Apple Pay is anticompetitive, says EU in preliminary ruling

[The Albatross]

This is why those saying you can always use Apple Pay are wrong. Cause why wouldn't banks just withdraw from Apple Pay and force you to use their solution? Then they don't have to pay apple any fees. This is a win for banks, not the consumer. And I don't trust they'll worry as much about security features as apple (already the weakest link in Apple Pay is how easy some banks are to allow you to add a credit card to it).

Click to shrink...

Anti-Trust rulings shouldn't squarely be decided on whether it's 'good for consumers' or 'good for someone else,' etc. A major reason why the American anti-trust landscape is so weak is that regulators have taken that conservative "good for consumers" approach, where basically any anti-competitive behavior can be justified because of arbitrary decisions on what's best for consumers.

Back when anti-trust had teeth in the US and regulators broke up Standard Oil, prices actually went up for consumers in the following years. Standard Oil was able to keep prices lower than their competitors by owning the entire supply, delivery, and service chain, and individual competitors couldn't compete with that efficiency from Standard Oil. But ultimately that lack of competition is bad for the entire market, even if consumer prices or specific 'features' for consumers were arguably better.

So far I've agreed with the EU's broader position on anti-trust, and for regulators/legislators in the US (Amy Klobuchar is leading this in Congress) who want to overhaul American anti-trust to be more like it was 100 years ago and more the European model today, I agree with that change. A model where there's more competition might seem worse in the short term, "eh, my bank just pulled out of Apple pay and is forcing me to use Bank of America pay, that sucks!" but there's a long, provably positive list of reasons why more competition is better for the overall market and ecosystem than one dominant controller, more so than just consumer price or consumer features. Because the US has had this really conservative view of anti-trust, where everything comes down to a very narrow interpretation, it's limited our scope in the US and Europe for whether something is anti-competitive or not. Vesterger has been a lot more forward thinking on this and I want to see the US catch up.

 

[spam musubi]

Anti-Trust rulings shouldn't squarely be decided on whether it's 'good for consumers' or 'good for someone else,' etc. A major reason why the American anti-trust landscape is so weak is that regulators have taken that conservative "good for consumers" approach, where basically any anti-competitive behavior can be justified because of arbitrary decisions on what's best for consumers.

Back when anti-trust had teeth in the US and regulators broke up Standard Oil, prices actually went up for consumers in the following years. Standard Oil was able to keep prices lower than their competitors by owning the entire supply, delivery, and service chain, and individual competitors couldn't compete with that efficiency from Standard Oil. But ultimately that lack of competition is bad for the entire market, even if consumer prices or specific 'features' for consumers were arguably better.

So far I've agreed with the EU's broader position on anti-trust, and for regulators/legislators in the US (Amy Klobuchar is leading this in Congress) who want to overhaul American anti-trust to be more like it was 100 years ago and more the European model today, I agree with that change.

Click to shrink...

We see the effect of competition in the tv streaming market though, where people are so fed up with being nickel and dimes by a dozen different corporations trying to compete with each other on content that the prevailing narrative is that piracy is appealing again. Antitrust doesn't immediately mean that it's going to end well for the consumer. It can mean that instead of a few massive and easy to target companies you have dozens of smaller companies fleecing the customer bit by bit and there are that many more vectors of data vulnerabilities towards the user. Breaking up big corps alone doesn't really get anywhere. A more competitive market doesn't necessarily mean a healthier market.

The EU isn't doing this to protect the customers. They're doing it to prop up European businesses against American businesses so that European businesses can also get a piece of a pie which of course strengthens European countries. Which can be good in a geopolitical scale but ultimately it's still the elites that win here, not the people.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not saying this isn't a good thing. But it's not a measure to curb capitalism in practice. It's just distributing capitalism across the board. Which may still be a win, but it isn't automatically a good thing without further measures to curb capitalism and abuse of customer data/rights.

 

[브라이언]

I bet they'll change their tune when customers ditch the bank

Click to shrink...

Most people are going to be a lot more loyal to a device they use for hours a day vs. a bank that they might interact with a handful of times in a month, if that.

Click to shrink...

This did not happen initially in Australia, where the big three banks and a bunch of minors held out for two to three years before the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who enforces and makes legal decisions on one of the most strictest consumer laws in the world told them to fuck off.

Banking inertia is a real thing, and by forcing individuals to use one payment app can lead to disastrous results in terms of privacy and device security, not to mention the inconvenience of switching mobile wallets in the settings to pay.

Entitlement for... who...?

Click to shrink...

For the consumer?

I don't understand why individuals are buying iOS devices and expecting to do all willy nilly to them. Guys, it's been nearly 15 years since the first iPhone came out. People do realise that they are purchasing INTO a walled garden right?

