Apple to Allow Outside App Stores in Overhaul Spurred by EU Laws {DMA, DSA}

[mr moose]

22 hours ago, darknessblade said:

That would only be the case if Apple would not be a asshole and modify their dev terms

Where you are not allowed to have your app on multiple appstores.

 

I can't see that happening, but if it did then we have a lot further to go to stop these large companies from being the arbiter of what I consume and where I consume it.

[Tams]

On 12/23/2022 at 5:34 AM, Kisai said:

Nope, not how that works.

 

Microsoft has the developers to make all these special-versions of the software to work within those stores. Your indie developer who hates the fact that there are 30 different android vendors isn't going to make 30 versions of their software to deal with the rubbish-tier GPU SoC's. They are going to make one version that works on the Google store and then if that can run effectively unchanged on the Samsung store, so be it. Will it work 

 

The difference between a "Steam" and an "Epic" version of the same game on the PC is that the EXE, the main binary itself is different. Some games deal with this by having sub-launchers that bring up something like the screen resolution selection (eg, Unity) first and then run the same exe. But if you want the steam achievements, trading cards and stuff on one platform, or Xbox trophies from the Microsoft store, you need to literately change your game three separate times, once for each store to incorporate this fluff feature. 

 

At least within the Apple ecosystem, the actual phones and iPads are not substantially different in feature-sets, even with the smaller models. You can expect that all models released in a certain year have a similar level of performance that you can safely go "yep, that works on iPhone 14, it'll also work on iPad Pro, unchanged, or I can change the UI to fit the iPad"

 

Android is always like, if it's not equal to the current model iPhone, why even bother putting it on Google Play. Like I kid you not, trying to get access to some "Android-only" games via emulator, is a massive pain in the ass, not because the PC can't emulate a "good" Android phone, but because the developers of the software whitelist what devices the software will work on, and that excludes emulated devices. But I'll also point out that the experience of playing a game on an Android Emulator is usually on the terrible-side.

 

A developer may not pull their existing app from the app stores in favor of another store, but if they do that, users will simply remove the app from the device, and not bother with it, believing it to be broken.

 

You have a superficial understanding of what you are talking about at best.

 

Yes, developing for Apple devices, once you've made the significant outlay for the hardware they demand you use, is simpler due to the limited number of models and therefore known specs.

 

But for the vast majority of apps, almost any modern device can run them.  For those that might have issues, like some games (let's be honest, most mobile games are not taxing), performance options are added.

 

In regards to other app stores being supported, developers can:

 

a) only publish their app on one or a few stores

b) implement the (rather simple) APIs for each store

 

If they can't implement different store APIs, then they are a bad developer and need to go over their code again.

 

As for the desktop launcher stuff... I think you'll find few people care about all the extras, like achievements and trading cards, that each launcher has.  I think consumers not being able to guarantee that a game will have all this tertiary fluff is a good trade-off for there being competition in the market of selling games.

[Kisai]

13 minutes ago, Tams said:

 

You have a superficial understanding of what you are talking about at best.

Off to a bad start there kiddo. I've been programming things ever since I could read, and have seen changes in DRM and Piracy affect how developers decide how to waste customers time. 

13 minutes ago, Tams said:

 

Yes, developing for Apple devices, once you've made the significant outlay for the hardware they demand you use, is simpler due to the limited number of models and therefore known specs.

 

But for the vast majority of apps, almost any modern device can run them.  For those that might have issues, like some games (let's be honest, most mobile games are not taxing), performance options are added.

The difference between a POS PC and a Top-of-the-line PC is substantial. The difference between a top-of-the-line Apple device and a bottom-of-the-line Apple device is not significant. The difference between a top of the line Android and bottom of the line Android? Some Manufacturers do not give a care about if their device can run anything, only that it can take phone calls and receive text messages. So bald face lie "any modern device can run them". Running them and having a consistent experience regardless of the device are two different things. On MOBILE devices that means the whatever configuration all software can run on, or whitelisting the devices it can run on. On PC's that means certain DirectX  or OS platform features that the software can test for. Too late after you bought the program though.

 

13 minutes ago, Tams said:

In regards to other app stores being supported, developers can:

 

a) only publish their app on one or a few stores

b) implement the (rather simple) APIs for each store

I sincerely doubt "rather simple" covers all stores. If you're developing a notepad or calculator app, there's likely nothing complicated about putting it on all the stores. But if you're developing a game or something that is ad-driven or has IAP's, then that's not even remotely the case.

