Kxmode wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 12:02:

Verno wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 10:07:

Prez wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 09:54:
So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context.

Nobody is agreeing to price fixed. Stop! Gees... several posts down we established 30% as the standard premium rate that most B2B services charge. It's not just Apple and Google. Valve, retail stores, and many others do it too. It's not price fixing if it is a standard practice across the industry.

And each one of those markets is either a defacto monopoly (Steam), a duopoly (app store), or a oligopoly (consoles). There doesn't have to be explicit collusion to trigger anti-trust in cases like this.

Kxmode wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 12:22:
I know what you're saying, and I'm telling you nobody agreed to price fix, nor would they engage in that behavior. It would be impossible for Google, Apple, and Valve to come together for a pow-wow to price fix 30%. Valve picked 30% for Steam long before Apple and Google. Apple settled on 30% for its AppStore, and later Google decided 30% for its Play store. They established those fees at different times, so even hinting that they did it veers into a conspiracy theory.

I did not say anyone price fixed and I am not hinting at it. Prez asked a hypothetical question which was "So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?" I responded and said "Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context." What I was saying there was that in his hypothetical scenario, it wouldn't matter what they agreed on, agreeing to fix the prices at all would be illegal. That was in response to his hypothetical question.

I am well aware and agree that neither company fixed the prices here, that was not the issue though.

Verno wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 12:10:

Kxmode wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 12:02:

Verno wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 10:07:

Prez wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 09:54:
So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context.

Nobody is agreeing to price fixed. Stop! Gees... several posts down we established 30% as the standard premium rate that most B2B services charge. It's not just Apple and Google. Valve, retail stores, and many others do it too. It's not price fixing if it is a standard practice across the industry.

I'm not saying the current market split is price fixing, I was answering his question that both companies agreeing to a certain split would be price fixing. Re-read both posts, you have misunderstood the context.

I know what you're saying, and I'm telling you nobody agreed to price fix, nor would they engage in that behavior. It would be impossible for Google, Apple, and Valve to come together for a pow-wow to price fix 30%. Valve picked 30% for Steam long before Apple and Google. Apple settled on 30% for its AppStore, and later Google decided 30% for its Play store. They established those fees at different times, so even hinting that they did it veers into a conspiracy theory.

Kxmode wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 12:02:

Verno wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 10:07:

Prez wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 09:54:
So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context.

Nobody is agreeing to price fixed. Stop! Gees... several posts down we established 30% as the standard premium rate that most B2B services charge. It's not just Apple and Google. Valve, retail stores, and many others do it too. It's not price fixing if it is a standard practice across the industry.

I'm not saying the current market split is price fixing, I was answering his question that both companies agreeing to a certain split would be price fixing. Re-read both posts, you have misunderstood the context.

Verno wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 10:07:

Prez wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 09:54:
So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context.

Nobody is agreeing to price fixed. Stop! Gees... several posts down we established 30% as the standard premium rate that most B2B services charge. It's not just Apple and Google. Valve, retail stores, and many others do it too. It's not price fixing if it is a standard practice across the industry.

Prez wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 09:54:
So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

Regardless of the split itself, agreeing to price fix is illegal in this context.

So just to understand, Apple and Google can bilaterally agree to charge a 95/5 split instead of a 30/70 and it's legal?

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 00:56:
anti-trust laws aren't there to punish whoever so happens to be in any kind of dominant market position. They are for preventing the abuse of power that position wields and preventing the gaining of that position through illegal means.

Has Apple been charging that same rate this whole time, while their market share started from 0% in 2007, rose as high as 70% or so before COMPETITION brought it tumbling down by half of that in 2010, then came back up and held pretty stable at 50-60% throughout the past decade? (Talking about the US, only, here; Android has dominated everywhere else since 2012 and today there's a 75/25 split over iOS in the global market.) I don't know the answer, but if yes, then how is taking 30% considered an abuse of the dominant market position they hold today? You don't get to suddenly decide it's "egregious" now if the market found it acceptable to begin with, to the point where they grew to dominate said market over the span of more than a decade of charging that rate.

If they came upon that market position legitimately, it doesn't matter how obscene their profit margins are, or whether they are fit to be categorized a monopoly... It's not illegal. An anti-trust case would be about proving they have done something illegal to stay there. Like threatening would-be competitors with secret ninja death squads or some shit. Or explicitly price-fixing with Google.

