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Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden a

Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their product away for free and spy on their users anyway. I never really understood the monopolistic argument against Apple. In the first place, there are very clear legal criteria that define what a monopoly is and what anti-competitive behaviors are, and it’s not even the case that majority of the world runs on iOS. It is actually Android that is the most popular OS globally by a wide margin, though the split is somewhat equal in the US. But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones. Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.

maplant 1y ago
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? This question has already been asked to the United States Court of Appeals, and the answer was "no"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- halJordan 1y ago
  It's only no in certain instances. Try and apply that ruling to Brother or Ford or in fact, MS itself.
amelius 1y ago
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones. Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are. You can say "platform" as much as you like, but that's just Apple's way of forcing their way into the argument. Someone has to make the platform. If they want recognition for that or compensation, maybe they should apply for government funding. Don't bother the consumer with it. And if you don't like a government regulating a market, then you haven't seen a company regulate one.
- zaphar 1y ago
  The user can hack the product, install a different OS, Strike it with a hammer, or throw it away. Apple hasn't violated their rights in any way. Sure hacking it or installing a different OS are hard but rights are not meant to guarantee something is easy. I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
  - ivell 1y ago
    > I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured Probably you meant it differently, but guaranties and warranties exist exactly due to this. Users have right to expect their device performs as advertised and in a reasonable manner.
    - zaphar 1y ago
      I think those are more about ensuring that the user is buying what they think they are buying. They don't dictate exactly what is sold they merely offer protection to the user that what they bought is what was on the tin.
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
Yes, the advertising industry seems like it’s the more relevant institution in this particular case. Apple’s culpability has mostly to do with doing nothing to mitigate the runaway race to the bottom in during the App Store’s earliest days, but that would've happened even if they hadn’t taken the walled garden approach. Surveillance capitalism is the inevitable end state where on the web and in apps, ads are the most readily accessible, consistent, and sometimes lucrative form of monetization. > Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”. They’re all blatantly self-interested, but Spotify is perhaps the biggest hypocrite among them. They’re continuously bolstering their dominance in the streaming music space at the cost of both users and artists, and when Apple gives them features they’ve asked for they refuse to use them because that’d weaken their case. They only care because if it weren’t for Apple Music they’d for all practical purposes have a monopoly.
lillecarl 1y ago
When your platform becomes a dominant market it becomes a market and markets are regulated to prevent market abuse, this is what's happening now. And while Facebook and Google would still be hoarding data, there are a huge amount of games and apps I'd rather pay 5 for that are now ad-fueled invasive crapps and "pay to remove ads" costs 15 instead of 5. When a significant percentage of the population uses your products and services, expect regulators to prevent you from abusing that significant group. The capitalism idea that "markets solve all issues" only works when it's regulated so market players play on even-ish odds and the players don't have control of the market. (And even then it doesn't seem to work for public utilities really). The naive idea that "Apple makes the product let them decide" would fly well for a device with millions of units, but billions is 1000x more and it comes with responsibility, sometimes the responsibility comes late because regulators are slow bureaucrats. "With power comes responsibility" used to be a thing, now it's "With power responsibility might knock on your doorstep eventually if you abuse it to an extreme level like imposing a third of all REVENUE transacted through their forced store"
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Companies should not be regulated just because they are successful. Apple built a really successful app platform. It's theirs to maintain or burn to the ground.
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    I didn't double check this, but according to a quick search 60% of the adult US population owns an iPhone, you're saying that even though you're operating where more than 50% of your target market has your products you should not be held accountable for predatory behavior? The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable? When you're "competing" with the government (30% tax sounds pretty government like to a Swede, we have 25% VAT) the government will get involved because you're operating a "shadow government" eventually (you set all the rules and set the tax rate, you're now a government). Supporting Apple here is unreasonable, sure they should be able to take a margin on the app store, but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior and the government already has a monopoly on that. And the "core fee" response was entirely unreasonable, it is unreasonably expensive. If Apple were operating like Sony on the Playstation where the console is a loss leader for much of it's lifetime then you ofc deserve a cut from developers since you enable them to build profitable games for your platform which markets the game for you and stuff. But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere. It's predatory and I don't know how to agree with them here.
energywut 1y ago
> the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store I did not read this claim. I read the claim that Apple's approach unevenly benefits companies that engage in surveillance capitalism. No one's ad revenue, for instance, must pay a 30% cut of their revenue. You are making an argument (and then arguing against it) that Proton did not make, as far as I can read. > if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? I don't think you do. We constrain what companies are permitted to do all the time. Apple must abide by regulatory constraints first, and then they can add the additional constraints they like. A simple test -- could Apple say, "Everyone is allowed to use Messages, except Hindus"? It's their platform, don't you get to define the constraints because it's your platform? No, we've collectively decided that kicking some people out based on certain characteristics is generally bad.
pscanf 1y ago
> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it." I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals). In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects. </couch-economist>
freeone3000 1y ago
I find the platform should be separate from the device. Google Play is a platform, but the device can run whatever. iPhones, the platform is the device, unnecessarily.
palata 1y ago
> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? Not if you effectively have a monopoly. If there were plenty of (relevant) other app stores, Apple wouldn't be able to tax 30% on every app. The only reason they can is that developers don't have a choice: there are far too many Apple users to ignore, and the only way to sell them an app is through the Apple Store.

