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> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process p

by dcow 1y ago

> Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this [the app store tax], as they don’t process payments through the App Store. However, privacy-first companies that monetize through subscriptions are disproportionately hit by this fee, putting a major barrier toward the adoption of privacy-first business models. Huh. I’ve never seen it framed this way and it might be the most compelling argument I’ve heard to date. It’s not simply a debate about whether a company should be allowed to be vertically integrated in isolation, but whether that vertical integration allows them to exert unfair distorting pressure on the free markets we are trying to protect.

DidYaWipe 1y ago
It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet." No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period. But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy" No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.
- solarexplorer 1y ago
  > They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. They also control the OS and don't allow side-loading or other app stores (without putting absurd obstacles in the way) So in the end they completely control the devices they sell.
  - mvanbaak 1y ago
    The end user is _NOT_ forced to buy into their ecosystem though. There are alternatives, and depending on where on this globe you ask, apple is not even the one with the biggest marketshare. So while I'm not against the general outcry and need for change, it is not just apple. The problem is way way bigger, and it should not be put onto one of the players in my opinion. Create regulation/platform that sets the limits, then put ALL players into the process not just one
    - DANmode 1y ago
      For discussion's sake, They are "forced" if they: 1) want to be cool or 2) don't want to be uncool or 3) don't want to spend effort on a technical decision they think doesn't matter to them
  - DidYaWipe 1y ago
    So what? So does every game-console manufacturer. Buy a different one.
    - BlueTemplar 1y ago
      The difference is that we can easily try to pretend that game consoles are not general purpose computers. And doing so is not going to cause issues to the fabric of the society.
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Hahaha, wow, OK. Then we must acknowledge that we're talking about PHONES here, and the applications on it are optional TOYS. The phone could have no app store at all, and still be highly functional and complete. In fact... that's how the iPhone launched. There was no app store for years. Meanwhile, a game system with no games is not functional at all. Might want to reconsider your argument here.
        BlueTemplar 1y ago
        No, they are general purpose computers that can also work as cellphones. The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs. This situation only lasted a year though. It did have a pre-installed Google Maps app, very much not a toy... And don't game consoles typically come out bundled with some first party games too ?
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        "The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs" What a laughably wrong assertion. The iPhone handled all kinds of PIM data and synced with computers. There was no requirement (or even expectation) that a "smart" phone had third-party applications.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is.
  - DANmode 1y ago
    iOS is not the Internet anymore than Jitterbug is telephones.
    - Nevermark 1y ago
      Nobody made such a claim. If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers. That’s called “gatekeeping”.
      - DANmode 1y ago
        Apple is not the Internet, stop allowing your friends, family and colleagues to treat it that way.
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Meanwhile, I can't convince my dad that he doesn't need to pay for AOL anymore...
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Yes you did: "Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is." And no, it isn't. Not supporting certain browser features does not direct traffic or even deny access. So you obviously don't know what gatekeeping is.
        Nevermark 1y ago
- SkiFire13 1y ago
  > They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store Which is also the only allowed way to run software on 58% of US smartphones? > Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon I could agree with Google, but how are Meta and Amazon gatekeepers of the internet? Especially _more than Apple_
  - DidYaWipe 1y ago
    So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties. Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-platform share as making it a gatekeeper to the Internet? Amazon is actually an Internet-based entity with huge dominance in its field. Meanwhile Meta (Facebook) IS the Internet for a large (less tech-savvy) portion of the public. Akin to when AOL slapped Internet access onto its platform. Apple controls its app store. Is it douchey as hell to developers? Yep. Has it antagonized governments and flouted legal rulings? Yep. Has it lied about App Store search? Yep. But it is not an Internet gatekeeper or a monopoly.
    - SkiFire13 1y ago
      > So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by Apple on its devices. Meta/Facebook? Same.
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No. Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No. You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what you view with it. WebKit doesn't. Even if you raise technical points (doesn't support Web MIDI or something), those still don't prevent you from visiting any site you want. Even if a site were totally broken for technical reasons, it doesn't amount to deliberate curation by Apple. Come on.
ClaraForm 1y ago
I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not. 1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out. 2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries. Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything. Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...
- pjc50 1y ago
