4/23/2025 at 11:04:01 AM
> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases.To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx on their own website. It's unfair that Netflix can't even tell its users the rules that Apple enforces on them.
It's telling that Gruber is pretty staunchly against EU/DMA interferance in Apple, and broadly thinks they're wrong. But this is the one thing he agrees on
> If Apple wants to insist on a cut of in-app purchased subscription revenue, that’s their prerogative. What gets me, though, are the rules that prevent apps that eschew in-app purchases from telling users in plain language how to actually pay. Not only is Netflix not allowed to link to their website, they can’t even tell the user they need to go to netflix.com to sign up
https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/netflix_itunes_billing
https://daringfireball.net/2020/07/parsing_cooks_opening_sta...
(I think Apple now has their 'reader app' carveout for apps like Netflix, but it's still pretty obtuse and inconsistent)
by madeofpalk
4/23/2025 at 11:09:56 AM
Also, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...> The Commission takes the preliminary view that Apple failed to comply with this obligation [to allow third party app stores] in view of the conditions it imposes on app (and app store) developers. Developers wanting to use alternative app distribution channels on iOS are disincentivised from doing so as this requires them to opt for business terms which include a new fee (Apple's Core Technology Fee). Apple also introduced overly strict eligibility requirements, hampering developers' ability to distribute their apps through alternative channels. Finally, Apple makes it overly burdensome and confusing for end users to install apps when using such alternative app distribution channels.
This is great to hear. It sounds like they've just found Apple non-compliant in making alternate app stores as discouraging for both developers and user as possible. I guess it'll take another 12 months for any fines or changes from Apple.
by madeofpalk
4/23/2025 at 11:45:22 AM
The two companies have two months to comply, or there will be daily fines.by stavros
4/23/2025 at 12:26:30 PM
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
by madeofpalk
4/23/2025 at 12:30:14 PM
Hm, maybe, I'm just going by what the article says:> The companies have two months to comply with the orders or risk daily fines.
Maybe they got it wrong, though.
by stavros
4/23/2025 at 9:58:45 PM
I think you're both sort of right.The orders in question here are 1 for Apple (the one that made circumventing Apple payments super difficult) and 1 for Meta (their ad-free subscription service). Meta and Apple have to comply with those within 2 months.
The preliminary finding on sideloading apps isn't subject to that 2 month compliance deadline from what I can tell.
by antasvara
4/24/2025 at 2:19:30 AM
Will the fines be large enough to matter? The headline number of 570M looks like pocket change.by Ifkaluva
4/24/2025 at 2:56:53 AM
It only costs 570MM a year to retain my iron grip monopoly on the AppStore? Let me find my checkbook…by dcow
4/25/2025 at 2:09:03 PM
Pocket-money fines won't stay that way and will be indexed if the EU is serious. That said, one has to doubt that the EU was ever serious given the fines have been so low from the outset.Don't hold your breath waiting for fines to be increased.
by hilbert42
4/23/2025 at 1:46:03 PM
>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been afterIt's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside.
I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which can destroy them.
If Apple just play nice with EU, open up and focus on bringing the greatest experience possible they will keep winning. If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics.
The Apple's AI blunder is mostly a blunder only because they insist to do it all by themselves so to have higher margins on the services revenues. IMHO those blunders will be more damaging as the Americans no longer have the higher moral grounds than Koreans or Chinese.
I hope Apple is treading carefully.
by mrtksn
4/23/2025 at 9:19:42 PM
"Show signs of rent seeking behaviour" seems like an extremely generous position. Forbidding your customers from even mentioning The Outside is full-on rent seeking behaviour, since its inception.by sabellito
4/24/2025 at 12:07:48 AM
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)
by tpmoney
4/24/2025 at 5:03:33 AM
> But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platform.The business model Apple has used since the Macintosh is that the hardware subsidizes the software. I paid for the platform when I bought the device. The only reason why there's even a "free rider problem" is that Apple believes itself entitled to a 30% cut of half of mobile, forever.
Furthermore, we've known since the failure of OS/2 (at least) that expensive development tools almost guarantee zero software uptake. The platforms that win are the ones where the developer tools are affordable or free. In other words, it is not the third party developer's job to pay for the platforms they rely upon. It is the platform's job to pay (in a roundabout way) for the third-party software.
