Spotify 1 : Apple 0 - Apple probably abuses dominant position

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, PocketNerd said:

Infrastructure is one of those things that shouldnt be controlled by private corporations

sure... if the infrastructure was public. In Standards case it was private, so the same way people here want to justify apple's behaviour, it's theirs to do as they please, if others don't like they simply shouldn't have used it and built their own railway.

 

Im just gonna make sure my stance on this matter is clear: If people here want to defend Apple, then Standard and the Trusts deserve the same defense, if people don't want to give those same arguments to defend Standard and the Trusts then they should stop defending apple, because all three of them act with the same play book, the only difference is the time period their playing in 

[Guest]

My stupid opinion that no one asked for:

 

Apple own iOS and the Apple Store, why shouldn’t they promote their own Music app? Makes business sense. 
 

That said, Apple needs Spotify. Apps make and break a phone. Look where Windows phone went with none of the popular apps. However this goes both ways. 

[divito]

4 hours ago, SlidewaysZ said:

Lol what so you want Apple controlling everything even down to your payment methods. Wow what a corporate suck up you should take your Apple shilling somewhere else. There are tons of companies that can provide secure payment services.

What are you even talking about? There are still businesses that exist that don't accept certain credit cards, or want cash only. If you want their services or goods, they can absolutely dictate payment methods. It's not that the businesses "control" the methods, but they have their reasons for such operating policies (typically cost). Has nothing to do with sucking up to anything or wanting companies to control how we pay. 

There is a reason "vote with your wallet" is a thing. These businesses can operate as they please until enough people force them to change.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, RorzNZ said:

My stupid opinion that no one asked for:

 

Apple own iOS and the Apple Store, why shouldn’t they promote their own Music app? Makes business sense. 
 

That said, Apple needs Spotify. Apps make and break a phone. Look where Windows phone went with none of the popular apps. However this goes both ways. 

 

To be fair, if a business is fairly established (eg amazon and netflix) to have their own credit card processing facilities, there is obviously a reason why they would want to manage their own. However if I have 50 apps on my phone that all demand a pound  of flesh, I'm "do not want", and would absolutely drop apps that do not support Apple Pay on the device. If I used an Android device it would be the same for GooglePay, but alas, Google has dropped the ball on that. I quite literately would trust Amazon more than I would trust Google with a stored card.

 

Case in point, the Subway app doesn't support Apple Pay. If I want to use Apple Pay I have to NOT use their app. I don't trust Subway with my card, but I use Subway enough that I at least I know if the card gets lifted by a data leak.

 

But let's go one further, let's say all those horrible gacha/loot box games (including Fortnite) want your card and won't support ApplePay. Do you REALLY want an addictive game to have your wallet so you can spend $10,000 in 30 seconds? No. Screw that nonsense, Epic can get yeeted off a cliff for making it that easy by not going through the ApplePay system on the Apple devices. 

 

Epic fears this feature:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204396

Quote

You can control purchases on an Apple device in a few ways:

• If children in your Family Sharing group have their own devices, use Ask to Buy to screen and approve their purchase requests.
• If you let children use your device, you can require a password for every purchase.
• You can also turn off in-app purchases entirely using Screen Time on your own device or a child's device.

 

41 minutes ago, divito said:

What are you even talking about? There are still businesses that exist that don't accept certain credit cards, or want cash only. If you want their services or goods, they can absolutely dictate payment methods. It's not that the businesses "control" the methods, but they have their reasons for such operating policies (typically cost). Has nothing to do with sucking up to anything or wanting companies to control how we pay. 

There is a reason "vote with your wallet" is a thing. These businesses can operate as they please until enough people force them to change.

Correct. And businesses that won't accept my card (I use AMEX for large purchases) don't get my business again in most cases.

 

Businesses that do "cash only" or "minimum charge/surcharge for card use" are almost certainly doing something illegal. It may not be illegal to ask for cash, but businesses that won't accept cards, particularly chip+pin cards, are basically putting a big fat "DO NOT BUY HERE, I SCAM YOU" sign. 

 

To that extent, 30% is still excessive when credit card fees are closer to 3-4%, and companies like Apple are big enough to not be paying money for peering bandwidth. I'll actually agree with the point that Apple should probably be paying developers, not charging developers to be on their store. But then Apple would be the publisher and Apple would then have an excuse to push these censorship policies.

 

 

[mecarry30]

9 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Easy solution: allow app side loading. 

Most of these apps will try to move their users out of the app store not to pay.

 

And no, the device isn't from the company after the customer bought it. They should not get to say what you can or cannot do with it.

