I mean, couldn't we just replace Microsoft->Sony and PC->Playstation and the argument falls apart a bit?
> Imagine if Sony did this on Playstation. a) prohibiting the installation of non-PlayStation games and b) insisting that all purchases done via their store give them a 30% cut.
Many platforms are like this -- and many also have the majority marketshare. Is this a call to redefine what platforms can and cannot control?
FWIW, actually Sony doesn't demand a 30% cut of all revenue from any company that makes an app for their store. You can have subscriptions to non-Sony services, and Sony doesn't see a dime. Sony doesn't demand a cut of Netflix subscriptions, for example, despite having a Netflix app available for download. Similarly, it doesn't get a cut of Spotify revenue either.
For PlayStation you pay the Sony tax for the convenience of integrating with their payment services, not because they'll ban you for using anything else.
It's also a super different situation in general; for example, Sony actually often pays developers to develop for their store (e.g. PubFund [1]), and does free marketing campaigns for them. Console makers live and die by their access to a pipeline of new exclusive games, so they treat game developers well; Apple doesn't, so it squeezes app developers for what it can. Hence why game developers are suing Apple but not Sony.
> You can have subscriptions to non-Sony services, and Sony doesn't see a dime
Hmmm -- not to stretch the analogy too thin, but is this similar to Apple though, where they allow you to sign in to subscription services (e.g. Netflix) with your existing account to the service, but don't allow sign ups (which would trigger payment processing)? Or is payment processing baked in there as well?
> For PlayStation you pay the Sony tax for the convenience of integrating with their payment services, not because they'll ban you for using anything else.
To clarify, has any developer integrated external payment services within a Playstation game / app / etc? From all the games and apps I've played with, I never remember any other payment system built in other than Sony's.
> It's also a super different situation in general; for example, Sony actually often pays developers to develop for their store ...
Blackberry did the same thing near the end of it's life -- I was at a hackathon where they were giving away Blackberries and cash to anyone who developed a Blackberry app -- but does not giving back really reflect as monopolistic?
My information is about 6 years old, but I am pretty sure both Xbox and PS4 disallowed external payment services.
Which is why I found Microsoft's bitching about the app store hilarious. They have been taking giant pieces of the action in Xbox for 20 years and tried to do the same in their sorry excuse for a Windows Store. I'd like to see them allow Stadia on the Xbox.
I actually agree with not allowing external payment processors on these (and mobile) platforms, especially for games where the audience is frequently naive kids.
Don't agree with the platform taking a huge cut of every transaction though. Maybe take a smaller cut and the billionaires can stop squabbling.
I don't love the closed nature of the Apple App Store when it comes to content.
Don't agree with the platform taking a huge cut of every transaction though
Is it really a "huge" cut?
Putting aside the ethics of Apple's content stranglehold for the moment, the economic side of things seems like a very nice deal -- 30% is not bad compared to various distribution deals (for physical and virtual goods) of which I have some slight familiarity.
Are there distribution platforms that allow you to get your app/product/etc to that many people without taking a cut?
I'm kind of fed up with Apple for a variety of reasons, but this doesn't seem like one of the problems to me.
I meant "every transaction", as in in-app purchases beyond the initial 30% cut on the purchase price.
So distribution deals for physical goods are not analogous, right ? Like Best Buy doesn't get a cut if I pay netflix to watch it on the TV I bought from them.
I'd agree that there are no direct analogies, for sure. Especially physical goods.
Like Best Buy doesn't get a cut if I pay netflix to
watch it on the TV I bought from them.
Okay, but if you were launching a rival to Netflix and had many millions of dollars to play with, wouldn't you gladly consider a deal like that with Best Buy?
Imagine Best Buy's extremely large presence in the world of television-selling. You could get your streaming service into a lot of homes if they promoted the heck out of TVs featuring your service in exchange for a cut, right?
Depending on the % cut they wanted, that could be a great deal for you. Suppose the % cut was 0.0000001%. Certainly you would take that offer. And probably 0.0001%. Maybe even up to 10%. Maybe even 50%, depending on your business model?
Anyway, I have lots of problems with the App Store, but man... that 30% sounds pretty fine. Access to that many users, many of whom have payment information stored a mere tap away?
> I actually agree with not allowing external payment processors on these (and mobile) platforms, especially for games where the audience is frequently naive kids.
I'm assuming you would also want to prohibit these "naive kids" from ever browsing the Internet too, am I right?
