South Korea has passed a bill written to prevent major platform owners like Google and Apple from restricting app developers to built-in payment systems, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bill is now expected to be signed into law by President Moon Jae-in, whose party championed the legislation.
The law comes as a blow to Google and Apple who both require in-app purchases to flow only through their systems, instead of outside payment processors, allowing the tech giants to collect a 30 percent cut. If tech companies fail to comply with the new law, they could face fines of up to 3 percent of their South Korea revenue.
This is going to spread like a wildfire, and the company’s statements regarding this new law fill me with unreasonable amounts of pleasure and schadenfreude.
I fully understand that you want a different store to be able to buy apps from.
Whoever ends up owning the stores, I want the one that I pick to have all of the apps heavily analyzed to make sure there are no viruses or anything else like spyware or whatever is not in the software. I want to be able to trust as many apps from that App Store as I possible can.
Apple is not perfect. They definitely are not. But they are MUCH better than Google and Microsoft and Facebook. I trust them a lot *more*. The key word is ***more***. Nobody has my complete trust. I think Tom Cook and every other person that is above middle management plus too many to count **in** middle management and lower, in EVERY company, could give a rip about any of us peons because they are so out of touch with our world because their millions of dollars if not billions keeps them out of touch with all of us.
Who do you –> really <– trust. I trust Apple more than Google and Microsoft and Facebook, add Amazon to that list. I trust Apple more than whoever is going to be building these App stores that may or maybe not truly verify that the software in their stores doesn't have bad programs in the list. Which Apple does too but I believe they will end up having less than ***most*** of the stores out there.
It would be great if their was an open source store where trusted security people who going through the code, run special utilities against the programs where they have access to all of the code so they can look for sections trying to steal our data and our personal information which they shouldn't have rights to or get to touch or see.
Will this happen? Unfortunately I don't think so. I think Pandora's box is being opened and once it is it will never be able to be closed.
Sabon,
Actually I think it’s very important for owners to have that right too, but from the sounds of it the Korean law falls short of that. This law seems to be siding with Epic games’ position that consumers should have a right to use alternate payment methods (remember when Epic Games literally gave users this option and apple banned the app). I haven’t read anything saying that apple is going to have to allow competing stores.. Hopefully that will happen sooner or later though.
Of course.
I think that’s fine, every owner should be allowed to make their own choices.
I think it’s a good idea. IOS could benefit from that. Why couldn’t it happen? Obviously it can’t happen now because apple would block it as they do, but if owners were allowed to install competing stores, then why couldn’t it happen?
This does seem to only hit ‘in-app’ purchases, instead of ‘app store’ purchases. So all those little microtransactions!
I want to be able to make that trade off myself, on a case by case basis.
Maybe use an app store with additional cost for the service to have a vetted app for ad hoc use.
And use something else for apps that I know and trust, without intereference or costs from 3rd parties. It is my device after all, or not?
The app stores exclusivity is a problem that must be resolved.
Limiting the exclusivity for the payment is a good first step.
I cannot stand the idea of individual companies, non democratic entities, exerting a kind of tax on an important segement of the economy through payment systems (credit card companies), app stores and what have you. The only monopolies that should be allowed to exist, should be democratically legitimized, i.e. be from the state.
An important role of the state in the economy is the prevention of cartels and monopolies, and “terminate” companies with illegal behaviour.
I’ve already proposed frameworks for discussion which involve creating an open and fair standard with checks. It’s actually an old problem I had to think of around the early 2000’s. Apple claim to have invented the $1 app. That’s not true and it’s not the only thing they pinched.
I generally focused on the system and quality control aspects not open source but don’t see why a framework cannot be expanded beyond automated systems to check sourcecode anually. A basic standards framework can be expanded with a standard for this too. The problem with IT is almost all the people driving the technology are driven by shiny toys and lack the bigger perspective. Almost none of them especially management have interest in standards as they make too much money off a dog eat dog business enviroment and selling solutions to problems they caused. I think that’s one big difference between US and EU politics too. The mindsets and ethos are completely different.
You have to start thinking of standards and the language of putting things in these terms which also address the business and competition and end user concerns. If it’s just about technology nobody is going to listen. It’s nonsense like that which explains why Linux is such a dogs breakfast. Too many coders who can’t see the big picture keep scratching their own itches.
HollyB,
I understand your opinion and I agree there are a lot of ways it could improve, especially from the perspective of a windows user. You say too many (linux) coders keep scratching their own itches, well to be fair that’s exactly what linux is. It’s created by developers for developers first and foremost. We are the main user base and it is unlikely to change any time soon. Most developers don’t have a problem with linux not being like windows.