In fact, that's why Apple even has a reader app exception. They know Netflix doesn't have 30% to give and they know nobody's going to buy an iPhone that won't play Netflix.
The reality of Apple's business model is that they absolutely could give away the platform, make money off the phones and the OS, and remain profitable. But investors don't invest into profitable companies. They invest into growing companies. Tim Cook has to treat developers' bank accounts as his own because that's the only thing that makes Apple stock valuable.
by kmeisthax
4/24/2025 at 10:35:56 AM
> Apple believes itself entitled to a 30% cut of half of mobile, forever.1. This isn't the number. Worst case, the after first year number is half that, and even less for most.
2. App store platforms on ostensibly "open" PC such as Steam cost game developers more. Why?
by Terretta
4/24/2025 at 11:28:39 AM
Nothing "ostensible" about PC being an open platform.Any PC will run any number of game stores. Steam is large despite not being the one owned by the platform maker and installed by default (Microsoft Store and the XBox app).
Steam does not prevent publishers from selling in other stores too, nor does it enforce pricing outside its store. (E.g. there are games that are cheaper on other stores, citing Steams larger cut as the reason)
It also allows publishers to force users to install the publishers store to play games sold on Steam. (See e.g. Ubisofts launcher, being required to install games and selling you additional subscriptions without a cut to Steam)
To a limited degree Steam even lets publishers use Steam infrastructure for sales outside Steam, for free. (Publishers can sell Steam keys for free on other platforms, but the number is limited and here pricing has to roughly match Steam pricing)
Even on Steam Deck, the only PC hardware where Steam is actually the preinstalled default store, running games from other stores is supported and the main inconvenience to it is that most stores don't have a supported version for it and you need to use third-party workarounds.
Being an open platform doesn't ensure a market doesn't have other weirdness going on (in this case, there being a strong consumer preference towards Steam, certainly in part due to Steams existing large position, but not only), but its a different thing and most of the usual competition law approaches don't apply. Steam is popular because Steam is popular, not because Steam is using its strong position in another business to push its app store business.
by detaro
4/24/2025 at 4:43:13 PM
The best case is 15% for subscription apps after the first year of service, or if you're a "small business" developer under a certain sales threshold. The latter goes away after you reach a certain size, after which you pay 30%; the former requires you to adopt a subscription business model.I still think calling it a "30% cut" is accurate, even though there are discounts now. 30% is the base rate. You mentioned Steam, which also has discounts too, except they're the opposite ones of Apple. The cut starts at 30% and goes down the more sales you make. This "costs game developers more" only in the sense that it would be incredibly difficult to qualify for both Apple and Steam discounts at the same time. But the base rate is the same.
by kmeisthax
4/24/2025 at 12:42:36 AM
> solve the free rider problemThis framing just doesn't register. You want developers to develop apps for your product, app availability is what makes users choose to buy the hardware/use the OS. They're not "free riding", they're what makes your product worth buying.
by idle_zealot
4/24/2025 at 4:15:12 AM
The "free riders" aren't developers in general, they're the developers not paying for their portion of the upkeep. Like I said, someone has to pay for the dev work that goes into making the platform, building the SDKs and maintaining the whole thing. No one works for free. So Apple can get that paid for either by charging more for hardware, charging for access to the dev kits, or taking a cut of sales for products produced with those dev kits. Apple chose the later.So now they have a problem, not all software is monetized. You want to have the ability for people to choose to distribute software for free. Open source projects, educational, charity, and also "accessory apps" (think your bank app). But you don't want to charge developers money that they're not making. Imagine the shit storm Apple would stir up if they just started charging free apps a monthly fee to be listed in the app store at all. You also want to have young and new developers without a lot of capital to have access (that's why so many companies used to offer student discounts). But the problem becomes how do you allow that, and also allow in app downloads and purchases without every developer just having a "free" downloader app that then downloads the real application code that you pay for separately?