Wanting to have access to hardware you purchased = entitlement?

Click to shrink...

The problem is that its not in the same vein as for example, the right to repair. Core NFC functions are available, the part that isn't is the payment function which is unavailable as it is directly linked to the Secure Element chip.

If you want access to the NFC chip, go ahead and jailbreak. Most iPhone users do not give two shits about sideloading or NFC access, but they sure do care about their phone's security and privacy. Heck you look over at Samsung Pay being recently compromised, and in comparison Apple Pay having no security issues and people that are within the iPhone audience care about iPhone's security element.

But sure Jan, let's just praise the EU's decision because Apple sucks! Right?

 

[Palette Swap]

This kind of reads like banking industry PR when you consider you can already do that on 70%+ of the devices on the market, yet that amazing innovation hasn't seemingly happened : "It is important for the integration of European Payments markets that consumers benefit from a competitive and innovative payments landscape. "

 

[Dalek]

I am not remotely surprised by the comments in this thread.

"Let users CHOOSE to have their data exposed!"

"Let users CHOOSE to be forced to use their banks app!"

Some people see the word "Apple" and they go red and all nuance goes out the window.

 

[dude]

No? Imo you as a consumer aren't owed the right to do whatever you want with a device that is outside of its scope. You want an open platform buy android. Apple never advertised its phones as open ecosystems. I think that's fair. Plus the EU doesn't seem to understand what Apple Pay even is.

Click to shrink...

I mean... By that logic, MS controlled windows and the consumers chose to have Windows ("If they wanted an 'open OS' they could have installed linux and if they wanted a different browser they could have got a Mac").
The "Scope" of a device should not necessarily be something that is defined by the manufactures, since they can just draw the circle around whatever they want to fit their definition and their interest - That is exactly why regulations exist.

 

[브라이언]

I mean... By that logic, MS controlled windows and the consumers chose to have Windows ("If they wanted an 'open OS' they could have installed linux and if they wanted a different browser they could have got a Mac").
The "Scope" of a device should not necessarily be something that is defined by the manufactures, since they can just draw the circle around whatever they want to fit their definition and their interest - That is exactly why regulations exist.

Click to shrink...

iOS has a smaller usage share than Android though.

Windows correct me if I am wrong was basically a monopolised OS back in the days of the IE controversy.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

I could swear they eventually did open up the NFC in the iPhone. I guess not.

Click to shrink...

They kind of did, but it's very limited. You can read certain cards and that's it.

The hardware capability is all there but the difference between the NFC Tools app between the two platforms is staggering.

 

[The Albatross]

We see the effect of competition in the tv streaming market though, where people are so fed up with being nickel and dimes by a dozen different corporations trying to compete with each other on content that the prevailing narrative is that piracy is appealing again. Antitrust doesn't immediately mean that it's going to end well for the consumer. It can mean that instead of a few massive and easy to target companies you have dozens of smaller companies fleecing the customer bit by bit and there are that many more vectors of data vulnerabilities towards the user. Breaking up big corps alone doesn't really get anywhere. A more competitive market doesn't necessarily mean a healthier market.

Click to shrink...

In response to that last sentence, a more competitive market almost always means a healthier market. There's almost no instances in history when a non-competitive market was healthier than a competitive one, unless you're squarely referring to stock price or market valuations.

But also with anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior, we have to break out of the "is it good for consumers??" very narrow thinking, which is hard to do. The market is more than just prices or features for consumers. Jobs, hiring, competing on talent matters as well. For instance when Standard Oil owned basically the entire market for energy production in the US, the oil company would own towns/cities/states. If you were an oil worker on that chain, either getting crude from the ground, working at a refinery, working on the rail lines that brought it around the country, worked locally, drove an oil delivery truck, services the machines, etc, you only had one employer -- Standard Oil. Standard Oil would keep prices low for consumers, but they were able to do that by using their market dominance to keep jobs unavailable, keep wages low, prevent people from leaving, crush labor organization, and get a tremendous amount of political power in towns, cities, and states.

In relation to streaming, this would be the equivalent of if you bought a Roku TV then you could only use the Roku app to stream internet content, e.g., Roku blocks a standard protocol -- HTTP -- for anything that isn't the Roku app. I don't think that'd make the streaming market healthier, if to stream content on Roku TVs you had to use the Roku app, or on Sony, LG, etc TVs, you had to use their respective apps. Going back to the standard oil model, though, imagine how much worse the media landscape would be if there was only one company that dominated the entire market? While there's some growing pains with streaming right now, mostly just for streaming companies and their stock value not for potential customers, if there was just one or two dominant streaming/video production/delivery companies, the availability of content would be way lower, fewer people would be working in media, fewer diverse projects would get finances or greenlit. 80 years ago in the US when television media was run by 2-3 companies, there's a reason why every show was samey like Leave it To Beaver, there were three companies run by three rich white men who only had slightly less rich white men reporting to them who only hired other white men beneath them, etc, etc, etc, and while there might be some benefit for some consumers -- "You just turn on the TV and your favorite show is on, no need to worry about apps or software or different UIs, one easy to understand bill!" -- that's definitely not a healthier market.

