Comment by madeofpalk

I don't think so - they’ve only been fined for the in-app anti-steering provisions.

For the second App Marketplace issue, I think that’s just a preliminary finding and is going to take longer to work out

> Apple now has the possibility to exercise its rights of defence by examining the documents in the Commission's investigation file and by responding to the preliminary findings

Will the fines be large enough to matter? The headline number of 570M looks like pocket change.

To steel man the policy, one thing it helps avoid is the free rider problem. Apples store terms are than free apps don’t pay a commission to Apple. But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platform. We no longer live in an age where Apple or Microsoft gets away with charging for multi thousand dollar per year per seat developer license for their platforms, but that doesn’t mean those platforms don’t cost money to develop and maintain. So the idea is, if you make money on the platform, so does Apple. But free apps + in app downloads is a giant loophole in that plan. Sure we all think of Netflix or Kindle apps when we think of this, but without a policy that charges for IAP and discourages or outright forbids steering off the platform, we would see a new category of “freemium” apps where the app is “free” on the App Store, but is effectively just an empty downloader shell that you then have to buy the “real” app through. Unscrupulous devs steer you to their own outside store or put some ridiculous inside the App Store price (think 300x+ markup) with a link to the outside store with the cheaper price and all those customers are transacting, and Apple gets no money for funding their platform.

And yes I know we can all scoff and say “oh poor multi-billion dollar Apple can’t get paid but getting paid is exactly how Apple is a multibillion dollar company. So if they don’t get it from IAP and app sales fees then they’re going to extract it either from hardware prices, or for charging those per seat per year dev licenses again.

Personally I think Apple is big enough now and the App Store is popular enough now they can revisit this but somehow they are going to want to solve the free rider problem, and whatever they pick, people won’t be happy (see also core technology fee)

Requiring dedicated software available for free is not rent seeking, there is no rent, and it was not exactly rare in the more lifestyle pmp space.

The alternatives are Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and others. Already the dominant brands in Europe. It doesn't have to be European, it has to be good and those are pretty good at much cheaper prices. They also offer premium models that Apple doesn't have a match.

People pay a lot extra for the feelings the brand invokes in them. Tesla was like that when it was about the values it used to represent, right after Musk dropped those values they had to start pricing their vehicles based on the specs to compete with similarly specced alternatives.

If Apple goes into fight with EU and becomes the "anti-european tech giant" they will have to start selling 300 euro iPhones.

Android is Linux based, although you'd have to build a shitton of replacements for all the stuff Google took out of AOSP and locked behind GMS. And you'd probably have problems getting anyone to manufacture EUDroid devices given that they'd lose access to Google Play if they did.

Alternatively, you could liquidate Apple.

That is: confiscate Apple's EU subsidiaries, repeal DMCA 1201 equivalents in EU law, strip iOS of copyright protection, crack the DRM, replace iCloud's deep integration into iOS, set up a task force for cloning Apple's hardware, and put everything you steal online so other countries can steal iOS too.

Do the same to Microsoft as well. Actually, that would be easier than stealing iOS but I don't think the EU wants to try to revive Windows Mobile as an escalation to a trade war.

The core idea to keep in mind is that trade wars are stupid, but also that America's business tyrants will crumble easily if one were to happen. Globalized trade and supply chains mean that basically nobody is self-sufficient in everything; but in America's case, we're mainly self-sufficient in agriculture. Our comparative advantages in tech and cultural exports are a function of us convincing every other country to actually pay us whatever we want for our culture; which is a deal that countries can trivially reneg on.

Wouldn't be sad about a Linux smartphone.

There is android. Works pretty well in China without any google services.

Even 15% would probably have been universally accepted.

So it should! Then Apple's App Store and IAP could compete on its own merits, rather than restricting competition from existing at all.

Imagine a major streaming service: Subscription through Apple 30USD/Month or 25USD/Month if you do it through this one click fintech app.

The fintech app can even pay the streaming service for every customer they bring.

So for the users who already have the fintech app its a no-brainer, click once and get a free coffee each month. For those who don't have the app already it can push them to create an account as they see it on every app as a cheaper alternative. In Europe at least, even traditional banks are able to create a new customer account through a few steps in the in the app. It's usually just about entering your name, taking a photo of your ID and then scanning your face by looking left and right on the camera. You can have a grace period to add the funds for the subscription.

Banks already pay a lot of money for new customers, its pretty common in some places to offer interest-free loans or give cashbacks when you create a bank account through the app. They can partner with those services to offer months of free use or upgrades and then suddenly the value for the trouble of a few click and a scan goes up substantially.

Totally, the Spaniards are on the edge against EU for forcing Apple to allow competing services on %25 of the smartphones they use. Madrid is pouring police force into Barcelona as we speak as the Catalans started burning cars on the streets against the unelected bureaucrats threatening them to give App Store alternatives to every 4th smartphone. Unjustified violence by the police is being reported against people who don't want to know about cheaper payment options. The situation is considered stable at this point but I don't think that EU will survive if Apple pulls out of EU. The president of the EU commission was caught mumbling at the mic "Ich hoffe, Apple ruft nicht an oder blufft, sonst ist alles verloren." which roughly translates to "I hope Apple doesn't call or bluff or all is lost" in Bavarian.