  Exactly. All the free market logic assumes that barriers to entry are low. They are incredibly high and the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution. There's basically room for two smartphone ecosystems. Microsoft/Nokia couldn't sustain a third. Android-adjacent things like Amazon Fire and Tizen have little market share. > factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing Ironically in the contract manufacturing area the market is actually efficient. Small batches just cost more as an intrinsic fact about manufacturing. I guarantee you could get a quote for any quantity of manufacturing above 1, you just wouldn't like it.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Note: There's room for more smartphone ecosystems, but not mainstream ones. There are a few nonmainstream phones out there, from Linux phones (Pine, Librem, MNT I think now?) to more openish Android phones (Fairphone) to completely different platforms (that I'm pretty sure exist but I don't remember any of).
strogonoff 1y ago
The entire business model that monetises user data, where the actual customer is the advertiser, users do not vote with their wallets, and honest competition is impossible because no one can compete with free, should simply not exist and maybe regulated against—especially in social media, where it incentivises algorithms to push aggravating content in the name of engagement and ad views. Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work. It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”. Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business. Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?
- thfuran 1y ago
  I think the fix we need is comprehensive legal privacy protection and (even less achievable) significant restriction on advertisement. That would actually curtail the market for user data and prevalence of ad funding as a model.
- mock-possum 1y ago
  What’s weird for me is that users can effectively vote with their wallets - they can refuse to engage with ‘freemium’ or ad-supported media - and they can refuse to consume ads when presented, refuse to engage with calls to action, refuse to pay for products advertised to them in this way. Have you ever been shown a mobile ad, and thought to yourself, “this is a good thing, this is an honest description of a product that I am eager to spend money on?” No, on the contrary, they’re the subject of universal ridicule… and yet they persist. Why? How? Who is paying for them? How are they generating revenue? How can that be worth anything? Where is the value coming from? So even though I delete apps that force you to sit through ads, and I refuse to be led by ads towards spending money - even though I am in effect ‘voting’ by doing so - it doesn’t seem to have any impact. The ads keep happening anyway, I can only assume because they do actually work on other less canny consumers. Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?
microtherion 1y ago
Yes, in a way it's a rather good argument. But if you take it to its conclusion, if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.
- onion2k 1y ago
  At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. The problem right now is that Apple is 'abusing' the fact that privacy-aware consumers are drawn to their platform to charge onerous fees to app developers. They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly on high-end mobile privacy-aware devices to restrict competition in mobile app fee charging. It's that business practice that's wrong - having a monopoly is fine so long as you don't start using your monopoly position to make money from people who are your customers for some other business. Microsoft fell foul of this in the early 2000s. It wasn't their monopoly on desktop PC OSs that lost them an anti-trust case. It was the fact they used their monopoly on Windows to push users into adopting IE. They abused their monopoly position. That's the problem.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. Consumers who spent hundreds of dollars in Appstore purchases and have 10+ years of photos, movies and data tied to Apple won't just suddenly leave all that and move to Android and start their digital life from scratch. And the young consumers just starting their digital lives, are jumping in the ecosystem their friends and family already use (iMessage lock-in). It's basically not even your choice at that point, it's more that you're forced to.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      And switching to Android, which is only technically not the only alternative, doesn't exactly help privacy anyways.
basisword 1y ago
It's a good argument but I'm not sure it'll hold up. Apple went to great lengths to clamp down on privacy-abusing advertising via ATT. I think Facebook have been quite open about the huge revenues it cost them alone.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  In the short-term, this happened. Facebook recovered though, as what Apple actually accomplished was destroying all of the smaller providers who didn't have huge first party datasets for modelling. It's similar to the notion that killing third party cookies is basically a gift to Facebook and Google. And lets be honest here, Apple themselves are not subject to ATT and (potentially coincidentally) have a rather large ads business. Many moons ago Apple suddenly started becoming the number 1 provider of installs on Apple as they claimed credit for the click to install which is also bonkers. One can agree that targeted advertising is bad but also note that Apple made these "privacy focused" decisions for commercial rather than idealistic reasons.
hk1337 1y ago
I'm not so sure it's the best argument but I get what they're saying. The problem is, the argument basically says all free apps are bad, all paid apps are good. The price of an app isn't a good indicator of its intentions.
- airstrike 1y ago
  No, it doesn't say that. It says free apps are not hurt by this as much as paid apps, so charging a percentage fee to maintain the app store disproportionately hurts paid apps.
  - hk1337 1y ago
    They should probably reword it so that "free services" and "abuse your privacy" is not so closely linked in that case.
    - saghm 1y ago
      I don't think the argument is that _every_ free app is abusing your privacy, just that there are undoubtedly some, and they're hard to compete with in a privacy-respecting way due to the extra overhead that the app store fees incur.
    - parineum 1y ago
      It's proton suing. That's their entire case. They are a respecting privacy product that is unduly burdened while privacy abusing products are not. (their argument)

