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I buy an Apple device and I know that part of the premium includes paying for Apple services. Why would other people who haven't given a cent to Apple be entitl

I buy an Apple device and I know that part of the premium includes paying for Apple services. Why would other people who haven't given a cent to Apple be entitled to leech off their servers? I could understand complaining about AirDrop being closed off since it's peer to peer and offline, but iMessage really stretches it

chongli 3y ago
I’ve already made the same argument you just made here in a previous thread on the topic. My post here was intended to relay that argument without endorsing it (a difficult thing to do without being explicit).
asQuirreL 3y ago
IANAL but does this argument not smell like Bundling? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law) It's not quite the same because Bundling seems to be about setting a price that is too low, so this isn't a legal precedent but it seems like a morally similar argument? You are saying that you paid Apple for a device, and that entitles you to access to their services (e.g. Apple bundled their services with their device for free). If this was Apple's main contention with Beeper, then why not allow people to pay a one-off fee to access their services (whatever fraction of the retail price of a device goes towards services)? I suspect they can't do this because then you would be fully in Bundling territory: that the one-off price you pay to access Apple's services becomes cheaper when bundled with a device. The whole idea that you paid a one-off fee and that covers your indefinite access to Apple's servers at a continuous cost to them also seems like a flawed model if that's really what the economics of iMessage are. Of course the contention is that the continuous fee to you is the fact that you are locked in and are therefore helping Apple attract other people to their ecosystem. There is also another argument going round that somehow the issue is that Beeper is charging for their service. I don't buy that, because I pay for Beeper and I don't use their iMessage integration (because I live in the UK so this whole blue bubble green, bubble thing is just not a thing here and we can just enjoy watching it unfold with idle curiosity) and I pay the same as someone who would. I am paying them on a continuous basis because they are running servers that I want access to that bridge to other services I use and want aggregated in one place.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Bundling / Tying is not illegal in and of itself.
- hhh 3y ago
  One-off fees don’t work for services that require continuous compute IMO.
  - Libcat99 3y ago
    If that's the case, how long after the purchase of a new iPhone does your imessage subscription expire? Of course it does not. The per user cost of delivering imessage is so low, Apple doesn't care about the individual user. In bulk, enough people are buying new iPhones to cover the ongoing cost (and then some).
    - Almondsetat 3y ago
      It expires when your iOS version becomes too out of date
      - asQuirreL 3y ago
        Sounds like the kind of planned obsolescence that Apple has been [sued for in the past](https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161271/apple-settlement-500-million-throttling-batterygate-class-action-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161271/apple-settlement-...).
        Almondsetat 3y ago
        Why would an application which has features added all the time work on an old, unsupported, underpowered devices? Whatsapp and Telegram dropped support for Android 4.4 devices, are they emplying planned obsolescence?
        asQuirreL 3y ago

chongli 3y ago

I’ve already made the same argument you just made here in a previous thread on the topic. My post here was intended to relay that argument without endorsing it (a difficult thing to do without being explicit).

asQuirreL 3y ago

IANAL but does this argument not smell like Bundling? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law) It's not quite the same because Bundling seems to be about setting a price that is too low, so this isn't a legal precedent but it seems like a morally similar argument? You are saying that you paid Apple for a device, and that entitles you to access to their services (e.g. Apple bundled their services with their device for free). If this was Apple's main contention with Beeper, then why not allow people to pay a one-off fee to access their services (whatever fraction of the retail price of a device goes towards services)? I suspect they can't do this because then you would be fully in Bundling territory: that the one-off price you pay to access Apple's services becomes cheaper when bundled with a device. The whole idea that you paid a one-off fee and that covers your indefinite access to Apple's servers at a continuous cost to them also seems like a flawed model if that's really what the economics of iMessage are. Of course the contention is that the continuous fee to you is the fact that you are locked in and are therefore helping Apple attract other people to their ecosystem. There is also another argument going round that somehow the issue is that Beeper is charging for their service. I don't buy that, because I pay for Beeper and I don't use their iMessage integration (because I live in the UK so this whole blue bubble green, bubble thing is just not a thing here and we can just enjoy watching it unfold with idle curiosity) and I pay the same as someone who would. I am paying them on a continuous basis because they are running servers that I want access to that bridge to other services I use and want aggregated in one place.

charcircuit 3y ago
Bundling / Tying is not illegal in and of itself.
hhh 3y ago
One-off fees don’t work for services that require continuous compute IMO.
- Libcat99 3y ago
  If that's the case, how long after the purchase of a new iPhone does your imessage subscription expire? Of course it does not. The per user cost of delivering imessage is so low, Apple doesn't care about the individual user. In bulk, enough people are buying new iPhones to cover the ongoing cost (and then some).
  - Almondsetat 3y ago
    It expires when your iOS version becomes too out of date
    - asQuirreL 3y ago
      Sounds like the kind of planned obsolescence that Apple has been [sued for in the past](https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161271/apple-settlement-500-million-throttling-batterygate-class-action-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161271/apple-settlement-...).
      - Almondsetat 3y ago
        Why would an application which has features added all the time work on an old, unsupported, underpowered devices? Whatsapp and Telegram dropped support for Android 4.4 devices, are they emplying planned obsolescence?
        asQuirreL 3y ago