I don’t think anyone suggests Apple should get nothing for their app store services, just that it shouldn’t be 30% of every transaction processed through every iOS app.
The EU has the right approach. Don't try to legislate exactly what is a fair/unfair amount of profit to make - change the rules of the game by requiring third party marketplaces and payment platforms so apple has to lower rates or lose every app into a third party store.
Apple can easily say "Use our store exclusively and you get our security/privacy guarantees. Go outside our store and you're in the wild west". App developers can then decide how much fee they are willing to pay for access to the user base who refuse to venture into the wild west. Other stores might try to persuade users that they are more secure and more private too via stricter review policies or more locked down permissions etc.
From a consumer point of view, the best approach would be if devlopers had to sell their app in Apple's App Store (if Apple approves) and could optionally provide other purchasing options on top of that.
It would prevent fragmentation and give people a choice to pay up if they actually value Apple's extra protections (if any).
They did lower them to 15% due to regulatory pressure for smaller vendors.
And for compliance with EU DSA, they've tried countless malicious compliance efforts, that have been struck down again and again.
The only reason they haven't been smacked with a billion dollar fine for their Bullshit (Core Technology Fee)yet, is because of Trump.
I don’t read it that way. I think the point is it doesn’t make sense that apple is taking a cut of a transaction that is not in their payment rails*. Apple can still be compensated for their App store service without using a model that takes 30% of all transactions, e.g. a listing fee, an app review fee, etc.
*And anything on their payment rails should have a normal transaction fee, e.g. Stripe’s retail rate is 2.9% + $0.30.
This is the model they have moved to in the EU - an annual per user-app core technology fee for apps enabled to be listed outside the store, and relaxed in-store rules (and reduced commissions) if you choose to still list in Apple's App Store. Effectively, they are acting as if commissions are paying the core technology fee, and subsidizing it for apps which aren't profitable.
The per-user model means that apps which have adopted freemium and advertising-driven models wind up having quite different financials, and could be more expensive.
>there could also be cases where cutting back to $Z profits might be preferable in case not doing so were to prompt legislation causing someone to be forcibly cut to $Z-1 or even $0 profits from a particular profit source.
Not in an environment where regulatory capture costs so much less than any change legislation could bring. The remedy in almost every recent monopoly case has been remarkably nothing. Politicians don’t actually want change, they want the threat of legislation so that industries bring truckloads of money to line their pockets.
I’m actually more sick of hearing about AI like literally all the time in all forms of media. I’m also sick of seeing AI created content which is so obviously low quality and often unchecked and just thrown out into the world.
Also when I hear another human suggest using AI for ____, my perception of them is that they are an unserious person.
So in my opinion AI has had a net negative effect on the world so far. Reading through this persons AI policy resonates with me. It tells me they are a thoughtful individual who cares about their work and the broader implications of using AI.
SQL. I learned a lot using it. It's really good and uses teh full potential of Postgres. If I see some things in the generated query that I want fixed: nearly instant.
Also: it gives great feedback on my schema designs.
So far SQL it's best. (comparing to JS/ HTML+Tailwind / Kotlin)
It’s been amazing for me for Go and TypeScript; and pretty decent at Swift.
There is a steep learning curve. It requires good soft eng practices; have a clear plan and be sure have good docs and examples. Don’t give it an empty directory; have a scaffolding it can latch onto.
>Now AI is becoming the new intermediary. It’s what I’ve started calling “Layer 8” — the agentic layer that mediates between you and everything else on the internet. These systems will negotiate on our behalf, filter our information, shape our recommendations, and increasingly determine how we interact with the entire digital world.
This is a sad statement. It reminds me of Wall-E. Big tech created the environmental ruins of today’s internet through perverse incentives. Now we need robots to go sift through the garbage and think for us so we don’t have to be exposed to the toxic internet.
The carpenter comparison isn’t a good one. The output of the carpenter’s labor and (importantly) material resources yields a hard good and that process does not scale. Software on the other hand scales extremely well and the marginal cost of giving software away for free or selling it to the next person who wants it has next to no additional cost. The expense model of software enables economic models that would never work on physical goods.
Unlike hand crafted furniture, software has next to no durable value beyond the transactions it enables. Don’t get me wrong, software investment can be incredibly durable, e.g. banking and insurance mainframe apps built 50 years ago. But without a specific business application software itself is nearly worthless.
Writing open source software is probably better compared to published research. It’s an academic endeavor and also a way to put your name out in the world in a way that recognizes your contribution and may lead to commercial opportunities for you and/or your software.
Yes and the fact that you have people looking for a cure to their ills will always draw unscrupulous parties to their money. The entire supplements industry is sort of a prototype for this with outrageous marketing often targeting vulnerable groups. I’d argue the professional marketing of unregulated substances makes the supplements industry a lot larger than it might organically be.
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