Apple considers transparency information as irrelevant and forbids info about their 30% cut

[Kisai]

19 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I’d personally like to see them both get burned. Apple has to justify its fee structure, meaning it would either have to charge less or do more for users, possibly both, (which would be a go-round for all the app stores) and epic has to make the division between fortnight and UE real and more than a legal fiction. 

See, my point of view here is Epic is both the perpetrator and the victim in the same case. They took actions to make sure they were hurt and then blamed Apple.

 

Y'know like a bully who will beat you up at school, but then you fight back, and now suddenly you're the one in trouble. The principal then decides you're both at fault and nothing of consequence happens.

 

Like, if you don't like Apple, that's fine. You do not need to like Apple. But y'all need to realize that campaigning "off with her head" may eventually result in that. I may not like Apple's prices, but I've yet to see a compelling reason why Apple should change it's fee structure unless everyone (which means companies not party to this case) are required to as well. Hence a regulation needs to be made, and this is really the wrong way for it to happen.

 

Likewise, nobody has made a compelling reason for Apple to allow EGS on the iPhone/iPad/AppleTV/Arm-based-mac which is really what Epic wants from this. Apple has made a firm case of not allowing software that has IAP's to avoid the App store's payment safety, and Apple has made a firm case of not allowing third party "stores" that installs software without going through Apple. There is no compelling reason to allow sideloading on a mobile device, especially when such devices may be tampered with by the Carrier, third party stores, or anyone that has physical access to the device while out of your sight (like a customs or x-ray scanner line at an airport.) 

 

At best, I don't see a compelling reason for keeping xCloud or Stadia streaming games off the devices. The content rating not withstanding, I don't think Apple should give a care about the rating of software on their device, otherwise they would have removed the web browser entirely. One can just as easily type pornhub into the safari browser as one can in Chrome on a PC. If Microsoft or Google want to avoid IAP, then just dispense with the stupidity of "buying" games on a streaming platform and be the netflix for games you're really wanting to be.

 

 

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, Kisai said:

See, my point of view here is Epic is both the perpetrator and the victim in the same case. They took actions to make sure they were hurt and then blamed Apple.

 

Y'know like a bully who will beat you up at school, but then you fight back, and now suddenly you're the one in trouble. The principal then decides you're both at fault and nothing of consequence happens.

 

Like, if you don't like Apple, that's fine. You do not need to like Apple. But y'all need to realize that campaigning "off with her head" may eventually result in that. I may not like Apple's prices, but I've yet to see a compelling reason why Apple should change it's fee structure unless everyone (which means companies not party to this case) are required to as well. Hence a regulation needs to be made, and this is really the wrong way for it to happen.

 

Likewise, nobody has made a compelling reason for Apple to allow EGS on the iPhone/iPad/AppleTV/Arm-based-mac which is really what Epic wants from this. Apple has made a firm case of not allowing software that has IAP's to avoid the App store's payment safety, and Apple has made a firm case of not allowing third party "stores" that installs software without going through Apple. There is no compelling reason to allow sideloading on a mobile device, especially when such devices may be tampered with by the Carrier, third party stores, or anyone that has physical access to the device while out of your sight (like a customs or x-ray scanner line at an airport.) 

 

At best, I don't see a compelling reason for keeping xCloud or Stadia streaming games off the devices. The content rating not withstanding, I don't think Apple should give a care about the rating of software on their device, otherwise they would have removed the web browser entirely. One can just as easily type pornhub into the safari browser as one can in Chrome on a PC. If Microsoft or Google want to avoid IAP, then just dispense with the stupidity of "buying" games on a streaming platform and be the netflix for games you're really wanting to be.

 

 

I know of only one compelling reason: level of complaint.   There’s massive public and heavily advertised complaining about it. There are some problems with this

1: apple is not the only one charging this much.  Basically ALL the various app stores are, though for some reason Apple is the only one taking heat.