I think streaming is a very good example of why more competition is better. It's the reason why we're in "The golden age of content" ("golden age of TV," whatever). But that's a much bigger discussion than this ruling, which seems pretty cut and dry, and right to me.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

You can use Apple Pay all you like. The issue is there's no options other than The Apple Way. Most Apple issues boil down to that.

So, yes. Open good. Better said, Options good. Options great. It would not stop you from using what you currently use and prefer.

Click to shrink...

Cannot wait when banks back out of AP and go back to using their fucking terrible, insecure apps for the same thing.

It's going to be a glorious future of having a folder filled with different apps to handle all your cards one by one.

 

[브라이언]

In response to that last sentence, a more competitive market almost always means a healthier market. There's almost no instances in history when a non-competitive market was healthier than a competitive one, unless you're squarely referring to stock price or market valuations.

But also with anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior, we have to break out of the "is it good for consumers??" very narrow thinking, which is hard to do. The market is more than just prices or features for consumers. Jobs, hiring, competing on talent matters as well. For instance when Standard Oil owned basically the entire market for energy production in the US, the oil company would own towns/cities/states. If you were an oil worker on that chain, either getting crude from the ground, working at a refinery, working on the rail lines that brought it around the country, worked locally, drove an oil delivery truck, services the machines, etc, you only had one employer -- Standard Oil. Standard Oil would keep prices low for consumers, but they were able to do that by using their market dominance to keep jobs unavailable, keep wages low, prevent people from leaving, crush labor organization, and get a tremendous amount of political power in towns, cities, and states.

In relation to streaming, this would be the equivalent of if you bought a Roku TV then you could only use the Roku app to stream internet content, e.g., Roku blocks a standard protocol -- HTTP -- for anything that isn't the Roku app. I don't think that'd make the streaming market healthier, if to stream content on Roku TVs you had to use the Roku app, or on Sony, LG, etc TVs, you had to use their respective apps. Going back to the standard oil model, though, imagine how much worse the media landscape would be if there was only one company that dominated the entire market? While there's some growing pains with streaming right now, mostly just for streaming companies and their stock value not for potential customers, if there was just one or two dominant streaming/video production/delivery companies, the availability of content would be way lower, fewer people would be working in media, fewer diverse projects would get finances or greenlit. 80 years ago in the US when television media was run by 2-3 companies, there's a reason why every show was samey like Leave it To Beaver, there were three companies run by three rich white men who only had slightly less rich white men reporting to them who only hired other white men beneath them, etc, etc, etc, and while there might be some benefit for some consumers -- "You just turn on the TV and your favorite show is on, no need to worry about apps or software or different UIs, one easy to understand bill!" -- that's definitely not a healthier market.

I think streaming is a very good example of why more competition is better. It's the reason why we're in "The golden age of content" ("golden age of TV," whatever). But that's a much bigger discussion than this ruling, which seems pretty cut and dry, and right to me.

Click to shrink...

I don't agree with this statement.

Having government oversight on what businesses to favour and not to favour and forcing companies to in turn agree with their decisions sounds like a bleak future for me.

Fragmentation of the streaming market also does not benefit businesses, it favours conglomerates who make media content like the Walt Disney company and puts companies such as Netflix at a big loss.

 

[The Albatross]

For the consumer?

I don't understand why individuals are buying iOS devices and expecting to do all willy nilly to them. Guys, it's been nearly 15 years since the first iPhone came out. People do realise that they are purchasing INTO a walled garden right?

Click to shrink...

"blocking hardware APIs that should be available to any app developers" sounds like entitlement for the consumer.

I'm having trouble understanding what this means.

This isn't individuals buying iOS devices and expecting to "do all willy nilly," this is European regulators determining that a practice is anti-competitive. That blocking apps from using a standard protocol is anti-competitive, and I agree with that. NFC is standard wireless communication protocol, like how HTTP is a standard protocol for fetching data. Blocking those standard protocols to only 1st party apps is anti-competitive, per this preliminary decision. Seems like the right decision to me.

Whether consumer expectations are different, who knows, anti-competition is not (and shouldn't be) squarely limited to what your expectation is as a consumer. And the conservative modern interpretation of anti-trust to be so singularly focused around the consumer-business relationship, instead of a much broader interpretation, is a bad one.