by dcow 1y ago

DidYaWipe 1y ago

It's really the most interesting thing I read in this screed, the rest of which seemed to be clueless BS like, "changes to App Store policies that will improve the state of the internet." No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period. But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy" No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.

solarexplorer 1y ago
> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. They also control the OS and don't allow side-loading or other app stores (without putting absurd obstacles in the way) So in the end they completely control the devices they sell.
- mvanbaak 1y ago
  The end user is _NOT_ forced to buy into their ecosystem though. There are alternatives, and depending on where on this globe you ask, apple is not even the one with the biggest marketshare. So while I'm not against the general outcry and need for change, it is not just apple. The problem is way way bigger, and it should not be put onto one of the players in my opinion. Create regulation/platform that sets the limits, then put ALL players into the process not just one
  - DANmode 1y ago
    For discussion's sake, They are "forced" if they: 1) want to be cool or 2) don't want to be uncool or 3) don't want to spend effort on a technical decision they think doesn't matter to them
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  So what? So does every game-console manufacturer. Buy a different one.
  - BlueTemplar 1y ago
    The difference is that we can easily try to pretend that game consoles are not general purpose computers. And doing so is not going to cause issues to the fabric of the society.
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      Hahaha, wow, OK. Then we must acknowledge that we're talking about PHONES here, and the applications on it are optional TOYS. The phone could have no app store at all, and still be highly functional and complete. In fact... that's how the iPhone launched. There was no app store for years. Meanwhile, a game system with no games is not functional at all. Might want to reconsider your argument here.
      - BlueTemplar 1y ago
        No, they are general purpose computers that can also work as cellphones. The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs. This situation only lasted a year though. It did have a pre-installed Google Maps app, very much not a toy... And don't game consoles typically come out bundled with some first party games too ?
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        "The first iPhone technically wasn't a smartphone (unlike its competitors at the time) because it did not have a way to install third-party programs" What a laughably wrong assertion. The iPhone handled all kinds of PIM data and synced with computers. There was no requirement (or even expectation) that a "smart" phone had third-party applications.
Nevermark 1y ago
Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is.
- DANmode 1y ago
  iOS is not the Internet anymore than Jitterbug is telephones.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    Nobody made such a claim. If you serve web pages, you likely serve many of your users on their Apple devices. And you can’t support features of the web for those users if Apple doesn’t want them to have those features, and prohibits browsers with other engines that do support them on their App Store, and prohibits other sources of web browsers. That’s called “gatekeeping”.
    - DANmode 1y ago
      Apple is not the Internet, stop allowing your friends, family and colleagues to treat it that way.
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Meanwhile, I can't convince my dad that he doesn't need to pay for AOL anymore...
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      Yes you did: "Try shipping a web browser not based on Apple’s browser functionality on iOS. See how free of gatekeeping the internet is." And no, it isn't. Not supporting certain browser features does not direct traffic or even deny access. So you obviously don't know what gatekeeping is.
      - Nevermark 1y ago
SkiFire13 1y ago
> They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store Which is also the only allowed way to run software on 58% of US smartphones? > Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon I could agree with Google, but how are Meta and Amazon gatekeepers of the internet? Especially _more than Apple_
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Apple does not funnel Web traffic into its properties. Think it through: Amazon dominates shopping-search results. It easily swamps any other shopping portal or indie vendor. So it is a de facto gatekeeper to a huge portion of online shopping. You're citing Apple's alleged 58% of phone-platform share as making it a gatekeeper to the Internet? Amazon is actually an Internet-based entity with huge dominance in its field. Meanwhile Meta (Facebook) IS the Internet for a large (less tech-savvy) portion of the public. Akin to when AOL slapped Internet access onto its platform. Apple controls its app store. Is it douchey as hell to developers? Yep. Has it antagonized governments and flouted legal rulings? Yep. Has it lied about App Store search? Yep. But it is not an Internet gatekeeper or a monopoly.
  - SkiFire13 1y ago
    > So what? Controlling how many fart apps are available on its platform does not make Apple a gatekeeper to any part of the Internet. Controlling what kind of software, including _web browsers_, runs on the main device for the majority of the US population, does not make it a gatekeeper? That doesn't make any sense to me. Want to go to Amazon? You need an app or a browser to access it, both of these are controlled by Apple on its devices. Meta/Facebook? Same.
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      No, it does not. Does the cable company's forcing of you to use DOCSIS-compliant modems control what Web sites you access? No. Does WebKit direct you to certain sites or block sites based on their content? Does it capture your search terms and curate the results? Does it aggregate content? Does it funnel your viewing to certain sites preferentially? No. You keep attempting to assert that the viewing tool curates what you view with it. WebKit doesn't. Even if you raise technical points (doesn't support Web MIDI or something), those still don't prevent you from visiting any site you want. Even if a site were totally broken for technical reasons, it doesn't amount to deliberate curation by Apple. Come on.