2: apple seems to do more to actually justify that amount than other companies that do the same thing

[Kisai]

Tangentially related as we keep bringing up commissions:

 

https://variety.com/2020/digital/features/roku-premium-streaming-1234748507/

 

Quote

So far, Roku is refusing to cede ground on deal terms to add WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and NBCU’s Peacock to its popular streaming platform. Roku’s standard ask is 20% of subscription fees and 30% of ad inventory on partner channels. That ad split has been a nonstarter for Peacock, which is loading 5 minutes (or fewer) of advertising per hour. WarnerMedia, meanwhile, wants to retire the legacy HBO service sold through The Roku Channel to have HBO Max available as a standalone app, at which Roku has balked.

...

“Our platform is open to these services on very reasonable terms,” says Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood — an unlikely flag-waving OTT revolutionary who’s shaking up the TV biz. The soft-spoken exec, an engineer by background, is matter-of-fact in discussing the disputes with HBO Max and Peacock. Roku openly publishes its standard distribution agreement for content suppliers, Wood says, and those conditions “haven’t changed over the years.”

Roku also makes a lot of money. ARPU of $24.9 puts it about half of a cell phone contract ($50.63 AT&T (page 7), $117.44 Verizon page 7 of financials)

 

Note that AT&T uses ARPU (Average Revenue per User) which means phone number, Verizon uses Average Revenue per Account, which is the same metric but may include multiple devices under one account. For the purposes of comparison they're equivalent.

 

Anyway, yeah Roku asks for 20% (which makes it higher than Apple) and 30% of ad inventory (Apple yes, does have ads too (which Apple keeps 30% of iAd, but was shutdown in 2016.))

[Jet_ski]

Here’s the problem with this lawsuit: Epic is no different than Apple, the overall cost to the developers is very similar.

 

The Epic Game Store charges developers 12% revenue fee just for publishing on their store and processing payments. And the developers don’t get any development tools unless they use Unreal Engine 4 in which case they have to pay 5% royalty if their game makes more than $1M in revenue.

 

Heres how you can get Apple’s 30% fee for the 1st year:

• 12% fee for the App Store = 12% Epic Store
• 5% fee for xCode development tools = 5% for Unreal Engine 4 if revenue is over $1M
• 3% payment processing fee (Epic doesn’t usually charge extra for this unless payments are from certain countries or banks)
• 10% Apple tax for reviewing apps for the “benefit of its users” and keeping their privacy
• App Store reaches 1.5 billion users whereas Epic Store reaches 108 million users. That’s gotta be worth something.

After the first year, Apple’s fee drops to 15% and then that’s 3% less than a game that’s on the Epic Store (12%) and pays for Unreal Engine 4 (5% royalty fee for revenue over $1M).

 

I don’t see how Apple is different than Epic here.

[straight_stewie]

Considering they are in court for their 30% cut, is banning any talk about their 30% cut then tampering with evidence?

[Kisai]

1 minute ago, straight_stewie said:

Considering they are in court for their 30% cut, is banning any talk about their 30% cut then tampering with evidence?

Why would it.

https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

Considering they are in court for their 30% cut, is banning any talk about their 30% cut then tampering with evidence?

Facebook doing internet ads is court evidence?

[straight_stewie]

57 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Facebook doing internet ads is court evidence?

Apple trying to cover up that they do indeed charge a 30% fee on transactions...

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, straight_stewie said:

Apple trying to cover up that they do indeed charge a 30% fee on transactions...

There has never been any cover up on that. It's public knowledge. What Apple doesn't like is discriminatory language that doesn't give a level playing field to purchases. The same language exists in Credit Card/Debit Card vs Cash in stores. Stores are not permitted to charge different prices for different payment options. The option is either pay with the cards the store/merchant supports (which often omits AMEX) or do not accept any cards.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/10/02/bank-fees-atm-charges-hit-record-high-faster-hikes-coming/3835706002/

https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/22/investing/atm-overdraft-fees-rise/index.html

ATM's charge you fees to access YOUR money, withdrawing $20 from a foreign ATM can cost you like $6.