13 minutes ago, Tams said:

If they can't implement different store APIs, then they are a bad developer and need to go over their code again.

 

As for the desktop launcher stuff... I think you'll find few people care about all the extras, like achievements and trading cards, that each launcher has.  I think consumers not being able to guarantee that a game will have all this tertiary fluff is a good trade-off for there being competition in the market of selling games.

Consider that Steam and the Microsoft store actually apply "points" for completion of games, and the playstation/xbox/steam/apple stores all have "achievement/trophy" features. They are fluff, but they also lock you into the store. If you get those trophies in one game, and then play the game on another platform, you have to do it all again.  Fluff, but that is one reason why you won't get people to abandon whatever store they committed to in the first place.

 

Most people are only going to buy ONE device and play the majority of games on THAT device. They may have another device, issued by their workplace for doing "work", and thus the requirements are different. Most people are not going to own two gaming devices, and the more common scenario is that one family will have one dedicated gaming device that everyone shares, and individual family members have one phone each that is the bare minimum needs. People are not going to buy the same game for multiple devices, let alone multiple stores.

 

"Competition" in the gaming space is barking up the wrong tree, and should be addressing a way to have the same software license apply to ALL devices the user owns, simultaneously, if they want to be competitive in the same, otherwise people will simply ignore other stores if they can't run or transfer software to new devices.

 

[hishnash]

18 hours ago, Kisai said:

I sincerely doubt "rather simple" covers all stores. If you're developing a notepad or calculator app, there's likely nothing complicated about putting it on all the stores. But if you're developing a game or something that is ad-driven or has IAP's, then that's not even remotely the case.

19 hours ago, Tams said:

Yer this is very true, the effort needed to support multiple store properly (so that those stores promote you to thier users) is going to be high. Its not just about the development work but also all the assets you need to provide to that store for each release, maybe the fees you need to pay to be promoted and further the nature of features you might need to include or promoted. For example im sure the Meta store will require you to install Metas (nasty) tracking package (this is currently over 20mb and if they had thier own store im sure they would just make it larger..). App binary size is important as it directly impacts lunch time, and yes you can put a LOT of work in to do thing like dynamically load things on demand but that takes a lot of effort and a lot of testing since if you skew it up you crash the app.

Also to be featured in any one of these app stores they might well try to require you to be exclusive (see Epic store)...  these days unless you are a massive app your apps success lives your dies based on if it is promoted.  

As a developer I would be happy with apple 15 to 30% cut if they made it clear that most of this was for thier referral fee and thus it did not apply to users that linked directly to the app (or that fee were provided to the source of that link).  even 30% referral (for the first year of revenue) is a very good industry rate. 
 

[mr moose]

On 12/29/2022 at 8:45 PM, Kisai said:

I sincerely doubt "rather simple" covers all stores. If you're developing a notepad or calculator app, there's likely nothing complicated about putting it on all the stores. But if you're developing a game or something that is ad-driven or has IAP's, then that's not even remotely the case.

IO think that is getting away from the actually problem and the motivation for the new laws,  how hard or costly it is for a developer to support mores stores has no bearing on the right to have those options. 

 

At least this time around most people have finally understood it has nothing to do with consumer choice.  Man that argument was getting so old the flies weren't even laying maggots in its corpse.

 

[Kisai]

59 minutes ago, mr moose said:

IO think that is getting away from the actually problem and the motivation for the new laws,  how hard or costly it is for a developer to support mores stores has no bearing on the right to have those options. 

Even if you have the option, it doesn't matter if the options are bad or annoying, people won't use them and then Apple will go back to the lawmakers and go "see, nobody wants these third party stores, so we'll be removing access to them now, as they make the device more expensive to retain this feature"

 

Or maybe it will royally backfire on Android and result in abandonment of high-end Android devices with people switching to the iPhone because they always hated the Android ecosystem and if they can get whatever "third party" store/sideloader comes out for the iPhone they won't bother with the high maintenance of Android devices, and that then results in developers also dropping Android.