(Since there are plenty of website that accept payments through a variety of payment processors?)
There is a difference between a web site you visit and a general purpose computer which you purchase. I'm all for the freedom of using apps not officially distributed/approved by Apple. They can still be sandboxed and use the same APIs. But they should be allowed to use whatever payment service they want.
> but is this similar to Apple though, where they allow you to sign in to subscription services (e.g. Netflix) with your existing account to the service, but don't allow sign ups (which would trigger payment processing)? Or is payment processing baked in there as well?
Actually, looking now, I think you're right. It looks like Spotify disabled setting up subscriptions on PS4. I guess PS4 subscriptions are a small enough chunk of revenue for Spotify it didn't really matter to them.
I guess the real point is that PS4 just isn't a large enough chunk of these kinds of services' market share by revenue to matter; they don't need signups, since not many people primarily use Spotify via PlayStation.
Last time I used the PS4 Spotify app was a couple of years ago but you were stuck on the lowest quality settings. And you could tell. I think it's only available on there so they can say it is.
I don't know about Sony, but I'm pretty sure Apple got the idea for their app store business model from Nintendo, who notoriously was the king of the walled garden business model. I'm pretty sure Nintendo took a 30% cut as well.
The only reason Sony is not charging exorbitant amounts (if they really aren't) is because they're in heated competition with Microsoft over being the preferred first release platform of popular games.
Sony doesn't demand a cut of Netflix subscriptions, for example, despite having a Netflix app available for download. Similarly, it doesn't get a cut of Spotify revenue either.
Well, neither does Apple seeing that neither Netflix (for new customers) or Spotify allow in app purchases.
Sony actually often pays developers to develop for their store (e.g. PubFund [1]),
So does Apple - Apple Arcade.
Could Fortnite have in app purchases for the game consoles and bypass the stores?
We have to either acknowledge that PCs/Macs were a historical accident (a happy one, IMO), much like the open web of yore, or we have to legislate the shit out of everything that has a general purpose CPU, basically requiring every Turing machine sold to have an officially supported setting to enable running arbitrary code.
It can be off by default, and probably should.
But trying to hair split console from computer from cellphone makes less and less sense everyday and we all know it.
There is a distinction between a general purpose computing device and a gaming console. I depend on my computer for important aspects of my life, not just entertainment.
I perceive capricious behaviour like this ad a threat to my liberty and well-being.
One could argue that you bought your PC and the Windows license that comes with it because it's general purpose. And you would have paid less money if you knew it was going to lock you in.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the idea of "digital anti-globalism", but if this thing went to court, both sides would have their reasonable arguments. And let's hope that if there's a ruling, it rules in favor of open platforms. At the very least, I think it would be great if the courts rule that a platform that's built open and sold as open cannot be consequently closed. But I doubt that Apple will be forced to open its hardware to non-App Store programs.
> One could argue that you bought your PC and the Windows license that comes with it because it's general purpose. And you would have paid less money if you knew it was going to lock you in.
And in fact Microsoft tried this (both with Windows RT and Windows 10 S) and in both cases few people bought in (or, in some cases, wound up 'confused' that other software wouldn't run, leading to the eventual sunsetting of Windows 10 S).
I do think both sides have reasonable arguments, but at the same time 'computing' has become ubiquitous, and Smartphones arguably even more so. Personally, I think we are in a weird state when we consider historical context; once upon a time, remember that GM would in fact make moves to ensure they did not get too much market share. I can't remember the number but I think they didn't want to go over 59%.
Of course you COULD have more market share even back then, but it also typically resulted in a lot more government oversight and willingness for the government to intervene in situations like this (thinking about Modems and Ma Bell here...)
IMO Google sidesteps the problem by not having a lot of 'handset' market share. (Also, perhaps more controversial to state, but their compliance with LE/Intelligence agencies probably allows more things to be ignored.)
I just don't know what to say anymore. Apple (and, dare I say, to a greater extent, Google) are doing the sorts of things that absolutely landed Microsoft in court and caused microsoft to make a number of decisions that kneecapped them in the first decade of the 2000s. It's been happening for years, and yet we are only now seeing enough people agreeing that we can talk about it without getting shouted down.
> And in fact Microsoft tried this (both with Windows RT and Windows 10 S) and in both cases few people bought in (or, in some cases, wound up 'confused' that other software wouldn't run, leading to the eventual sunsetting of Windows 10 S).