 

OK get that? That's 30% too if you withdraw just $20.

 

And how much are merchants charged if you use credit?

https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing?country_redirection=true&solution=pricing-in-person-payments

Quote

Free plan: 2.6% + 10¢
Plus plan: 2.5% + 10¢
Premium plan: Custom pricing
That’s for every tapped (mobile payments), dipped (chip cards), and swiped (magstripe cards) payment.

3.5% + 15¢
That’s for every manually keyed-in, Card on File, and Virtual Terminal payment.

Now it has to be pointed out, again and again, that the fee for the transaction only covers the transaction, nothing else, and that's charged to the merchant. If you pay $20.00 for something from someone using a square card reader, it costs them $0.62 if your card works, or $0.85. So merchants have to bake that price into the price. Especially in in Australia where the advertised price must be the final price inclusive of taxes.

 

Apple, Square, Google, etc can not charge below the card transaction fee, nor can they charge you more for using a credit or debit card.

 

And when it comes down to it, the users that get burned the most are international users, who end up paying discriminatory pricing for the same product in different countries. Those transaction fees in other countries can be much higher. Japan for example is 3.25% to 3.95%. Australia is 1.9%.

 

Like the fairest thing would be for Apple to justify their portion of the transaction fee that isn't "everyone else does", how do they get to 30%. Ultimately I don't see the fee changing without some kind of government regulation coming into force.

 

 

[Strider1974]

I suspect that Facebook smells blood in the water. Apple's reactions are entirely predictable and, like Epic, Facebook set them up in order to make Apple look bad. Personally I believe Apple have abused their Monopolistic power but Facebook are hardly known for generosity and transparency either. Facebook execs are probably drooling at the thought of being able to create an iOS appstore of their own.

[RejZoR]

People keep saying Apple is abusing monopoly. AGAIN, WHAT MONOPOLY? Monopoly on their OWN devices? It's such a weird reasoning. This isn't browser wars where Microsoft was abusing actual monopoly as their OS was shilled left and right for 3rd party systems and then their browser was shilled there. None of this exists outside of Apple devices. Like, at all. Except the Google's 30% cut that's identical to Apple's, but not talked about at all. People are so quick to judge and bash Apple and frankly it's totally unjustifiably. Don't like it? Well, there's Google with same 30% cut. Which somehow isn't a monopoly even though whole world runs on Android and they all come with Google apps preinstalled. Apple only has sort of dominance in USA and that's it. I always thought by the number of phones they sell they have a worldwide dominance just to just recently found out that's not even the case and they only have a really big market share in USA and nowhere else. And even there because of mostly fucked up pretentious mentality of people who view Apple devices as some sort of status symbol and if you don't have one you're a "poor person". Even if you're rocking a $1500 Galaxy S something Ultra.

[RejZoR]

In a way I understand Apple here. Would you have around some asshole developer who's a dick to you, knowingly breaches TOS they previously signed and agreed to just to make a scene and goes on to sue you on your own ecosystem that you've build from nothing? I'd also say fuck you and terminate their account. Sure, terminating engine thing that would affect other devs, whatever, keep that. But their main account that had Forkknife up, fuck it.

 

EDIT:

How is it monopoly or anti-competitive when you only make rules on YOUR OWN devices and nowhere else. Apple doesn't dictate anything to Samsung or Xiaomi or HTC. They are not relevant to them on any level and they don't care how they run their thing. But they want things on THEIR OWN devices in a certain way. It just makes absolutely no sense to demand ANYTHING from them.

[Bennet]

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

Likewise, nobody has made a compelling reason for Apple to allow EGS on the iPhone/iPad/AppleTV/Arm-based-mac which is really what Epic wants from this. Apple has made a firm case of not allowing software that has IAP's to avoid the App store's payment safety, and Apple has made a firm case of not allowing third party "stores" that installs software without going through Apple. There is no compelling reason to allow sideloading on a mobile device, especially when such devices may be tampered with by the Carrier, third party stores, or anyone that has physical access to the device while out of your sight (like a customs or x-ray scanner line at an airport.) 