 

Who knows, that's a bit too far to predict. But I am saying that there are people who only made purchase decisions based on being able to buy a high end device that they can sideload pirated materials to. That was the only reason why the Nvidia Shield devices for example were popular at all. All the video pirates sideloaded Kodi with some specific "plugins" and marketed them as "unlimited free television" and whatnot. If you can get that on an Apple device (eg AppleTV), nobody would ever buy Nvidia Shield devices at all.

59 minutes ago, mr moose said:

At least this time around most people have finally understood it has nothing to do with consumer choice.  Man that argument was getting so old the flies weren't even laying maggots in its corpse.

 

The customer choice argument was always BS. People have not "shopped around for the best price" since the 1990's. Because other than loss-leaders in a physical store, the internet has made that obsolete and impossible to do. If one store pushes a loss-leader, then that store loses money, because the people who came into the store for it were only there for the loss leader and they know the store down the street has better prices.

 

Even right now, the only benefit to the epic game store "free games every week" doesn't salvage the fact that their store is awful. Taking minutes to load, unable to organize games you've purchased, unable to move or backup games you've purchased (Where you can on Steam by just telling it to do move the game.) I'm more willing to wait a year for the game to be released on Steam than buy it as a "Epic game exclusive" because the store/launcher is such a god awful experience. But more to that point, why would I want the bloody maintenance headache of two stores? Which version of Among Us or FallGuys do I launch? The one on steam or the one on Epic? Which one has my DLC purchases. I don't know, and if I have to move the games to another PC, the amount of time I'll have to waste re-downloading everything makes Epic a huge pain in the ass, so I'm preferring everything to be on Steam, EVEN IF I CAN GET IT FREE ON EPIC.

 

I don't want that "experience" on the iPhone. And it's my hope that software and game developers can get their two brain-cells together and standardize on a universal download ticket, so it doesn't matter where you "bought it", you can download it from any store, on any device, at any time. If a developer is so much of a navel gazer that they believe this will lead to lost sales. YES, because people don't want to purchase the exact same game 7 times if they want to play it on all their devices.

 

[darknessblade]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Even if you have the option, it doesn't matter if the options are bad or annoying, people won't use them and then Apple will go back to the lawmakers and go "see, nobody wants these third party stores, so we'll be removing access to them now, as they make the device more expensive to retain this feature"

Do you even know how European laws work?

 

Unlike America where they can Bribe Lobby against legislations, the EU does not work that way.

If apple just removes it without reason, or without the EU giving them a clear exception.

They show their nature of being ANTI-Consumer.

 

even if 1% of the users would use 3rd party appstores, It is still not a valid reason to not allow 3rd party appstores.

_________________

 

Let me give a example from Microsoft with 3rd party browsers and the browser choice window that used to be common in the EU with every windows 7 version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

 

After Microsoft did not have to use said menu box anymore because the ruling expired, did everybody flock back to Internet explorer because that was the default browser?

NO they did not, users kept using the browser they liked best. and did not look at Internet explorer at all, unless it was absolutely needed for some obscure site, or to download their favorite browser.

 

--------

And even if they are purposely making the devices that have said 'feature" more expensive, it will still go against the DMA and DSA regulations. As they are now purposely forcing people to spend more money to use said feature.

 

Unlike the USA the EU has known PROPER consumer protection for years.

-------

Why are you even mad about Apple being forced to implement a feature you said you won't use?

 

If consumers want or don't want to use sideloading on IOS after it has been implemented it is THEIR choice.

It is not apple's choice to force it upon consumers that they cannot use said "feature".

[Kisai]

9 hours ago, darknessblade said:

Do you even know how European laws work?

Do you? Cause I don't see anyone chiming in saying they're a politician in the EU.

9 hours ago, darknessblade said:

Unlike America where they can Bribe Lobby against legislations, the EU does not work that way.

If apple just removes it without reason, or without the EU giving them a clear exception.

They show their nature of being ANTI-Consumer.

 

even if 1% of the users would use 3rd party appstores, It is still not a valid reason to not allow 3rd party appstores.

Please read the room. It has been Apple's nature to remove or drop features citing "nobody uses it", even when that was demonstrably false. Both Microsoft and Google have used the same justification to axe products that were "wildly popular" yet not making wheelbarrows of money. In case you don't understand how "MSIE" was integrated into Windows, it's ALWAYS been integrated into Windows until 7. It replaced the original "explorer.exe" in 95, and that's how active desktop worked. You were always running Internet Explorer in 98, ME, 2K and XP because it was integrated into the core of the OS. It was only after Chrome started eating MSIE's lunch, and the rework of UAC in Vista that MSIE was no longer "the windows shell" so to speak. 