 

[alstrike]

I don't fucking care and I'm in the EU, I ain't using any other payment methods.

 

[브라이언]

Blocking those standard protocols to only 1st party apps is anti-competitive

Click to shrink...

NFC is not blocked.

Core NFC | Apple Developer Documentation

Detect NFC tags, read messages that contain NDEF data, and save data to writable tags.

developer.apple.com

The ability to make payments over NFC is blocked to third party applications.

"blocking hardware APIs that should be available to any app developers" sounds like entitlement for the consumer.

Click to shrink...

I mean developers are also consumers are they not?

 

[Dyno]

I dont even care for Apples products in the slightest and this seems Incredibly stupid. I absolutely do not trust retailers or banks to do whatever the hell they wish with the nfc chip and I'd probably just turn the feature off if they insist on making it a free for all for retail and finance to harvest data.

 

[NookSports]

Cannot wait when banks back out of AP and go back to using their fucking terrible, insecure apps for the same thing.

It's going to be a glorious future of having a folder filled with different apps to handle all your cards one by one.

Click to shrink...

It'll be so fun to have to do 2 factor authentication just to use a vending machine or something

The ability to make payments over NFC is blocked to third party applications.

Click to shrink...

I thought they just opened an API to allow just that

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

NFC is not blocked.

Core NFC | Apple Developer Documentation

Detect NFC tags, read messages that contain NDEF data, and save data to writable tags.

developer.apple.com

The ability to make payments over NFC is blocked to third party applications.

Click to shrink...

Weeeel, not exactly. CoreNFC is so shy on features that you couldn't possibly pay through NFC.

Problem is you also cannot emulate a card. Which kind of sucks because it works on Android.

I would be okay if Apple opened up the library but still nuked payment apps from the AppStore.

 

[mugurumakensei]

The problem is that its not in the same vein as for example, the right to repair. Core NFC functions are available, the part that isn't is the payment function which is unavailable as it is directly linked to the Secure Element chip.

If you want access to the NFC chip, go ahead and jailbreak. Most iPhone users do not give two shits about sideloading or NFC access, but they sure do care about their phone's security and privacy. Heck you look over at Samsung Pay being recently compromised, and in comparison Apple Pay having no security issues and people that are within the iPhone audience care about iPhone's security element.

But sure Jan, let's just praise the EU's decision because Apple sucks! Right?

Click to shrink...

Huh? Apple Pay was also recently compromised

Apple Pay vulnerable to wireless pickpockets

Researchers have found a way to extract money from Apple Pay via without any user interaction.

blog.malwarebytes.com

I guess if you want to rely on security through obscurity Apple's solution is "secure".

 

[spam musubi]

In response to that last sentence, a more competitive market almost always means a healthier market. There's almost no instances in history when a non-competitive market was healthier than a competitive one, unless you're squarely referring to stock price or market valuations.

But also with anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior, we have to break out of the "is it good for consumers??" very narrow thinking, which is hard to do. The market is more than just prices or features for consumers. Jobs, hiring, competing on talent matters as well. For instance when Standard Oil owned basically the entire market for energy production in the US, the oil company would own towns/cities/states. If you were an oil worker on that chain, either getting crude from the ground, working at a refinery, working on the rail lines that brought it around the country, worked locally, drove an oil delivery truck, services the machines, etc, you only had one employer -- Standard Oil. Standard Oil would keep prices low for consumers, but they were able to do that by using their market dominance to keep jobs unavailable, keep wages low, prevent people from leaving, crush labor organization, and get a tremendous amount of political power in towns, cities, and states.

Click to shrink...

This is all very fair - but doesn't really have much to do with this bit of legislation, no? I mean, sure, reducing the overall market power of the biggest players will trickle down (heh) to these levels as well, but what you are pointing out is accomplished better by local legislation in addition to this type of top-level regulation. Without the additional local pressure, none of this will come to pass automatically.

I think streaming is a very good example of why more competition is better. It's the reason why we're in "The golden age of content" ("golden age of TV," whatever). But that's a much bigger discussion than this ruling, which seems pretty cut and dry, and right to me.

Click to shrink...

The golden age of content is a bit of a misleading thing, though. If you have to subscribe to like 9 different services to get all the top tier content, then you're just effectively paying more. Ultimately the streaming services competing means that each service tries to minimize the content that every other service has, so that each individual service is as worthless as possible while having just enough to keep the customer on. You only get to experience the golden age of content if you pay your money and submit your data to every single service out there. And each of these services keep hiking up their prices. I don't know anyone who would look at the state of the streaming market and conclude that it is one that is working out for customers. I'm not saying competition is inherently bad, but competition alone does not necessarily generate a healthy market.