Of cause Epic has it's own plans and is not the Messiah that came down to save us all. But they still have a point to make here. Because, if I (with my limited knowledge, I have to admit) understand it correctly these platforms can be considered as markets, where the users are the buyes, developers are producers, apps are the goods and Apple (/the platform owner) is the seller. So even tho the platform is their intellectual property, a market emerged from it and rules for markets should apply.

Quote

A market is one of a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labor power) in exchange for money from buyers. It can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and resource allocation in a society. Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods. Markets generally supplant gift economies and are often held in place through rules and customs, such as a booth fee, competitive pricing, and source of goods for sale (local produce or stock registration).

 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics)

But of cause because it is their IP, they are in control over this market, making it a monopoly with the help their TOS and power to enforce it.

Quote

A monopoly has these five characteristics:

• Profit maximizer: Maximizes profits.
• Price maker: Decides the price of the good or product to be sold, but does so by determining the quantity in order to demand the price desired by the firm.
• High barriers to entry: Other sellers are unable to enter the market of the monopoly.
• Single seller: In a monopoly, there is one seller of the good, who produces all the output.^[4] Therefore, the whole market is being served by a single company, and for practical purposes, the company is the same as the industry.
• Price discrimination: A monopolist can change the price or quantity of the product. They sell higher quantities at a lower price in a very elastic market, and sell lower quantities at a higher price in a less elastic market.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

So now that we have established that they have a monopoly and should allow other sellers to enter the market, we can move on to the security part.

 

Neighter trust nor dependency in Apple gives (Information) security or privacy. The opposite is the case even. On it's very basic level information security (p. 22 f.) has 3 parts: confidentiality, integrity and availability (commonly known as CIA). There is absolutely no reason why no one other than Apple should be able to provide to provide confidentiality, integrity of data (which has nothing to with privacy yet!). And for the availability part; again why shouldn't anyone else be able to provide it, going even further if there is more than one player, than availability is even higher. And all this has nothing to with trust, only the shear ability to fulfill these 3 goals.

 And now for good measure looking at the privacy part of things. There is no cut and dry definition for privacy but on a very abstract level it is always protecting someone (individual or group) from data (here and here), which boils down to someone is able to choose whom to give which information, at which point in time, about themselves (based on my German sense of privacy with Informational self-determination at it's core). Which could be considered is violated by Apple here. Because besides choosing to not sharing anything at all, there is no option to choose whom to give the data, it is always Apple. Of cause trust has a more important role here. And I will definitely not say that Epic is trustworthy. But if Epic wins this case not only an Epic Store would that be possible on iOS but other Stores from other vendors too. And this would constitute privacy, you would have the option to choose. If you trust Apple, this is fine. Buy from them. You don't trust them, this is fine too, buy somewhere else.

 

And for the people now complaining that this would make to holy platform insecure and prone to hackers and bad actors. Not necessarily. I don't say the be all and end all solution would just allowing willy-nilly sideloading every thing which is not up the tree at 3. No there are certainly other solutions. And some like Apple - as the owner of the platform - certain has the man-power and knowledge to implement something acceptable, without locking to down just allowing services from Apple - as the service provider. I think at this point we really need to distinguish between the platforms and the services.

 

Again Epic is clearly doing this for their own benefit. But whether they intended it or not there is something good in it for all of us. So for them is probably the necessary evil to get this all started

[Bennet]

48 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

People keep saying Apple is abusing monopoly. AGAIN, WHAT MONOPOLY? Monopoly on their OWN devices? It's such a weird reasoning. This isn't browser wars where Microsoft was abusing actual monopoly as their OS was shilled left and right for 3rd party systems and then their browser was shilled there. None of this exists outside of Apple devices. Like, at all. Except the Google's 30% cut that's identical to Apple's, but not talked about at all. People are so quick to judge and bash Apple and frankly it's totally unjustifiably. Don't like it? Well, there's Google with same 30% cut. Which somehow isn't a monopoly even though whole world runs on Android and they all come with Google apps preinstalled. Apple only has sort of dominance in USA and that's it. I always thought by the number of phones they sell they have a worldwide dominance just to just recently found out that's not even the case and they only have a really big market share in USA and nowhere else. And even there because of mostly fucked up pretentious mentality of people who view Apple devices as some sort of status symbol and if you don't have one you're a "poor person". Even if you're rocking a $1500 Galaxy S something Ultra.

