So I can either lose my main means of communication with a lot of people from way before the App Store rules have changed or I can have a subpar gaming experience because Apple is protecting their gaming revenue through unjustified App Store rules that they only established after they started their own gaming subscription and game streaming came along?
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New EU Law Could Force Apple to Allow Other App Stores, Sideloading, and iMessage Interoperability
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Yes. You aren't entitled to have everything you want in a product. You determine what products are successful by either choosing to buy or not buy. Pick which feature you prefer and buy a product accordingly. That'll signal to the market what your priority is and thus determine the direction of future products.
So why don't regulators do something about THAT lack of choice instead? Solving that problem makes all of this go away entirely.
Multiple operating systems, multiple app stores, developers free to pick and choose which platforms they want to make their apps for, no single App Store or ecosystem with too much power, loads more competition for consumers.
There was and is competition law even before that specific regulation. I guess it proving that Apple did anything illegal before a court of law would have (at least) been very hard and taken years. That’s why they explicitly made some practices illegal.
Yes - explicitly and rightly so.
In order to make money and compete in a competitive market, you to choose, have, and refine a business model. No need to get hung up on a specific term. Their developer site clearly shows that Apple are operating a marketplace on which exists a „market“ for iOS apps.
I believe it is true according to generally held economic ideas of what at a „market“ is. I don’t think any economist would seriously dispute there is a market for iOS apps occurring on the Apple App Store marketplace. Though there can be different definitions regarding „the market“ that can greatly overlap.
Now, if you are going to regulate or make a legal judgement, you may have to define or agree on which specific „relevant market“ you base your decision(s).
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I see.
And this is exactly why the EU is trying to regulate gatekeepers: To prevent them from abusing their key position by protecting their competing services from competition by third parties vendors.
Really, you should look up what the EU means by gatekeeping. One of the main points levelled against the recurring argument that if third parties don’t like it they can leave is that this argument must work both ways. If Apple does not like competition on the second largest computing platform in the world (that they have created by having others create additional value for it), then they should lock all third parties out, only offer their own services and see how far that gets them.
It may seem counterintuitive from the simplistic point of view of “but it’s their platform”. On the other hand, the devices running the platform belong to the people that paid for them, so the lawmakers, if good lawmakers, also must account for their interests.
This is why Apple is playing the security argument which in turn can be debunked from numerous angles. Comparable platforms do not suffer from opening up their platform as such in the sense that users have the option of choosing manufacturer certified software. The App Store will not lose its main apps to supposedly unsafe side loading, just like Google’s Playstore didn’t. macOS has a healthy ecosystem of trustworthy third parties that do not offer their apps through the App Store. Downloading from them is and always has been safe. In the same way it would be objectively safer to download an iOS app from Microsoft than it currently is to run a shady gambling app from the App Store.
Since the comparison to other App Stores is the only evidence we have so far, and that evidence seems to disprove speculation about the erosion of iPhone security through apps from outside of the App Store, we need new evidence or the argument does not hold.
If Apple is concerned about users forgetting to turn off their “allow installs from outside sources” toggle, they can put a timer on it like the did. with Airdrop in China.
This EU action is designed to appease app developer interests, not consumer interests. Consumers already have access to an unimaginable number of apps at rock-bottom prices, AND have the security of knowing their iPhone can’t easily be compromised by installing apps from 3rd party sources. Consumers aren’t suddenly going to see app prices go down. There is almost no consumer desire for Apple to change its policies.
What would be in a consumers interest is to have more competition at the operating system level so that consumers have more than 2 options. Consumers have the luxury of picking from hundreds of different hardware vendors but can only realistically pick from 2 operating systems. Regulators should sort out THAT problem first.
It is quite comparable as the EU has investigated both Apple and Microsoft for antitrust violations. Microsoft is NOT "being ignored" here, they simply aren't violating these particular regulations like Apple is.
If you have two cars driving down a road with a 70 mph speed limit and one is doing 70 mph while the other is doing 120 mph and gets pulled over. You don't conclude that the one doing 70 mph is being ignored. Neither is being ignored, it's just that the one doing 120 mph is violating the law.
Governments don't necessarily have an issue with companies having a strong market position ("a fast car") as long as they don't use their market power in anticompetitive ways ("speeding"). It's the potential anticompetitive behavior of these companies that can trigger investigations, lawsuits, fines, etc.