Indeed, well put. The cellphone industry has amazing offerings at every price level for hardware, services and apps despite the presence of only 2 major players in many (not all) regions. Users and developers brought us here, not anti-competitive actions by Google and Apple. At one point we had 5-6 different platforms and the increased competition was not helpful, it fractured application development and users largely rejected the other platforms. They are not stopping anyone from entering the cellphone industry with a competitive offering, it is an open market place. The presence of dominant players in an industry does not inherently mean there is an unhealthy marketplace.

All Google and Apple have done is create robust and desirable platforms and continually reinvest in them. The idea that its just some servers is silly. It's an entire platform. The App Store doesn't matter if Apple doesn't continually make new hardware that people want, new accessories, invest in R&D, develop iOS, follow other industry trends and so on. The same goes for Google and its partners. That's a lot more than a few hundred mil and some servers. No one seems to be able answer "What is a fair split?" despite feeling strongly that 30% is somehow too much. If it's truly harmful to consumers then why isn't there any evidence of that harm? When I think of anti-competitive acts that need immediate attention, my thoughts go to carriers rather than Apple/Google.

Jonjonz wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 06:32:
. All it takes is for a few block busters like Fortnite to train consumers that the Apple store is not the only alternative, and Apple is in deep doo doo.

Except that it's not. Apple's "walled garden" approach is the one defining thing that makes Apple, well, Apple. I don't like it anymore than you do, but at least I'm realistic enough to admit that Apple's exclusivity is it's reason for existence. Companies and products are not gonna be leaving Apple, because they want to be ON Apple. It's as simple as that.

fakespyder wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 22:40:
I wonder if Tim gave any thought how his actions may hit app developers using unreal engine?

Obviously, no. A decision to block the Unreal engine from the Apple infrastructure goes through many people, including Apple's legal department, all of whom would have said something. No, it was the business equivalent of blind rage. Apple's response exposed their darker side, a rare sight to behold.

Jonjonz wrote on Aug 26, 2020, 06:32:
Some accountant at Apple is shaking their head. Lose one of the most profitable/high volume items in the inventory just to uphold a theory. The math says shaving a few points off for Epic would still bring in more money than not having the super seller Fortnite at all. Apple may have won the battle, but Epic is playing the long game here, showing other game publishers that their is growing competition to the Apple walled garden store with more attractive returns by using Epic or Steam, or even their own store. All it takes is for a few block busters like Fortnite to train consumers that the Apple store is not the only alternative, and Apple is in deep doo doo.

The fact that Apple is willing to do it despite losing a billion speaks volumes about Apple's character. On the other hand, Epic is schizophrenically trying to own any market by not putting in the hard work and time. Despite sitting on a mountain of cash, they cannot buy their way to the top. Tim strikes me as someone who doesn't know what to do with all this money he obtained very rapidly. Maybe he should do something radical (e.g., nothing so dramatic, perhaps charity?). It's either that or all that money will evaporate because they lack focus.

Some accountant at Apple is shaking their head. Lose one of the most profitable/high volume items in the inventory just to uphold a theory. The math says shaving a few points off for Epic would still bring in more money than not having the super seller Fortnite at all. Apple may have won the battle, but Epic is playing the long game here, showing other game publishers that their is growing competition to the Apple walled garden store with more attractive returns by using Epic or Steam, or even their own store. All it takes is for a few block busters like Fortnite to train consumers that the Apple store is not the only alternative, and Apple is in deep doo doo.

jdreyer wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 18:28:

wtf_man wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 16:23:
Apple can charge 90% if they wanted to. It would be stupid of them to do so, but they can charge what they want for THEIR platform.

Sorry, but unregulated monopolies aren't legal. That's why we have anti-trust laws. The fact that the government hasn't finished it's investigation doesn't mean it's not true. And if the government drops the case, that just means we're living in an oligarchy, not a democracy:.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

You should be really upset that Apple owns 57% of the app market and charge an egregious 30% for running a website and a few hundred servers. The app store probably costs them a few hundred mil to run per year, while pulling in $10B. You know who pays that difference? You do.

Democracy died ages ago, dude, sorry if you've been clinging to that hope all this time... But anyway, anti-trust laws aren't there to punish whoever so happens to be in any kind of dominant market position. They are for preventing the abuse of power that position wields and preventing the gaining of that position through illegal means.