 

10 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

In a way I understand Apple here. Would you have around some asshole developer who's a dick to you, knowingly breaches TOS they previously signed and agreed to just to make a scene and goes on to sue you on your own ecosystem that you've build from nothing? I'd also say fuck you and terminate their account. Sure, terminating engine thing that would affect other devs, whatever, keep that. But their main account that had Forkknife up, fuck it.

 

Of cause Google has a monopoly with the PlayStore too. Which with the whole OnePlus EpicStore thing could be considered even more monopolistic. And it is not like they aren't sued too. But media concentrates more on Apple because they tent to leverage more strict and publicly effective actions.

 

And yes they breached the terms of service. But they are not exactly negotiable and what better to raise awareness like this...

 

And again as described in my privious post, it's there own devices but a market emerged there, so they can't just do what they want... Apple the OS maker and Apple the service provider should be as separate as Epic the creator of fortnite and Epic the creator of UE or as Microsoft the OS maker and Microsoft the Browser maker...

[Bennet]

2 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Didn't know about the OnePlus thing, but kinda odd that they don't care about HB or Amazon being sideloaded.

Mh I don't know, I think they do care. At least a little. Warnings about "installing apps from untrusted sources" got more and more over the years, were you need to take more and more steps to install it anyway. But I think sideloading is such an integral part of Android that they can't just shut it off, because the outrage would be massive. But pre-installing another store alongside the usual google services, seamed to be one step to far for them.

[Bennet]

55 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

EDIT:

How is it monopoly or anti-competitive when you only make rules on YOUR OWN devices and nowhere else. Apple doesn't dictate anything to Samsung or Xiaomi or HTC. They are not relevant to them on any level and they don't care how they run their thing. But they want things on THEIR OWN devices in a certain way. It just makes absolutely no sense to demand ANYTHING from them.

Have you read the posts below?

[RejZoR]

I have and it still makes absolutely no sense. It's their shit. They can do whatever the fuck they want because it's only on their devices. If Apple was shilling and forcing their OS and App Store on 3rd parties, that would change the situation.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I have and it still makes absolutely no sense. It's their shit. They can do whatever the fuck they want because it's only on their devices. If Apple was shilling and forcing their OS and App Store on 3rd parties, that would change the situation.

The problem is it is a situation which goes in the face of multiple ideologies.  Pure capitalism gets it in the face because it’s clearly abusive, and people first based stuff gets it in the face because of property issues. 
Ideology doesn’t always work well when the rubber hits the road.

[Bennet]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I have and it still makes absolutely no sense. It's their shit. They can do whatever the fuck they want because it's only on their devices. If Apple was shilling and forcing their OS and App Store on 3rd parties, that would change the situation.

I don't think giving them a blank permit do anything they want because "it is theirs" is good reasoning. They got other involved and this always complicates things. Because as it currently is, developers are not creating App on behalf of Apple, with Apple than selling the App to it's customers. If would be like this than Apple would be perfectly fine in what they are doing, because the Apps would be created on Apples behalf according to a specification book by Apple. But is isn't like this, because this wouldn't probably work very well, No they let others develop what ever they want for these devices, giving them the ability to sell it for these devices. So all the sudden we have producers, sellers (a seller) and paying customers, which constitutes in my mind a market. And in a market, by law, not everyone can to want they want, probably even if it is based on their IP.

 

But it is ok that you don't agree. At the end we will see how it plays out.

 

Cheers.

