We often focus on Google’s detrimental effects on the web, but in doing so, we often tend to forget the other major player who is quite possibly even more damaging to the web than Google can even dream to be.
Without a counterweight, network effects allow successful tech firms to concentrate wealth and political influence. This power allows them to degrade potential competitive challenges, enabling rent extraction for services that would otherwise be commodities. This mechanism operates through (often legalised) corruption of judicial, regulatory, and electoral systems. When left to fester, it corrodes democracy itself.
Apple has deftly used a false cloak of security and privacy to move the internet, and web in particular, toward enclosure and irrelevance. This post makes the case for why Apple should be considered a corrupted, and indeed incompetent, autocrat in our digital lives. It continues to abusing a unique form of monopoly to extract rents, including on the last remnants of open ecosystems it tolerates.
Worse, Apple’s centralisation through the App Store entrenches the positions of peer big tech firms, harming the prospects of competitors in turn. Apple have been, over the course of many years, poisonous to internet standards and the moral commitments of that grand project.
↫ Alex Russell at Infrequently Noted
I have nothing more to add.
Sorry but it looks to me like something using monopoly arguments to defend “web apps”.
Which tend to be shit, no matter which platform they run on.
Agree that Apple should be forced to allow competing browsers on their platform, but that’s not an argument for running applications on them.
Maybe. But somehow Google Photos web app tend to work better than native Android app. It has much less options, but it at least work
There are plenty of good web apps, the Elk Mastodon client is one I’ve been using on my iPhone recently. It definitely has bugs, but there are clearly some that aren’t the developer’s fault. I also much prefer using LLMs through their web apps, the native apps don’t bring anything to the table I care for.
What Alex is saying is this ecosystem never got the chance it needed to do well, because companies mostly skipped building for mobile web, because Apple always left just enough features missing or just enough bugs in that it’s a deal-breaker. That led to standardising on Electron with all its problems. (Microsoft not providing a WebView for Edge until 2020 was another issue.) The other thing is that complex apps tend to be web apps these days, or native mobile apps that can be quietly terminated in the background if they aren’t being good citizens. Complex apps are the most likely to have leaks. Native desktop apps are now built by and often for enthusiasts, so they’ll naturally be more well-built.
Not at all to say web is perfect, but I really don’t feel native apps are either. They’re just better at pretending to be.
> That led to standardising on Electron with all its problems.
I don’t see a difference between Electron and a “web app”. They’re both slow, battery eaters, bad platform integration.
I’m not against running an “app” directly in the system browser, I’m against running an “app” in any browser, including the one embedded in Electron applications.
Cool.
Don’t forget that Apple’s decision helped kill Adobe Flash, which was an evil technology. Sure, this couldn’t have happened if many different browsers were eager to support anything to their market advantage. I’m not saying that Apple has a free pass forever. Let’s just say that it’s time to open the platform up to other browser engines.
Evil? It was great for indie gaming, except it was the great battery killer.
Of course it was full of asses using it for ads but…
Arguably it was easier to ad block in the flash days, you just installed a plugin that stopped flash from running by default.
Now you have both ads and functionality in javascript, which is the new great battery killer.
We’re talking about closed proprietary platform vs open standards, right? 🙂
I was in the industry at that time, and with each new site, more and more customers asked us to avoid using Flash whenever possible.
torp,
Indeed, the switch from flash to javascript had some ironic cons. Flash made antifeatures on many sites easier to isolate and disable. Now we can disable javascript, but in my experience it’s gotten harder to isolate the bad elements of a website.
It also killed some desktop applications.
Yes, before Electron and the “Javascript on the Desktop” craze, there were “native” flash applications, like the famous “You Need a Budget”, or “TweetDeck” applications, or obscure ones like “AIM messenger” (look up Adobe AIR).
Today you need to patch these to run on modern 64 bit systems as the runtime is entirely abandoned.
(There were some efforts to cross compile Flash to something modern. There was at least one open source Flash implementation attempt too. All failed unfortunately).
Edit:
There seems to be a new kid in town: Ruffle
https://ruffle.rs/
Haven’t checked it out. But might actually try running my older Flash games.
Why just Apple? This started way back in the 90s with IMs: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Gadu-gadu, to name just a few. Each trying to create its own enclave on the Internet. Luckily we had geniuses that reverse engineered all those, and brought us Pidgin (GAIM back then), Miranda-im, Kopete… And competition on end devices kind of existed.
Then came Whatsapp, iMessage, Messenger, ALL of which by the way are in some form based on XMPP! And with these came the end of end device choice. Now if you run an unofficial Whatsapp client, your account gets deleted. This has nothing to do with Apple, but the general shift to where not enough people care. And it’s hard to explain why they should.
Android and Apple stores are only the final nail in the coffin, where you simply can’t run software you want.
(You can’t write an email client for iOS, it doesn’t allow persistent TCP connections, necessary for IMAP IDLE, and push notifications are not a part of the email flow. Look at the disclaimer on the Pebble Time 2 website: “can’t work on iOS due to restrictions”)
This is just a crock of mess from an Apple hater. Like no one has to use Apple products, but if you do you know what you are getting.