 

People regularly decry changes to the shell of Windows, because Microsoft makes some very poor decisions that work against the design language it uses in a previous version, and MSIE still exists in some form in Windows 11 because those applications will be broken entirely. Many "game launchers" or games themselves used the MSIE "webview" to do authentication and IAP's. Hell the reason why most "game launchers" for games produced in Asia do this is because they don't want to bloat their "game" with a chromium-based webview that will just sit there and consume 1GB of RAM, to do nothing in the odd chance the player wants to buy something. Some older games that used the MSIE webview used it as their online help to play gifs and videos (flash player.) That MSIE webview was literately in everything despite the EU laws, it was just the "internet explorer" icon not installed by default.

 

If the EU says, "You must allow third party stores", that does not mean Apple or Google, or Microsoft has to do anything more than pay lip service to it. That could mean as little as "installing the app from the official app store" and then software launched by that store is run in a virtual machine with no access to anything on the device, just the drawing API's and it's own files. If you want it on the "home screen" you have to get  it from Apple. OR the more likely case as I alluded to, was coming up with some kind of universal download ticket so that things purchased on the third party store are in fact downloaded by the Apple store through the exact same process we have now.  If Apple wouldn't approve something before due to a content violation, well now they can't use that excuse, but can still block something that undermines the security features.

 

9 hours ago, darknessblade said:

-------

Why are you even mad about Apple being forced to implement a feature you said you won't use?

 

If consumers want or don't want to use sideloading on IOS after it has been implemented it is THEIR choice.

It is not apple's choice to force it upon consumers that they cannot use said "feature".

I'm not sure how you got "I'm mad" out of this, read the room.

 

I've said, repeatedly, that given what we've seen from Apple, Apple is going to make it as obnoxiously difficult as possible to "use a third party store", on a mobile device. We already see how obnoxious it is to use Steam on MacOS or Windows, and how even more obnoxious the Epic Game Store is, and how EGS does everything wrong at every turn. Microsoft's own store is also a miserable broken mess to install things from. That's not a one-off example, the entire "install the nvidia control panel/intel control panel/realtek control panel" from the store bit is infuriating control creep by Microsoft. Yet these are done as a "security" feature.

 

Look at the direction things are going. The direction everyone is heading is that third party stores are going to be squeezed out by exclusivity agreements. There is nothing stopping Sony and Microsoft from squeezing out Steam and EGS by saying "If you want to publish on our console, it must be our store only."

 

Simply "allowing third party stores" is not enough. Exclusivity arrangements have to end as well, otherwise there will be underhanded exclusivity arrangements to keep developers from putting things on third party stores, or other platforms, because it might revoke access to the more lucrative platform.

 

[mr moose]

23 hours ago, Kisai said:

Even if you have the option, it doesn't matter if the options are bad or annoying, people won't use them and then Apple will go back to the lawmakers and go "see, nobody wants these third party stores, so we'll be removing access to them now, as they make the device more expensive to retain this feature"

 

 

Laws are only changed at the behest of corporations in the US, most other countries only create laws to remedy a particular problem.  There is no way that apple can argue that some developers not having enough resources to manage other stores as a legitimate reason to allow them to limit them to only an apple store.   Imagine if MS made this argument,  Some developers don;t have enough resources to make their software available on steam or GOG so we are going to make them sell windows software only through the windows store.

 

Just writing it out feels like I am pointing out the incredibly obvious.

[darknessblade]

  

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

Do you? Cause I don't see anyone chiming in saying they're a politician in the EU.

 

I am not a Lawyer or politician, but I do have a general understanding on how EUROPEAN Consumer protection laws work.

  

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

If the EU says, "You must allow third party stores", that does not mean Apple or Google, or Microsoft has to do anything more than pay lip service to it. That could mean as little as "installing the app from the official app store" and then software launched by that store is run in a virtual machine with no access to anything on the device, just the drawing API's and it's own files. If you want it on the "home screen" you have to get  it from Apple. OR the more likely case as I alluded to, was coming up with some kind of universal download ticket so that things purchased on the third party store are in fact downloaded by the Apple store through the exact same process we have now.  If Apple wouldn't approve something before due to a content violation, well now they can't use that excuse, but can still block something that undermines the security features.