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, RejZoR said:

People keep saying Apple is abusing monopoly. AGAIN, WHAT MONOPOLY? Monopoly on their OWN devices? It's such a weird reasoning. This isn't browser wars where Microsoft was abusing actual monopoly as their OS was shilled left and right for 3rd party systems and then their browser was shilled there. None of this exists outside of Apple devices. Like, at all. Except the Google's 30% cut that's identical to Apple's, but not talked about at all. People are so quick to judge and bash Apple and frankly it's totally unjustifiably. Don't like it? Well, there's Google with same 30% cut. Which somehow isn't a monopoly even though whole world runs on Android and they all come with Google apps preinstalled. Apple only has sort of dominance in USA and that's it. I always thought by the number of phones they sell they have a worldwide dominance just to just recently found out that's not even the case and they only have a really big market share in USA and nowhere else. And even there because of mostly fucked up pretentious mentality of people who view Apple devices as some sort of status symbol and if you don't have one you're a "poor person". Even if you're rocking a $1500 Galaxy S something Ultra.

The thing people keep forgetting or ignoring is that the reason Microsoft was in trouble at all was not because MSIE or WMP was bundled with Windows, but because Windows was dictating what Dell, HP, IBM, Toshiba, et al could customize Windows for the machines they sell. It's literately been decades since it mattered at all, and outside the Microsoft Surface (which they only started making in 2012 to compete with the iPad)

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312508162768/d10k.htm#tx31450_3

Quote

Lawsuits brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, 18 states, and the District of Columbia in two separate actions were resolved through a Consent Decree that took effect in 2001 and a Final Judgment entered in 2002. These proceedings imposed various constraints on our Windows operating system businesses. These constraints include limits on certain contracting practices, mandated disclosure of certain software program interfaces and protocols, and rights for computer manufacturers to limit the visibility of certain Windows features in new PCs. We believe we are in full compliance with these rules. However, if we fail to comply with them, additional restrictions could be imposed on us that would adversely affect our business.

 

That's from 2008.

 

https://microsoft.gcs-web.com/static-files/4e7064ed-bbf7-4140-a8cb-79aba77421b9

This is from 2019

Quote

Competition among platform-based ecosystems An important element of our business model has been to create platform-based ecosystems on which many participants can build diverse solutions. A well-established ecosystem creates beneficial network effects among users, application developers, and the platform provider that can accelerate growth. Establishing significant scale in the marketplace is necessary to achieve and maintain attractive margins. We face significant competition from firms that provide competing platforms.

 

• A competing vertically-integrated model, in which a single firm controls the software and hardware elements of a product and related services, has succeeded with some consumer products such as personal computers, tablets, phones, gaming consoles, wearables, and other endpoint devices. Competitors pursuing this model also earn revenue from services integrated with the hardware and software platform, including applications and content sold through their integrated marketplaces. They may also be able to claim security and performance benefits from their vertically integrated offer. We also offer some vertically-integrated hardware and software products and services. To the extent we shift a portion of our business to a vertically integrated model we increase our cost of revenue and reduce our operating margins.

 

• We derive substantial revenue from licenses of Windows operating systems on PCs. We face significant competition from competing platforms developed for new devices and form factors such as smartphones and tablet computers. These devices compete on multiple bases including price and the perceived utility of the device and its platform. Users are increasingly turning to these devices to perform functions that in the past were performed by personal computers. Even if many users view these devices as complementary to a personal computer, the prevalence of these devices may make it more difficult to attract application developers to our PC operating system platforms. Competing with operating systems licensed at low or no cost may decrease our PC operating system margins. Popular products or services offered on competing platforms could increase their competitive strength. In addition, some of our devices compete with products made by our original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform.

 

• Competing platforms have content and application marketplaces with scale and significant installed bases. The variety and utility of content and applications available on a platform are important to device purchasing decisions. Users may incur costs to move data and buy new content and applications when switching platforms. To compete, we must successfully enlist developers to write applications for our platform and ensure that these applications have high quality, security, customer appeal, and value. Efforts to compete with competitors’ content and application marketplaces may increase our cost of revenue and lower our operating margins. Competitors’ rules governing their content and applications marketplaces may restrict our ability to distribute products and services through them in accordance with our technical and business model objectives.