Another counter-example here would be USB ports. EU regulation on smartphone ports forcing everyone to use USB-C is overall lauded as a pretty positive thing. By your definition, a competitive market where everyone can invent their own port, every smart device came with a different connector, would be a very healthy one. But that's clearly not the case. In this case the EU is cutting out competition and the ability for different manufacturers to use invent different power cables or transmission standards. And again, this is not me saying that everything should be standardized either. But I am simply stating that more competitors in every market at any time is automatically a good thing. Amount of competition is simply one of the variables that contribute to a healthy market. The logical extreme of that idea is a pure libertarian free market, which is obviously insane. Some amount of enforced standardization controlled by a few accountable parties (in this case the USB-IF consortium) actually works out well in a market.

 

[Principate]

NFC is not blocked.

Core NFC | Apple Developer Documentation

Detect NFC tags, read messages that contain NDEF data, and save data to writable tags.

developer.apple.com

The ability to make payments over NFC is blocked to third party applications.


I mean developers are also consumers are they not?

Click to shrink...

That's being pedantic and ignoring the posters point. It's more anti-competitive than internet explorer on windows ever was.

 

[CatAssTrophy]

Why not just introduce regulations that either prohibit NFC-based transactions from containing/accessing data on the specifics of the purchase (beyond location and sum) or allow users to opt-out?

This thread feels like goal posts are moving around a bit depending on which part of this case people take issue with.

 

[Pwnz]

Good on the EU.

I don't understand the "it's not anticompetitive because you can switch". Okay, ask middle income families to ditch 5 iPhones and get Android devices and void a contract. It's only thousands of dollars, come on. Seems more tech bro cyperpunk than a properly regulated mixed economy.

 

[Cien]

Cannot wait when banks back out of AP and go back to using their fucking terrible, insecure apps for the same thing.

It's going to be a glorious future of having a folder filled with different apps to handle all your cards one by one.

Click to shrink...

Yes, but think of the CHOICE!

People loathe Apple but then want Apple to do certain things so they can...continue not to use Apple. It's baffling to me.

 

[브라이언]

Huh? Apple Pay was also recently compromised

Click to shrink...

Seems like this is mainly a Visa issue and something in which they most likely patched.

That's being pedantic and well ignoring the posters point. It's more anti-competitive than internet explorer on windows ever was.

Click to shrink...

Sis, NFC is not blocked. The hardware chip can be used by developers. Only a specific function has not been allowed.

 

[Delusibeta]

The irony is that the only entity that's in a position to benefit from this ruling is Google.

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

This is all very fair - but doesn't really have much to do with this bit of legislation, no? I mean, sure, reducing the overall market power of the biggest players will trickle down (heh) to these levels as well, but what you are pointing out is accomplished better by local legislation in addition to this type of top-level regulation. Without the additional local pressure, none of this will come to pass automatically.



The golden age of content is a bit of a misleading thing, though. If you have to subscribe to like 9 different services to get all the top tier content, then you're just effectively paying more. Ultimately the streaming services competing means that each service tries to minimize the content that every other service has, so that each individual service is as worthless as possible while having just enough to keep the customer on. You only get to experience the golden age of content if you pay your money and submit your data to every single service out there. And each of these services keep hiking up their prices. I don't know anyone who would look at the state of the streaming market and conclude that it is one that is working out for customers. I'm not saying competition is inherently bad, but competition alone does not necessarily generate a healthy market.

Another counter-example here would be USB ports. EU regulation on smartphone ports forcing everyone to use USB-C is overall lauded as a pretty positive thing. By your definition, a competitive market where everyone can invent their own port, every smart device came with a different connector, would be a very healthy one. But that's clearly not the case. In this case the EU is cutting out competition and the ability for different manufacturers to use invent different power cables or transmission standards. And again, this is not me saying that everything should be standardized either. But I am simply stating that more competitors in every market at any time is automatically a good thing. Amount of competition is simply one of the variables that contribute to a healthy market. The logical extreme of that idea is a pure libertarian free market, which is obviously insane. Some amount of enforced standardization controlled by a few accountable parties (in this case the USB-IF consortium) actually works out well in a market.

Click to shrink...

On the USB thing:

It's quite clear that that decision is good on the short term. On the long term it sucks and sets a terrible precedent. I can think of one worse thing to deal with tech than banks and that's the government.

People are just happy that a populist decision like that went through and they can finally use USB-C, conveniently forgetting how Lightning paved the way for connectors like USB-C (and it's physical form factor is still better).

I've given up on the issue though at this point. Most of the time in these threads people just want Apple to take regardless of the issue at hand.