If linux were a red pen, and windows were a blue pen…
I know you’ve been complaining about microsoft and talking of defecting to linux, but based on your stated opinions it doesn’t sound like linux is all that good of a fit for you, you’d never be happy with it. Have you considered anything else? I know it’s not as mature as we’d like but wouldn’t something like ReactOS be much closer to what you’re looking for than linux is?
You can try it in your browser albeit very slowly, no networking, and not much software installed, You should download & run it locally to give it a proper test.
http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=reactos
I have no idea what you’re needs are, but a lot of applications can run on it, including stores like steam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL3aBHQlQcw
@Alfman
How about you start paying attention instead of being TIG welded to your preconceptions and comfort zone?
HollyB,
I can count on you for a classic non sequitur 😉
I was being serious though, what are your feelings about reactos? It’s hard to help you when you never give specifics.
@HollyB Can you show me where apply claimed to have invented the $1 app, because that doesn’t match anything I recall?
@jockm
It was a long time ago. It stood out to me as I was having public discussions about technology which also involved this area and various companies were releasing products or had products in development to do with delivery mechanisms. At the time I had some of my unrelated intellectual property filched by Apple. I cannot tell you how wearing it was reading about it endlessly in the media. I still read about it a couple of times every few years or so, and just did 1-2 months ago. Somebody got very rich off that I can tell you. But that’s another topic.
I trust you but I don’t remember that and I was heavily involved in iOS development for years. They certainly haven’t repeated the claims in recent years.
@jockm
I can’t remember a specific date. It was fairly early in the scheme of things. Possibly before the app store was launched but I’m not sure. It may have been after. I remember a big stink in the games industry with nobody believing it. As things turned out the $1 game/app isn’t much of a reality today and the Hollywoodised production games with silly budgets cost stupid money at retail. It was also a time when you could get buy with a dozen or so staff and it was just before the full market size potential existed. Serialised games died a death as well and a lot of newer games are light on the single player experience and tied to co-op play. As usual 10% of the developers make 90% of the money.
I was more into architecture and games development than OS development but may have gone down that path if things worked out. What Apple pinched was something completely unrelated. Absolutely nobody will believe it but Electronic Arts has a copy of the original work floating around somewhere in their archives after a couple of takeovers.
@HollyB I am not doubting what you are saying is true, but I never heard apple say it, and I can’t find any references to it. And people have been talking about small/fractional/microtransactions since the 70s… maybe longer. So if it was “pinched” from 2000s tech, then that tech owes the idea to things much older.
I also just don’t know how much traction blaming Apple for that in particular has, especially since neither of us can find any reference to it
@jockm
I’m not even looking. It’s something I remembered in the context of the time and it’s now history.
People can discuss standards and individual implementations and the fairness or otherwise of the market and those are things which are pertinent to today, and not just with app stores but social media too as the underlying problems have similarities.
@HollyB
I disagree, you accused Apple of stealing an idea you implied you had a hand in — though perhaps I am wrong about that part, please correct me. That’s a big claim, one that needs evidence and not just “well that is what I remember”. I believe that deserves to be challenged, because I refuse to engage you on the analogy of how a software company is acting to genocide
@jockm
Eh? I think you’ve got your wires crossed again. I’m talking about the $1 app thing. If you want me to talk about the seperate thing Apple filched off me you’re not going to get anywere because I’m not discussing it. That was a remark made in passing and the end of the subject as far as I’m concerned.
HollyB,
Jockm is right to press for details. This isn’t a courtroom so of course it’s everyone’s prerogative to refuse to answer questions and provide links/details that would back assertions. But let me ask you this, in your own opinion does a pattern of evasive responses build credibility?
Consider the american election deniers who adamantly assert that Trump won in 2020 and that there is evidence to prove it, yet every time they are pressed on evidence they become evasive. They make allegations that crimes were committed, which would be fine if they followed through with factual evidence, but they never do!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJO-KM27R1M
It becomes clear they want the allegations to stand on their own without questioning. However this repeated cycle of allegations + no followup evidence leaves a rational outsider to conclude that there was no real evidence and further discussion is not entertained because the allegations were made purely for effect, Arguments in the form of “evidence is there and there’s nothing else to say”, which omit evidence from the discussion were unknown to me a few years ago. But it’s blown up in the era of trump and I see it everywhere now. Facts should matter and it behooves us all to keep facts at the center of our reality rather than dismissing their importance.
@Alfman
Try reading what I have said from the beginning. I’m not being sucked in by reframing which is what happened, and I’m not going to budge on matters which are none of your business. Even if it crossed my mind I might expand on a comment made in passing both your comments and jock’s are enough to decline. And I’m certainly not going to stand for escalating and smears and emotional pressure.
