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I'm personally sympathetic to Graham's points in this 2009 piece. He was prescient about the "bummer" it is to be stuck in a monopolist's monoculture. But Appl

by gojomo 5y ago

I'm personally sympathetic to Graham's points in this 2009 piece. He was prescient about the "bummer" it is to be stuck in a monopolist's monoculture. But Apple's growth in market value since – from $175B at the end of November 2009, to $2.73T today – at least raises the possibility that Apple wasn't making a "mistake", from the perspective of Apple shareholders, managers, & employees. Maybe once you've reached a certain powerful 'commanding heights' via other strategy & technology, the optimal enterprise strategy is truly to bully developers, & take their lunch money for yourself. Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure.

draw_down 5y ago
mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
If we’re going to talk about “drag on human progress and welfare”, there are much bigger fish to fry in the Tech world than a 30% surcharge by an App Store. You could start with any social media company and in my opinion, they surpass anything Apple has done as far as a “drag on human progress & welfare”.
- gojomo 5y ago
  Whataboutism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism) is pretty boring unless we were specifically trying to create a ranked list of the worst things. Also, without an explanation of why "in your opinion" "any social media company" is worse, you're just declaring a personal bias - and vaguely, too. (Is social media company Snapchat more destructive than Apple's App Store policies?) If you have some larger grudge against some specific social media companies, why not write it up, with reasoning & naming names, in an appropriate place? Why only allude to it, to make Apple's destructiveness seem smaller?
  - mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
    The parent commenter brought up “drag on human progress and welfare” and keeping the topic to Tech companies I was pointing out there are far worse. There are studies that show social media causing mental health issues and issues with spreading misinformation, many have shown up here on HN. I was stating my opinion which should be obvious, but maybe it’s not, every comment where you type into a comment text box is an opinion. I don’t have a grudge, just think the contributions to humanity by social media companies are far less than the problems they cause. The hypocrisy on HN is funny sometimes, many times articles/comments about startups are about monetizing and charging customers more, raising capital, etc. and then for large companies they charge too much and it’s a “drag on human progress and welfare”?
  - CharlesW 5y ago
    There are many studies on social media's engagement-at-all-costs effects on individuals and society at large, some performed (with all positive bits socialized) by the social media platforms themselves.[1] For a balanced view, you could do worse than starting with a search for "social media" on Google Scholar. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=google+scholar+social+media&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=google+scholar+social+m... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/facebook-files-internal-research-harms/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/faceboo...
    - gojomo 5y ago
      Perhaps, but how is that relevant to a discussion of the destructiveness of Apple's power & policies? Does it excuse them somehow? Are you sure App Store dynamics don't, overall, increase the power of the worst social platforms?
tomxor 5y ago
> But Apple's growth in market value since – from $175B at the end of November 2009, to $2.73T today – at least raises the possibility that Apple wasn't making a "mistake" [...] Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure. Basically highlighting the issues of capitalism unchecked. Initially it can be beneficial to society - I'm confident in saying Apple empowered individuals and other companies in the early years through to pretty much around the time this article was written. For all it's flaws it was an overall force of good for society, for humanity... it didn't suddenly stop doing that, but changed focus, and started to erode it. Over time a market winner, or winners are picked, and then it seems to be just a matter of time until user exploitation starts, without natural pressure to produce the best product, with the best experience, for the user beyond basic tolerability; it slowly devolves into a venture into wealth extraction as the people who originally cared enough about the companies original values either leave, retire or die. Finding ways to lock in users, creating artificial dependence and tricking people into subscriptions are all just optimisations on this path to wealth extraction from the average person. It sounds a bit conspiracy theorist when I read that back, but it's hard to say it's not true... this just seems to reliably happen to these incumbent corporations.
threeseed 5y ago
> Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure. The App Store since 2009 has directly resulted in the creation of Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat etc. Not sure how you can argue the world hasn't progressed since then.
- gojomo 5y ago
  Where did I say "the world hasn't progressed since then"? That's a hallucinatory misreading & misrepresentation of my comment. But also: those successes are attributable to mobile apps in general, not Apple's self-serving policies. Plausibly, all of these should be possible as zero-install web apps – but as Apple (& others) have started raking in the App Store money, their investment in competitive open web technologies that could match proprietary-platform native-apps has languished. Further, the App Store's market power is now being used to limit the functionality of such apps – banning competitive payment mechanisms, or entire classes of disfavored speech and content, or product benefits that compete with Apple offerings. And the App Store plus iOS power is being used to torpedo the business models of Apple competitors – as with the changes in tracking defaults that have kneecapped Facebook revenues, mafia-style. Does local protection rackets deserve credit for every business that manages to pay, & survive, their shakedown?
  - afthonos 5y ago
    > Plausibly, all of these should be possible as zero-install web apps – but as Apple (& others) have started raking in the App Store money, their investment in competitive open web technologies that could match proprietary-platform native-apps has languished. Worth noting that this was basically what Jobs offered developers initially and everyone hated it.
    - gojomo 5y ago
      Yes, developers wanted more. There were (at least) two paths possible: native apps, & upgrading web capabilities. It's good some effort was plowed into both, at different timescales! But currently, the App Store's monopoly/monoculture abuses are retarding progress. The App Store deserves credit not for creating or enabling the social app listed in the ggp – but instead for capturing more of the value of those innovations for AAPL owners & insiders.