ClaraForm 1y ago

I have disorganized thoughts about this, but it's not just a debate about vertical isolation vs not. 1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out. 2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries. Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything. Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...

pjc50 1y ago
Exactly. All the free market logic assumes that barriers to entry are low. They are incredibly high and the market is naturally prone to converging on a single solution. There's basically room for two smartphone ecosystems. Microsoft/Nokia couldn't sustain a third. Android-adjacent things like Amazon Fire and Tizen have little market share. > factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing Ironically in the contract manufacturing area the market is actually efficient. Small batches just cost more as an intrinsic fact about manufacturing. I guarantee you could get a quote for any quantity of manufacturing above 1, you just wouldn't like it.
- immibis 1y ago
  Note: There's room for more smartphone ecosystems, but not mainstream ones. There are a few nonmainstream phones out there, from Linux phones (Pine, Librem, MNT I think now?) to more openish Android phones (Fairphone) to completely different platforms (that I'm pretty sure exist but I don't remember any of).

strogonoff 1y ago

The entire business model that monetises user data, where the actual customer is the advertiser, users do not vote with their wallets, and honest competition is impossible because no one can compete with free, should simply not exist and maybe regulated against—especially in social media, where it incentivises algorithms to push aggravating content in the name of engagement and ad views. Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work. It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”. Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business. Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?