Let's say you sell a dev tool. And you decide you want to support open source projects, so you offer free licenses to any open source project. Would it satisfy your licensing if some company that had an "open source" curl wrapper that downloaded and executed binary blobs for which there was no source code? I doubt it. You'd rightfully say that an app that does nothing except download and launch closed source binary blobs is not in and of itself an open source project for the purposes of your license. It's the same basic idea for Apple. An app that only serves to download or unlock the "real" app after you pay the developer in a separate external transaction is not a "free" app of the sort Apple intends to allow. So they don't allow external transactions at all except for a narrow set of circumstances, and in those cases they don't allow steering. This maximizes the number of developers who are funding the costs of the platform, reducing the overall cost for all the developers who are paying and subsidizing a limited set of developers who are distributing free applications.
Or to try one other way of thinking about it, everyone hates the "freemium" business model. How much crappier would it be knowing that all the "freemium" games were paying absolutely nothing, but everyone who chooses not to engage in the freemium model still had to pay 15-30% to apple on their revenue?
by tpmoney
4/24/2025 at 2:32:55 AM
That logic doesn't work for me.The person who paid for the sdk is the person who bought the iphone.
Typically the definition of free riding requires that if everyone behaved like the free riders, then the system would cease to exist.
If apple made $0 off the app store, would they still make iphones? I would assume yes since they are profitable devices. Hence this isn't free riding.
by bawolff
4/24/2025 at 4:24:11 AM
> The person who paid for the sdk is the person who bought the iphone.Are they? Then why did companies previously charge per seat annual licenses for their SDKs? Were the people who bought the computers and products back then not also paying for the SDK?
Clearly the answer is "who is paying" depends on the model you set up. You can take your income stream from the initial hardware sales, or you can take it from subscription fees, or you can take it in revenue sharing models. Apple chose the latter, and so every developer that finds some way to use the platform and not share their revenue is a "free rider" relative to the other developers who are now subsidizing them.
>If apple made $0 off the app store, would they still make iphones? I would assume yes since they are profitable devices. Hence this isn't free riding.
It's not "would they still make phones" they might. It's "would they still make phones that 3rd parties can develop applications for at the same price they currently charge and without per seat annual $1k+ up front license fees to prospective developers."
by tpmoney
4/24/2025 at 5:29:31 AM
> You can take your income stream from the initial hardware sales, or you can take it from subscription fees, or you can take it in revenue sharing models. Apple chose the latterI missed the part where they give iPhones away for free, and only make money from revenue sharing
by troupo
4/24/2025 at 4:35:00 AM
> It's not "would they still make phones" they might. It's "would they still make phones that 3rd parties can develop applications for at the same price they currently charge and without per seat annual $1k+ up front license fees to prospective developers."The answer still seems like a very obvious yes. Certainly in the modern context where most of the value of the phone comes from apps and app devs can go to android if ios becomes to onerous.
Which is probably exactly why apple chose this model instead of per seat.
by bawolff
4/24/2025 at 6:34:58 AM
> But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platform.Like their customers who happily pay a premium of $hundreds on every device sold? Talking about a free-rider "problem" in connection with literally the richest corporation in the world is diabolical. They develop the SDKs and the platform because that's the foundation of their business, nobody would buy an iPhone that doesn't have any 3rd party apps.
What's the cost of developing the SDK and the platform amortized over the number of devices that Apple sells? Is it $0.50, $5, $50, or $500?
> oh poor multi-billion dollar Apple can’t get paid
Apple is 1000x richer than that, they're a multi-trillion dollar company.
by dns_snek
4/24/2025 at 9:56:01 AM
> But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platform.According to APPL's own marketing, that's what the yearly 100$ fee is for.
by SSLy
4/24/2025 at 3:18:33 AM
Ultimately all the money Apple is making from the store comes from the pockets of people. If apps won't have to pay a cut to Apple, people would be left with more money in their pockets.If all apps were free and no sales would be forced to go through those apps, Apple still sells the phones and makes money from them. Would it be left with less money? Not my problem. Would it increase the cost of phones (maybe only in the EU) to compensate the missing revenues? Fair. Let's see how it affects sales.
by pmontra
4/24/2025 at 4:17:47 AM
> Would it increase the cost of phones (maybe only in the EU) to compensate the missing revenues?Probably not "fair" since the EU seems opposed to their "core technology fee", which is (supposedly) a fee to the developers to compensate for the missing revenues. And if the EU allowed raising prices in EU counties to offset that lost revenue, but didn't allow the core tech fee, that would effectively be the EU outlawing making your money on software rather than on hardware. It seems more likely the EU would just demand continued subsidized access to the same services, like they already did with facebook.
by tpmoney
4/25/2025 at 6:55:02 AM
> EU would just demand continued subsidized accessNo. Apple is free to charge the same "core technology fee" to developers who choose to release apps on the Apple Appstore. The only issue the EU has is how Apple uses the fee to give themselves an advantage.
