> Just like Wal-Mart and Kroger

You've been repeating this flawed comparison for years. It's getting really stale.

The App Store is markedly unlike Wal-Mart or Kroger, in that a user cannot buy one thing from one store and another thing from the other. This would be like buying a Kroger-branded car and then being forbidden from entering the Wal-Mart parking lot. The problem with the App Store is not Apple's control over it and the Apple-branded experience - it is the exclusion of alternative and competing schemes that could naturally drive down their own prices.

If Wal-Mart or Kroger did this, they would be in the same hot water as Apple. Probably quite a bit worse, since people understand the commoditization of groceries better than software.

> That's a much more interesting and important "problem" to solve

No it's not. The industry has no interest in overturning it, if there was commercial demand for an innovative third platform then we'd see one. The crux of this issue is Apple becoming a services company and then denying competing services from competing on equal grounds. It cannot get any clearer than that.

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ericmay 2 days ago | parent [-]

> You've been repeating this flawed comparison for years. It's getting really stale.

Well I've been repeating it because it's still true.

> The App Store is markedly unlike Wal-Mart or Kroger, in that a user cannot buy one thing from one store and another thing from the other.

You're just shifting around a definition of store to fit your argument. If you want to be consistent, it's more like you can't go in to Kroger and demand to buy products sold at Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart prices. You're in a different store.

> No it's not. The industry has no interest in overturning it, if there was commercial demand for an innovative third platform then we'd see one.

So the market is clearly saying "this works and we like it". It's just that the lawyers and accountants want to shift which giant corporation gets to keep more of whatever fee percentage.

> The crux of this issue is Apple becoming a services company and then denying competing services from competing on equal grounds. It cannot get any clearer than that.

Equality will never exist on these platforms, nor is equality necessarily something that's desired. Every company on earth that operates any sort of marketplace or store sets rules and boundaries that restrict competition. You're just mad about Apple/Google doing it because some algorithm decided it was an important issue for you. Do you know why that's true? Because you're sitting here arguing about Apple/Google doing it and not every other company doing it.

Even worse is that these changes that you champion have resulted in no price reductions, no "innovation", and have degraded features that I personally like and enjoy.

	▲	bigyabai 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> it's more like you can't go in to Kroger and demand to buy products sold at Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart prices. You don't have to. Kroger and Wal-Mart are completely commoditized options providing the same service. There is fundamentally no difference from buying at one store vs the other; you can do both. If someone goes into Kroger demanding to buy Wal-Mart products at Wal-Mart prices, they're in luck; Wal-Mart exists. There is no lock-in to either store or the options they provide. You're describing a boogeyman that doesn't exist because the greater grocery market is functional and competitive. The same opportunity does not exist for customers of the App Store. Apps themselves are entirely commoditized; it's only the App Store that is a deliberate monopoly. That has been consistent since the launch of the iPhone and packaging of iOS applications as infinitely reproducible .IPA files. > So the market is clearly saying "this works and we like it". That's how most monopolies work, yes. Unfortunately, "the market" won't be asked to testify to whether or not they like or enjoy a monopoly, but whether it causes anti-competitive damages. > You're just mad about Apple/Google doing it because some algorithm decided it was an important issue for you. I cannot parse what you're even trying to accuse me of in this sentence. This is the Y Combinator forum. We discuss monopolies like AdSense and the App Store because they harm the economy, not because Instagram Reels showed me a Louis Rossman short.