Generally, the Apple Store would be a separate company from Apple phones. A user gets to choose which store they want to use on their phone. Along with other things like which map app is the default.
This way, the different stores could compete - by charging lower fees or offering more services. Like the android store does a bare-bones check of the app and so it only charges 10%. Apple checks every app throughly, so it charges 15%. Some open source store might have 0% fee, have no app checks, no payment processing, and it is 100% on the user not to download infested software.
> needing to have 15 different stores with subscriptions to get apps who all have different deals with different apps for exclusivity.
the stores are just that. These aren't PC launchers that monitor every game for achievements or act as communication hubs.
The store pops up (and not even the whole store, just some financial popup or webpage) when I need to pay and is otherwise just some icon in a drawer idling. I don't see managing subscriptions anymore annoying than managing 15 subscriptions from different websites. And if that's annoying there are apps and sites to manage that. Just like any other utility bill you have).
Alternatively: don't download any other stores. Again, these aren't games: how many times do you need to search something up and don't find at least 10 different apps that solves the problem?
Android store is the only one anyone gives a shit about, and even there, to suggest that android is anything but a monopolized store is you living in a land of rainbows and unicorns
We are already seeing it on PC where epic is buying titles. Microsoft it’s trying to make my exact nightmare scenario a reality each passing day.
Just cause you lack imagination of corporate bullshit harming consumers in an unending chain doesn’t mean everyone is unable to see it.
Compare how many toxic practices there are in steam games with phone games and yeah, I massively prefer that over the app store monopoly.
App stores encourages shitty practices over healthy ecosystems, the model for computers has resulted in much better products with less consumer hostile practices.
Apple isn't an expert on games, they shouldn't decide what games to suggest and what games should be allowed on the phone, a dedicated game store would be a huge upgrade.
Edit: And no, phone games aren't consumer hostile because they are on phones, they are consumer hostile since the appstore encourages the games to be consumer hostile. You don't see many in-app purchases or ads in steam games since steam doesn't encourage those, while the appstore encourages it.
So you see phone games be shit because the appstore, do you really like phone games as they are or would you prefer them to be like steam? I don't think anyone prefers the phone game in-app purchase toxicity we have now.
Remove app stores completely, kill the "app" concept, and force platform providers to offer to browsers the same capabilities as apps.
Browser capability has been stiffled by the drive from Apple and Google to favor apps (e.g. Safari is the IE of 2024). It's high time this trend is reversed.
I think an important aspect is that exclusivity deals should just be illegal in general.
In that scenario, or with movie streaming right now, the different stores/platforms don't actually compete with each other. They are in a money throwing contest over who can get the most exclusive licences.
Their actual product, streaming a video to your device, isn't relevant to competing at all.
This is also the sole reason why I will refuse to install the epic games launcher. They whine about steams dominant market share while they try to force people to use their platform. Instead of actually competing with Steam, because that would require epic to make a better product and that needs effort.
Although I agree in principle, the counter-argument to this is that Apple would ultimately be blamed in the minds of consumers for not keeping those devices protected from bad software. They could say I told you so, but that doesn’t help them after the golden goose of the App Store has already been cooked.
>the counter-argument to this is that Apple would ultimately be blamed in the minds of consumers for not keeping those devices protected from bad software.
To be brash, maybe consumers need to learn how to protect themselves or move to dumb hardware that is impractical to hack. I don't understand this trend of blaming corporations for not being the de facto gatekeeper of security. They should help minimize spam/malware, but if you're going out of your way to disable those securities (likened to turning off Windows Defender after 2 warnings), your insecurities are self-inflicted.
Many "opponents" aren't asking to change the default experience. They simply want the reigns to take those risks and tinker. Most people can barely even find the theme settings on Android; I won't believe a signifigant portion will get through idiot-proof safeguards just because "well they have a chance to now!"
> To be brash, maybe consumers need to learn how to protect themselves or move to dumb hardware that is impractical to hack.
Most people can't use systems well enough to take charge of their protection. Ideally they wouldn't need to use systems beyond their competence any more than I should have to synthesise my own ibuprofen from scratch (I wouldn't know where to begin), but software ate the world so they can't opt-out either.
> I don't understand this trend of blaming corporations for not being the de facto gatekeeper of security
Governments, the alternative place to seek security, can't do it. The attacks are global in origin, cross border government cooperation isn't at that level, while all Apple local corporations worldwide are all aligned with the one in California.
This trend was preceded with "install antivirus", which had some overlap with "don't connect to the internet" back when that was practically possible.
> They should help minimize spam/malware, but if you're going out of your way to disable those securities (likened to turning off Windows Defender after 2 warnings), your insecurities are self-inflicted.
Those warnings are themselves seen as Apple trying to prevent people switching to other stores.