 

 

 

If they force 3rd party appstores to provide their appstore, trough the Apple appstore, that is still not a 3rd party appstore in the eyes of the DMA and DSA regulation, as apple can still force and demand a 30% fee, even if they do not host ANY of the apps from said appstore, they then can also force said stores to abide to THEIR rules.

 

The most easy example a appstore specifically designed for ADULT content. would not be allowed if apple where to go this route.

 

If its a 100% FULL 3rd party appstore just like on android, Apple can bitch all they want about said appstore, but they cannot prevent people from getting the content they themselves want to use. just because like in the previous example they cannot prevent anybody from installing something like the P*RNHUB launcher.

 

Also do you even know what 3rd party means?

 

It means 100% separate from the main entity and not related to them in ANY way shape or form.

By forcing 3rd party appstores to provide their store trough the appstore, it is not a 3rd party appstore, as they still have to abide by apple their arbitrary content rules

 

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

I've said, repeatedly, that given what we've seen from Apple, Apple is going to make it as obnoxiously difficult as possible to "use a third party store", on a mobile device.

If apple wants to play that game they can get fined into oblivion by the EU for not abiding to the DSA and DMA regulations.

 

 

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

We already see how obnoxious it is to use Steam on MacOS or Windows, and how even more obnoxious the Epic Game Store is, and how EGS does everything wrong at every turn. Microsoft's own store is also a miserable broken mess to install things from. That's not a one-off example, the entire "install the nvidia control panel/intel control panel/realtek control panel" from the store bit is infuriating control creep by Microsoft. Yet these are done as a "security" feature.

 

Even if you say its broken and a misserable mess, you still have a choice where to get your games. be it on steam, epic games, EA-launcher. and so on.

Devs can even provide a straight to DVD installer [just like in the old days] to customers, if they choose to do so.

 

For drivers and tools like the realtek menu, you can still get those outside the windows store, there is no need to get them trough the windows store.

 

It is also quite ironic that you call Microsoft a Infuriating control creep for forcing you do get it this way. when you say that apple should be allowed to ban 3rd party appstores.

 

Which one of the 2 is a bigger control creep?

The company that does not allow 3rd party appstores unless forced by law

Or the company that allows you to get stuff from a 3rd party sources, but tries to make you use their appstore to get certain tools/programs.

 

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

Look at the direction things are going. The direction everyone is heading is that third party stores are going to be squeezed out by exclusivity agreements. There is nothing stopping Sony and Microsoft from squeezing out Steam and EGS by saying "If you want to publish on our console, it must be our store only."

 

Are you talking about game titles they themselves made trough their own game studio?

Or are you talking about 3rd party devs who make games for all platforms, and are getting into a "exclusivity" contract with "fill platform in"

 

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

Simply "allowing third party stores" is not enough. Exclusivity arrangements have to end as well, otherwise there will be underhanded exclusivity arrangements to keep developers from putting things on third party stores, or other platforms, because it might revoke access to the more lucrative platform.

 

[example for exclusivity arrangements is from streaming sites/services]

Why do you think pirating of movies is still rampant?

Because of exclusivity titles, [often limited time ones] where the streaming site only has a certain show for a period of time. before it gets removed from the site.

 

People want the ease of use of getting all their stuff easily, without any hassle. be it Illegal trough multiple sources, trough 1 site/service.

or trough some other method.

 

Even if you say the 1 store for everything is a good thing, then this store needs to be allowed to host ALL content*. " *as long as said content is not against the law".

This would essentially mean Apple need to allow adult content on its own store, because a small group of their customer base wants it.

 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, darknessblade said:

 

 

Even if you say the 1 store for everything is a good thing, then this store needs to be allowed to host ALL content*. " *as long as said content is not against the law".

This would essentially mean Apple need to allow adult content on its own store, because a small group of their customer base wants it.

