Apple and Google Face Enforced Changes Over UK Smartphone Dominance (theguardian.com) 37
Google and Apple face enforced changes to how they operate their mobile phone platforms, after the UK's competition watchdog ruled the companies require tougher regulatory oversight. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority has conferred "strategic market status" (SMS) on the tech firms after investigating their mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers. It means Apple and Google will be subjected to tailormade guidelines to regulate their behaviour in the mobile market.
The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses.
[...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.
The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses.
[...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.
Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)
I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform? I know so many pe
Re: (Score:2)
I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform?
I think what they're getting at is each (Apple, Google) will attempt to "lock in" their users to make it as difficult/expensive as possible for users to easily (casually?) move to whichever platform they'd want to choose.
Re: (Score:2)
Switching will always require effort from the user, no matter how "nice" the market players are. Change requires effort, period.
For example, a main reason why I don't upgrade my phone every year is simply because of the effort required. I don't care about the expense. If a new phone came out and I wanted it, the expense isn't going to stop me. But the effort to move all my shit to a new phone and "get settled" on that device might. That's true even when staying within the same manufacturer. For that reason,
Re: (Score:3)
Motivations and actual difficulty is immaterial. What is relevant is that mostly people dont switch.
The point of monopoly legilation isn't that its illegal to have a monopoly. Some monopolies just emerge naturally. The point is to stop it being used to lever new monopolies.
Ie lets say apple mysteriously left the phone market and android ended up 99% of the market. Would that make google an anti-trust criminal? No. But if they then decided from now on in, you could only use googlebank and only use googleride
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure what any of that has to do with my post that you quoted.....but....uh....thanks?
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
make your own AnonymousCowardStore
Please describe, in details, exactly how developers are to accomplish this. Or are you just some UK-bashing american that's trolling? Yeah it's gotta be the latter.
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:2)
And you've made your own non-anonymous coward comment. You're afraid to not be a cuck for corporations.
Re:Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:4, Interesting)
But it is a choice. You can publish on Apple AppStore, GooglePlay (or whatever it's called) or make your own AnonymousCowardStore. Good luck!
Of course you can't. Apple has two classes of customers: one class buys equipment: iPhones, Macs, etc. If Apple can build and market devices for less than their customers are willing to pay, Apple makes a profit. This is classic capitalism.
In Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis presents a thesis about the second class: the App Store, which in turn has two key characteristics: first, it's locked in. Even if someone wanted to compete, they couldn't, because the App Store is already established, with millions of customers. Nobody's going to be interested in my little lame dumb-ass store compared to the enormous commercial possibilities of the App Store. Also, Apple won't let anyone else sell iPhone apps.
The second key attribute of the App Store is this: Apple doesn't pay app developers. Because Apple controls the bottleneck between developers and users, they can charge rent for every transaction without actually providing any additional service, and developers produce apps without being paid by Apple. Because the developers don't get paid by Apple, Varoufakis refers to them as "techno-serfs".
But wait! one might say: Apple does provide a service, a marketplace where people can conveniently buy apps. That's almost true, except for the lock-in aspect. The App Store isn't a marketplace, because Apple controls every aspect of it. There's no way for buyers and sellers to negotiate. It's more like a storefront for a monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
Another small point... if you want to put something in the Apple store, you'll need at least a small Apple device to be able to compile it before you submit it.
I suspect you may need to still do this if you were to submit something to the AnonymousCowardStore too - although at least there it would be possible for a third party compiler toolchain to do the work (how possible? I have no idea, but at least the store wouldn't reject you out of hand for trying).
re: storefront for a monopoly (Score:2)
I think there's a strong argument to be made that people often consider Apple's control over their app store (and indeed, control over their hardware and software ecosystem in general) to be a FEATURE?
The fact that Apple vets apps that get published on its App Store adds value for a certain class of consumer. I completely get that there are people out there who want to buy only devices that give full freedom to install anything on them they can get their hands on. But a whole lot of people simply want to bu
Re: (Score:2)
I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)
I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform?
So if the sovereign nation of the UK start their own UK grown Smartphones and Operating system for them? Ha the rules of competition become so vague that two main choices with a few outliers become a monopoly? Why doesn't the UK and the EU just take state control, and get it over with - they won't stop until them.
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
No monopoly is required for them to violate the law.
That's true even in the US, not that we enforce antitrust law here.
Re: (Score:2)
No monopoly is required for them to violate the law.
That's true even in the US, not that we enforce antitrust law here.
It leads to lawsuits not to break monopoly, but to extract money. In some countries money is evil over a certain amount.
Re: (Score:2)
It leads to lawsuits not to break monopoly, but to extract money. In some countries money is evil over a certain amount.
