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If we're talking about how things ought to be, I think the power that "we the people" can have over peaceful transactions between private entities ought to be m

If we're talking about how things ought to be, I think the power that "we the people" can have over peaceful transactions between private entities ought to be much more limited than it is now. The sledgehammer of government intervention should simply not be used to mediate private, voluntary interactions. Apple basically created the entire idea of a mobile app marketplace, transforming the entire industry with sheer innovation. They did this in an environment where they were not protected by regulation from market incumbents (anyone heard of RIM lately?) the way it is proposed to do now. Where is the justice in taking this thing that Apple has built, to all our benefit, and forcing our terms on it. The App Store is Apple's. It should be allowed to charge whatever it wants, set whatever terms it pleases, and burn it to the ground if it sees fit. Seeing Apple's creation as somehow collective when we have done nothing but queue to pay for the privilege of using it is monstrously entitled and unjust.

Mindwipe 5y ago
Luckily virtually no country in the world agrees with you.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Yes I agree - but the whole idea of "liberty" and the US declaration as originally intended does. Indeed most of the world is content with a high degree of authority/tyranny. That doesn't invalidate the concerns of those who wish to be free.
  - mjamesaustin 5y ago
    Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution provide any provision for the existence of corporations, which are entities that reduce individuals' liabilities for their actions while running a business. In exchange for the privilege of limiting your liability for your actions, you agree to follow a set of rules when forming and running a corporation. When acting on the behalf of a corporation, you are never engaging in "liberty" because any and everything a corporation can do is a privilege granted by the government.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Since we are taking jabs at countries for 'liberty', most of the world is not running a spying machine that would make Soviet Union green with envy. Back to the practical problems, conflating personal liberty and rights of giant corporations to spy on your and sell your private information is rather unhelpfull. I don't think anyone is buying it.
Jensson 5y ago
Capitalism is beneficial as long as profits aligns with increasing productivity. However capitalism is harmful when profit incentives encourages creating bottlenecks. The appstore is currently a bottleneck and Apple has no incentives to fix it, removing their profit incentive from keeping that bottleneck around is good for everyone. If it really benefits the user to have everything running in the Appstore then it would still keep it there even if it had a 5% fee, just that Apple would no longer try to make everything go via the app store even when it doesn't make sense for it to.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Yes and the way it's supposed to go is that a competitor creates their own devices that entice users away from Apple, just like Apple did with RIM. Why 5%? why not 4? Why not 6? Who are we to decide what Apple charges for Apple services? How do you know what it costs Apple to maintain the review process and to continue to innovate in mobile space? Why is it any of our collective concern what apple over/under charges for?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > Who are we to decide what Apple charges for Apple services? The EU will create an investigation team to decide this, just like they did for VISA and Mastercard when they capped card transaction feed. > Why is it any of our collective concern what apple over/under charges for? Because unregulated capitalism doesn't work.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      What do you mean doesn't work? Didn't it produce Apple to begin with? Where was the regulation on RIM in the late aughts? > just like they did for VISA and Mastercard when they capped card transaction feed. And in so doing they significantly increased the barrier to entry in the space, effectively cementing VISA and Mastercard into market dominance. This happens everywhere everything is regulated - incumbents shape the regulation so it's easy for them to comply with and difficult for new entrants, creating all sorts of disfunction. Let me ask, what is the cost of doing nothing here exactly? Why are you so certain that that cost is higher than the cost of intervention?
piaste 5y ago
You speak of Apple as if it were an individual or a small company run by a tight group of friends. AAPL is not a courageous pioneer being oppressed by "The Man". AAPL is a trillion-dollar institution that by design exists only to pursue profit and enrich its shareholders, the overwhelming majority of whom can take exactly zero credit for the innovations from which they profited. It is "The Man".
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Apple was at one point in recent history a small company run out of a garage by a group of friends. At what point exactly did it lose the rights it was entitled to then? If 3 dudes in a basement are entitled to sell goods/services on their own terms, then Apple should be as well. Where is the line? Apple is still a private company, not a public service, and the case I'm making is explicitly against socializing its services simply because it is big, Instead I'm advocating that, in the interest of long-term (say 50-100 year) public good, we maintain the relatively unregulated environment that allowed Apple to succeed in the first place, and tolerate the relatively small inefficiency that environment produces.
  - oceanplexian 5y ago
    I don't think Apple needs to be socialized to solve this problem, in fact saying that obfuscates a simple and practical solution. It should be illegal for a company to actively prevent you from running code on a device that you own. We need something like Right to Repair but for software, if I own a phone, I should be able to run whatever I want on it. You shouldn't be able to charge money for the privilege of installing my own software, just like an auto maker can't charge me for the privilege of repairing my own car. Companies will use all sorts of weasel words and scare tactics but at the end of the day it's simply anti-competitive.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      This is nice idea, but it falls flat. In this case Apple's advantage, the actual reason consumers prefer Apple's devices, is because they restrict what code can be run on them, in order to provide a safe, trustworthy, optimized user experience. Why do you want to rob Apple (and the market) of this advantage?