As it happens I just checked and still have the emails from 2013 where I was chasing up with the owner of one company what happened with my original work. Like I said through a series of takeovers it landed up with EA. I asked EA and never got anywhere. They may still have it somewhere or it may have been lost during one of the takeovers. And no it has nothing to do with games. That is all you’re going to know and tbh you don’t deserve being told that.
I trust Thom more than you lot and I wouldn’t share it with him without final say on editoral including the right to refuse the story being published. Why? Because it’s grief for me I’m not inclined to deal with.
@HollyB Without knowing the specifics I am at a loss but apple had already established $1 pricing for songs for years before the app store was introduced.
In 2000-2001 I worked for intel on something we would recognize as Sonos today (not our tech, just a useful comparison). We implemented music subscriptions, purchasing digital tracks, and buying CDs all from our remote. We were talking about custom apps that might run on our box and be used by the remote and purchased though our store service. We had a number of pricing models in mind and explicitly handled sub $1 prices
I later talked to an engineer at one of Enron’s many divisions who around the same time was working on all the same stuff.
In the late 80s when I was doing development on MultiValue Databases (what we called Pick derivatives at the time) and read an interview with Richard Pick where he talked about charging for fractional database services though purchasing bulk “tokens”
I can go all the way back to Ted Nelson’s Xanadu system documented in the 70s which explicitly talked about microtransactions for copying.
Further back I can point to any number of universities that charged students and faculty for the time their jobs ran on the mainframe.
There is nothing new here, hence I paraphrase what I said near the beginning, that if indeed Apple “pinched” it from another company, that company was standing on the sholders of all the other people in the chain.
If the company you worked for had patents on it, I don’t think it could have withstood a challenge in court
@jockm
Please do pay attention instead of chopping and changing. I’ve already said Apple made a big thing of the $1 app, okay? It caused a few waves at the time and is not to be confused with “microtransactions”. It’s the headline price and I already explained the marketing/market issues surrounding this. It was a moment in time and didn’t last long as I also explained. If you want to know more check Apple’s keynotes and media coverage of the time.
Nowhere did I mention Apple pinched that idea. When I said Apple filched something off me it was a remark in passing and is something else entirely that has no relation to anything mentioned directly or indirectly, and no I am not discussing it for reasons already stated.
Can you actually read what is is written and not what you think has been written?
HollyB,
Except that you brought them up in a public forum, so it’s perfectly natural & acceptable for others to make further inquiries about it.
I don’t see it that way at all. Did jockm not ask you to clarify the facts? Did you not dismiss him for doing so? This goes right back to what I was saying about making accusations and then abruptly ending the discussion as though the underlying facts aren’t important. I honestly don’t mean to offend or “smear” you, but I’d like for you to understand why making assertions while declining to back them up is problematic for rational discussion flow.
You’re entitled to say as much as or as little as you want, but at the same time we’re entitled to treat it as just anecdotal. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with anecdotes but you can’t get offended when people question them.
In fairness to jockm though, what you are saying could be clearer. Anyways, if there’s nothing more to add, I think we can all agree this discussion has run it’s course, haha. Till next time 🙂
I think Apple would more likely pay the fine
Or hopefully pull out of the market. Hope it happens here too.
We need the big players out and some new companies that can’t afford not to care about the people buying things and only their real customers.
Till then I’ll stick with Google and MS over apple anyday. (more just how horrible the current stuff is more than anything TBH!).
@Carrot007
I do agree caring about the customer has gone out of the window. I’m old enough to remember when customers and experts and the expert community and so on had an influence. That has been eroded and shut down over a long period of time. A “market correction” is overdue.
Let’s hope this bring an end to the “microtransaction” model. Nobody is gonna seek alternative payment methods for a $5 dollar app or even a $10 app just to save a couple of bucks or so. The hassle of having to sideload the app or having to download the demo and “redeem” is just not worth it.
But when it comes to microtransaction-based games, where people tend to buy “virtual currency” in bulk, spending amounts like $60 or even triple digits, the savings become much more substantial (which is what drove Epic to add alternative payment methods in their app, they are simply displeased with how much money they sent to Apple and Google as fees, on the other hand, Apple and Google are very pleased).
Could this make Apple and Google limit microtransactions in their stores? A man can only hope..
kurkosdr
Where do you read that anyone will be able to sideload anything? That would be good, but I don’t think that’s the case. This is about allowing customers to use other payment methods only.
Let’s be 100% clear, it’s always the customer who pays for the fees one way or the other. Epic simply passed the savings of not paying apple onto the customer, which was a clever stunt that directly pitted apple’s position against customer interests.