The EU creates laws to prevent predatory behaviour from corporations. It isn't the EU's job to come up with an alternative business model that still makes Apple the same amount of money.
by geon
4/24/2025 at 5:19:21 AM
>the free rider problemYes charging rent does stop the free rider problem. The cost of maintenance is infinite if Apple says it is cause nobody else is allowed to maintain Apple services.
When people and universities are allowed to maintain Unix services it turns out the cost isn't infinite, and is easily manageable under a public budget and charity. Apple chooses to burn money to create a smokescreen here and you are falling for it.
by casey2
4/24/2025 at 4:50:32 AM
> Personally I think Apple is big enough now and the App Store is popular enough nowThis isn't a steelman. These aren't real problems as you well know and they know. There's no motivation (no argument needed) other than rent seeking.
by Supermancho
4/24/2025 at 4:46:28 AM
> 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.The entire discussion there could be summed up as people have become convinced that Apple the multi-billion dollar company should shift revenue to Facebook or Netflix (or whoever), the other multi-billion dollar company. Fantastic marketing by them to convince people this is a moral thing to do and must be done. It has nothing to do with small developers or better experiences for customers, just an increase in X for Netflix.
by ericmay
4/24/2025 at 5:28:11 AM
> But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platform.This is included in the price of the hardware that their customers and all the developers who develop for the platform have bought, many times over.
Don't believe me? Look up Apple's financial statements and compare iPhone sales to the measly amount they spend on R&D (which includes the development of SDKs for all their platforms).
It used to be that Apple charged for MacOS. And then they said: nope, our hardware pays for that. And made it free.
by troupo
4/24/2025 at 8:37:38 AM
> But someone has to pay for the costs of developing the SDKs and the platformI really do not want to use the iOS SDK which is utter garbage quality. The reason people use the Apple tooling is because they have no choice, in reality xcode is 10 years behind any modern web or native tooling.
by realusername
4/23/2025 at 11:00:59 PM
> show signs of rent seekingThey've been hard rent-seeking since iTunes and iPod. They aggressively eliminated and made inconvenient other ways for getting music onto iPods. Hardware was great, but hard dependence on iTunes killed it for me.
by recursive
4/24/2025 at 5:37:42 AM
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.by masklinn
4/24/2025 at 2:02:39 PM
What if that software is trying to sell you stuff? And what if it's discouraging or preventing by technical means alternatives from that?What do people do with ipods if not play music? And where do they get that music if not paying Apple? Apple's official recommendation at the time if you wanted to ingest arbitrary audio like your own recordings was to burn a CD and then rip it with iTunes. That cost about a dollar an hour to get access to your own audio rather than just... making a reasonable process.
by recursive
4/24/2025 at 5:49:07 AM
It is the definition of rent. The cost is that I have to run your software on my device. I could create value for myself by running software of my choice, instead Apple destroys that value to create a percentage of it for themselves.Apple pretends to value user privacy and artist rights as these values often conveniently align with taking away user and partner control. The mask has slipped multiple times but their control over users never will until they are legally required to treat their users like humans.
by casey2
4/24/2025 at 7:48:02 AM
> It is the definition of rent.In no sense of “rent”, or “definition”.
> The cost is that I have to run your software on my device. I could create value for myself by running software of my choice
This is an outright Orwellian redefinition of the term.
> Apple pretends to value user privacy and artist rights as these values often conveniently align with taking away user and partner control. The mask has slipped multiple times but their control over users never will until they are legally required to treat their users like humans.
Ah, so you have an axe to grind against Apple and could not care less about the stone, got it.
by masklinn
4/26/2025 at 11:00:58 AM
lol, you did quite some redefining yourself. They do the things the the parent said. They do the same thing with activation lock. Putting it all under the idea of protecting against theft, but it's real motive is to minimize after market parts.by trinsic2
4/23/2025 at 4:28:07 PM
> If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics.But what alternative? There is no European smartphone OS. Windows and Steam OS and XBox are US-american, too.
