At least we got alternative payment portals out of it.
But damn, the EU is 10 years ahead of the US on tech antitrust. And they are, themselves, 5-10 years behind the industry.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The decision to not hear the case was a bit of a surprise, given that a jury trial recently found Google guilty in a similar antitrust battle with Epic.
And for consumers, there may be a benefit to transacting on the web as the in-app purchases or subscriptions may be available for less than in the App Store, as the developer no longer has to pay the “Apple tax,” or commissions.
In a statement, Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney dubbed the Supreme Court’s decision to not take up the case as a “sad outcome for all developers,” but proclaimed that the “fight goes on.”
Now the District Court’s injunction against Apple’s anti-steering rule is in effect, and developers can include in their apps ‘buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP,'” he continued.
Regulators are taking action and policymakers around the world are passing new laws to end Apple’s illegal anticompetitive app store practices.
The latter could potentially lead to a loss of billions in annual revenue for the tech giant if app makers can successfully redirect their customers to pay for purchases and subscriptions via the web.
The original article contains 568 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Is it possible to root for both sides to lose in court?
Apple sucks, but it’s their platform, their rules. Android exists, so saying they have a monopoly doesn’t seem right, because they have a monopoly over people that choose to use their products.
Epic wants access to those people, without paying for it.
Ideally neither company would exist, but they’re both not “right” either.
It’s the customers phone, the customer’s rules. The customer paid. Epic* doesn’t have to. The customers aren’t products.
“The customers aren’t products” is genuinely a decent mantra.
If a company makes you the product avoid it or at least know the value they’re getting.
If you get something free, your data and attention is often the price. If you pay for something you should not be exploited further as a resource.
So a car manufacturer can tell you which roads you can use with the car you purchased and own, since it’s “their product, their rules”?
I like that analogy a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s really apples-to-Apple in this context. It’s more like you buy a car and then get add-ons to the car from a third-party vendor that operates out of the manufacturer’s store. I’d say they have a right to ask for a cut on orders placed through that store, but definitely should not be forced to process all orders through said store.
Kinda. They could suspend warranty if you don’t use the vehicle as intended.
And the same should apply to mobile devices: lock me out of your ecosystem, deny updates, suspend warranty, I don’t care but simply let me root, unlock bootloader, sideload, jailbreak and all that nice stuff.
Oh gee, a duopoly, I guess we have no problems then!
Android allows installation of apps outside of the Play Store. Generally, nothing terribly difficult to do. It’s actually very easy on my Android TV as well as my phone.
I feel like you’re being downvoted unfairly. Your perspective is valid even of some people disagree or misunderstand.
Apple’s customers bought their iPhone knowing alternative stores are not available. That’s where PWA (web apps) can come into the picture. It’s not Apple’s fault developers are choosing to ignore PWAs. Streaming video, streaming games, etc., tons of stuff can be done from a PWA. I am typing this from wefwef (now vger / Voyager, a PWA built for Lemmy.
Apple’s customers bought their iPhone knowing alternative stores are not available.
Your perspective seems to be to ignore the very existence of anti trust rules that stand for the proposition that even if the customer knows what they’re getting in a free market capitalist transaction it can be illegal.
Can’t your justification of Apple be used for every anti trust case? “AT&T’s customers bought their service knowing alternative rotary dial telephones manufactured by 3rd parties are not available.”
I’m not an antitrust lawyer, but I suspect the fact that Android exists makes iPhone not a monopoly.
AT&T owned the phone lines and the equipment, leading to that problem. So if Apple went and bought all of the cell service providers and said “You’re only allowed to use iPhones” that would be similar, and they would probably cease to exist relatively quickly.
Apple was in support of PWAs initially and then they decided app store closed ecosystem = $$$$. PWAs are better supported on their shit mobile safari browser nowadays, but they have lacked important functionality and kept bugs in it for years; I have even seen some of these issues mentioned in Voyager’s issues / PRs.
That being said if they had a more open ecosystem and chrome / Firefox with their own engines were allowed on the app store (they are on there but they use Safari’s webkit because it is against app stores TOS, probably because of better PWA support from competition?)