 

See, now you finally get it. If it isn't strictly illegal, Apple, VISA, Paypal, Mastercard, AMEX, Google, Microsoft, Playstation, Nintendo have no business saying you can't have it. Yet, routinely what gets dictated to be censored comes from VISA and AMEX, and Paypal's own payment fiefdom. If you want porn, you either are required to steal it, or pay for it by laundering that money through some micropayment mixer (hence "bits" on twitch, "coins" on various comic portals, and "tokens" on CB.) VISA will will lose it's goddamned mind if you are buying content featuring models cosplaying as monster-people. But as long as they only see you buying those bits or tokens, everything is kosher apparently.

 

[hishnash]

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

See, now you finally get it. If it isn't strictly illegal, Apple, VISA, Paypal, Mastercard, AMEX, Google, Microsoft, Playstation, Nintendo have no business saying you can't have it.

I believe the reason payment vendors do not want to touch porn with even the longest of barge pools is that there is a real risk that within most of the ligit content there is some that is not. Be that non-consensual (rape or just someone publishing private tapes without consent) or under age or trafficked.   The legal risks for these companies of them even supporting any of this content is rather high, I believe Visa was sued for their evolvement in such a case just before they broke all ties.  The reason this is hard for companies is political and in courts unlike other content that might be just as illiagle the feeling from the public that would judge them is much harsher for this content.

 

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, hishnash said:

I believe the reason payment vendors do not want to touch porn with even the longest of barge pools is that there is a real risk that within most of the ligit content there is some that is not. Be that non-consensual (rape or just someone publishing private tapes without consent) or under age or trafficked.   The legal risks for these companies of them even supporting any of this content is rather high, I believe Visa was sued for their evolvement in such a case just before they broke all ties.  The reason this is hard for companies is political and in courts unlike other content that might be just as illiagle the feeling from the public that would judge them is much harsher for this content.

 

I understand that that's what's going on, but I also think it's crazy.

It's like going after VW because some bank robber used them as a getaway car.

Or going after Verizon because someone organized a crime using a telefon.

Or boycotting Canon because someone took a picture of child porn using their cameras.

 

People need to realize that some companies just make products, and that any misuse of sid product should be blamed on the customers and users, not the company. Companies should not be the morality police, enforcing whichever belief some group of people might have.

[hishnash]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It's like going after VW because some bank robber used them as a getaway car.

Well VW would be liable if they had a readable expectation the person the sold the car to what buying the car just for this use case.  

The issue is VISA etc can no longer claim that they are un-aware of the nature of some of the illegal content that is posted on the sites. And for many sites (not all) the % of content that might at minimum be non-consuetualy shared (revenge porn etc) can be rather high.   

Furthermore this is a B2B transaction (between the website and VISA) different to a B2C of VW selling to a regular consumer. In the end since the money would be flowing through VISA to the website I understand from a legal perspective why you would not want to go anywhere near this stuff as it would be easy to convince a jury you were complicit even if you were not aware of each individual transaction.

 

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

People need to realize that some companies just make products,

A payment provider (or platform provider) is a little bit different to someone who makes a kitchen knife and then sells that to a consumer.  Since the payment provider (and platform provider) directly makes money when a crime is committed were the knife seller makes money when the knife is sold... before the crime is committed, they are not part and parcel to the crime itself.  
 

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, hishnash said:

Well VW would be liable if they had a readable expectation the person the sold the car to what buying the car just for this use case.  

The issue is VISA etc can no longer claim that they are un-aware of the nature of some of the illegal content that is posted on the sites. And for many sites (not all) the % of content that might at minimum be non-consuetualy shared (revenge porn etc) can be rather high.   

Furthermore this is a B2B transaction (between the website and VISA) different to a B2C of VW selling to a regular consumer. In the end since the money would be flowing through VISA to the website I understand from a legal perspective why you would not want to go anywhere near this stuff as it would be easy to convince a jury you were complicit even if you were not aware of each individual transaction.

 

A payment provider (or platform provider) is a little bit different to someone who makes a kitchen knife and then sells that to a consumer.  Since the payment provider (and platform provider) directly makes money when a crime is committed were the knife seller makes money when the knife is sold... before the crime is committed, they are not part and parcel to the crime itself.  
 

None of that actually reasons why a company should be held responsible for what a consumer does with a product.  It is not Visa who should be held accountable for what someone uploads to youporn.  It is not visa's job to disallow a business forma transaction on the grounds it "might" be illegal.    You are asserting knowledge of legality where it does not exist.