> I won't believe a signifigant portion will get through idiot-proof safeguards just because "well they have a chance to now!"
What counts as "significant"?
For example, 1% of a nation having their bank accounts drained would be a huge issue — I think that's about 15 times what ransomware currently costs per year.
I've yet to encounter a system so well designed that it's at the 99% level of "idiot-proot", the closest they get is by being the exact opposite: too hard to use so the idiots hurt themselves some other way first.
As a technically minded person, I must say I don’t know how to protect myself from secretly malicious apps.
A weather app needs my location and network access. It doesn’t need to sell ongoing location tracking information associated with my device identifier and IP addresses to marketing companies.
I've been a software engineer for a while, but I don't solve this using a technical approach. I've avoided having apps abuse me by choosing apps written by folks that have no incentive to abuse me. This means going to open source and community-driven apps as much as possible. Of course there will always be proprietary apps and in those cases I need to look at the entity that wrote the app and how much I trust it in terms of their development practices and incentives.
I've used Android for more than 15 years and have never had an issue with malware or viruses or anything of the sort. 90% of this is refusing to install apps that I don't absolutely need. And the rest of it is probably using open source and community apps instead of corporate apps whenever possible.
Unfortunately, the approach of "de-commercializing your phone" is not something that Apple will ever support or allow because it doesn't make them any money. Luckily on Android, I have access to FDroid, which makes this entire approach possible.
> It doesn’t need to sell ongoing location tracking information associated with my device identifier and IP addresses to marketing companies.
fortunately, GDPR covers that already. Or CPPA if you reside in California.
But that's not quite what by Malicious. Malice implies intent for bad desires. A company selling your weather tracking data with dubious consent is simply greedy. It very likely wouldn't be in your top 10 list of perpetrators if your phone was hacked, wiped, or stolen.
I don’t know look at all those people turning off sound check (volume leveling between songs) on their iPhones based on complete fabrications and misunderstanding of what it is and how it works. It’s buried deep, but people still do it.
If it was an open platform, then Apple couldn't charge any more than Steam which is on an open platform, because nobody would pay that much unless forced to.
If you're suggesting that Steam doesn't have an effective monopoly on the PC market, I have bad news for you. One of the biggest differences between Steam and Apple is that Steam does a better job of hiding the effects from users who will lash out at creators who talk about problems on the platform.
An indie creator I follow recently implored fans to buy their next game on Steam and not other platforms... because in order to be profitable they absolutely needed to get their game to be ranked on Steam above a certain review threshold, and reviews of the game would only count towards their ranking if matched with specifically a Steam purchase. And once again, I get this weird feeling. I'm struck that at the point where a creator is begging users to reinforce the most dominant PC gaming platform because if those users buy the game somewhere else that has better creator terms and fees, the platform will (in effect) punish their store listing, something might be going wrong with the market.
Sometimes Apple advocates will point at similarly bad situations in other markets and say, "what, are you going to regulate that too?"
I do think Steam is engaged in anti-competitive behavior, but that doesn't mean they're the full equivalent of the app store. And we can see on the PC market the large number of indie games that very literally would not exist if PCs were locked into only using Steam.
My point here is more that Steam is not really a good argument for justifying a pricing model. But it's a good clarification that in many ways Steam has "only" mostly locked down the PC gaming market, where Apple has gone further and locked down the actual software that can be loaded onto the phone.
Huh, that's interesting. I've never really looked into them before, but could be. Might also be speaking style or which articles we comment on.. I don't really know what metrics they look for :shrug:
I always buy on Gog first because they really care about the user. No DRM, the ability to download safe copies in case some lawsuit happens and things get pulled out (e.g. like half the music in GTA San Andreas!).
I understand you as a creator prefer steam but I wouldn't obey that, sorry. Also, reinforcing their market position is not in my best interest as a consumer.
I think you may have accidentally misread my post, or maybe I didn't word it carefully enough (in which case I apologize for the confusion). I don't prefer Steam. As a consumer, on principle in most cases I refuse to buy from it.
Steam effectively punishes creators for not steering users towards their monopoly, and they have a ton of tools for user lock-in: Steam Input, Steam Workshop, etc... They may not be as egregious as Apple, but they are often pretty egregious in their own right.
In a normal market, having a diverse set of users across multiple platforms would be a good thing as a creator, it would give you security and give each platform less power over you. Steam uses their review system to punish smaller creators who have a diverse userbase, and it uses their response to cement its market dominance even more and to give itself more power over those creators and their players. I would argue this is bad for the market.
My bigger point here is that Apple advocates will sometimes point to Steam and say "they charge high fees too, what's the problem?" There's are multiple reasons that Steam is able to charge higher fees than most of its PC competitors and remain the dominant platform for PC games, some of them due to the way that it methodically weaponizes incentives for both players and creators against alternatives. Comparing Apple to Steam does not make me like Apple more.