It doesn't matter where you are, hoarding while others do not have enough is evil, and hoarding cash (the wealthy currently have unprecedented cash reserves) exacerbates that. We need currency to circulate in order for the economy to function, so we print more money, and therefore the currency hoarders literally cause inflation. We keep hearing about the "job creators" but currency hoarders are job preventers.
With that said, none of that is relevant to whether the EU has the right to use lawsuits to break a
Re: (Score:2)
It leads to lawsuits not to break monopoly, but to extract money. In some countries money is evil over a certain amount.
It doesn't matter where you are, hoarding while others do not have enough is evil, and hoarding cash (the wealthy currently have unprecedented cash reserves) exacerbates that. We need currency to circulate in order for the economy to function, so we print more money, and therefore the currency hoarders literally cause inflation. We keep hearing about the "job creators" but currency hoarders are job preventers.
As one of the top ~ ten percent, there are some issues with the idea that I am a money hoarder. Yes, at this point I have a lot of investments, and my present employ is pretty good, But hoarding? Wife and I get new cars every two years, I've bought two new computers this year, a new office audio system, and I spend many thousands on valuable wood that I turn into various objects that I donate to various charities. I tip very well - around 100 percent, holidays more. We gift our kid several thousand every y
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, at this point I have a lot of investments
if you have investments, which can then employ people, you're not hoarding money. Your money has been employed so that it can circulate and do work.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, at this point I have a lot of investments
if you have investments, which can then employ people, you're not hoarding money. Your money has been employed so that it can circulate and do work.
I certainly could never figure out having money and not doing anything with it. Money all by itself is boring.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just the UK sheepishly following the EU, making sure we don't miss out on the benefits they are seeing. Post Brexit we are not a major player or able to demand this stuff independently. It's just our way of pretending we are, while actually just doing what the EU decides.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just the UK sheepishly following the EU, making sure we don't miss out on the benefits they are seeing. Post Brexit we are not a major player or able to demand this stuff independently. It's just our way of pretending we are, while actually just doing what the EU decides.
I can't find a thing to disagree with there.
I keep thinking back to all the troubles they caused themselves with Brexit, only to copy the EU. Kind of like being a toady.
Re: (Score:1)
The nice thing is that the vast majority of consumers don't give a fuck about "the market" and just want a device that is usable to them, and they actually have that now.
It's not as if some new mystery phone manufacturer is going to create some fabulous new OS and phones to go with it, at a significantly discounted price to what is already available, or with some brand new unheard of features not currently available, if only were it not for Apple and Google stopping it.
We don't need 59 brands of ketchup to
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure what you're getting at. UK companies are short-sighted, maybe? I dunno. Can you expand?
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of a principle I learned I one of my geography classes (I got a minor in geography). The general idea was that in order to sustainably support certain kinds of entities, a minimum population was required within a certain distance. For example (totally making this up), an opera house might require a population of 500,000 within a 5 mile radius. A family doctor office might require 1000 people within a 3 mile radius, etc. You get the idea.
I WONDER if this same principle can be accurately applied t
Re: (Score:2)
the result indicates a MAXIMUM on the number of viable choices
I think you're likely correct (proving it might be hard). With software in particular, you get very strong network effects. I don't think that there can be many more than 2-3 viable platforms at any given time (at least per-industry). Even back in the '60s, there was IBM and everybody else. Upstarts came and went until finally the microcomputer created a whole new category (minicomputers also upended the industry, but not really in a long-term way). Along came Apple, Atari, Amiga, TRS-80, IBM PC, ... but on
Re: (Score:2)
Markets tend to a Monopoly. They only tend to 2 ~ 3 choices because once hitting a monopoly, restrictions tend to be a bit onerous.
And in comfortable duopolies, the CEOs probably went to the same school or university and thus the collusion does not need to be stated, but just UNDERSTOOD.
A well funded outsider, pushing for systematic change in a different market is a rarity.
Re: Feels kind of 50/50 to me? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)
I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform?
I agree - switching is incredibly easy here in hinterlands, does the UK throw up roadblocks if a person wants to switch? That would be an internal issue, not Apple or Google's The whole concept that Apple has, and to a lesser extent Android has, is to provide a modicum of safety. This does not mesh with the idea that everyone should be able to get software wherever they want, even if the manufacturer has to be forced to allow that. Your bog standard smartphone user is not a digital guru.
The incredibly ir
Ban (Score:1)
The UK should just create its own national phone operating system and ban all alternatives for ten years, making their possession by UK nationals a felony.
That's about the only way to even come close to accomplishing its stated goals.
Otherwise, the vast majority of people are simply going to use what they want to use, no matter how hard the UK govt wishes otherwise.