I keep on hearing this, and people keep missing the point. Yes, the device is not the company's anymore. But the software is, which is all what the discussion is about. You did not buy the software - you were given a license to use it, which means what they say goes. Whether or not that is legal is to be decided by the judges.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

To be fair, if a business is fairly established (eg amazon and netflix) to have their own credit card processing facilities, there is obviously a reason why they would want to manage their own. However if I have 50 apps on my phone that all demand a pound  of flesh, I'm "do not want", and would absolutely drop apps that do not support Apple Pay on the device. If I used an Android device it would be the same for GooglePay, but alas, Google has dropped the ball on that. I quite literately would trust Amazon more than I would trust Google with a stored card.

 

Case in point, the Subway app doesn't support Apple Pay. If I want to use Apple Pay I have to NOT use their app. I don't trust Subway with my card, but I use Subway enough that I at least I know if the card gets lifted by a data leak.

 

But let's go one further, let's say all those horrible gacha/loot box games (including Fortnite) want your card and won't support ApplePay. Do you REALLY want an addictive game to have your wallet so you can spend $10,000 in 30 seconds? No. Screw that nonsense, Epic can get yeeted off a cliff for making it that easy by not going through the ApplePay system on the Apple devices. 

 

Epic fears this feature:

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204396

 

 

 

That’s really awesome. Too many horror stories of toddlers spending 2000 on apps that have loot boxes 

[Spindel]

7 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

downloads.

tou can’t download a movie to watch offline with the web version. The app can do that.

You actually can download files with safari 

[Distinctly Average]

10 hours ago, SlidewaysZ said:

Digital goods are a whole new world. Your comparing Apple's to Oranges. I truly believe Apple,Google, Steam, Epic etc should be paying developers to have their content on their platform. Without developers making apps the phones would be worthless. Apple gets money for the hardware what a user wants to do with it shouldn't be a chance to make money holding hostage the storage and installation of a small file.

Apple make more money from the ecosystem than the device itself. It is not a loss leader by a long way.

 

App stores really are a difficult arena. Developers can and do make a lot of money from them. It is however a challenge to fit inside the relevant rules. Thing is, if those rules were opened up, customers are open to all sorts of abuse. I am not sure the right balance has been struck yet, this is what is being played out here and will be for many years to come.

[HenrySalayne]

10 hours ago, Kisai said:

But let's go one further, let's say all those horrible gacha/loot box games (including Fortnite) want your card and won't support ApplePay. Do you REALLY want an addictive game to have your wallet so you can spend $10,000 in 30 seconds? No. Screw that nonsense, Epic can get yeeted off a cliff for making it that easy by not going through the ApplePay system on the Apple devices. 

That is not an intrinsic feature of any payment system. I find arguments like this concerning. Yes, the "remember my payment method" box being automatically checked by default is somewhat predatory, but a reasonable costumer doesn't need Apple to oversee everything. There should be a freedom of choice. “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Quite fitting, if you ask me.

Apples intention is most likely not to protect costumers but to reroute all transactions through their own payment service. Or in other words: generating revenue and making a big fat profit. But the truth ("we want money") is certainly worse marketing than "we need to protect our costumers".

 

BTW: Apple could easily link different payment methods to the Apple ID and require the costumer to authenticate before purchasing anything. The only difference would be a direct transaction via the payment method instead of re-routing every penny through Apple's pocket.

[Fasterthannothing]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

That is not an intrinsic feature of any payment system. I find arguments like this concerning. Yes, the "remember my payment method" box being automatically checked by default is somewhat predatory, but a reasonable costumer doesn't need Apple to oversee everything. There should be a freedom of choice. “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Quite fitting, if you ask me.

Apples intention is most likely not to protect costumers but to reroute all transactions through their own payment service. Or in other words: generating revenue and making a big fat profit. But the truth ("we want money") is certainly worse marketing than "we need to protect our costumers".

 

BTW: Apple could easily link different payment methods to the Apple ID and require the costumer to authenticate before purchasing anything. The only difference would be a direct transaction via the payment method instead of re-routing every penny through Apple's pocket.

In my opinion in app Payment in all app stores that don't allow a third party payment such as PayPal or the developers own payment system is predatory in practice. You shouldn't be forcing a user to only be able to pay one way and taking a fee on top. Look if the App store wants to provide a easy way to embed payments into apps and then take a fee from it ok fine. I mean I still think app stores should be paying devs or at the very least taking a smaller cut. However they should never lock a developer from using their own payment system.

[Commodus]

I'm of mixed minds: Apple should be free to make its service the default and integrate tightly with the OS... but if it's going to do that, it should also lower the barriers to entry for rivals like Spotify.

 

With that said, a case like this might have trouble in the US and some other countries. Antitrust action usually requires monopolies, and Apple doesn't have those in phones or music streaming.

[mecarry30]

11 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Really? Let's say you buy an Apple car, but you can't drive it unless you use Apple's gas... Come on, that's completely absurd.