Bolded is directly pointing at things like Apple, Sony and Nintendo. 

 

Quote

Government litigation and regulatory activity relating to competition rules may limit how we design and market our products. As a leading global software and device maker, government agencies closely scrutinize us under U.S. and foreign competition laws. Governments are actively enforcing competition laws and regulations, and this includes scrutiny in potentially large markets such as the European Union (“EU”), the U.S., and China. Some jurisdictions also allow competitors or consumers to assert claims of anti-competitive conduct. U.S. federal and state antitrust authorities have previously brought enforcement actions and continue to scrutinize our business.

 

The European Commission (“the Commission”) closely scrutinizes the design of high-volume Microsoft products and the terms on which we make certain technologies used in these products, such as file formats, programming interfaces, and protocols, available to other companies. Flagship product releases such as Windows 10 can receive significant scrutiny under competition laws. For example, in 2004, the Commission ordered us to create new versions of our Windows operating system that do not include certain multimedia technologies and to provide our competitors with specifications for how to implement certain proprietary Windows communications protocols in their own products. In 2009, the Commission accepted a set of commitments we offered to address the Commission’s concerns relating to competition in web browsing software, including an undertaking to address Commission concerns relating to interoperability. The web browsing commitments expired in 2014. The remaining obligations may limit our ability to innovate in Windows or other products in the future, diminish the developer appeal of the Windows platform, and increase our product development costs. The availability of licenses related to protocols and file formats may enable competitors to develop software products that better mimic the functionality of our products, which could hamper sales of our products.

 

Our portfolio of first-party devices continues to grow; at the same time our OEM partners offer a large variety of devices for our platforms. As a result, increasingly we both cooperate and compete with our OEM partners, creating a risk that we fail to do so in compliance with competition rules. Regulatory scrutiny in this area may increase. Certain foreign governments, particularly in China and other countries in Asia, have advanced arguments under their competition laws that exert downward pressure on royalties for our intellectual property.

So the EU Commission is more concerned about file formats and protocols (infamously, "microsoft office" document formats) 

 

Pointing to the MSIE or WMP bundling as "anti-competitive" is greatly missing the point, because from a legal point of view, they were anti-competitive by twisting the arm of the OEM's selling PC's with Windows on it. No such thing exists for Apple, Sony or Nintendo, but does for Google. Google can not tell OEM's what they can or can not bundle with their phones, only Google can tell Google what to bundle.

 

The end-user does not get a say in this. They may get a choice, ultimately, to use the manufacturers store or web browser, or not, but the manufacturer could deliberately omit Google or Microsoft's preferences on non-google/non-microsoft devices. 

 

As Bill Gates liked to bring up during the MSIE one:

https://www.cnet.com/news/a-coke-a-pepsi-on-a-windows-shelf/ (1998)

Quote

But while the courts ponder the weightier antitrust aspects of the case, the DOJ has also asked for a quick decision on its proposal that Microsoft either unbundle Internet Explorer (IE) from Windows 98 or include rival Netscape Navigator with the operating system so that users can have a choice of browsers.

 

Microsoft has decided to attack the latter proposal with some novel analogies. Bill Gates contends that asking him to include Navigator with Windows is like asking Coca-Cola to include three cans of Pepsi in every six-pack.

 

To which, trying to make the same analogy with MacOS X, iOS or Android is essentially going "well include the Google Play store on iPhone and OS X, and the Apple App store on Android" (regardless if anything bought on it can be downloaded to that device.) The actual mechanisms for these stores to work do not exist, and place additional burdens upon the device manufacturers to support a third party product, and that third party product can harm the first party in significant ways, which is why Apple puts so much effort into vetting software that gets into the app store in the first place.