 

[Amnixia]

The irony is that the only entity that's in a position to benefit from this ruling is Google.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, maybe I'm not seeing the bigger picture on this one (cracking the wip on companies is always good) but how is this gonna help developers and smaller businesses?

 

[Dyle]

I imagine it would pass regulatory scrutiny if Apple Pay never took a cut of transactions or had fees for any companies using it. There's a real case to be made that locking this particular feature down is beneficial for user privacy, Apple just can't directly profit from it.

 

[dglavimans]

Why is EU going so hard to make a closed system more open when the alternative is right there in the form of Android

I really don't like this I love the iOS system as it is and I owned all the mobile OS there are to find. If I wanted more open I would grab a Samsung (also great phones)

 

[spam musubi]

On the USB thing:

It's quite clear that that decision is good on the short term. On the long term it sucks and sets a terrible precedent. I can think of one worse thing to deal with tech than banks and that's the government.

People are just happy that a populist decision like that went through and they can finally use USB-C, conveniently forgetting how Lightning paved the way for connectors like USB-C (and it's physical form factor is still better).

I've given up on the issue though at this point. Most of the time in these threads people just want Apple to take regardless of the issue at hand.

Click to shrink...

Exactly my point - what is seen as good competition or bad competition is completely arbitrary and even when talking about the same company people have wildly inconsistent views, mainly informed by how much they dislike any given company rather than what the founding principle of the stance is. If all competition is good, the USB-C legislation is bad. If standardization is good, anti-walled garden legislation is bad. The mostly consistent take here is that capitalism sucks and no matter if it's one company sucking your bones dry or several companies, ultimately your bones are gonna get sucked dry.
Big companies losing doesn't mean the average people winning. It just means slightly smaller companies winning.

 

[XNihili]

Nothing is allowed to exist haha, stay inside your walled garden nobody gives a shit about what you do, people should have the ability to have alternatives in iOS if they want.

Click to shrink...

I'm waiting for something as good to happen on Android to hop back. Isn't Android supposed to be open ? Why is it shit ?

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

Yes, but think of the CHOICE!

People loathe Apple but then want Apple to do certain things so they can...continue not to use Apple. It's baffling to me.

Click to shrink...

This forum sometimes is hilarious.

People hate the free market because as we've found, it is not always good for the customer.

When it comes to Apple it's suddenly ideologically correct to free fucking everything, even when it is clear that the consumers will suffer (and the banks profit). All while the people saying this are not even remotely forced to use Apple devices and the competition is stronger than ever.

So this is once again the EU having nothing better to do (which is absolutely terrifying and I'm a staunch federationist) and people just blindly hating Apple because why not.

No matter how many times actual consumers explain the nuances, it always ends the same way.

 

[NookSports]

Apple Pay never took a cut of transactions

Click to shrink...

(a) how much do you think Apple Pay takes from each transaction?
(b) how do you think other payment rails like Visa or Mastercard make money?

 

[The Albatross]

I don't agree with this statement.

Having government oversight on what businesses to favour and not to favour and forcing companies to in turn agree with their decisions sounds like a bleak future for me.

Click to shrink...

Eh, well this is probably a philosophical disagreement, but that sort of libertarian future where there's no government oversight and we leave it up to businesses to hash it out with each other .. sounds far bleaker to me than this pretty tame ruling that Apple is abusing it's position when it restricts access to standard technology.

Personally, I think that government has an important oversight role with businesses, and that lack of oversight over the last 50 years has been bad, one of the reasons we're in this "new guilded age." Also It's not like this is any sort of heavy handed ruling, either, the EU has been more active than US regulators with business, but both are very pro-business and there's very little strict oversight.

Fragmentation of the streaming market also does not benefit businesses, it favours conglomerates who make media content like the Walt Disney company and puts companies such as Netflix at a big loss.

Click to shrink...

Netflix, even after their stock tumble, is still one of the most valuable companies on earth, and prior to ~2 months ago, Netflix and Disney had fairly similar market caps, both among the most valuable companies in the world so ... it's not really a david and goliath. Even after Netflix' stock drop, they're still like the 150th most valuable company in the world, down from the 50th. In the media content business, Netflix and Disney are both very powerful.

But, cards on the table, I really don't care about Netflix or Disney's market valuation. That's not a convincing argument to me for why there shouldn't be oversight of how companies restrict access to standard technology protocols on their devices.

 

[Principate]

Seems like this is mainly a Visa issue and something in which they most likely patched.



Sis, NFC is not blocked. The hardware chip can be used by developers. Only a specific function has not been allowed.

Click to shrink...

Yes and this EU ruling is about that specific function. Is this some kind of weird gotcha to you?

 

[Cien]

Governments are out here still running Windows XP. Are we sure we want them making technical decisions?

