6 ms·

I was being generous to the App Store vendors. The better analogy is Tony Soprano with a migraine.

FredPret 2y ago
But Tony Soprano sucks the blood out of pre-existing economic activity while Apple created a brand-new playing field for billions of $ of new activity, complete with the hardware platform and app hosting.
- benreesman 2y ago
  On economic activity? Apple has generated a lot in the last few decades. On human welfare? Every other day a new study comes out on the destructive force that heavily marketed smart phones represent: Phillip Morris and Enron put together couldn’t collapse the birth rate in a nation. This debate is about economic activity as a good a priori. A lot of people assume that. Some are ill-informed: they haven’t read the designer of GDP talk about the perils of GDP as a metric. A small few know how mathematically comical the fucking Laffer Curve is and who thought it up and where and prey on the good intentions of the former group. They’re going to catch a guillotine no matter how much caution I or anyone else advocates for.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    "Catch a guillotine"? (!!) Collapsing the birthrate? Human welfare? We're talking about the App Store my friend. You need to take it easy on the ideology.
    - michaelhoney 2y ago
      Endorsing this, because an upvote is invisible. Also consider: is it the phone that’s the problem, or is it TikTok/Twitter/Instagram/whatever? And even for them, is it the app itself, or is it the other people? The problem with X is… the other people who use X.
    - benreesman 2y ago
      No we’re talking about Apple and the ostensible economic impact as opposed to the humane assessment of outcomes friend, and we can talk about anything from child labor in Foxconn factories to union busting at Apple stores to parts pairing around right to repair before we even get into how fucking illegal the App Store shit is.
      - cutthegrass2 2y ago
        Have you "de-apple'd" your life in anyway so that you're at least not helping to finance the illegal app store shit?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        benreesman 2y ago
        I’m rotating things out of walled-garden mega ecosystems and into e.g. Proton. It’s not done in a day but I’m on track to finish in 2025.
        cutthegrass2 2y ago
        Nice, thanks. Making similar strides myself. Moved over to a Framework machine (which has been surprisingly pleasant) with Linux (also not too bad as a desktop OS in 2024) - coming from an M1 Pro. Photo's is my current sticking point though, do I really push everything into Google photos...
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  At what point does a "new" playing field become an "existing" playing field? Surely they don't deserve an outsized cut forever, and we're more than 16 years in. Their hardware sales shouldn't entitle them to a cut of the software used on it, and the hosting is not worth particularly much.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public property all of a sudden? The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way.
    - benreesman 2y ago
      All property is public property in the sense that the duly constituted government informed by the wishes of the electorate has an iron monopoly on the use of force and in this case enough force to make anyone do anything. Some internet platform thing stops being socially useful from competitive innovation and starts being an extractive rent? The public has the power to dictate terms to the people running it. It’s a power the public hasn’t exercised a lot recently, but it’s only been about 30 years since LA 92, a little longer to Watts and Detroit. It would be a grave error to mistake the public’s kindness for weakness.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      > Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public If that's what you think matters above all else, would you support a literal mafia group taking a cut if they had started the market in that particular city? > public property It's a market, not property. But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say? > The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way. They shouldn't be artificially tied together by DRM.
      - FredPret 2y ago
        A legitimate business created an asset. There’s no good reason to believe they should cede ownership simply because 16 years have elapsed. > But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say? This is an interesting point. But the key thing is people buy iPhones in part because of the walled garden, and Apple bakes it into the price. Without that App Store revenue, those $999 iPhones would simply see a price increase.

But Tony Soprano sucks the blood out of pre-existing economic activity while Apple created a brand-new playing field for billions of $ of new activity, complete with the hardware platform and app hosting.

benreesman 2y ago
On economic activity? Apple has generated a lot in the last few decades. On human welfare? Every other day a new study comes out on the destructive force that heavily marketed smart phones represent: Phillip Morris and Enron put together couldn’t collapse the birth rate in a nation. This debate is about economic activity as a good a priori. A lot of people assume that. Some are ill-informed: they haven’t read the designer of GDP talk about the perils of GDP as a metric. A small few know how mathematically comical the fucking Laffer Curve is and who thought it up and where and prey on the good intentions of the former group. They’re going to catch a guillotine no matter how much caution I or anyone else advocates for.
- FredPret 2y ago
  "Catch a guillotine"? (!!) Collapsing the birthrate? Human welfare? We're talking about the App Store my friend. You need to take it easy on the ideology.
  - michaelhoney 2y ago
    Endorsing this, because an upvote is invisible. Also consider: is it the phone that’s the problem, or is it TikTok/Twitter/Instagram/whatever? And even for them, is it the app itself, or is it the other people? The problem with X is… the other people who use X.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    No we’re talking about Apple and the ostensible economic impact as opposed to the humane assessment of outcomes friend, and we can talk about anything from child labor in Foxconn factories to union busting at Apple stores to parts pairing around right to repair before we even get into how fucking illegal the App Store shit is.
    - cutthegrass2 2y ago
      Have you "de-apple'd" your life in anyway so that you're at least not helping to finance the illegal app store shit?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - benreesman 2y ago
        I’m rotating things out of walled-garden mega ecosystems and into e.g. Proton. It’s not done in a day but I’m on track to finish in 2025.
        cutthegrass2 2y ago
        Nice, thanks. Making similar strides myself. Moved over to a Framework machine (which has been surprisingly pleasant) with Linux (also not too bad as a desktop OS in 2024) - coming from an M1 Pro. Photo's is my current sticking point though, do I really push everything into Google photos...
Dylan16807 2y ago
At what point does a "new" playing field become an "existing" playing field? Surely they don't deserve an outsized cut forever, and we're more than 16 years in. Their hardware sales shouldn't entitle them to a cut of the software used on it, and the hosting is not worth particularly much.
- FredPret 2y ago
  Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public property all of a sudden? The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    All property is public property in the sense that the duly constituted government informed by the wishes of the electorate has an iron monopoly on the use of force and in this case enough force to make anyone do anything. Some internet platform thing stops being socially useful from competitive innovation and starts being an extractive rent? The public has the power to dictate terms to the people running it. It’s a power the public hasn’t exercised a lot recently, but it’s only been about 30 years since LA 92, a little longer to Watts and Detroit. It would be a grave error to mistake the public’s kindness for weakness.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public If that's what you think matters above all else, would you support a literal mafia group taking a cut if they had started the market in that particular city? > public property It's a market, not property. But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say? > The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way. They shouldn't be artificially tied together by DRM.
    - FredPret 2y ago
      A legitimate business created an asset. There’s no good reason to believe they should cede ownership simply because 16 years have elapsed. > But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say? This is an interesting point. But the key thing is people buy iPhones in part because of the walled garden, and Apple bakes it into the price. Without that App Store revenue, those $999 iPhones would simply see a price increase.