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This analogy makes no sense because you are not prevented in any way from purchasing the many other devices that provide almost identical functionality. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices but ignoring the fact that the mom and pop stores still exist, at a higher number compared to walmarts, and are selling the same products for cheaper. You have incredible consumer choice for phones, you can't chose to purchase a luxury phone and then complain about it.


It has absolutely zero to do with your choice to purchase a different device. It has everything to do with hundreds of thousands of companies' right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle.


What right does a company have to piggyback off of another company?

Like think about this logically? Should a grocery store be forced to sell my products without receiving any of the profit? Can I force a cafe to let me serve customers on their premises without giving anything in return?


> What right does a company have to piggyback off of another company?

Apple has no right to piggybacking off of another company's business. Therefore the 30% must go.


They aren't piggybacking, they provide the infrastructure, marketplace, and platform.


They explicitly prevent other companies from providing this infrastructure, marketplace and platform. Apple don't offer this stuff as a favour to developers, they demand that developers use it and prevent them from using anything else. Apple aren't some Good Samaritan providing a centralised set of services out of the goodness of their hearts, they are forcing companies to pay an exorbitant fee to be able to play in their garden, and they make billions of dollars in profit from this.

Compare Apple with Steam (who also provide the infrastructure, marketplace and platform). Steam don't force developers to use their services. They're still successful, but you can get almost every game on Steam from somewhere else. This is what I'd ideally like Apple to do. It wouldn't make any difference to me, as I haven't owned or developed for Apple devices in many decades, but it would make a huge difference to many developers, and many device owners. I doubt it will actually make that much difference to Apple's profits, but it would make a difference to the rapidly declining good will they have in the developer community, and increasingly in their customers.


Apple is forcing companies and users to use this infrastructure, so this is indeed Apple piggybacking and putting its hands where it shouldn't.


They're not piggybacking off another company if they use alternative distribution networks.

Should the construction company that built the grocery store be able to take a cut off grocery profits and have a say in what the store is selling?


Depends on the contract between the grocery store and the construction company.


Also depends on legislation. If the government says "fuck you" to the construction company, it has to comply.


I don't think a construction company, much less one that has a near-monopoly in a market, should be able to set insane terms like that.


You're wrong. It's like complaining that Walmart hiked their prices after they drove away all Mom and Pop stores.

> I think it's perfectly fine to prevent you from having this

Yes I can, legally and morally.


The mom and pop stores in this analogy are the multitude of devices which are not produced by Apple and provide the same features, like Android phones and phones which are trivial to flash your own custom OS and software on. So no, your analogy does not support your conclusions.


It is not about devices, but rather about mobile OSs. There are only two really viable ones for practical use.


And one gives you the control you want over your device ie. sideloading and alternative app stores right? So why not simply purchase devices that use that operating system?


Because I have other interests and preferences when purchasing a device.


You agree with ATT that they should never have been forced to allow other people to plug their phones in?

You can always just build your own phone network if you don't like it!

You are on the wrong side of history.


You state it is trivial to use Android as an alternative.

How is the data checkout working on iOS to migrate to Android?


If every other teenager only uses the iMessage app, it does prevent you to purchase any other device since you'll be excluded otherwise.




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