 

Apple does not need to appeal to the kind of person who would sideload software, that feature does not need to exist because those people would not buy Apple hardware in the first place. (Look at how often the same people complain about the price of Apple products and yet can't tell the difference between a Xeon and a Intel U/H part that Apple uses when they make their baseless comparisons to whitebox BYO configurations.) In fact the same people wouldn't buy Google's hardware either, they'd buy the PinePhone if they really wanted that functionality.

 

[RejZoR]

@Kisai

Which is literally why I don't get it. Microsoft dictating rules to others was shitty and sets an industry wide monopoly. HP, Dell, Toshiba etc, they have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft other than being business partner in terms of using Microsoft's OS for their laptops and desktops. Apple is not doing that. Apple is ONLY dictating the rules on THEIR devices. Apple doesn't depend on anyone. They make the devices, they make their own OS for all of them and they have their own app store. There is no "others" in this story. And when you have that kind of vertical integration of your entire product stack, you should be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want with it. Especially because it can very much be either your total demise or total success. But it's entirely down on you as you don't depend on anyone else here. Apple happens to be pretty good at it. Microsoft wasn't with their Windows for Phones or whatever it was called. Microsoft Store and their UWP is also more or less a mixed bag. But App Store from Apple works for some reason. And it's not because they had this weird monopoly position that they enforced on market wide, it was created within their own (and no one else's) product stack.

 

And from a vendor perspective (aka Apple in this case) who has everything in-house from devices, OS and app store with entire infrastructure, I'd be pretty pissed if some bullshit nobody from outside of the company is dictating how I'm suppose to run my own devices, my own OS and my own app store with my own infrastructure. Sorry, this shit just doesn't fly no matter how hard people resent Apple or praise Epic. Or hate the 30% cut. Or all of it. As much as I'm after all a "pro consumer" since I'm in that category, this whole circus makes no sense and it's absolutely idiotic and nonsensical.

[Delicieuxz]

 

[RejZoR]

Just now, Delicieuxz said:

 

Tim Sweeney, the guy who doesn't make any of the games that he makes exclusive to his game store. Is this guy demented or something?

[RejZoR]

4 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

He actually paid for the time exclusivity, unlike Apple that extorts every single dev by preventing sideloading.

I as consumer don't give a shit what or who he paid. I wanted to buy the game from anywhere else than dumb Epic store and I can't do that because he DICTATES that it can only be bought from Epic store. I hope you sense the point I'm setting here. As it's not any different than Apple's situation, just in reverse where Epic is on the receiving end...

[Bennet]

32 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

@Kisai

Which is literally why I don't get it. Microsoft dictating rules to others was shitty and sets an industry wide monopoly. HP, Dell, Toshiba etc, they have absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft other than being business partner in terms of using Microsoft's OS for their laptops and desktops. Apple is not doing that. Apple is ONLY dictating the rules on THEIR devices. Apple doesn't depend on anyone. They make the devices, they make their own OS for all of them and they have their own app store. There is no "others" in this story. And when you have that kind of vertical integration of your entire product stack, you should be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want with it. Especially because it can very much be either your total demise or total success. But it's entirely down on you as you don't depend on anyone else here. Apple happens to be pretty good at it. Microsoft wasn't with their Windows for Phones or whatever it was called. Microsoft Store and their UWP is also more or less a mixed bag. But App Store from Apple works for some reason. And it's not because they had this weird monopoly position that they enforced on market wide, it was created within their own (and no one else's) product stack.

 

And from a vendor perspective (aka Apple in this case) who has everything in-house from devices, OS and app store with entire infrastructure, I'd be pretty pissed if some bullshit nobody from outside of the company is dictating how I'm suppose to run my own devices, my own OS and my own app store with my own infrastructure. Sorry, this shit just doesn't fly no matter how hard people resent Apple or praise Epic. Or hate the 30% cut. Or all of it. As much as I'm after all a "pro consumer" since I'm in that category, this whole circus makes no sense and it's absolutely idiotic and nonsensical.

And because it is vertically integrated it means it can be anti-competetive and law does not apply? Or what is the message?

And if there are no others, where do the apps come from?