Mindwipe 5y ago

Luckily virtually no country in the world agrees with you.

thegrimmest 5y ago
Yes I agree - but the whole idea of "liberty" and the US declaration as originally intended does. Indeed most of the world is content with a high degree of authority/tyranny. That doesn't invalidate the concerns of those who wish to be free.
- mjamesaustin 5y ago
  Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution provide any provision for the existence of corporations, which are entities that reduce individuals' liabilities for their actions while running a business. In exchange for the privilege of limiting your liability for your actions, you agree to follow a set of rules when forming and running a corporation. When acting on the behalf of a corporation, you are never engaging in "liberty" because any and everything a corporation can do is a privilege granted by the government.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Since we are taking jabs at countries for 'liberty', most of the world is not running a spying machine that would make Soviet Union green with envy. Back to the practical problems, conflating personal liberty and rights of giant corporations to spy on your and sell your private information is rather unhelpfull. I don't think anyone is buying it.

Jensson 5y ago

Capitalism is beneficial as long as profits aligns with increasing productivity. However capitalism is harmful when profit incentives encourages creating bottlenecks. The appstore is currently a bottleneck and Apple has no incentives to fix it, removing their profit incentive from keeping that bottleneck around is good for everyone. If it really benefits the user to have everything running in the Appstore then it would still keep it there even if it had a 5% fee, just that Apple would no longer try to make everything go via the app store even when it doesn't make sense for it to.

thegrimmest 5y ago
Yes and the way it's supposed to go is that a competitor creates their own devices that entice users away from Apple, just like Apple did with RIM. Why 5%? why not 4? Why not 6? Who are we to decide what Apple charges for Apple services? How do you know what it costs Apple to maintain the review process and to continue to innovate in mobile space? Why is it any of our collective concern what apple over/under charges for?
- Jensson 5y ago
  > Who are we to decide what Apple charges for Apple services? The EU will create an investigation team to decide this, just like they did for VISA and Mastercard when they capped card transaction feed. > Why is it any of our collective concern what apple over/under charges for? Because unregulated capitalism doesn't work.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    What do you mean doesn't work? Didn't it produce Apple to begin with? Where was the regulation on RIM in the late aughts? > just like they did for VISA and Mastercard when they capped card transaction feed. And in so doing they significantly increased the barrier to entry in the space, effectively cementing VISA and Mastercard into market dominance. This happens everywhere everything is regulated - incumbents shape the regulation so it's easy for them to comply with and difficult for new entrants, creating all sorts of disfunction. Let me ask, what is the cost of doing nothing here exactly? Why are you so certain that that cost is higher than the cost of intervention?

piaste 5y ago

You speak of Apple as if it were an individual or a small company run by a tight group of friends. AAPL is not a courageous pioneer being oppressed by "The Man". AAPL is a trillion-dollar institution that by design exists only to pursue profit and enrich its shareholders, the overwhelming majority of whom can take exactly zero credit for the innovations from which they profited. It is "The Man".

thegrimmest 5y ago
Apple was at one point in recent history a small company run out of a garage by a group of friends. At what point exactly did it lose the rights it was entitled to then? If 3 dudes in a basement are entitled to sell goods/services on their own terms, then Apple should be as well. Where is the line? Apple is still a private company, not a public service, and the case I'm making is explicitly against socializing its services simply because it is big, Instead I'm advocating that, in the interest of long-term (say 50-100 year) public good, we maintain the relatively unregulated environment that allowed Apple to succeed in the first place, and tolerate the relatively small inefficiency that environment produces.
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  I don't think Apple needs to be socialized to solve this problem, in fact saying that obfuscates a simple and practical solution. It should be illegal for a company to actively prevent you from running code on a device that you own. We need something like Right to Repair but for software, if I own a phone, I should be able to run whatever I want on it. You shouldn't be able to charge money for the privilege of installing my own software, just like an auto maker can't charge me for the privilege of repairing my own car. Companies will use all sorts of weasel words and scare tactics but at the end of the day it's simply anti-competitive.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    This is nice idea, but it falls flat. In this case Apple's advantage, the actual reason consumers prefer Apple's devices, is because they restrict what code can be run on them, in order to provide a safe, trustworthy, optimized user experience. Why do you want to rob Apple (and the market) of this advantage?