I suppose Linux, Playstation, and Nintendo, then?
by Derbasti
4/23/2025 at 4:40:24 PM
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.
by mrtksn
4/23/2025 at 4:51:18 PM
American brands should tread carefully: while America is willing to ban their (cheaper, sometimes better) competitors, Europe is much less willing to — especially now as America itself has taken a much more bullying tone towards its allies.by reissbaker
4/24/2025 at 5:12:47 AM
America overestimates its economic strength on the world stage because they have an unmatched military, but when all books are closed its only 300M people and most of em are broke. That's a market the same size as Brazil, Australia and the UK combined - it's a lot but it's not enough to start unilaterally declaring yourself the boss. USA is playing a losing strategy here.by bad_haircut72
4/25/2025 at 2:32:09 AM
Most are not broke. The median household income is $79k; compare, say, to the UK where the median household income is $46k.However, it's true that 300M isn't enough to call yourself boss...
by reissbaker
4/24/2025 at 5:17:58 AM
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.
by kmeisthax
4/23/2025 at 4:41:45 PM
Wouldn't be sad about a Linux smartphone.by xandrius
4/24/2025 at 8:28:28 AM
Here you go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5(My daily driver)
by fsflover
4/23/2025 at 7:09:28 PM
My dream is to run NixOS in all my devices…by ireadmevs
4/23/2025 at 9:14:59 PM
With all apps being sandboxed, though, please!by codethief
4/23/2025 at 5:05:11 PM
There is android. Works pretty well in China without any google services.by msh
4/23/2025 at 6:26:15 PM
I know it would leave a lot of money on the table, but if Apple had set the app store fee at 5% (enough to cover credit card fees and running the service) and been content with a 50% margin on hardware, it never would have been in this mess.by dehrmann
4/23/2025 at 6:41:41 PM
Even 15% would probably have been universally accepted.by akaij
4/23/2025 at 5:12:16 PM
I would imagine that getting the user out of the in-app purchase payment screen and attempt to redirect them at the website for payment, have them figure out how to enter credit card details etc would result in a drastically decreased conversion rate though.by superzamp
4/23/2025 at 5:25:59 PM
So it should! Then Apple's App Store and IAP could compete on its own merits, rather than restricting competition from existing at all.by madeofpalk
4/23/2025 at 6:07:51 PM
Apple does compete on its own merits. Its merits are that it built and controls the operating system and hardware that people choose to buy.If other companies have an issue, then they can build their own software, their own hardware, and compete.
by mrangle
4/23/2025 at 7:23:54 PM
Companies don’t make laws (unless you live somewhere like the US); people do. If the people say “stop fucking around and rent-seeking” then companies should have to do that. It’s pretty simple, really. Just because you build your own hardware and software doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want.by withinboredom
4/23/2025 at 8:07:42 PM
Apple is free to leave the European market if it doesn’t like the rules.by chgs
4/24/2025 at 3:29:14 AM
I bet the Robber Barons said something like “Don’t like it? Build your own railway!” too.by PlunderBunny
4/23/2025 at 5:27:56 PM
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.
by mrtksn
4/23/2025 at 5:15:16 PM
The money comes first (:by miohtama
4/23/2025 at 5:52:11 PM
Apple has its act together. Those, who are not Apple, do not in comparison. They are Big Mad that Apple does.You don't understand the term "rent seeking". Because in this case, it's Apple's competitors that are rent seeking by utilizing the force of the government to make Apple give competitors access to its private but non-monopolistic ecosystem.
I think that Apple should call that bluff and leave the EU.
Which in turn will increase public pressure on the EU, but not as functionally as it would in a democratic system.