It’s funny to me that One of Microsoft's strongest arguments is “well we tried it and consumers don’t want it that way unless forced upon them”.
Why did you put "confused" in quotes? It's pretty obvious why people who bought Windows computers would be confused when Windows software doesn't work on it.
I agree with this sentiment... But I wonder if Apple considers iPhones to be general purpose computing devices, or even wants them to be. They're not marketed that way, likely most users are uninterested in using an iPhone this way.
A separate concern is around anticompetitive behavior. There is no way to sideload an app, or even use a competing app store, and Apple is charging rent. This is pretty clearly anticompetitive behavior that harms consumers.
> I agree with this sentiment... But I wonder if Apple considers iPhones to be general purpose computing devices, or even wants them to be. They're not marketed that way, likely most users are uninterested in using an iPhone this way.
But iPads (though iOS was renamed/forked to iPadOS on those devices) are definitely marketed as general purpose computing devices. The headline on https://www.apple.com/ipad/ is "Your next computer is not a computer".
iPad/iPadOS have these same restrictions as iPhone/iOS.
While it looks like kortilla was being downvoted for their reply quoting back "is not a computer", I think it's actually completely on point. To date, Apple has consistently treated iOS devices -- including the iPad -- as "application consoles," not open computing platforms. It's not just that applications can only officially be installed through the App Store, but that applications are "boxed in" both literally (i.e., sandboxing) and metaphorically (no practical way to run development tools and, from appearances, no interest on Apple's part in changing that).
I'm not arguing this is necessarily either wise or ethical of them, and there's a real sense in which this is orthogonal to the App Store's fee structure. But it seems to me that while Apple is going to face increasing pressure to change the way they run the App Store, the solution -- at least the solution Apple will offer -- very likely won't involve letting the iPad become a general purpose computer the way the Mac is.
Not to mention that the transition to Apple Silicon will lead to the total integration of the Mac App Store into the iOS store, so these policies are going to merge at some point and literally apply to general computers too
I would be thrilled to learn that Apple plans to prevent anyone from running non-Apple-signed code on the Mac, because it would likely lead to better tools for writing iDevice-targetted software on non-Mac platforms (either officially supported, or jury-rigged by third parties out of necessity). As a Linux desktop user with an iPhone, this would inevitably benefit me (I don't write iPhone software right now, but if there was an iPhone compiler for Linux, I might start).
Why do you think Microsoft bothered with WSL? We know that most Windows users won't do it. It was a developer-attracting move, meant to make it easier to build Windows client applications with Linux server components. Apple benefits from the same thing being offered natively. I can't see them abandoning it, even though it does create a tension between the Mac as a consumer product and the Mac as a developer's tool for iOS.
It's also going to require mandatory brain microchips to ensure all of the user's thoughts conform to Apple policies /s
All of this is still unknown outside of Apple. What is known so far seems to me like it's pointing in the direction of a pretty open macOS and a very much locked down iOS, to satisfy different needs. We'll know more by late fall, I guess.
I depend on my phone for a lot more important aspects of my life than my laptop. Seems pretty obvious to me, there are apps for pretty much anything I could want to do, and I believe it's the more secure platform by far, plus I have it on me pretty much always.
Why would there be a difference in treatment for entertainment vs general purpose? Both are devices that I’ve bought, so I should be able to use them as I see fit.
"There is a distinction between a general purpose computing device and a gaming console." Whats the distinction? gaming console use x86 now. is it the keyboard support? the gpu ?
Well, you could say one definition is that a general purpose computing device is a tool that lets you run what you want in whichever way you want to install it (sort of, of course one could nitpick exceptions).
An Apple laptop looks like a general purpose computing device. Do we want it not to be one, and become closer to a gaming console?
I think that merely looking at the guts and seeing which processor it has is kind of a red herring.
> Well, you could say one definition is that a general purpose computing device is a tool that lets you run what you want in whichever way you want to install it (sort of, of course one could nitpick exceptions).
It does seem a bit tautological. A vendor can restrict access then simply argue this is not a general purpose computing device because look, you can't run the things we don't let you run.
It seems tautological but if you think about it, it's what it actually means. A general purpose computing device is a device that can be used for any computing. If you restrict it, it ceases to be general purpose. If you turn it into a locked-up appliance, like a Playstation, it's not general-purpose anymore.
General-purpose is when you can install whatever software will run in that architecture, unimpeded.