>Steam effectively punishes creators for not steering users towards their monopoly, and they have a ton of tools for user lock-in: Steam Input, Steam Workshop, etc... They may not be as egregious as Apple, but they are often pretty egregious in their own right.
Main difference is steam is pretty clever about how they do this. They will pull out very fast if customers start to complain, maybe reworking it later on (paid mods -> steam workshop). Meanwhile, devs on the wrong end of the stick can get some of the worst customer service out there behind the curtain. The only way to get steam to respond is to be lucky enough to cause enough customer ire (e.g. Stein's Gate prequel not being approved for Steam. Despite having an ESRB rating... until customers complained).
That's how you get stuff like the Wolfire lawsuit but people chastising Wolfire instead of Valve.
Most other companies don't even pretend to care and just eat the PR hit. That cynicism will build up over the years, so there's much less sympathy for Apple.
Supporting your "I don't prefer Steam" point, I make a point of supporting Gog (and SetApp!), only to find out that many of the games sold there are crippleware. Deep in the fine print of the non-DRM'd version distributed as 44 floppy disks (OK, not quite, but it feels like Slackware from the 90s nonetheless) is that this non-DRM version cannot multiplayer, not even offline LAN in the household.
Even more surprising, Gog's DRM'd version multiplayer may require ... STEAM! ... to run.
This is galling.
(For the game that most annoyed me, Baldur's Gate 3, this may have changed once Larian introduced their own cloud sync. I haven't tried again, the first experience was that tedious.)
I see the parallels that you're drawing and I agree with you, but I still see major distinctions.
The biggest example I'd like to call out here is that I recently moved from Nintendo Switch to Steam Deck. I was astonished by how much the Steam Deck is just a Linux computer. And I was fully able to install Heroic Launcher, which is compatible with GOG, and install all my GOG games on my Steam Deck and have them work just fine. This is light years away from where Apple is. If Apple had anything remotely like this, I would be a customer quite quickly. But it's the lack of freedom and choice that I find so objectionable.
How can you call any of that "punishment" or anti-competitive?
Steam offers the far superior platform, in every possible aspect. Every thing you've said is them OFFERING (not FORCING) better solutions to things.
For example, in what universe do you think it's sane to think a store front should accept random reviews from random people? Having bought the game is the one of the best metrics to tell if a review is even approaching sincerity.
Not having random reviews in the steam reviews is a feature.
And in the context of Android or iOS, the PC gaming market is SUPER DUPER EXTRA diverse. I own games in like 5 different stores, but always prefer Steam or GOG where possible.
Offering better services and getting more user because of it is not malicious or anti-competitive or monopolistic. It's the best possible outcome (assuming you like capitalism).
The issue with monopolies isn't just their existence, it's their active efforts to keep their monopoly and the negative effects this has on the customer.
Apples monopoly hurts customer, reduces freedom and extracts rent from developers that HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE.
Steams (supposed) monopoly comes entirely from offering the better product to users and developers. Did you know you can generate Steam keys of your game FOR FREE, and sell them away from Steam, giving Steam 0% cut and 99% of the distribution costs?
Compared to Apple, the vast amount of options on PC to acquire software or games means Steam isn't even close to a monopoly. At the very least, they don't have the power to do monopolistic practices and they also just don't abuse them.
Steam is genuinely the closest thing to a perfect company (at least if you like capitalism).
> If you're suggesting that Steam doesn't have an effective monopoly on the PC market, I have bad news for you.
Not what I'm suggesting. In fact, you're making my case beautifully.
I'm agreeing that the PC being "open" isn't what makes the difference.
People are barking up the wrong tree. Your argument is much as the one I made elsewhere in this thread for why there's Amazon when there's Alibaba, and Amazon can charge not percentages more, but many times the price, for same products.
Tangentially, "imploring" people reminds me: I encourage Mac and iPhone toting friends to try SetApp. It's like Apple Arcade but for utilities. It's not from Apple, and people are confused it works for iOS. Once they try it, they set it and forget it. I don't know if it's working for the app owners there, but the value/reward seems much more balanced than the world where every widget wants $119.88 to 239.88 a year (12 x $19.99).
Less tangentially, there are ways to exploit users and ways to add value. The second is harder.
Apologies, I misunderstood what you were saying. Generally good reminder to me to regularly take a step back and try to figure out when I'm reading more into a comment than what was intended.
> I'm agreeing that the PC being "open" isn't what makes the difference.
This is a good point, but I do think the "open" part is possibly a pre-condition to making a difference. But that's kind of squabbling over details, I completely agree that iOS being open to sideloading would not be enough to change the dynamics.
