Maybe, but that seems unrelated. As a consumer living in the EU it's good to see that effective antitrust is a thing here. Which BTW historically the US was very good at. It at least in principle enables more efficient markets.
That we have an issue with entrepreneurship and bureaucracy in Europe is true, something that should be improved, but that is not achieved by enabling monopolies.
These meme is not as valid as few years ago since all the computer based advertisement industry has been commoditised and investors focus was redirected to AI and hardware.
This lock-in is an attempt to keep customers paying despite not providing any value over the competition to the customers.
All the rent seeking attempts are clues that "tech" has become like the old industries.
Even more worrisome, the whole American culture seems to be Europeanised. Traditionally since the last few decades, USA was the land of opportunity and innovation where everyone was welcome and it didn't matter what is your background but now Americans are acting like the Europeans, clinging to the properties they own, rent seeking from the past success and freaking out about foreigners, races, border control and cultural divisions.
Isn't it strange that as USA is slowly losing its edge, it becomes like Europe? It used to be that Europeans were freaking out about their data being collected by American corporations and today its the Americans freaking out about Chinese ones.
Regardless of the validity of your comment: How is this relevant? Is it because Spotify is Swedish? I assure you, this is not EU protectionism, this is EU consumer protection and anti-monopoly behavior - something US regulators seem to have forgotten for the most part.
I love Apple, they enabled me to turn from a waiter to a startup founder to a sold startup to a Google employee to a lifestyle I could never have imagined or gotten otherwise.
I was writing iOS apps when it was iPhone OS, and there wasn't an SDK.
I don't recognize these sniping negative off-topic comments that have become a regularity on articles about the App Store over the past 3-6 months.
Way back then, we were extremely suspicious of the 30%. And we had no idea that would metastasize into, inter alia, not even being able to mention there's another way to pay.
We never, ever, in a million years, would have imagined ads in the Settings app, for all users, pushing you to sign up to be billed for Apple's competing service(s) that don't have to pay the 30%.
Or Apple saying they they needed 30% from payments for real-life services, like say, concert tickets.*
I accepted the "it's an appliance and safety is paramount and people could do payment scams" argument back then.
We're 15 years past, and there's plenty of scams on the App Store proper.
I don't fault Apple for this, like all gatekeepers, the scale got far past what anyone imagined and it's an impossible problem.
If Sony was requiring 30% from every video producer played on your TV, and they couldn't even mention there was a way to save 30% by simply calling a toll-free number, it'd be obviously wrong at some point.
Certainly now.
That's where Apple is.
* there is an exemption for 1:1 services. There's absolutely 0 rationale for that, leaving me to guess that it is because 'concert tickets' are easier to bully in the court of public opinion than 'taxis'
You're thinking like a business owner. The people writing these sniping comments about the EU are acting like cult members, because Apple is a cult that happens to be in the form of a for-profit corporation.
To you, 30% is someone your margin and then some. To Apple fans, it's a tithe that must be paid to the cult leader.
Just a reminder that Apple's anti-steering practices, which the European Commission has a problem with here, were found to be against California’s Unfair Competition Law and the Supreme Court of the United States would not review the case despite appeals.
the_mitsuhiko|2 years ago
That we have an issue with entrepreneurship and bureaucracy in Europe is true, something that should be improved, but that is not achieved by enabling monopolies.
mrtksn|2 years ago
This lock-in is an attempt to keep customers paying despite not providing any value over the competition to the customers.
All the rent seeking attempts are clues that "tech" has become like the old industries.
Even more worrisome, the whole American culture seems to be Europeanised. Traditionally since the last few decades, USA was the land of opportunity and innovation where everyone was welcome and it didn't matter what is your background but now Americans are acting like the Europeans, clinging to the properties they own, rent seeking from the past success and freaking out about foreigners, races, border control and cultural divisions.
Isn't it strange that as USA is slowly losing its edge, it becomes like Europe? It used to be that Europeans were freaking out about their data being collected by American corporations and today its the Americans freaking out about Chinese ones.
asmor|2 years ago
refulgentis|2 years ago
I was writing iOS apps when it was iPhone OS, and there wasn't an SDK.
I don't recognize these sniping negative off-topic comments that have become a regularity on articles about the App Store over the past 3-6 months.
Way back then, we were extremely suspicious of the 30%. And we had no idea that would metastasize into, inter alia, not even being able to mention there's another way to pay.
We never, ever, in a million years, would have imagined ads in the Settings app, for all users, pushing you to sign up to be billed for Apple's competing service(s) that don't have to pay the 30%.
Or Apple saying they they needed 30% from payments for real-life services, like say, concert tickets.*
I accepted the "it's an appliance and safety is paramount and people could do payment scams" argument back then.
We're 15 years past, and there's plenty of scams on the App Store proper.
I don't fault Apple for this, like all gatekeepers, the scale got far past what anyone imagined and it's an impossible problem.
If Sony was requiring 30% from every video producer played on your TV, and they couldn't even mention there was a way to save 30% by simply calling a toll-free number, it'd be obviously wrong at some point.
Certainly now.
That's where Apple is.
* there is an exemption for 1:1 services. There's absolutely 0 rationale for that, leaving me to guess that it is because 'concert tickets' are easier to bully in the court of public opinion than 'taxis'
kmeisthax|2 years ago
To you, 30% is someone your margin and then some. To Apple fans, it's a tithe that must be paid to the cult leader.
gear54rus|2 years ago
Hamuko|2 years ago