That might be a very risky bet. Currently a lot of people are looking for alternatives of US products, if Apple gets out of the EU, it might not be that easy to get back as the market might have drastically shifted.

> All hollow talk. It will lose all of its aggression the moment that Apple leaves the EU, and EU citizens are left with the remaining options.

People in Europe (and everywhere else that isn't the US) are already using these "remaining options" more than they use Apple products by a massive margin. Apple products are not nearly as popular in Europe as they are in the US because more people realize that the price tag is not proportional to the quality you get.

People like you keep forgetting that the EU is the single largest consumer market in the world. This does not mean that Apple gets most of it revenue from the EU, but it's still a sweet $90B in 2024.

In which world does a company give up on close to $100B in revenue out of spite?

>private but non-monopolistic ecosystem.

Isn't it a monopoly over Iphone users?

Dude the force of government is us, democratically voting, in a free society. Either respect our law, or don't do business here.

> Technically, the first amendment applies only to state actors, not private entities.

That's probably not what the person you're responding to is talking about.

Americans have this unfortunate tendency to harp on and on about 'free speech' in contexts where the first amendment obviously does not apply, or, even more intriguingly/ironically, where the first amendment pretty clearly states the exact opposite.

For example, if some non-government-owned platform (such as a social network) bans a user, and that user says "My free speech rights are being infringed".

Whereas what the 1A actually states is the exact opposite: That platform has the right to ban that user, and the government is constitutionally restrained: If the government were to make a law that forces this social network to unban this user, that'd be the 1A violation.

Then there are only 3 options:

1. That user wildly misunderstands free speech. And given how common this is, 'most americans' is perhaps [citation needed] but the sentiment is understandable. It's not just that "My free speech!" is so common, it's also that articles about some incident pretty much never talk about this. Lawyers, legal wonks, legal podcasts that sort of thing - they talk about it, but, niche audience.

2. The meaning of 'free speech' in the sentence 'this social network has banned me; my free speech is being infringed' is not referring to 1A but to the concept as a general principle; a principle that is orthogonal, or even mutually exclusive with, the definition of 'free speech' the way 1A intends it.

3. They know exactly what 1A means but they are lying through their teeth in order to get some internet group ragin' going on.

If we make a habit of assuming good intentions, the nicest choice is option 2.

The somewhat famous "Section 230" covers part of this, and explains some of the pragmatic reasoning behind MCAC v Halleck: If you hold private companies responsible for having infringed free speech rights, then private companies are going to bend over backwards making clear they are not going to moderate. Anything. For any reason. Legal reasons, you see.

I don't understand what you're on about. The only laws that the USA has on the books that says anything about this are either [A] recently written state laws written as vehicles to virtue signal, particularly by DeSantis in Florida, or [B] the exact opposite.

For example, the first amendment indicates that apple doesn't just have the right to tell its users of its app store to say nothing about alternate payment methods. It goes further than that: The government must not tell Apple anything else. That's stretching 1A a bit; more likely 1A says nothing at all about what Apple is doing here.

"Free Speech" is a thing americans are fond of saying, but unfortunately, considering that 1A is often called 'the free speech amendment', what that actually means is usually unclear, and in this day and age, that means it gets weaponized: Folks start harping on about free speech and pick whatever of the many conflicting definitions so happens to suit their needs at that exact moment.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall was british, not american. She's the author of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

The thing about 1A and free speech in general: Forcing somebody to say something is just as bad as forcing somebody not to say something. And, once you start talking about non-governmental entities and 'free speech', those two things are at odds. After all, if the government tells some social network that they MUST NOT ban some user or delete some posting, that is compelled speech, and that's what I meant with '1A means the opposite of what you / this case / most americans think it means'. 1A protects the right of private companies to restrict your speech. It does not protect your right to have your speech protected from being suppressed, deleted, or otherwise restrained by private actors.

In America free speech is always limited to what "I find acceptable". There's an infinite number of things that lots of Americans will find unacceptable. Swearing is beeped/censored everywhere (even on youtube), songs release "explicit" and "clean" versions, nipples are blurred on TV, some words you can't say even in an educational or karaoke setting (N-word, R-word, etc.)

Sure it is. Lots of us also go on about private property rights and freedom of association. Apple is restricting the behavior of entities doing business through them on a platform they own. The logic is that you remain free to speak - elsewhere. Meanwhile Apple remains free not to do business with you if you can't or won't accept their terms.

(Well really the legal argument is that Apple isn't the government and so the first amendment doesn't bind their policies but there's an ideological aspect in addition to the legal one.)

The issue missed by such an analysis is the outsized impact the megacorp has. Without strong competition (ie not a duopoly or even an oligopoly) regulation is required to protect consumers against practices that otherwise would be financially discouraged.

There are also a few other blindspots people here tend to have regarding regulation. In particular that sometimes detrimental behaviors exist that are perversely incentivized rather than discouraged by the market despite being obviously worse for consumers. A lot of people here seem to conveniently forget that such things are even within the realm of possibility.

and usually in a context where the concept they are thinking of (the constitution) doesn't apply (anywhere that isn't the government)