Has Apple been charging that same rate this whole time, while their market share started from 0% in 2007, rose as high as 70% or so before COMPETITION brought it tumbling down by half of that in 2010, then came back up and held pretty stable at 50-60% throughout the past decade? (Talking about the US, only, here; Android has dominated everywhere else since 2012 and today there's a 75/25 split over iOS in the global market.) I don't know the answer, but if yes, then how is taking 30% considered an abuse of the dominant market position they hold today? You don't get to suddenly decide it's "egregious" now if the market found it acceptable to begin with, to the point where they grew to dominate said market over the span of more than a decade of charging that rate.

If they came upon that market position legitimately, it doesn't matter how obscene their profit margins are, or whether they are fit to be categorized a monopoly... It's not illegal. An anti-trust case would be about proving they have done something illegal to stay there. Like threatening would-be competitors with secret ninja death squads or some shit. Or explicitly price-fixing with Google.

This comment was edited on Aug 26, 2020, 01:13.

I wonder if Tim gave any thought how his actions may hit app developers using unreal engine?
I know it was Apple who threatened to revoke, but Tim has been planning this move for some time and probably considered worst-case scenarios.

Seems like he might care more about getting his way than the collateral damage to developers.

The world is sooooo unfair when your a billionaire!!!

Bishi wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 18:43:
Any half literate tech person that still uses Apple products is lying to themselves. The hardware is often decent (if overpriced and outdated), but the software is such a pile of shit, that every bearded douche with a credit card buys in.

We use Macs exclusively at work. Being able to use a proper bash or z shell is nice, but the real reason is docker on windows pcs is awful. All of our deployments to the cloud are on Docker containers in Linux, and they all require lots of custom hacks and changes to work on Windows, whereas they mostly just work the same on Mac, with a couple odd networking issues.

New Macbooks even have an escape key and a keyboard that doesn't suck. (Mind you, my Lenovo at home has a keyboard 10 times better and runs twice the speed for 2/3rd the price.) But for web/Java/AWS development, windows pcs are lightyears behind apple.

Of course I go home and we have 4 gaming PCs and two Windows laptops... so I would agree any half literate gamer that still uses Apple products is missing out...

The Half Elf wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 18:16:

jdreyer wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 15:22:

Kxmode wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 13:25:

Sluggabed wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 13:13:
How much cash is enough for these F$%*rs, seriously Apple piss off

When a developer lives under Apple's house, they play by Apple's rules. If Epic doesn't like it, they can start a competing AppStore platform. Oh, and while they're at it, Epic should make third-party apps exclusive to anger Apple and Android gamers.

The question isn't "Should Apple have the ability to charge for it's services." Sweeney knows he's in the wrong, but he's making a larger point: "Should Apple be allowed to so dominate the market that they can charge 30%." We have anti-trust laws for a reason. Sweeney is trying to shame the government into action, or the threat of action.

Why does Apple dominate the market? Because 1) they created it, 2) Applie and IOS has a great thing in 1 OS, and 1 store. It doesn't have all the horrible splintering of it's own brand like Google and Android. If you want a comparison Apple is like the console's of cell phones. Things just WORK, where Google and Android is like PC's. You have everything from a 386 to a I-9 running Android. Apple is pretty good about being level headed in it's policy's but when you have Epic using it's own game as propaganda there is something seriously wrong. Kids these days won't care cause they want more Fortnight but when was the last time you've ever seen RL dev drama being put in a game? I personally can't remember any instance.

As someone mentioned Tim has some sorta bi-polar/split personality disorder going on. Not to mention the Hipocracy. Tim is in it for the money plain and simple. You gotta spend money (IE all the free game giveaways, that are being bought with the shit ton of free money coming in from Fortnight) to make money, but yet bitches that first Steam, then Google, now Apple are being unfair.