And we know this because... well, Android exists. Android is a really good example of how sideloading is great and something that I love, but also not sufficient on its own to curb anti-competitive behavior.
Your "nobody" is doing all the work. Steam distributes to Windows, but you aren't required to use Steam to distribute to Windows, and then many people don't. Adobe isn't paying Valve to distribute their suite. Epic doesn't use it for Fortnite. Random enterprise software developers have nothing to do with it.
It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone to buy a BMW whether they want it or not.
>It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone to buy a BMW whether they want it or not.
products aren't markets. Steam is a market and many games only launch on Steam. That's a sign of a monopoly, be it deserved or not.
Still, I'd rather have some aspects investigated because monopolies are historally dangerous.
Steam is both a store and a promotional system, but the fee for the promotion is built into their cut for selling your product in their store.
If people are willingly paying this because the promotion is worth it, that's not necessarily a monopoly. And you can tell if they're willingly paying it because they have the option to distribute to the same customers by other viable means, without paying the fee but also without getting the promotion. And then as we can see, some people pay and other people don't.
You could make the different argument that they have a monopoly on games promotion by itself. I don't know if you'd win that one or not, but regardless it's distinct from what Apple is doing.
I don't want to too into the weeds of Steam here, so I'll keep this one really brief:
>but the fee for the promotion
I don't think 'putting product on shelf' is 'promotion'. IF that's your only reason and begging the question leads to "becasuse we have 90% of the userbaase", that's a monopoly. Steam is lauded by their audience for only using their local history to recommend games (i.e. they have a realtively simple tagging system they rely on to serve games), so I wouldn't say this is anymore promotion that Google Search is promting "best game 2024" when I search "best game 2024" (in some utopia where the first 3 results were SEO slop).
>If people are willingly paying this because the promotion is worth it, that's not necessarily a monopoly.
I really hope people day understand the difference between "monopoly" and "monopolization", because this seems to always come up in this topic.
"Monopoly" is a very mechanical, neutral term, legally speaking.
>The term “monopoly” is often used to describe instances where there is a single seller of a good in a market...However, despite the general animosity towards monopolies, not all monopolies are illegal. Examples of permissible monopolies include... Monopolies created purely by one seller having a superior product, business acumen, or having good fortune (ex. online search engines, social media sites)
So yes, you can in fact say Steam is a monopoly (in an objective, legal sense), but also argue it not being illegal because "seller has a superiod prouct/business". Monopoly is not a scary word by itself.
In terms of its 90% marketshare and indusry warping effects, it'd be very hard to argue that Steam isn't a monopoly. It'd be easier to argue Google/Apple in mobile aren't monopolies; At least they have each other to shield from their duopoly. Steam has no contender in the US.
"Monopolization" is a scary word.
>In United States antitrust law, monopolization is illegal monopoly behavior. The main categories of prohibited behavior include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing.
One leads to the other, so I don't blame people for conflating one or another, but it's an important distinction if we're going to start trying to talk about what is/isn't a monopoly, or monopolizing behavior.
----
So, does steam engage in monopolization? Yes, but in much more subtle ways than what Apple/Google are doing. They are very smart about it because they care a lot about consumer feedback, and consumer feedback drives a lot of discussion on social media. But that's a discussion for another inevitable day.
People choosing the better product is not and has never been a monopoly. It requires active anti-competitive actions to maintain that monopoly that makes it a monopoly.
At least, that's the way I've seen people speak of monopolies exclusively.
You buy Adobe from Adobe, "Get" Adobe from Apple, and log in with an email.
Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
Adobe absolutely supports in-app purchasing for Creative Cloud. So does Microsoft with O365.
These conversations often seem to miss that Apple’s requirement is that consumer purchasing be presented as the singular option in-app, not that you have to pay Apple a cut for purchases outside the App.
Even Amazon Video supports in-app purchasing of a Prime account restricted to Prime Video access. They just know next to nobody is going to use it vs an actual Prime account.
> You buy Adobe from Adobe, "Get" Adobe from Apple, and log in with an email.
This is the sort of thing where Apple is playing politics, disallowing the same behavior for others while carving an exception for the ones with enough influence.
Ask yourself why Adobe can do this but not Patreon.
> Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
This argument makes no sense. People don't want to be paying 30% to Google Play either. Maybe this is why they complain about Apple more than Google, but the nature of the complaint is the same regardless of how the user base is distributed.
Yes, and no? It's funny because steam works the opposite way. They charge 30% but reduce the cut if the publishers makes over $X million a year (I think it's 25, but I can be wrong). Apple charges 15% if you're under 1m/year or 30% otherwise.
but yes, Steam was another early adopter of digital commerce and is leveraging its (slightly illogical, IMO) network effects.
