I know this is going to be a hot take especially on the lemmyverse, but that’s not the fundamental problem.
The issue in question is: should a company that provides a product, one whose value proposition is focused on a cohesive ecosystem and experience, be forced to break down their walled garden to let people create a new app store or install apps in a way that’s outside that companies vision for their own product.
My personal opinion is that it’s a dumb fight for apple to take, because 99.9% of their users will never deviate from their app store. But I understand why they are fighting it. I’d fight it too. Huge companies that have made a fortune benefiting from the apple ecosystem have gotten so big they want to take even more and forgot how much value apples environment and user based provides them.
I don’t get what part of the value proposition for the customer ought to entail that nobody else may make different choices. If an Android user wants to solely and exclusively use Google apps, they can. Likewise, if people want to install apps from other sources, why is that a problem for someone who wants to stick to Apple’s app store?
This only makes sense for the company, because they benefit from absolute control.
I think you misunderstand what apples value proposition is, at least nowadays. The app store and not being able to use other app stores is not a reason people get iPhones. Maybe back when app stores were first created and the threat of malware was greater people might have considered it but nowadays no one cares. Even the idea of a unified ecosystem isn’t as much a selling point any more because Google and Samsung offer similar seamless integrations with their accessories. You can see this in their marketing, they aren’t focused on how all the apple products work together easily any more. In their marketing you can see what they think their value proposition is, and what was their big Superbowl ad this year, longer battery life …
Apple at this point knows it doesn’t have much of a value proposition for switching from android. So the only way they’re gonna sell new phones is to get the kids who don’t have a phone and convince the people who do have an iPhone to get a new one.
They convince the kids through their tried and true aesthetics and lifestyle marketing, this is about half there marketing these days. This along with iMessage in the U.S. and the general fear of being in the out group and obsession with brands that younger people have moved them towards iPhones.
They convince the current users with incremental upgrades, eg. Better battery life, better camera; and maintaining the walled garden and keeping exit costs high so they don’t turn to androids for those incremental updates.
All this is to say that apple having a single app store isn’t a sign of consumer sentiment, but a sign of apples desire to milk as much profits out of their current users as they can. Other app stores can only benefit the consumers, either they do get them for lower fees or don’t because they put some value on the “ecosystem”. From a company’s perspective yes your right that they want to be able to do anything to their product they want, but the goal of regulation is to step in when the companies desires are at odds with the people or the consumers desire, this is one of those cases.
The issue in question is: should a company that provides a product, one whose value proposition is focused on a cohesive ecosystem and experience, be forced to break down their walled garden to let people create a new app store or install apps in a way that’s outside that companies vision for their own product.
Yes. Because it’s too big and too popular to be making niche arguments like this. Its customer base is vast and diverse, nearly as diverse as the population of the planet. It’s absurd to suggest that every single one of those customers, or even 80% of them expect everything they do on the device to be taxed by Apple. It’s their device, not Apple’s.
The reason they should be forced to do this is that no one will force users to use this option. They can make it slightly out of way, just like how Android makes you explicitly allow installing apps from anywhere but the Play Store if you want to do that. And just like on Android, most users won’t touch that option. Those that want it would. Just like any other general computing device on the planet.
Apple is openly acting like a government and claims it has the rights to tax anything that goes on in its realm. But it sure as fuck isn’t a democratic government. About fucking time an actual government took it down a peg. Or a hundred.
Edit: FWIW, I’m definitely not singling out Apple here. All big tech companies are acting like governments and they all need to be punished for it. Or they should become actual democracies. That would be nice.
(I don’t think that could ever work, not in my lifetime at least)
I know this is going to be a hot take especially on the lemmyverse, but that’s not the fundamental problem.
The issue in question is: should a company that provides a product, one whose value proposition is focused on a cohesive ecosystem and experience, be forced to break down their walled garden to let people create a new app store or install apps in a way that’s outside that companies vision for their own product.
My personal opinion is that it’s a dumb fight for apple to take, because 99.9% of their users will never deviate from their app store. But I understand why they are fighting it. I’d fight it too. Huge companies that have made a fortune benefiting from the apple ecosystem have gotten so big they want to take even more and forgot how much value apples environment and user based provides them.
I don’t get what part of the value proposition for the customer ought to entail that nobody else may make different choices. If an Android user wants to solely and exclusively use Google apps, they can. Likewise, if people want to install apps from other sources, why is that a problem for someone who wants to stick to Apple’s app store?
This only makes sense for the company, because they benefit from absolute control.
third party apps bad!! viruses and trojans, can you imagine this monstrosity??!
You might even install a pear on your apple, and that would be a catastrophe.
I think you misunderstand what apples value proposition is, at least nowadays. The app store and not being able to use other app stores is not a reason people get iPhones. Maybe back when app stores were first created and the threat of malware was greater people might have considered it but nowadays no one cares. Even the idea of a unified ecosystem isn’t as much a selling point any more because Google and Samsung offer similar seamless integrations with their accessories. You can see this in their marketing, they aren’t focused on how all the apple products work together easily any more. In their marketing you can see what they think their value proposition is, and what was their big Superbowl ad this year, longer battery life …
Apple at this point knows it doesn’t have much of a value proposition for switching from android. So the only way they’re gonna sell new phones is to get the kids who don’t have a phone and convince the people who do have an iPhone to get a new one.
They convince the kids through their tried and true aesthetics and lifestyle marketing, this is about half there marketing these days. This along with iMessage in the U.S. and the general fear of being in the out group and obsession with brands that younger people have moved them towards iPhones.
They convince the current users with incremental upgrades, eg. Better battery life, better camera; and maintaining the walled garden and keeping exit costs high so they don’t turn to androids for those incremental updates.
All this is to say that apple having a single app store isn’t a sign of consumer sentiment, but a sign of apples desire to milk as much profits out of their current users as they can. Other app stores can only benefit the consumers, either they do get them for lower fees or don’t because they put some value on the “ecosystem”. From a company’s perspective yes your right that they want to be able to do anything to their product they want, but the goal of regulation is to step in when the companies desires are at odds with the people or the consumers desire, this is one of those cases.
Yes. Because it’s too big and too popular to be making niche arguments like this. Its customer base is vast and diverse, nearly as diverse as the population of the planet. It’s absurd to suggest that every single one of those customers, or even 80% of them expect everything they do on the device to be taxed by Apple. It’s their device, not Apple’s.
The reason they should be forced to do this is that no one will force users to use this option. They can make it slightly out of way, just like how Android makes you explicitly allow installing apps from anywhere but the Play Store if you want to do that. And just like on Android, most users won’t touch that option. Those that want it would. Just like any other general computing device on the planet.
Apple is openly acting like a government and claims it has the rights to tax anything that goes on in its realm. But it sure as fuck isn’t a democratic government. About fucking time an actual government took it down a peg. Or a hundred.
Edit: FWIW, I’m definitely not singling out Apple here. All big tech companies are acting like governments and they all need to be punished for it. Or they should become actual democracies. That would be nice.
(I don’t think that could ever work, not in my lifetime at least)