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Why? Because how much you have to pay is determined by how much the platform owner can get away with. There is no fundamental logic to it other than market powe

Why? Because how much you have to pay is determined by how much the platform owner can get away with. There is no fundamental logic to it other than market power. Why don't you compare to better, open platforms instead - desktop apps, the web. Why does everything has to be as shitty as something else.

jsnell 5y ago
I'm not comparing to those other cases because the question being asked was "what if Microsoft had been charging a fee", so it seems rather relevant that Microsoft has been charging exactly that kind of a fee for a couple of decades. I hope we can agree that laws need to apply to everyone equally. For a long time, it's been fine for platform owners to charge e.g. licensing fees, for store owners to charge a fee, etc. Why is Apple different, such that they cannot charge such a fee while others can? If they're not substantially different, do we expect that going forward nobody can charge a fee?
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > I'm not comparing to those other cases because the question being asked was The question being asked was specifically about windows, and wasn't about Microsoft being "good", but rather about how Apple benefited from platforms being open. > If they're not substantially different, do we expect that going forward nobody can charge a fee? That seems reasonable.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > Why is Apple different, such that they cannot charge such a fee while others can? The difference is market power. Yes, literally if a company is big enough, then they should be legally prevented from doing certain things that anti-competitively take advantage of it's market power. For video game consoles, I am less concerned about the platform taking a fee, because there are 3 major consoles, as well as an absolutely huge PC gaming market, and the PC gaming market is very open Where as for smartphones I am concerned, because it is a 2 company duopoly, and there is no major open competitor, with significant market share.

jsnell 5y ago

I'm not comparing to those other cases because the question being asked was "what if Microsoft had been charging a fee", so it seems rather relevant that Microsoft has been charging exactly that kind of a fee for a couple of decades. I hope we can agree that laws need to apply to everyone equally. For a long time, it's been fine for platform owners to charge e.g. licensing fees, for store owners to charge a fee, etc. Why is Apple different, such that they cannot charge such a fee while others can? If they're not substantially different, do we expect that going forward nobody can charge a fee?

shkkmo 5y ago
> I'm not comparing to those other cases because the question being asked was The question being asked was specifically about windows, and wasn't about Microsoft being "good", but rather about how Apple benefited from platforms being open. > If they're not substantially different, do we expect that going forward nobody can charge a fee? That seems reasonable.
stale2002 5y ago
> Why is Apple different, such that they cannot charge such a fee while others can? The difference is market power. Yes, literally if a company is big enough, then they should be legally prevented from doing certain things that anti-competitively take advantage of it's market power. For video game consoles, I am less concerned about the platform taking a fee, because there are 3 major consoles, as well as an absolutely huge PC gaming market, and the PC gaming market is very open Where as for smartphones I am concerned, because it is a 2 company duopoly, and there is no major open competitor, with significant market share.