The lock in, eco system, the one App Store etc.
And vendors don’t have to put their apps there either but they want to because people that use Apple products actually spend money and you don’t have to depend on Ads to make revenue.
If people really want Apple to change then stop using their products. If the money gets funny they will change.
Problem is the “Normies” are just find with Apple products the way they are, most are not asking for more app stores just like most are not asking for 50,000 ways to change your launcher like on Android. (If they really wanted that they would get an Android)
The other thing is companies having rode Googles coat tails instead of doing their own R&D and now about to be screwed as Google locks down Android. Lots of companies could have done what Huawei did and make a third OS but nope, greedy and now stuck. If you gonna go that route don’t complain later when things change cause you are not in control.
Windows Sucks,
This type of argument works under healthy competition, but not in the absence of healthy competition. Replace apple with google here and you’ve got the same argument in reverse. “Nobody has to use Google products”., but the reality is that under a duopoly many consumers are forced to choose the lesser of two evils instead of what they want.
I think we need to look at this more holistically than “apple bad, switch to google”. Consumers have reasons to boycott Google as well. Duopolies are very bad, period. We must recognize the fact that monopolistic behaviors over decades have been responsible for killing off competitors. “Just switch to google” is a total non-answer that does not solve our serious lack of competition.
It’s not unrealistic for startups to have the ambition and means to create and deliver a new platform, however that isn’t actually where they fail. Even when their platform has merit, the main reason for failure is the chicken and egg problem. Without market share, it doesn’t have the apps or connectivity with the rest of the world that users expect and need from their devices. Network effects keep power concentrated at the top. It’s not fair, and there are some of us actively trying to fight this, but honestly it doesn’t even make a dent.
TLDR; it’s not enough to put out a new product, it actually has to be viable in the face of network effects that strongly favor apple and google. Companies can try to compete, but the market is too locked up. If we fail to address the structural abusive corporate behaviors that got us here in the first place, then the industry will never be competitive again.
@Windows
> The lock in, eco system, the one App Store etc.
Of course consumers prefer to deal with a monopoly when there is one because the monopoly has many advantages. That is exactly the problem. It is how monopolies happen in the first place.
I do not consider Apple a monopoly in mobile as Android is actually the larger player with a multi-vendor ecosystem. However, I think it is reasonable to suggest that the inability to add a second App Store on an Apple device if the customer wants one is monopolistic behaviour and perhaps a restriction Apple should be forced to remove. The “normies” can still ignore it of course.
> companies having rode Googles coat tails
Network effects are extremely powerful forces and only the very largest companies have any choice but to go along with them. The only practical solution to breaking up a natural monopoly (successful captive network) is government action.
> Lots of companies could have done what Huawei did
I completely disagree. Samsung, when they were the number one mobile hardware maker in the world, failed to do it (Tizen). Blackberry could not even hold a position in the market even after creating arguably the best mobile operating system. Others failed as well. The number of companies that could credibly attempt it is extremely small.
Even Huawei would not have done it if it had not been for the impact and risk of sanctions as well as their incredibly advantageous relationship with the Chinese government and market. And even for them it is is a moon shot that they have not yet landed. As much as I fear market domination by Chinese firms firmly in control of global industries, I am quite happy that they represent another option in the market though. We will see what happens.
What I would really like to see is the ability for truly Open options to be installable on real hardware in market. This means not being locked out by security measures. It means the ability to create a driver for proprietary hardware with hidden specifications. There should be laws making specification disclosure and system boots for Open Source systems a requirement in my opinion. Even if it means a government agency having to sign a boot-loader or something for that purpose.
Consumers should have the choice of choosing an alternative even if that alternative is not a viable (profitable) competitor in the market.
LeFantome,
I find this view controversial. If we were to conduct a poll, we’d need to distinguish between tolerating a monopoly versus “preferring” a monopoly.
This depends on the specific market. Here in the US for example apple’s mobile market share is ~58% to google’s ~42%. Google are more dominant in eastern countries though.
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/iphone-android-users
I think that’s sensible. Neither apple nor google should be using their dominant positions to impede and tax competitors, yet they do and are largely getting away with it. At least here in the US tech giants know that, by schmoozing the political elites and portraying their corporate agendas as equivalent to the US agenda, they can not only defeat regulation, but get billions in tax subsidies as well.
“Trump hosts top tech CEOs at White House dinner”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tso9FSBOhw
The groveling is really gross, but that’s how the game is played and it works in their favor. Nobody’s representing our basic consumer rights or small competitors (to say nothing of opposing a dictator). Everyone at that table is only interested in promoting large corporate interests.
Agreed, although easier said than done. I find that early intervention with a light touch to be more palatable than having to bring antitrust action against giants after the fact. However at least in the US we don’t seem to be willing and able to curtail even the most obvious anti-competitive abuses at the root before such practices become pervasive and intertwined with the business models.
This speaks to me so much, if only things could work out this way! But unfortunately I don’t have much confidence that it will.