Comment by zamadatix
4 years ago
At minimum if you operate an app store on your own platform that takes a cut the platform should allow alternative 3rd party stores to be used. Android/Windows/web/MacOS are already there on that software front. iOS/Consoles/SmartTVs and many others are not. It's probably why you hear about the Apple App Store 30% but not the Play/Microsoft Store 30% - those aren't the only options to distribute an app on those platforms. Users are definitely steered and incentivized to use them but not forced.
That in itself isn't a fix all, for example the Amazon app store for Android based devices still takes a 30% cut at the moment, but it opens the floodgates to stores like this that could start to create natural competition. And even if not at least you have the choice to try not to do that, look at Fortnite. Not for the court case but because they took a 0% cut on Android by distributing the app via their own store when they got kicked off due to that battle. Obviously not an option for everyone but you can still load the app on Android devices and Epic Games Store actually only takes a 12% cut as it's trying to compete. Even if none of this ends up mattering - at least one can load what they want on their devices.
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At the more extreme end there is always antitrust action like the oft cited idea of splitting the likes of Apple or so on into "Apple Hardware" and "Apple Software" which would definitely blow away some anti-competition tendencies (How many use ios+safari+apple-hardware because that's what they would pick vs that's the only option to get any of the above? Probably less than 100%...) but at the same time are probably a bit extreme when we have tried tamer things like the above before.
> At minimum if you operate an app store on your own platform that takes a cut the platform should allow alternative 3rd party stores to be used.
So basically, Microsoft Windows should have an Apple app store and Android should have an Apple app store?
Not quite, just that they should _allow_ such app stores if the app store so wanted to go on the platform.
Microsoft Windows and Android already allow this today which I think is why you hear about Apple's App store so much - it does not allow this. E.g. on Windows you can install iTunes and listen to Apple Music without Apple having to use Microsoft's app store or pay a cut of the subscription to Microsoft. The same is true on Android, Apple does not need to go through Google Play - it's possible to load the APK without it. That being said Apple Music still has the option of listing in the native stores (which it is in both the Microsoft Store and Google Play) it's just not _forced_ to be the only way to get the app _forcing_ the 30% cut to be paid.
As a result you do see competition to the Microsoft Store on Windows and you do see competition to the Play store on Android. Each is still an option though but it's not without competition. On the Apple App store your option is "30% app store cut or get the fuck out, this user owns an iPhone so you can't sell to them direct now".
But there is no reason to force any particular stores to be available on a particular platform, simply making sure stores are allowed has seemed to enabled competition in every place that has tried it so far.
As an Apple customer, I will lose value from my purchase if iOS was required to have additional (non-Apple controlled) AppStores. This change cannot be made retroactively to my previous purchases.
The law (if it ever exists) should only apply to new iPhones and Apple should let users decide what they want.
Unlocking extra AppStores would likely also be more expensive than a locked in iPhone because of Apple’s ROI from the controlled AppStore. I don’t want to subsidize other people using a non-Apple controlled store when I know I wouldn’t.
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