That was me. Your comment is spot-on. He doesn't want to put in the legit work. I believe Fortnite's success was a fluke. They were trying to compete with popular MOBAs like PUBG and LOL and failed with Paragon. I think the reason Fortnite succeeded was the marriage between World of Warcraft's style presentation with Minecraft crafting. According to several cited sources, "Epic was looking to get into the games as a service (GAAS) model. They brought in Chinese publisher Tencent to help; Tencent took a large stake in Epic as part of this, leading to the departure of several executives, including Cliff Bleszinski, who had been a key part of Fortnite's development. (Source one, two, three, quote from Wikipedia Fortnite article)

jdreyer wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 18:28:
Sorry, but unregulated monopolies aren't legal. That's why we have anti-trust laws. The fact that the government hasn't finished it's investigation doesn't mean it's not true.

They are not a monopoly. You have a fscked up idea of what a monopoly is.

Oligopoly... yes. Monopoly no.

Now here's the rub... I absolutely agree that oligopolies need to be treated the same as monopolies. Especially Internet Service Providers.
Unfortunately, the US has no real regulatory laws for oligopolies.

Oligopolies in countries with competition laws

Oligopolies become "mature" when competing entities realize they can maximize profits through joint efforts designed to maximize price control by minimizing the influence of competition. As a result of operating in countries with enforced antitrust laws, oligopolists will operate under tacit collusion, which is collusion through an understanding among the competitors of a market that by collectively raising prices, each participating competitor can achieve economic profits comparable to those achieved by a monopolist while avoiding the explicit breach of market regulations. Hence, the kinked demand curve for a joint profit-maximizing oligopoly industry can model the behaviors of oligopolists' pricing decisions other than that of the price leader (the price leader being the entity that all other entities follow in terms of pricing decisions). This is because if an entity unilaterally raises the prices of their good/service and competing entities do not follow, the entity that raised their price will lose a significant market as they face the elastic upper segment of the demand curve. As the joint profit-maximizing efforts achieve greater economic profits for all participating entities, there becomes an incentive for an individual entity to "cheat" by expanding output to gain greater market share and profit. In the case of oligopolist cheating, when the incumbent entity discovers this breach in collusion, competitors in the market will retaliate by matching or dropping prices lower than the original drop. Hence, the market share originally gained by having dropped the price will be minimised or eliminated. This is why on the kinked demand curve model the lower segment of the demand curve is inelastic. As a result, in such markets price rigidity prevails.

Apple is a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastrcuture, and Store) - Closed Platform
Google Andriod is a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastrcuture, and Store) - Semi Open Platform (3rd party Hardware, sideloading, etc.)
Apple has 50% US market and 25% world wide.
Google Had 50% US and 75% world wide.

That very definition alone means there IS competition, and hence CANNOT be a monopoly.

Other Attempts at competition:
Microsoft tried a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastructure, and Store) - Failed
Palm (WebOS) tried a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastructure, and Store) - Failed
Rasberry actually had a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastructure, and Store) for a while - Failed
Amazon tried a Mobile Platform (Hardware, OS, Infrastructure, and Store) - Failed

The failure of these competitors were not thwarted by Apple in any way. In fact nobody wanted to develop for the other platforms (even with less of a cut as an incentive). Again... can't say Apple is a Monopoly.

This leaves Apple and Google as Oligopolies.

This comment was edited on Aug 25, 2020, 19:54.

Mordhaus wrote on Aug 25, 2020, 19:25:
I worked for Apple for years near the start of the decade, leaving as I saw what Tim Cook was doing to the company. Don't get me wrong, Apple under Steve was just as overpriced, but it was good tech. Tim has shifted Apple into producing shitty tech that is incrementally 'NEW' like a Madden or COD game, is designed to fail, is designed to be unrepairable/upgradeable, and is farmed out to the lowest cost slave labor possible.

All of the people who buy Apple need to realize that by using them they are:

- Promoting waste because the machines are designed to fail.
- Buying products from a company that exploits modern day slavery like a plantation owner back in the day.

But...but..... I don't care about that, I just want the latest fashion accessory! And you can't put a price on looking cool

I worked for Apple for years near the start of the decade, leaving as I saw what Tim Cook was doing to the company. Don't get me wrong, Apple under Steve was just as overpriced, but it was good tech. Tim has shifted Apple into producing shitty tech that is incrementally 'NEW' like a Madden or COD game, is designed to fail, is designed to be unrepairable/upgradeable, and is farmed out to the lowest cost slave labor possible.

All of the people who buy Apple need to realize that by using them they are:

- Promoting waste because the machines are designed to fail.
- Buying products from a company that exploits modern day slavery like a plantation owner back in the day.