I don't necessarily disagree, but does that imply that whether or not something is a general purpose computer is reliant on the current software status of the machine rather than the hardware? You can crack some smartphones or install Linux on older Playstations.
Tautological was in reference to the argument about whether or not we should be able to install things if an iPhone is a general purpose device.
If that status relies on what software lets us do, then the answer is always going to be no, because if they don't let us then we aren't allowed to.
Ah, now I see what you mean. Good question. I'd say the hardware within is general purpose, but the overall "product" isn't because it has been artificially constrained.
I think the definition has always been a bit gray, even more so in recent years but I don't think it's about the hardware present in the device. For example, Sony made a push to classify the PS2 as a computer by providing a BASIC interpreter and later a distribution of Linux to evade some tax laws in Europe.
I think if I were to answer this question now it would be based on the expectation of the end consumer to be expected to, or have the ability to program the device for general purpose tasks.
Things like game consoles, phones, smart appliances, etc. all start to blur that line but I think it comes down to the consumer's expectations.
What its marketed as and who it is aimed at. Nobody ever bought a nintendo NES to use as a personal computing device, it wasn’t that they looked at the specsheet and it had a 6502. There were in fact PCs with 6502s and powerpcs as well. In any case, I still think video game consoles are stupid but they at least have some incentives to do a walled garden type thing (anti-cheat, anti-piracy) and lacking general code execution they actually stand a reasonable chance of accomplishing that (versus iOS where I am currently typing on a jailbroken device.)
> Nobody ever bought a nintendo NES to use as a personal computing device
Although interestingly, the Japanese console makers have continually tried to push the computer/development angle.
When the NES was released in Japan before the US, it was branded the "Family Computer" and you could get a keyboard and a version of BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_BASIC
Historically, other game consoles could be used a "general purpose computing devices," such as the Sega Dreamcast with Windows CE and the Nintendo Famicom (which is short for Family Computer).
Sony also 'officially' (in the sense that it was targeting hackers/developers) supported Linux on the PS2. IIRC, it was a $200 item which included a hard drive, network adapter and DVD with Linux on it.
Afaik, there was never a Windows CE general purpose environment for the Dreamcast. Sega supported game developers using Sega's 100% propriatary OS or using Windows CE as embedded OS. Either way, the OS would ship on the disc, and isn't a lot more than a kernel and libraries.
Of course, BSDs and Linux were ported to the Dreamcast at some point, as with anything that can boot user provided code and has enough ram.
The dreamcast did have a web browser, and keyboard and mouse, but without significant local writable storage, would make a lousy general purpose computer.
FWIW one of my biggest annoyances in gaming is how closed consoles are - i have a PS Vita, which is a great gaming handheld hardware-wise, but totally a victim to Sony's whims software-wise (they even disabled and removed all PSM games).
Similar with Nintendo's Switch - Nintendo even tried to shut down a YouTuber's channel just for mentioning homebrew/jailbreaking for Switch.
It is such a shame and honestly i wish these devices were as open as PCs are. That they aren't is a testament to how much they have brainwashed people to think as normal that they have no control over their own devices and what they can do with them.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that these platforms are being monopolistic either. Why should you not be able to write your own game and sell DVDs of it for people to play?
Of course, in this case piracy would be the primary reason for the restriction, but I think it's valid to look at places where the platform is controlled by a single vendor.
The price was right on a PS VR, so I got one and thought briefly about playing around with VR using Unity. The ecosystem was so locked down (and becoming an official developer such a challenge) that I gave up and never looked back.
The appeal of developing in Apple's ecosystem has always been the exposure to large audiences, the (relatively decent) tooling, and the ability to creatively actualize your ideas. That last one goes away when Apple starts looking more like Sony.
I'll leave it up to lawyers to decide if this is illegal, but I know this certainly makes me less excited about developing my next iOS/OSX app
“What about” is not a valid argument though. If what apple is doing is wrong, no amount of hypocrisy by others will make it less wrong.
Anyway, I think platforms need to be regulated to be more open. We need a right to modify along with a right to repair. When I pay for a product that happens to support downloadable software, I should be free to put whatever software on it that I want. If apple allowed sideloading on iOS like they do on macOS this would not have blown up to the degree that it did.
> Imagine if Sony did this on Playstation. a) prohibiting the installation of non-PlayStation games and b) insisting that all purchases done via their store give them a 30% cut.
Many platforms are like this -- and many also have the majority marketshare. Is this a call to redefine what platforms can and cannot control?