thfuran 1y ago
I think the fix we need is comprehensive legal privacy protection and (even less achievable) significant restriction on advertisement. That would actually curtail the market for user data and prevalence of ad funding as a model.
mock-possum 1y ago
What’s weird for me is that users can effectively vote with their wallets - they can refuse to engage with ‘freemium’ or ad-supported media - and they can refuse to consume ads when presented, refuse to engage with calls to action, refuse to pay for products advertised to them in this way. Have you ever been shown a mobile ad, and thought to yourself, “this is a good thing, this is an honest description of a product that I am eager to spend money on?” No, on the contrary, they’re the subject of universal ridicule… and yet they persist. Why? How? Who is paying for them? How are they generating revenue? How can that be worth anything? Where is the value coming from? So even though I delete apps that force you to sit through ads, and I refuse to be led by ads towards spending money - even though I am in effect ‘voting’ by doing so - it doesn’t seem to have any impact. The ads keep happening anyway, I can only assume because they do actually work on other less canny consumers. Is the problem really an inability to vote with our wallets? Or is the problem a complete lack of media/marketing literacy, that leads the credulous to engage with ad slop, against their own best interests?

microtherion 1y ago

Yes, in a way it's a rather good argument. But if you take it to its conclusion, if Apple finds it harder and harder to monetize the App Store through fees, then THEY might eventually decide to switch to privacy violating advertising as their revenue strategy.

onion2k 1y ago
At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. The problem right now is that Apple is 'abusing' the fact that privacy-aware consumers are drawn to their platform to charge onerous fees to app developers. They're leveraging their (de facto) monopoly on high-end mobile privacy-aware devices to restrict competition in mobile app fee charging. It's that business practice that's wrong - having a monopoly is fine so long as you don't start using your monopoly position to make money from people who are your customers for some other business. Microsoft fell foul of this in the early 2000s. It wasn't their monopoly on desktop PC OSs that lost them an anti-trust case. It was the fact they used their monopoly on Windows to push users into adopting IE. They abused their monopoly position. That's the problem.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >At that point consumers would be free to make a choice to switch away from Apple if they value their privacy enough. Consumers who spent hundreds of dollars in Appstore purchases and have 10+ years of photos, movies and data tied to Apple won't just suddenly leave all that and move to Android and start their digital life from scratch. And the young consumers just starting their digital lives, are jumping in the ecosystem their friends and family already use (iMessage lock-in). It's basically not even your choice at that point, it's more that you're forced to.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    And switching to Android, which is only technically not the only alternative, doesn't exactly help privacy anyways.

basisword 1y ago

It's a good argument but I'm not sure it'll hold up. Apple went to great lengths to clamp down on privacy-abusing advertising via ATT. I think Facebook have been quite open about the huge revenues it cost them alone.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
In the short-term, this happened. Facebook recovered though, as what Apple actually accomplished was destroying all of the smaller providers who didn't have huge first party datasets for modelling. It's similar to the notion that killing third party cookies is basically a gift to Facebook and Google. And lets be honest here, Apple themselves are not subject to ATT and (potentially coincidentally) have a rather large ads business. Many moons ago Apple suddenly started becoming the number 1 provider of installs on Apple as they claimed credit for the click to install which is also bonkers. One can agree that targeted advertising is bad but also note that Apple made these "privacy focused" decisions for commercial rather than idealistic reasons.

hk1337 1y ago

I'm not so sure it's the best argument but I get what they're saying. The problem is, the argument basically says all free apps are bad, all paid apps are good. The price of an app isn't a good indicator of its intentions.

airstrike 1y ago
No, it doesn't say that. It says free apps are not hurt by this as much as paid apps, so charging a percentage fee to maintain the app store disproportionately hurts paid apps.
- hk1337 1y ago
  They should probably reword it so that "free services" and "abuse your privacy" is not so closely linked in that case.
  - saghm 1y ago
    I don't think the argument is that _every_ free app is abusing your privacy, just that there are undoubtedly some, and they're hard to compete with in a privacy-respecting way due to the extra overhead that the app store fees incur.
  - parineum 1y ago
    It's proton suing. That's their entire case. They are a respecting privacy product that is unduly burdened while privacy abusing products are not. (their argument)