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.
by mrangle
4/23/2025 at 6:13:25 PM
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.by mrtksn
4/23/2025 at 6:26:57 PM
Interested in learning more, do you have links to the sources?by vander_elst
4/23/2025 at 6:32:59 PM
It's joke :) It was impossible to give it a serious reply, so...by mrtksn
4/23/2025 at 6:57:24 PM
They're being facetious.But here's a source for future readers: https://justpaste.it/jog4v
by fennecbutt
4/23/2025 at 6:24:05 PM
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.by vander_elst
4/24/2025 at 7:18:36 AM
> 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.
by 59nadir
4/24/2025 at 2:49:47 AM
>private but non-monopolistic ecosystem.Isn't it a monopoly over Iphone users?
by Braxton1980
4/23/2025 at 8:02:59 PM
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?
by npc_anon
4/23/2025 at 8:09:00 PM
In a hypothetical world where it threatens $1T of revenue.by chgs
4/24/2025 at 1:48:01 AM
The app store monopoly is being threatened everywhere that isn't America.by throwaway48476
4/23/2025 at 11:31:30 PM
Dude the force of government is us, democratically voting, in a free society. Either respect our law, or don't do business here.by cruzcampo
4/24/2025 at 1:30:16 PM
Amen. This American hatred for the government is very tiresome.by Yeul
4/23/2025 at 1:55:17 PM
> It's telling that Gruber is pretty staunchly against EU/DMA interferance in Apple, and broadly thinks they're wrong. But this is the one thing he agree onI’ve stopped seeing Gruber as any sort of authority on Apple for a while now. He’s just a single guy with an opinion like everyone else, and it’s, more times than not, clearly biased in favor of Apple.
Some of his analysis of objective data is informative, but when he gets into subjective material, I tune out. I don’t really care any more about what he says than most others sharing their opinion on the internet — it’s just one more data point to consider collectively alongside everyone else’s.
by jader201
4/23/2025 at 4:00:41 PM
I agree with your overall comment, but I think this is basically what OP was getting at: it's not surprising that Gruber is against EU/DMA interference, yet even he has issues with this particular point.by johnmaguire
4/23/2025 at 6:50:03 PM
I liked his piece on the Apple AI debacle, I figure if he is criticising Apple for that then there is something to the complaints.What I really dislike and the reason I don't subscribe to his feed is the politics.
by tonyedgecombe
4/24/2025 at 10:00:11 AM
Usually the user should heavily penalize such behavior, but Apple has users and apostles. To a degree that some believe Daddy Apple should shield them from temptation by evil Netflix.It ridiculous and also comes with costs for other customers of that ecosystem. I believe brands really make some people stupid.
by raxxorraxor
4/23/2025 at 12:56:14 PM
Aren't Americans always going on about free speech?by Yeul
4/23/2025 at 5:10:56 PM
Technically, the first amendment applies only to state actors, not private entities. See Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, Hudgens v. NLRB, and many other cases that upheld this interpretation. Private companies like Apple can restrict free speech on their platforms legally (at least as far as the first amendment is concerned).That said, I believe in the principle of free speech, especially as envisioned by Tim Berners Lee for the Web. I wish more Americans could adhere to those principles even when the speech is not to their taste. Certainly feels like a lot of cultural backsliding happening.
by bloppe
4/23/2025 at 6:12:32 PM
> 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.
by rzwitserloot
4/23/2025 at 6:34:04 PM
It's a combination of 1 and 2 for the most part.There's a lot of nuance lost when the Bill of Rights is being taught in US grade schools. Most kids read each of the amendments but then are given a simplified interpretation. "The first amendment guarantees a right to free speech" would have been correct enough for a test answer when I was in school, although it loses enough nuance to frequently be incorrect, because people often presume that equates to "I can say what I want without consequence and the government will protect my ability to do it", when it more accurately should probably be taught as "the government has a limited ability to meddle in other's speech"
The net effect is both that people misunderstand the 1st amendment, and they also believe that what they thought it meant is an important value.
by kube-system
4/23/2025 at 9:14:01 PM
> 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.
This principle is obvious if I was running a newspaper and printing user-submitted comments. I can have whatever inclusion policy I deem fit, or my own speech would be curtailed.
But this is now being applied by private companies in cases wildly removed from that. Meta er whoever can ban two users having a private conversation on their platform.
It seems to me that the private bridge builder in the example above has a stronger case than these companies in such cases.
Perhaps I overhear that you dislike fast-food, and I only sell billboard space to fast-food companies.