 

[The Albatross]

IMO, for Apple and other potential 3rd party payment providers, it's less about the possibility to take fees, and more about ownership of data. Purchasing data is among the most valuable data.

Governments are out here still running Windows XP. Are we sure we want them making technical decisions?

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This is actually a great example of why governments should prevent anti-competitive behavior. A major reason why so many institutional computer systems are still running Windows XP is because of technical lock-in with a handful of critical systems that had to be developed for Internet Explorer because of Microsoft's abuse of their market position.

So, yes, governments should provide oversight.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Exactly my point - what is seen as good competition or bad competition is completely arbitrary and even when talking about the same company people have wildly inconsistent views, mainly informed by how much they dislike any given company rather than what the founding principle of the stance is. If all competition is good, the USB-C legislation is bad. If standardization is good, anti-walled garden legislation is bad. The mostly consistent take here is that capitalism sucks and no matter if it's one company sucking your bones dry or several companies, ultimately your bones are gonna get sucked dry.
Big companies losing doesn't mean the average people winning. It just means slightly smaller companies winning.

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Eh that's cause your mindset is wrong.
Port standardization is good cause it reduces business and consumer costs and increases the ability to migrate since you can carry your charger over to another phone.
Opening up NFC payment APIs is good as it makes it possible for other businesses to provide alternatives that lower their costs while not impacting Apple and it increases the ability of the consumer to migrate since their payment options are no longer tied to their phone.

 

[NookSports]

Governments are out here still running Windows XP. Are we sure we want them making technical decisions?

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Not just any government, but the notoriously innovative Europe where all the major tech innovations have come from the last 20 years

 

[Cats_Schrodinger]

Exactly my point - what is seen as good competition or bad competition is completely arbitrary and even when talking about the same company people have wildly inconsistent views, mainly informed by how much they dislike any given company rather than what the founding principle of the stance is. If all competition is good, the USB-C legislation is bad. If standardization is good, anti-walled garden legislation is bad. The mostly consistent take here is that capitalism sucks and no matter if it's one company sucking your bones dry or several companies, ultimately your bones are gonna get sucked dry.
Big companies losing doesn't mean the average people winning. It just means slightly smaller companies winning.

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I agree with almost everything here.

One added note would be that Apple has no interest in real standardization. They just want to do whatever the fuck they want and as long as the market is competitive I see no reason why that would be a bad thing. The AppStore is the most important and problematic pressure point around this issue IMO.

But it is funny how people try to explain everything away by trying to latch onto outdated idealistic market philosophies and running into the same walls over and over again.

There is no all encompassing solution for the consumer. It has to be done case by case and here the case is pretty obvious.

 

[EntelechyFuff]

These kind of general "open beats closed " post are getting pretty annoying. In certain issues I agree, in others fuck no.

I just explained why I think general banking apps shouldnt have direct access to the NFC chip, maybe you could comment on that directly. What good would it do me, the consumer, to have the consumer unfriendly banks have access to whatever data they decide.

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As long as I can keep using Apple Pay, no harm, no foul.

Like many alternative apps on iOS for other stuff, until they can beat the convenience and ease of use, it won't matter.

 

[Pwnz]

This forum sometimes is hilarious.

People hate the free market because as we've found, it is not always good for the customer.

When it comes to Apple it's suddenly ideologically correct to free fucking everything, even when it is clear that the consumers will suffer (and the banks profit). All while the people saying this are not even remotely forced to use Apple devices and the competition is stronger than ever.

So this is once again the EU having nothing better to do (which is absolutely terrifying and I'm a staunch federationist) and people just blindly hating Apple because why not.

No matter how many times actual consumers explain the nuances, it always ends the same way.

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Seconded. "Government doesn't understand tech so no regulations woohoo" but also Facebook should be regulated as a publisher which it should.

 

[Principate]

Not just any government, but the notoriously innovative Europe where all the major tech innovations have come from the last 20 years

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Aren't ARM chips designed in England? I didn't realise we were getting into nationalistic nonsense in here.

 

[linkboy]

Yes, but think of the CHOICE!

People loathe Apple but then want Apple to do certain things so they can...continue not to use Apple. It's baffling to me.

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The reason I left Apple was because of how locked down everything is. I hated the fact that I couldn't use alternate keyboards, I hated the fact that I couldn't set Chrome as my default web browser (I know these are things that Apple has since relented on). I still hate the fact that all web browsers on iOS/iPadOS are just reskinned versions of Safari (it's the reason, for example, why there isn't an iOS/iPadOS version of Vivaldi, which makes it even more difficult for me to switch back, as that's my browser of choice, as I need a browser that offers sync support and works with Windows, macOS, Linux and Android).