by gojomo 5y ago

draw_down 5y ago

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago

If we’re going to talk about “drag on human progress and welfare”, there are much bigger fish to fry in the Tech world than a 30% surcharge by an App Store. You could start with any social media company and in my opinion, they surpass anything Apple has done as far as a “drag on human progress & welfare”.

gojomo 5y ago
Whataboutism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism) is pretty boring unless we were specifically trying to create a ranked list of the worst things. Also, without an explanation of why "in your opinion" "any social media company" is worse, you're just declaring a personal bias - and vaguely, too. (Is social media company Snapchat more destructive than Apple's App Store policies?) If you have some larger grudge against some specific social media companies, why not write it up, with reasoning & naming names, in an appropriate place? Why only allude to it, to make Apple's destructiveness seem smaller?
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  The parent commenter brought up “drag on human progress and welfare” and keeping the topic to Tech companies I was pointing out there are far worse. There are studies that show social media causing mental health issues and issues with spreading misinformation, many have shown up here on HN. I was stating my opinion which should be obvious, but maybe it’s not, every comment where you type into a comment text box is an opinion. I don’t have a grudge, just think the contributions to humanity by social media companies are far less than the problems they cause. The hypocrisy on HN is funny sometimes, many times articles/comments about startups are about monetizing and charging customers more, raising capital, etc. and then for large companies they charge too much and it’s a “drag on human progress and welfare”?
- CharlesW 5y ago
  There are many studies on social media's engagement-at-all-costs effects on individuals and society at large, some performed (with all positive bits socialized) by the social media platforms themselves.[1] For a balanced view, you could do worse than starting with a search for "social media" on Google Scholar. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=google+scholar+social+media&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=google+scholar+social+m... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/facebook-files-internal-research-harms/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/faceboo...
  - gojomo 5y ago
    Perhaps, but how is that relevant to a discussion of the destructiveness of Apple's power & policies? Does it excuse them somehow? Are you sure App Store dynamics don't, overall, increase the power of the worst social platforms?

tomxor 5y ago

> But Apple's growth in market value since – from $175B at the end of November 2009, to $2.73T today – at least raises the possibility that Apple wasn't making a "mistake" [...] Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure. Basically highlighting the issues of capitalism unchecked. Initially it can be beneficial to society - I'm confident in saying Apple empowered individuals and other companies in the early years through to pretty much around the time this article was written. For all it's flaws it was an overall force of good for society, for humanity... it didn't suddenly stop doing that, but changed focus, and started to erode it. Over time a market winner, or winners are picked, and then it seems to be just a matter of time until user exploitation starts, without natural pressure to produce the best product, with the best experience, for the user beyond basic tolerability; it slowly devolves into a venture into wealth extraction as the people who originally cared enough about the companies original values either leave, retire or die. Finding ways to lock in users, creating artificial dependence and tricking people into subscriptions are all just optimisations on this path to wealth extraction from the average person. It sounds a bit conspiracy theorist when I read that back, but it's hard to say it's not true... this just seems to reliably happen to these incumbent corporations.

threeseed 5y ago

> Still a drag on human progress & welfare, sure. The App Store since 2009 has directly resulted in the creation of Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat etc. Not sure how you can argue the world hasn't progressed since then.

gojomo 5y ago
Where did I say "the world hasn't progressed since then"? That's a hallucinatory misreading & misrepresentation of my comment. But also: those successes are attributable to mobile apps in general, not Apple's self-serving policies. Plausibly, all of these should be possible as zero-install web apps – but as Apple (& others) have started raking in the App Store money, their investment in competitive open web technologies that could match proprietary-platform native-apps has languished. Further, the App Store's market power is now being used to limit the functionality of such apps – banning competitive payment mechanisms, or entire classes of disfavored speech and content, or product benefits that compete with Apple offerings. And the App Store plus iOS power is being used to torpedo the business models of Apple competitors – as with the changes in tracking defaults that have kneecapped Facebook revenues, mafia-style. Does local protection rackets deserve credit for every business that manages to pay, & survive, their shakedown?
- afthonos 5y ago
  > Plausibly, all of these should be possible as zero-install web apps – but as Apple (& others) have started raking in the App Store money, their investment in competitive open web technologies that could match proprietary-platform native-apps has languished. Worth noting that this was basically what Jobs offered developers initially and everyone hated it.
  - gojomo 5y ago
    Yes, developers wanted more. There were (at least) two paths possible: native apps, & upgrading web capabilities. It's good some effort was plowed into both, at different timescales! But currently, the App Store's monopoly/monoculture abuses are retarding progress. The App Store deserves credit not for creating or enabling the social app listed in the ggp – but instead for capturing more of the value of those innovations for AAPL owners & insiders.