Or perhaps you think that would be just fine, and we just need to close the technological gap of being able to embed hypersensitive microphones into asphalt.
by avar
4/24/2025 at 3:05:47 AM
[dead]by thunderfork
4/23/2025 at 10:30:12 PM
> Then there are only 3 optionsI can imagine at least one more:
4. Americans believe companies too frequently do the government's bidding, and by allowing corporations to suppress speech, they're allowing the government to exploit that and indirectly violate their direct 1A rights.
by dataflow
4/23/2025 at 7:01:22 PM
> I don't understand what you're on about.Likewise, I think we have a miscommunication here because I agree with everything you wrote.
I'm not making a legal argument about free speech at all. I agree with your analysis on the legality there. Now that said, I do think the Biden admin crossed the line of legality with their collaboration (and a little implied threatening) Twitter and Facebook, and their whole establishing an office whose job it was to report "disinformation" on social media to the tech giants.
I'm speaking culturally. To go back to the Lab Leak Theory example when Youtube was taking down any videos that even mentioned it (even if the mentioner was a well-respected Evolutionary Biologist) wasn't illegal, but it was a total abandonment of free speech principles. It feels like it's abated quite a bit in the last year or two, but for a while there, there were ideological rakes all over the place that any mention of would get your content taken down by big tech.
Now all that being said, I do think there's a point at which the line between private corp and government starts to blur, and I do think big tech is approaching that line. For most of history, no corporation could even approach the level of power over our lives as government, but increasingly they are getting so powerful that we can't even function in society without them. I think we're approaching or past the point where regulation and/or breaking them apart is necessary to reduce the amount of power that they have over us.
by freedomben
4/23/2025 at 7:11:53 PM
> To go back to the Lab Leak Theory example when Youtube was taking down any videos that even mentioned it (even if the mentioner was a well-respected Evolutionary Biologist) wasn't illegal, but it was a total abandonment of free speech principles.Not really, this is a case where two cooperating parties, who both have speech rights, have a dispute about which speech they collectively want to espouse.
Unless you're saying that people should lose their speech rights when they form a business?
by kube-system
4/23/2025 at 7:56:55 PM
> Unless you're saying that people should lose their speech rights when they form a business?I tried to make clear I wasn't making a legal argument, but since you mentioned it I will address it, but first I'll just say that no I'm not saying that people should lose their free speech rights when they form a business. I'm not sure how you got that from what I wrote, but no, legally they don't and shouldn't (with maybe one exception, mentioned next). What I have a problem with is the lack of cultural appreciation for free speech. Culturally, the powerful people at Youtube decided that free speech was not important, at least not as important as controlling the narrative and preventing the spread of ideas they considered "dangerous" (or whatever description they might provide). I think that's the mainstream cultural attitude in the USA today, and I think that's unfortunate. I wish that everyone would believe as I do, that free speech as a cultural value is important and should be honored and respected, especially when it's speech you disagree with.
But to the legal argument: When that "business" gets to be the size and scope of a company like Youtube, yes I do think some regulations (i.e. restrictions) on what they are allowed to impose on their users are reasonable. If we had a dozen small providers then I don't think there's any need for regulation there because the market competition will provide a powerful check on potential abuse, but Youtube is an entrenched behemoth with a giant moat. At that scale, the amount of power they have over the people is immense, and IMHO approaches that of the government, and therefore there need to be some checks on that power.
I do also think the "compelled speech" defense for Youtube et al is a bit of a stretch. I agree that compelled speech is not ok and is just as bad as restricted speech. However, I do see a difference between being a communication service and someone being compelled to say certain speech. I would strongly oppose an attempt to compel Youtube the company to say something, but I don't think somebody having a channel that is clearly attributed to themselves and not to the parent company, is the equivalent of forcing Youtube the company to say something specific.
For example, imagine a world where the telephone system operators got to decide which speech was permitted on their phone lines. They had people listening in the conversation and "moderating" by cutting off the live feed if the topic veered into something they disagreed with, and any voicemails/recordings made were also deleted and scrubbed so the recipients wouldn't hear the wrong think. In that scenario would you defend the rights of the phone company not to host "compelled" speech that they disagree with? Compelled speech would be forcing the company themselves to say something. Them passing the electricity on the wire (aka being a "dumb pipe") is not the same thing.