maplant 1y ago

> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? This question has already been asked to the United States Court of Appeals, and the answer was "no"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

halJordan 1y ago
It's only no in certain instances. Try and apply that ruling to Brother or Ford or in fact, MS itself.

amelius 1y ago

> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? What’s effectively happening here is that companies are using the courts to force the design of OSes in a certain way: That only open OSes can ever be made, not closed ones. Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are. You can say "platform" as much as you like, but that's just Apple's way of forcing their way into the argument. Someone has to make the platform. If they want recognition for that or compensation, maybe they should apply for government funding. Don't bother the consumer with it. And if you don't like a government regulating a market, then you haven't seen a company regulate one.

zaphar 1y ago
The user can hack the product, install a different OS, Strike it with a hammer, or throw it away. Apple hasn't violated their rights in any way. Sure hacking it or installing a different OS are hard but rights are not meant to guarantee something is easy. I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured.
- ivell 1y ago
  > I never bought the argument that user rights should dictate how a product hardware or software should be manufactured Probably you meant it differently, but guaranties and warranties exist exactly due to this. Users have right to expect their device performs as advertised and in a reasonable manner.
  - zaphar 1y ago
    I think those are more about ensuring that the user is buying what they think they are buying. They don't dictate exactly what is sold they merely offer protection to the user that what they bought is what was on the tin.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

Yes, the advertising industry seems like it’s the more relevant institution in this particular case. Apple’s culpability has mostly to do with doing nothing to mitigate the runaway race to the bottom in during the App Store’s earliest days, but that would've happened even if they hadn’t taken the walled garden approach. Surveillance capitalism is the inevitable end state where on the web and in apps, ads are the most readily accessible, consistent, and sometimes lucrative form of monetization. > Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”. They’re all blatantly self-interested, but Spotify is perhaps the biggest hypocrite among them. They’re continuously bolstering their dominance in the streaming music space at the cost of both users and artists, and when Apple gives them features they’ve asked for they refuse to use them because that’d weaken their case. They only care because if it weren’t for Apple Music they’d for all practical purposes have a monopoly.

lillecarl 1y ago

When your platform becomes a dominant market it becomes a market and markets are regulated to prevent market abuse, this is what's happening now. And while Facebook and Google would still be hoarding data, there are a huge amount of games and apps I'd rather pay 5 for that are now ad-fueled invasive crapps and "pay to remove ads" costs 15 instead of 5. When a significant percentage of the population uses your products and services, expect regulators to prevent you from abusing that significant group. The capitalism idea that "markets solve all issues" only works when it's regulated so market players play on even-ish odds and the players don't have control of the market. (And even then it doesn't seem to work for public utilities really). The naive idea that "Apple makes the product let them decide" would fly well for a device with millions of units, but billions is 1000x more and it comes with responsibility, sometimes the responsibility comes late because regulators are slow bureaucrats. "With power comes responsibility" used to be a thing, now it's "With power responsibility might knock on your doorstep eventually if you abuse it to an extreme level like imposing a third of all REVENUE transacted through their forced store"

charcircuit 1y ago
Companies should not be regulated just because they are successful. Apple built a really successful app platform. It's theirs to maintain or burn to the ground.
- lillecarl 1y ago
  I didn't double check this, but according to a quick search 60% of the adult US population owns an iPhone, you're saying that even though you're operating where more than 50% of your target market has your products you should not be held accountable for predatory behavior? The thing with this 30% tax the private company Apple imposes on a majority of US adults is reasonable? When you're "competing" with the government (30% tax sounds pretty government like to a Swede, we have 25% VAT) the government will get involved because you're operating a "shadow government" eventually (you set all the rules and set the tax rate, you're now a government). Supporting Apple here is unreasonable, sure they should be able to take a margin on the app store, but not allowing other stores OR allowing external payment methods to be advertised is definitely predatory behavior and the government already has a monopoly on that. And the "core fee" response was entirely unreasonable, it is unreasonably expensive. If Apple were operating like Sony on the Playstation where the console is a loss leader for much of it's lifetime then you ofc deserve a cut from developers since you enable them to build profitable games for your platform which markets the game for you and stuff. But Apple makes a profit of iPhones, they make a profit on iCloud, they make profit on App Store... They make a profit everywhere. It's predatory and I don't know how to agree with them here.

energywut 1y ago

> the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store I did not read this claim. I read the claim that Apple's approach unevenly benefits companies that engage in surveillance capitalism. No one's ad revenue, for instance, must pay a 30% cut of their revenue. You are making an argument (and then arguing against it) that Proton did not make, as far as I can read. > if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? I don't think you do. We constrain what companies are permitted to do all the time. Apple must abide by regulatory constraints first, and then they can add the additional constraints they like. A simple test -- could Apple say, "Everyone is allowed to use Messages, except Hindus"? It's their platform, don't you get to define the constraints because it's your platform? No, we've collectively decided that kicking some people out based on certain characteristics is generally bad.

pscanf 1y ago

> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it." I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals). In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects. </couch-economist>

freeone3000 1y ago

I find the platform should be separate from the device. Google Play is a platform, but the device can run whatever. iPhones, the platform is the device, unnecessarily.

palata 1y ago

> But the core of my contention is that: if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform? Not if you effectively have a monopoly. If there were plenty of (relevant) other app stores, Apple wouldn't be able to tax 30% on every app. The only reason they can is that developers don't have a choice: there are far too many Apple users to ignore, and the only way to sell them an app is through the Apple Store.