 

Having a license should only restrict you from reverse engineering it and to redistribute/resell the software. Anything other than that is abusive.

When you buy a car there is no such contract made. The difference with software is privacy, IP, and security reasons. Windows and macOS work the same way as well.

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 4/30/2021 at 9:20 PM, suicidalfranco said:

Standard Oil should have been allowed to act as they did. It was their train platform, if other oil companies didn't like it they should have just built their own rail network.

Same for the trusts.

Antitrust is unfair to the people building their companies, but it leads to more innovation in the long term

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

 

Here is the thing: Windows tried doing the same thing, antitrust punished them. You cannot lock up a general purpose software/device sold for profit.

 

Microsoft was in the position of being on 100% of Business and Consumer desktops. The only place they didn't have reach was on then-MacOS 7/8/9 and mainframes. Microsoft even then released MSIE for MacOS, and ceased after MacOS X moved to Intel.

 

So yeah, Microsoft literately was in a position of being on, or being shipped with 100% of desktop computers.

 

And to use the original analogy, 

Quote

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.

Which also applies here. EGS or Steam being forced to use Apple Pay on the iOS or MacOS X platforms only matters if those platforms are secure. Microsoft tried to make it so that only Microsoft Store software can be used on ARM Microsoft platforms, and likewise only Xbox 360/One games can be played on Xbox 360/One consoles. You can't just run a home brew game on the Xbox's.

 

So one has to tread carefully because there is really a "careful what you wish for" here. If Apple is forced to allow third party stores on their tightly integrated system, those third party stores may destroy the security of the device like they do on Android.  With a full fledged desktop, you should be able to side-load because your business or home environment has a pile of legacy software that was designed prior to the stores existence. So it would run head first into the "one copy for backup" clauses. If I can't play my old software or games, I would likely never upgrade the computer.

 

And that has also literately happened with OSX with the Catalina and Big Sur updates which broke things by removing 32-bit support from parts of the OS. So unless you keep a Mojave OSX install somewhere, all your 32-bit stuff is dead. OX didn't provide a "XP mode" like Vista Ultimate did.

 

Microsoft would have to literately break all 32-bit software on their platform before they would ever be in the position Apple is in to force all software to be installed from the Microsoft store. They're not there yet.

 

But if Microsoft made the same motions, that all software has to be purchased via the Microsoft store, there will be a lot of screaming, especially from Adobe and Autodesk who do their own cloud licensing nonsense. In fact I'm pretty sure that Adobe and Autodesk would be the first ones to scream about this, as they already don't put their profitable software on Apple's store. Seriously, go look https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/adobe-inc/id331646274 , https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/autodesk-inc/id295089690

 

The apps that share the same name on the iPad/iPhone, are not the same products on the desktop, not by a long shot. 

 

Microsoft however has an entire side-loading process for businesses. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center , which tends to ruin directly into conflict software auto-updaters, and the microsoft store (particularly with nvidia, intel and realtek dch drivers.)

 

[LAwLz]

On 4/30/2021 at 9:09 PM, Distinctly Average said:

I do find it funny really. If you owned a shop, a standard one on the high street, would you let a competitor seek their stuff in your shop under their rules for no or very little profit for yourself? Just because the Apple store is massive, should they not be allowed to make a profit and allow others to sell what they want ignoring your rules? That is what is happening here.

The problem is that you are comparing it to a small local store. Of course anti-monopoly laws will not make any sense when trying to apply them to a single, local store. They make a lot more sense when you apply them to a single company owning 60% of the market.

 

 

Edit:

The sad truth of the world is that the more power a company has, the more we need to regulate it because the more likely they are to abuse their power, and the more harmful that abuse is. 

You can view this in two ways.

You can either view this from a moral standpoint where you want the best outcome for as many people as possible. I think most morals and laws are based on this concept. We want the world to be as good of a place as possible, even if that sometimes means restriction one or a small group of people because they can harm many more people. 

 

The second way of viewing this is that you think Apple deserves it because they actually put in the work. It would be moronic to say that Apple hasn't worked for their success because they totally have. But personally, I think it is fair to say that Apple doesn't really need to reap their rewards anymore. At least not as much as they are, and they could share it a bit.

Is it really that insane to say "okay they have profited enough now and we should make them play nicely with everyone. They have to share some of their toys with the other kids". 

 

I mean, companies aren't even allowed to say "hey you can subscribe to us on our website if you want" and they aren't even allowed to charge more on iOS than on other platforms. If you are all about freedom for companies, isn't it a bit fucked up that Apple are holding you hostage, dictating your prices for you? Imagine if Walmart acted this way. Decided what you were allowed to write on your cereal boxes, deciding how much you could charge for it in other stores, deciding how your packaging would look, etc.