[dagmx]

I think you’ve misread the Apple ruling. The appeals court has said they may charge some amount, just not the higher amount that was originally set.

The costs provided here may very well fall into the acceptable boundaries for the courts.

[malfist]

I don't see how you can argue with the courts that the bandwidth cost to serve a 100mb zip file is $4. That's beyond egregious

[hirsin]

They're not even serving the file. That cost is born by the external provider.

The four dollars is for providing the platform that the user used to navigate to the link and download the zip file.

That's a fun bit of argument from the owners of Chrome.

[dagmx]

I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. Google are the file distributor for content from their store.

These rules aren’t for linking out from the store to a third party site, but rather for installing an app from the store and then linking out to a third party payment.

[hirsin]

Yep, I misunderstood that key point here but can't edit anymore.

[Rohansi]

> The four dollars is for providing the platform that the user used to navigate to the link and download the zip file.

And does not include showing up first in search results for your app's name. That's a separate fee you'll need to pay.

[charcircuit]

Choosing a price based off the cost is just one pricing strategy. Another is to do it based off the value it offers a customer along with the price competitors are charging.

[malfist]

Sure, and that's fine for most businesses. But not for a monopoly/duopoly

[kmeisthax]

I honestly don't understand the court rulings regarding all of this. Like, "you need to allow someone to install your software for free" is easy to understand. And "you can ban software that doesn't pay you your chosen cut" is also straightforward (even though I'm a dirty OS Commie that wants that shit for free). Both of those follow clear-cut legal principles based in antitrust and intellectual property law (respectively).

But it seems to me that the court is trying to enforce some kind of middle ground, which doesn't make sense. There's no legal principle one can use to curtail the power of an IP holder aside from mandating it be given away for free. Indeed, the whole idea of IP law is that the true value of the underlying property can only be realized if the property owner has the power of the state to force others to negotiate for it. Apple was told "you can charge for your IP" and said "well all our fee is actually licensing, except for the 3% we pay per transaction". The courts rejected this, so... I mean, what does Apple do now? Keep whittling down the fee until the court finds it reasonable? That can't possibly be good faith compliance (as if Apple has ever complied in good faith lol).

[JumpCrisscross]

> the whole idea of IP law is that the true value of the underlying property can only be realized if the property owner has the power of the state to force others to negotiate for it

You're describing property in general. Not just IP.

> Apple was told "you can charge for your IP"

It's a bit misleading to use quotes in this case, given you aren't quoting the court.