Part of the EU's DMA legislation is that companies like Apple would be required to allow alternative access to apps through sideloading and rival app stores. That is why there have been multiple articles like this one on MacRumors and elsewhere.
IMHO tho. it does seem consumers do not really care for choice of OS. The Windows OS has clearly shown that if it does the job, most do not really care.
All your points are clearly true, except for comparing Apple to Microsoft (as I do not have any recollection that Apple has been found guilty of abusing it's monopoly position to gain an unfair advantage by any government). It is also true that Apple currently does not violate any rules. Their T&C has been consistent since day 1 more than 10 years ago. EU taking until now to formulate DMA is clearly motivated by money, don't you agree?
EU has every right to pass any legislation they want. Ultimately it will be the EU folks that will have to bear with the consequences.
Same for app stores. Most don’t care. Yet somehow this requires intervention.
Apple, Microsoft and other companies have faced EU antitrust/anticompetitive legislation scrutiny for years. None of the relevant companies (those having market power) are getting a pass here if they are violating any of the regulations.
Apple has been accused and investigated by the EU for having a "monopoly" before, a fairly recent example:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/eu-says-apples-app-store-breaches-competition-rules.html
I think the DMA legislation is way to try to help make EU antitrust laws and regulations more clear and defined. Do I agree with everything about it? Not necessarily, but I do happen to feel that Android and iOS have dominant positions in mobile OS and neither should be able to restrict alternative app stores, alternative browser engines, etc.
Imagine if there were only two phone carriers in a particular country/region and each of them only allowed one brand of phone e.g., one only allowed Nokia phones and the other only allowed Motorola phones. Apple, Samsung, Google, etc. wouldn't have had a chance in that market. I would be opposed to that just as I am similarly opposed to Android and iOS "access" restrictions. One of the roles of antitrust laws and regulations is to prevent scenarios like these from happening when there are only two or so dominant companies in a market.
So why don’t they enact legislation to create more than just iOS and Android then, if that’s the crux of the issue?
I have only one cable provider and I'm being hamstrung by price and speed. Competition in the form of a choice would be great. Two is competition, one is not. But I guess according to the EU those two cable providers would be gatekeepers.
Unfortunately, the argument isn't even correct. Android isn't a company. There are multiple android OSs released by multiple manufacturers, so the idea that there are only two options in the mobile OS market is made up to support the claim that there is no competition.
The EU had a simple, reasonable alternative to this whole gatekeeping construct. They could have simply prevented Google from entering into agreements with its horizontal competitors to install Google Play Services on all of their android-based devices. Which is an actual anti-competitive action. Without that agreement, we would have increased competition in multiple markets across 80% of the mobile market.
What legislation would you propose that would lead to companies developing new mobile operating systems?
Legislation that makes a new competitor attractive to consumers. Make it so all app developers have to provide for all platforms for instance.
I have only one cable provider and I'm being hamstrung by price and speed. Competition in the form of a choice would be great. Two is competition, one is not. But I guess according to the EU those two cable providers would be gatekeepers.
Yes, competition can be good and one role of antitrust laws and regulations is to try to encourage that especially if one or two or so companies have a dominant position in a market and potentially use that dominance to influence related businesses/markets e.g., app stores or app access.
As we've discussed before, cable companies and various utilities are a bit different as they often fall under the "natural monopoly" category which are uniquely regulated at the state and/or local levels. They may have some geographical protection from competition but in return, they are required to meet stricter rules when it comes to things like product and service offerings (what they must offer, what they can offer, what they can’t offer, etc.) and pricing (what they can charge, when and if they can raise prices, etc.).
So, would that mean Apple would be required to make Safari, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, FaceTime, iMessage, etc. available on Android and any other OS offerings? In return, would that mean operating systems would be required to allow all apps on their platforms?
Keynote, numbers and pages, yes, because they are apps in the App Store. No they wouldn’t need to allow all apps but app developers couldn’t preference certain platforms if their app was a viable app on another platform, e.g, google would have been required to make their apps for windows phone etc.
Unless the EU is now mandating that you can buy one and only one device, you have a clear solution.
One conquers.I have only one cable provider and I'm being hamstrung by price and speed. Competition in the form of a choice would be great. Two is competition, one is not. But I guess according to the EU those two cable providers would be gatekeepers.
Two divide.
Three provide balance.
You need at least 3 participants to have meaningful competition.