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

None of that actually reasons why a company should be held responsible for what a consumer does with a product.  It is not Visa who should be held accountable for what someone uploads to youporn.  It is not visa's job to disallow a business forma transaction on the grounds it "might" be illegal.    You are asserting knowledge of legality where it does not exist.

And even IF for example Visa knows about issues on for example Youporn, they still can't (or shouldn't be allowed to, if you ask me) just cut ties to the service and all legitimate users. 

That's like asking the government to dig up any and all roads that have even been used as a getaway route from a crime scene. Sure digging up the road might put a stop to criminals, but it also harms legitimate people. 

 

 

Visa and mastercard should in my opinion be treated as necessary utility services like roads, water and power. Water companies are not responsible for someone watering weed plants with their water, nor do they shut down the water supply to entire apartment complexes if they find someone growing weed in one apartment. 

 

 

And not to get too off topic, but visa and mastercard have been found colluding and shutting down service to companies at the same time, when the company haven't even done anything illegal. 

The most recent example I can think of was a porn site that had a tag for "rape" (simulated, not real) which is legal in the country it operates in (and most countries from what I know), but both visa and mastercard stopped all transactions to the site on the same day and refused to continue until the tag was removed (although none of the content had to be removed, just the search tag). 

[saltycaramel]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:28 AM, saltycaramel said:

Question: what about new platforms?

 

Will Apple be forced to allow sideloading and/or 3rd party app stores on the upcoming xrOS (the headset OS) as well? 
 

For sure xrOS market penetration will be negligible in the first few years, far from a “gatekeeper”, but what if it inherits thousands of iOS/iPadOS apps in windowed mode? (just like on the Mac in recent years) Suddenly we’d be back to square one: on the shiny new platform, Apple’s AppStore would be the only way to install apps. 

 

Called it!

 

Confirmed today by The Information report.

 

Quote

• The ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.

 

[wanderingfool2]

On 12/31/2022 at 9:50 PM, hishnash said:

The issue is VISA etc can no longer claim that they are un-aware of the nature of some of the illegal content that is posted on the sites. And for many sites (not all) the % of content that might at minimum be non-consuetualy shared (revenge porn etc) can be rather high.   

Furthermore this is a B2B transaction (between the website and VISA) different to a B2C of VW selling to a regular consumer. In the end since the money would be flowing through VISA to the website I understand from a legal perspective why you would not want to go anywhere near this stuff as it would be easy to convince a jury you were complicit even if you were not aware of each individual transaction.

By that logic all VPN companies that promise no logging should be no be allowed to have Visa or Mastercard.  The unspoken rule that no log VPN's are often used to commit online crimes.

 

It's not up to Visa and Mastercard to police things, if the percentage is that high then it should be governments that are stepping in in order to stop things.  It should not be the payment providers that do it.  It should not be the payment providers who provide the moral judgement on what is or isn't allowed.  I can understand the increase of rates for industries that have a high refund rate (but even then that is I think a bit of a stretch as when someone issues a charge back the company eats the cost of it and not the credit card provider usually).

 

16 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

Called it!

 

Confirmed today by The Information report.

Not until they become a key player in the market though should it really apply.

[hishnash]

19 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

By that logic all VPN companies that promise no logging should be no be allowed to have Visa or Mastercard.  The unspoken rule that no log VPN's are often used to commit online crimes.

Yes and no, for VPNs VISA can say they cant see anything bad even if they looked. But for these porn sites it does not take a long time on many of them to come across stuff that is suspect.

 

 

19 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

It's not up to Visa and Mastercard to police things, if the percentage is that high then it should be governments that are stepping in in order to stop things.

Govments have done there thing... Due to how laws are written being part and parcel to a crime by facilitating the chaining hands of money, in perticlare making a profit from this is not something VISA want to touch.   I then end what gov or the courts maybe need to do is provide some clear way for a porn site to be able to provide a real clean bill of health (that would mean no user uploaded content however and only ligit professional artists). 

[hishnash]

19 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I can understand the increase of rates for industries that have a high refund rate (but even then that is I think a bit of a stretch as when someone issues a charge back the company eats the cost of it and not the credit card provider usually).

its not about refund risk its about VISA not wanting to be sued (again and again) for being complicit with revenge porn or worce. In the end it is easier to sue VISA than some Russian shell company that runs the site. And the fact visa makes a profit from this makes them a ligit target.