I also think the argument falls apart when taken to it's logical extent. Who decides what speech they are "compelled" to host? If I make a Youtube video and say "I support <presidential candidate not favored by the company>" are they being compelled to say that? I don't think so.
by freedomben
4/23/2025 at 8:21:12 PM
> I tried to make clear I wasn't making a legal argumentI know which is why I used the word "should" to indicate moral hypothetical and not existing law.
>I'm not sure how you got that from what I wrote
Because you said that a situation in which YouTube exercised the right to moderate their own platform was a "total abandonment of free speech principles".
But as you recognize, compelled speech is also a violation of free speech principles, and that is, whether either of us agree with it (I also don't entirely), it is also factually a free speech principle that is in balance here.
> For example, imagine a world where the telephone system operators got to decide which speech was permitted on their phone lines.
And we're back to the common carrier argument, which I think is more relevant to this conversation than a vague appeal to "free speech". Ultimately when the government grants monopolies to businesses, they start to become an effective arm of the government and should be regulated more in line with the rules that apply to government. I think we need to start classifying more of these platforms as common carriers and require them to carry all speech equally -- or break them up until the point they don't hold effective monopolies and/or wrongfully crush competitors.
by kube-system
4/23/2025 at 9:27:34 PM
Indeed, sounds like we're largely in agreement then.> Because you said that a situation in which YouTube exercised the right to moderate their own platform was a "total abandonment of free speech principles"
True I did say that, and I'll definitely walk that one back a little bit. I didn't mean their moderation as a whole was the abandonment, I mainly meant their philosophical approach to it. (i.e. deciding that anything that goes contrary to the CDC/WHO narrative may not be discussed)
by freedomben
4/23/2025 at 4:11:21 PM
As an American who thinks free speech is one of the most important rights we have, I wish the answer to your question would be a collective "yes" but unfortunately it is not.by freedomben
4/23/2025 at 6:22:23 PM
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.
by rzwitserloot
4/23/2025 at 5:27:34 PM
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.)by baby
4/23/2025 at 6:04:10 PM
I don't disagree with you, but I do think it's important to distinguish between a censored swear word or nipple, and taking down an entire video because it mentions the Lab Leak Theory at a time when that was politically unacceptable. The former may be suppressing a small element of the "speech" but it's not (for the most part) restricting the expression/transmission of ideas. It's also a very firm and defined standard that is unambiguous (i.e. here is a list of words you can't say, use substitutes to convey meaning v. here is a list of opinions you aren't allowed to express). The latter on the other hand is absolutely the suppression of ideas, which IMHO is what "free speech" is really about and why it's so important.by freedomben
4/23/2025 at 3:51:30 PM
If you extend "speech" to "any kind of action an individual or company can do", then no. There's plenty of laws regulations that restrict what you can do in USA.by madeofpalk
4/23/2025 at 3:40:39 PM
There is also the freedom to engage in a contact.The freedom of speech isn't restricted, apple just isn't providing a platform to speak on.
This is an anti trust issue balance against two parties ability to be bound by contract.
by LanceH
4/23/2025 at 8:10:14 PM
Most people who go on about free speech are the ones who clamp down the most on it and are massive snowflakes when people decide not to buy their stuff because of their speech.by chgs
4/23/2025 at 9:15:01 PM
Sorry, Fox News changed its mind in January. Come back in 2 years and they'll be back to "pro free speech" (to mock minorities).by johnnyanmac
4/23/2025 at 1:58:35 PM
Every American is pro free speech for the kind of speech they like.by paxys
4/23/2025 at 1:00:43 PM
Just never in a logically consistent manner.by mdhb
4/23/2025 at 3:51:00 PM
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.
by fc417fc802
4/23/2025 at 1:08:23 PM
and usually in a context where the concept they are thinking of (the constitution) doesn't apply (anywhere that isn't the government)by NilMostChill
4/23/2025 at 5:49:51 PM
Free speech isn't good because it's in the Constitution, it's in the Constitution because it's good.by orangecat
4/24/2025 at 3:21:06 AM
Elon was very vocal about this, he asked subscribers to directly buy from the website. There’s a 30% discount.by sagarpatil
4/24/2025 at 2:55:02 AM
And to the products that need the carveouts the most, small fledgling apps where the margin matters intensely, it’s not available.by dcow