[Dylan16807]

At what point does a "new" playing field become an "existing" playing field? Surely they don't deserve an outsized cut forever, and we're more than 16 years in.

Their hardware sales shouldn't entitle them to a cut of the software used on it, and the hosting is not worth particularly much.

[FredPret]

Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public property all of a sudden?

The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way.

[benreesman]

All property is public property in the sense that the duly constituted government informed by the wishes of the electorate has an iron monopoly on the use of force and in this case enough force to make anyone do anything.

Some internet platform thing stops being socially useful from competitive innovation and starts being an extractive rent?

The public has the power to dictate terms to the people running it. It’s a power the public hasn’t exercised a lot recently, but it’s only been about 30 years since LA 92, a little longer to Watts and Detroit.

It would be a grave error to mistake the public’s kindness for weakness.

[Dylan16807]

> Of course they do? Just because they created a platform long ago doesn’t make it public

If that's what you think matters above all else, would you support a literal mafia group taking a cut if they had started the market in that particular city?

> public property

It's a market, not property.

But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say?

> The value of their platform is in both hardware and software by the way.

They shouldn't be artificially tied together by DRM.

[michaelt]

> If that's what you think matters above all else, would you support a literal mafia group taking a cut if they had started the market in that particular city?

This is called being a "landlord" and it's actually completely legal.

You buy some land, you build a mall, you invite shopkeepers to set up shops and sell to customers visiting the mall, and the shopkeepers give you $$$$ every month, forever. If they ever stop paying, they lose their shops.

Even though it's shopkeepers that draw customers to the mall in the first place, and even though the shopkeepers are covering all the maintenance costs of the mall, you get paid anyway. Because you own the mall.

So if a mafia group created a market, took a cut from every shop, and threw out anyone who wouldn't pay them their cut? That's actually a legitimate business.

[_heimdall]

That doesn't quite hold when talking about a piece if hardware someone can own outright, like a phone. If the mall allowed shop owners to buy the store they'd have to function more like an HOA, collecting dues rather than rent.

That analogy still doesn't quite hold as you legally agree to pay HOA dues when buying the property and agree the property can seized eventually if you don't pay. No such agreement is made between phone owners and Apple, Apple just sells you the thing and puts some of it's functionality behind ongoing fees.

[immibis]

That's the point - the mall doesn't allow shop owners to buy their store. And Google doesn't let you own your phone outright. If they did, they'd have to give up that recurring revenue stream!

[_heimdall]

I don't like the app store model at all, but it's a stretch to call it rent. Google can't repossess your phone simply because you don't buy any apps.

I have heard the rent argument made for property tax and it holds better there. Own your house outright but fall behind on property taxes and the government can take your house and land - now that feels a lot more like rent.

[benreesman]

Analogies between physical commerce and what the Cartel is up to are offensively wrong by 19 orders of magnitude or so.

There is no useful analogy from an idyllic high street with people shopping at leisure to what happens when you give sociopaths unbounded compute and legal carte blanche.

I struggle with this as a meme and I have a more and less charitable theory. My more charitable theory is that people never learned finance seriously. My less charitable theory is that people stand to benefit personally and are indifferent what it costs, as long as someone else pays the cost.

None of these concepts are in the bedrock law of the land: shopping mall, home owner’s association? Which amendment protects HOAs?

It is completely possible to change all of this, and while we should deliberate thoughtfully before making sweeping change, I mistrust anyone who just asserts dubious shit as bedrock laws of nature.

Maybe we’ve got a pretty sickening system composed of dubiously legal and strictly unethical status quos and it’s time to make some changes at arbitrary effort and cost.

[benreesman]

I’d contend that the term “rentier” is more general and basically all economics from Smith and Ricardo up to Art Laffer was no big lobby for extractive rent seeking.

Profit margins and low-friction competition go hand in hand, if one endorses the one without demanding the other?

I’ll show you a pretty small-minded person with distressingly little empathy.

[FredPret]

A legitimate business created an asset. There’s no good reason to believe they should cede ownership simply because 16 years have elapsed.

> But Apple owns none of the iPhones, so why do they get a say?

This is an interesting point. But the key thing is people buy iPhones in part because of the walled garden, and Apple bakes it into the price. Without that App Store revenue, those $999 iPhones would simply see a price increase.

[benreesman]

At one time we had somewhat reasonable sounding protections via copyright and patent.

Today that’s so captured that Mickey Mouse is still in copyright and insulin for diabetics costs more than the saline it’s in.

It defies both the law as written and the human sense that wrote it to advocate for unproductive rent seeking: sixteen years? With a few point patches along the way? Thirty percent.

The Europeans find it ridiculous, the FTC finds it ridiculous, anyone who likes innovation finds it ridiculous.

But it’s mostly ridiculous because history is unambiguous on this point: you tell the peasants to eat cake long enough and you’ll swing from a dockyard crane.

Let’s seek to avoid that kind of thing?

[mcherm]

> Without that App Store revenue, those $999 iPhones would simply see a price increase.

Why would that happen instead of Apple taking less profit overall?

I suspect that Apple's pricing for phones is based on primarily on what the customer is willing to pay rather than on the amount needed to be profitable.

[Dylan16807]

The demand is not for Apple to give up ownership of their own store.

And if they baked the price into the phones, at least that would be honest. But they likely wouldn't increase the phone price by that much.

[FredPret]

If you think they're being dishonest by betting on future app revenue from iPhone users... buy an Android.

[Dylan16807]

I assume you mean "buy an Android and do nothing else", but in that case I think it's unreasonable to suggest I'm not allowed to want companies to be honest 99.9% of the time, and I can only express it once every few years while I'm choosing what phone to buy.

If you didn't mean that, I'm not sure why you gave me that advice. I'll keep it in mind but I'd prefer we keep the discussion focused on what Apple is doing and whether it should be accepted by the general public, both in terms of popularity and legality. And Google too, because this discussion started about both app stores.