regulatory scrutiny this wouldn’t happen. Now that lawmakers get involved I will expect the worst outcome for customers, or as you succinctly put it „we lose“.

halostatue 5y ago
From a purely consumer perspective, Apple's policies are eminently sensible. Allowing external IAP makes it harder if not impossible to enforce simple cancellation. If Apple allows external IAP, but _also_ requires strict dispute resolution and simple subscription cancellation, that would probably be deemed anticompetitive as well, even though it's thoroughly pro-consumer. The problem here is that the regulatory scrutiny is only on one dimension, not the full picture. And in the full picture, Apple's policies are eminently reasonable—if their fees are a bit high.
- shagie 5y ago
  > Allowing external IAP makes it harder if not impossible to enforce simple cancellation. Thus the looming changes: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28776960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28776960
- jorams 5y ago
  > If Apple allows external IAP, but _also_ requires strict dispute resolution and simple subscription cancellation, that would probably be deemed anticompetitive as well, even though it's thoroughly pro-consumer. Why would that be considered anticompetitive?
  - halostatue 5y ago
    I personally don’t think that it would be. I also have very little problem with Apple’s current stance on IAP and _who_ actually owns the customer relationship. (Quibbles can be made about percentages. If 30% is too high for Apple, maybe we should be taking a much closer look at a _lot_ of retailer relationships.) However, the same people who say that it’s anticompetitive for Apple to control the payment flow are likely to say that _any_ impingement of Apple on the customer relationship is anticompetitive. These are the people who don’t actually _care_ about the customer relationship, like the NYTimes subscription department, or the companies that bank on customers forgetting to cancel their subscription for months at a time or not wanting to spend time on the phone to fight over a $1.29/month subscription fee. IMO, antitrust/anticompetition investigations tend to be _far_ too limited in their scope (they look only at one or two aspects and not the big picture of what's happening). I remember a few years ago when Apple had worked with publishers to establish a new standard ebook contract for publishers and marketplaces. It was one that would have (slightly) raised the prices of ebooks, but replaced the unilaterally imposed contract that Amazon provided. Apple got in trouble over it, even the result would have been a _better_ and more _competitive_ marketplace and not one controlled by Amazon. I have opinions on what should be done with the app stores that would _probably_ fix a lot of the issues, but any changes to the app stores need to look at whether it would be a _better_ situation for customers or just a more lucrative situation for publishers. And the customer impact would not just be measured on “choice”, but on overall price/privacy impact. Measured by that, there’s no question in my mind that Apple’s doing a better job than people give them credit for.
emsy 5y ago
There’s a lot of room for compromise between „you are not allowed to even mention external payment systems“ and „everyone has their own IAP system“.

echelon 5y ago

Do you lose with the web?

huhtenberg 5y ago
We certainly didn't win.
- oblio 5y ago
  It's the biggest repository of knowledge in history. It facilitates communication and trade on an unprecedented scale. Despite all the negative externalities that it also causes, I fail to see how they could outdo its positive aspects.
  - oarsinsync 5y ago
    > It's the biggest repository of knowledge in history This is totally true. Unfortunately, it's also the biggest repository of misinformation in history as well. > I fail to see how they could outdo its positive aspects On a macro scale, you're likely correct. If you're one of the unlucky people that suffers a significant negative consequence, your view may differ.
    - oblio 5y ago
      > On a macro scale, you're likely correct. If you're one of the unlucky people that suffers a significant negative consequence, your view may differ. That could be said for anything, though. There isn't a thing on this planet that hasn't hurt anyone during its creation.
tl 5y ago
We don't know yet. We live in a world where the web is seeing increased centralization on a variety of fronts with Google and Facebook among those leading the charge.
CuriouslyC 5y ago
Have you seen the web lately? I'll take the small, vetted, fan crafted internet of the late 90s over this SEO written content mill garbage mountain we have now.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

015a 5y ago

Yup. I fully understand the complaint from Match (and others, like Netflix). Apple's app store payment policies are obviously and blatantly anti-competitive. But if you've ever tried to cancel an AT&T internet line or New York Times subscription, you begin to understand Apple's position. Consumers oftentimes have no recourse; Apple's (and, similarly Google's) subscription framework is the first time in history many of these companies have experienced the powerlessness their users feel when dealing with recurring payments. They don't like giving up power. It should come as no surprise that the companies most vocal about the payments monopolies are the ones who want to abuse the freedom Governments will hand them, in the name of maintaining a healthy competitive landscape. I think a balance needs to be struck; Apple needs to have its power reigned in, and I think that takes the form of a forced reduction in revenue share to 10% max (Visa maintains a global network of hundreds of thousands of diverse swipe terminals at ~3%; if Apple can't maintain some servers at 10%, they're incompetent and deserve to be driven into bankruptcy by this totally reasonable legislation). I don't feel that allowing alternate payment methods / subscription frameworks would actually benefit users/consumers, across any length of time, in any fashion whatsoever. I think subscription/payment management needs to be delegated to user accounts outside of any control of the service providers taking payment, as its an intrinsic and irreducible conflict of interest. Maybe that means Visa or whoever should start a "subscription and payments portal" that service providers have to integrate with. I don't know. But the way we've done it for 20+ years doesn't work, and Apple's way is absolutely better; its just not the best it can be, right now.

shadilay 5y ago
This is such a bizarre response. You recognize there's a problem with cancelling subscriptions and instead of to the government to regulate the markets (which is their job) and mandate easy cancelling of subscriptions, you want Apple to do it? Do you want a government run by a corporation?
- ThatPlayer 5y ago
  For example, California has already passed laws to make cancelling subscriptions easier.