So, everything else that has happened up to now, could be described as minor losses, for Apple and Google.
This is not such a case though. This is a major loss for them.
For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on, and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think that.
Because, the writing has been on the wall, for quite a while now, for their iron grip on their app store payments.
If it wasn't going to be the epic lawsuit, it was going to be a different lawsuit in the US, or another country. Or if all that didn't work, it was going to be laws such as this, that blow the doors wide open, and spell doom for these closed systems.
> For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on, and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think that.
Or perhaps you need to go re-read the comments? I don't recall people writing "Apple and Google are in the right and deserve to win" as much as I recall people writing "Apple and Google are wrong and deserve to lose" and "30% is unfair os they deserve to lose", and people pointing out that the current system does have benefits.
I recall people saying that they don't think their behaviour is outright illegal, or doesn't qualify as antitrust in the US. Obviously regulation supersedes this.
In fact, making regulatory laws to force changes in the way they are behaving, implies that it's not illegal now, so seems to vindicate the people saying that?
> For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on, and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think that.
To the extent that I've seen this point on HN, it has always been in the context that there is no law in the US which prohibits what Apple or Google are doing, and hence it would be difficult for regulators to win without new laws or rules in place. I'm not American, so I can't say whether those people were right or not, but I think it would've been pretty ridiculous if anyone said there would never be laws against it.
I agree but I'm curious about how it will play out in practice. Apple charges $99/year just to publish apps on the store and then takes 30% of the payments. If forced, will they leave just the $99 payment or will they change it to, say, "pay more if you want your payment processor" or "you can use your payment processor but you still owe us 15%"?
Many platforms require fees to sell on them. eBay for example has asked for a percentage for years, even if it did not handle payments at all.
Are Apple and Google going to be forced to offer the service (the App Store) for free because of their duopoly?
They wouldn't be forced to offer their services for free.
However laws can and do regulate what constitutes a "fair" price for a certain service.
In some countries the quasi/effective/total monopoly ISP is forced to rent their last mile phone cables to competitors for a regulated price.
A similar thing could happen to Apple and Google with a government agency deciding what they are allowed to charge for their services of providing the app store and the OS.
Or they could be forced to allow competing app stores with the same privileges as their own (beyond what is "technically" possible on Android).
Either way it looks like they'll loose their iron grip over on customers phones (in some countries at least). That's the price of effectively monopolizing a market and getting very rich doing it.
This is not such a case though. This is a major loss for them.
For all the hacker new commenters, who have been commenting on this topic, for the year that the drama has been going on, and were convinced that Apple and Google were going to win this fight.... well you need to re-evaluate what made you think that.
Because, the writing has been on the wall, for quite a while now, for their iron grip on their app store payments.
If it wasn't going to be the epic lawsuit, it was going to be a different lawsuit in the US, or another country. Or if all that didn't work, it was going to be laws such as this, that blow the doors wide open, and spell doom for these closed systems.