If iOS/iPadOS were more open, I'd consider switching back as, from a pure hardware perspective, Apple's CPUs are so much better then what Qualcomm, Samsung (I'm in the US, so I don't have to deal with Samsung's Exynos bullshit on their flagship phones) and Mediatek are putting out.

I really like Apple's hardware, even with their computers not really being upgradable anymore, but I don't like their software decisions and that's currently the deal breaker for me.

 

[브라이언]

Apple just can't directly profit from it.

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Why not? It's their service and how would they support the hundreds of servers supporting it?

Opening up NFC payment APIs is good as it makes it possible for other businesses to provide alternatives that lower their costs while not impacting Apple and it increases the ability of the consumer to migrate since their payment options are no longer tied to their phone.

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It also stifles competition by allowing financial institutions to not accept multi-issuer mobile wallets like Apple Pay, and thus force individuals into a bank where their loan is.

Customers can migrate regardless of what OS they are using or migrating to, financial isntitutions can still offer non-NFC payment options so I am usnure how this decision will "increase" the ability for consumers to migrate.

 

[BlackGoku03]

Yah, typical EU overreach here. They do a lot of things right .. but every once in a while really act absurdly on their technology rulings.

The last thing I want is a splintered payments ecosystem in iOS.

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Yeah I'm not seeing any benefit here. Seems like the government needs to stay out of this one.

 

[Dyle]

Why not? It's their service and how would they support the hundreds of servers supporting it?

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The problem here is that Apple is profiting from a hardware feature that they do not allow other companies to use. So there are 2 solutions to comply with the ruling if it stands, either opening it up for anyone to use like on Android or keeping it exclusive but removing Apple's unique way of profiting from it. It's not that they can't make money, they just can't make money and block others from doing so. They can do one or the other but not both simultaneously.

 

[The Albatross]

I mean developers are also consumers are they not?

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Yeah, sure, developers are a type of consumer. Though, typically when we're talking about anti-trust in the modern age when people talk about 'consumers' it's usually a really narrow vision of that, generally just potential customers of a product/platform. In the context of this thread, most people are using 'consumer' in that narrow interpretation, basically potential customers like you and me.

A more progressive interpretation of anti-trust, the type of interpretation that broke up Standard Oil and Bell Telephone in the US, and one that I'm advocating for and other more progressive regulators are advocating for, would have a broader interpretation of the market than the really narrow, conservative republican interpretation that most of the US has today (and a lot of Europe as well, though less so).

Though I still don't understand the "sounds like privilege" point?

 

[spam musubi]

Eh that's cause your mindset is wrong.
Port standardization is good cause it reduces business and consumer costs and increases the ability to migrate since you can carry your charger over to another phone.
Opening up NFC payment APIs is good as it makes it possible for other businesses to provide alternatives that lower their costs while not impacting Apple and it increases the ability of the consumer to migrate since their payment options are no longer tied to their phone.

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I mean, the opposite can also easily be argued.
Port standardization is bad because it impedes innovation on communication and charging technologies. If you're a company who is trying to come up with a new port/cable then you are basically out of business. And now every device has to use this type of port no matter the form factor or size, which can also be limiting towards types of device innovations. Are people switching between smartphone vendors that often that this is a real issue?
The entire rest of the thread has been arguing about why opening up NFC payments can be bad as now you have to deal with more market fragmentation at the POS side (what if your bank app is not compatible with the cashier device?) and is a big data protection nightmare. Why should customers who just want to deal with one company be forced to now use a bunch of different apps for their payments? Because once a particular payment provider have their own app, they will surely limit the capabilities offered to something like Apple Pay.

I'm not saying these arguments are my stance by the way, but it's just a matter of perspective when making your arguments. It's not as cut and dry as you make it.

Either way, your arguments don't really counter my fundamental point that I was making in my post - more competition doesn't automatically mean better market. More competition with good faith actors that are all equally regulated, with a controlled centralized standardization across certain reasonable things is a good market. Pure competition is a libertarian hellhole.

 

[Ascenion]

I mean... By that logic, MS controlled windows and the consumers chose to have Windows ("If they wanted an 'open OS' they could have installed linux and if they wanted a different browser they could have got a Mac").
The "Scope" of a device should not necessarily be something that is defined by the manufactures, since they can just draw the circle around whatever they want to fit their definition and their interest - That is exactly why regulations exist.

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I mean yeah. You don't have to buy an iPhone if you don't like it. You have the freedom not to. My issue is the regulations overstepping their bounds. It's Apple hardware and software they made why should the government be involved if there is no harm to consumers? Why attack a walled garden if the customers like it? I could understand if Apple was the only option, but they aren't. To me this is solely about other companies whining they can't take advantage of a platform they didn't create and aren't owed the right to operate on.