Yup. Exactly. Think of it this way. You manufacture product foo and it's sold to customers via some national store chain. If you anger the owners of the store chain, they can simply refuse to carry your product anymore. This happens all the time. The app store is no different. It's a national chain that Epic sells through and they've poked the bear one too many times. Lucky for Epic that it's privately held. Otherwise they'd have a shareholder revolt.
But there are several stores in mobile country, and more again in platform country. Drawing the boundary of the market around iOS seems circular. "They're a monopoly because they have 100% of the market share on the market that's specific to them."
The truth is because there are only two stores in our example, it really does make sense.
Imagine there were only Walmart and Costco and literally nothing else, even small business. Now someone violates Walmart’s rules for a specific item in the store, and they not only ban that item, but also ban every item they sell.
Here’s where it gets dystopian. In all platforms that allow competitive stores, the fees settle way down from 30%. Look at windows, epic, steam. 5-20%. That’s what a competitive price looks like.
But because there exists literally only Walmart and Costco, they have 0 incentive to compete. That’s abuse of market power, and exactly what Antitrust concerns itself.
The tired analogy of “it isn’t a monopoly” just doesn’t hold up in two dimensions: there are only two major players, both disallow competition within their marketplace, and yet in alternative platforms (game consoles, windows, linux) you have alternative routes to delivery that show us the “real cost” of managing a platform.
Apple and Google are running their companies with 0 foresight. It’s a shame that Tim doesn’t have the foresight to pre-empt this, it’s terrible brand strategy and they are supposed to be good at it.
There is some irony here though, no? For example, if Apple is the only market-place in the country, and rules keep it open and free and available, then there is no need for a 2nd market-place: we've forced Apples to be how we want.
If Apple was allowed to make stupid mistakes like making it very hard to develop Unreal Engine games for iOS, or being jerks in general, then there would be much more justification for building a 2nd market or switching to a 2nd market.
I'm not pitching for no regulation, but the unintended side-effects of force Apple to play well with others is that there is now _no need_ for a competitor who is more open...
I'm not really following the logic here, what rules are keeping it open? Apple is allowed to make stupid mistakes, there is an alternative market, just only one, and, it's clear no force is keeping Apple from doing exactly what it wants currently.
It's a lot easier to switch which store you shop than what phone you use. Switching iOS to Android costs a non-trivial amount of money. There's also a lot of lock-in, migrating from apps in Apple land to Android land. Some people may have multiple Apple devices even. These people face a very high barrier to switching.
To me this is like asking someone dissatisfied with the grocery store that has a monopoly over their town to just move to another city.
Platform country? How does another viable store in Canada help me if I live in the US?
Or even, how does another viable store in Nevada help me if I live in Illinois? I know I can "just move" anytime, nothing's stopping me, but it's expensive...
Users own the hardware, but not the software - they are grante a license to use the software. This is not about the hardware, it's about a single App, the App Store, which the user does not own.
Using the store analogy - when you purchase at a store, the store has a markup on the product (usually 40%) - you cannot demand the store take a different markup because a store down the street is selling it for less, you can't set up a sign in the store telling patrons they can get a better deal down the road, and you can't say you want to pay in a particular currency because you don't have any of the local currency in your wallet. The store can establish policies like this for any patron that enters.
I dont get this store analogy. Best Buy can't suppress the existence of Fry's, so I can go do business with Fry's if a bridge with best buy is burnt. Apple suppresses all competition.
This analogy would only be valid if there were only one store chain in each region. For a better analogy, look at energy distribution, where there are rules that the monopolists have to follow.
Actually, the scenario you describe "one store chain in each reason" is a common scenario. Outside of major urban centers it's not uncommon to have a single grocery store, hardware store, etc.
Energy distribution is different because it's a government granted monopoly.
Apple have hundreds of millions of loyal users buying new iPhones every few years as a result of that market. I think from that alone they are plenty compensated, and it's a perfectly good reason for Apple to provide a decent SDK. Or should successful developers send them a cake, too?
Apple should ask for compensation proportionate to the value they are providing Epic. Which they do, in the form of paid Apple developer accounts, and a 30% cut on services Epic is using.
For instance, if you choose to make your app free, Apple won't get that 30% cut on sales. This doesn't mean they are magically entitled to money as compensation - the transaction simply didn't happen. If they don't like that arrangement, maybe they should charge more for developer accounts?
Consumers bought the phone which can be be considered a general computing device.. so we should be free to run whatever software we want on it. That's the real argument.
I agree with that, but it’s then also a broader question that covers all computing devices. Should I be able to run free whatever software I want in my car, in any of its systems? How about medical devices or any of the gaming consoles? It’ll probably end up being an argument on what a general computing device is.
I mean... yes? I think we should have the right to modify / tinker with things we buy, with the understanding that doing so voids any warranties or manufacturer liability.
That said, of course developers built the market, but not every developer built the market. Apple developers built it. Other developers have chosen to sell inside of it.
Without Apple Developers creating the store itself those developers couldn't sell anything. Apple could 100% do that if they wanted. In fact, the first iPhone was as such.
Not to clients like myself who bought it because of the security provided by that locked-down environment. I'm not concerned about a game not being sold on it. It provides for a host of other purposes.
If executed properly, those two seemingly opposed features could be achieved and make more people happy.
Make it possible to unlock iOS ability to sideload apps, either through a unique code, a security certificate, or a simple toggle and allows businesses to lock down (but not remotely enable) this ability using their MDM.
Of course, put the usual disclaimer that enabling this feature could weaken the device security, and don't simply enable it because an app or a website told you so.