22 ms·

Phones are tools so why is it that whenever those tools are used in a way where money changes hands, the maker of that tool gets some of the revenue? Imagine a

Phones are tools so why is it that whenever those tools are used in a way where money changes hands, the maker of that tool gets some of the revenue? Imagine a tool company demanding a cut of the revenue a building generates because their tools were/are used during the construction/maintenance of that building. Everyone using the tool already paid for the tool!

tpmoney 2y ago
Without comment on specifically whether or not Apples actions are reasonable, I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions. That is, if I buy a paint sprayer, and combine the sprayer with paint sold at Home Depot that a 3rd party maliciously contaminated with caustic chemicals and that combination of sprayer and caustic chemicals caused a reaction in the paint that melts my walls, no one expects the sprayer manufacturer to give me a free new sprayer or even upgrade my current sprayer to be hardened against 3rd party contamination. On the other hand if NFC protocols today are discovered in 3 years to have a flaw that 3rd parties are using to steal financial data, it’s Apple whose name will be dragged if they only make a change to NFC in newer model phones.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Your comparison doesn't make sense to me: Isn't it much more like Home Depot selling a paint sprayer that, under some circumstances, blows up the attached can of paint? That would absolutely mandate a product recall! Apple isn't expected to fix bugs in a third party's app using their APIs, but they're totally expected to fix those APIs, should they be faulty (conceptually or in their implementation). Obviously that costs money, which they can make either from the sales of the phone alone, or via some subscription model for ongoing updates (remember when OS updates used to be paid? A new OS X version used to cost a hundred bucks!). To stick with the Home Depot example: Why should the manufacturers of third party paint cartridges pay for Home Depot's product safety obligations?
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    > Apple isn't expected to fix bugs in a third party's app using their APIs, but they're totally expected to fix those APIs, should they be faulty (conceptually or in their implementation). The problem is what we expect to be fixed for a software product and a hardware product are two different things. If you buy a car, and the next year the car company discovers they can get even more fuel efficiency with a different piston design, or they can improve crash safety with new airbag locations, we don't expect car manufacturers to recall all the current model year cars. We only expect recalls for failure to perform the expected functions that were expected at the time of sale. On the other hand, when a new version of SSL or TLS is released, when root CA certs expire or change, when new Wi-Fi encryption standards are released, we expect those updates to our old devices, almost always expected gratis and for many years after the initial sale. Look at the substantial amount of complaining every time some software company like Apple or Google announce the end of software support for some old hardware. We treat these devices differently from a tool you buy at the hardware store. And yes, Apple is expected to issue fixes bugs that 3rd parties bring to the table. Which is exactly what expecting updates for things like stronger encryption cyphers and the like are. They sold you a device that can speak Protocol X, developed by a 3rd party. You use that device to speak Protocol X to another 3rd party device or service. Yet another 3rd party invents some way to exploit Protocol X to do nefarious things. And everyone who bought the Apple device last year absolutely 100% expects apple to release an update when Protocol X++ is released. And to be clear, I'm not saying this is unreasonable, but it's worth noting as you point out that software updates used to cost money (remember the annual "why is apple charging us for a point release?" song and dance?). And we should remember that developing software for platforms used to cost money too. A lot of money. How much were Visual Studio licenses? Code Warrior? A MS developer network license? Or check out Qualcom's BREW program for the multi thousand dollar up front process to put "bejeweled" on a flip phone. When companies stopped charging for OS updates and developer kits and SDKs, the money needed to make those things didn't stop needing to be made. We talk a lot around here about the lack of funding for open source projects. Well software and software development has a value. How much is it worth, and how many new things are we allowed to demand before the price has to go up somehow? >To stick with the Home Depot example: Why should the manufacturers of third party paint cartridges pay for Home Depot's product safety obligations? I suspect that if a paint company wanted to use Home Depot's credit card terminals to do sales for a custom sales process of paint accessories to Home Depot customers that Home Depot would want a cut of that.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Apple makes famously insane margins off each iPhone sold. I don't think they can legitimately fall back on the "but we can't support it otherwise", since they already do. The cost of developing new iOS builds is amortized by the hardware they sell and the profit they rake in. Even when service revenue was a shadow of what it is today and Apple was far less liquid, they had no problem supporting their hardware. In professional industries like avionics, automation and fabrication, open tooling and security maintenance is the baseline expectation. It's only in captive consumer markets that businesses can convince their customers that they don't want the freedom to use what they paid for.
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    >I don't think they can legitimately fall back on the "but we can't support it otherwise", since they already do. The cost of developing new iOS builds is amortized by the hardware they sell and the profit they rake in. Those costs are amortized over the hardware sales specifically based on the current revenue model of the iOS platform. If you force a change in the model, or force them to produce new APIs and SDKs they had no intention of making and therefor no need to amortize, then I think yes they can fall back on "we can't support it otherwise". The real simple question that has been never been answered in this entire discussion over and over again is what is the fair market value of Apple's SDKs, access to their platform and the support that provide for that platform if its not amortized over hardware sales and current revenue split agreements? Forget even trying to answer that for the entire iOS platform. If Apple puts NFC chips in their phones, and then: 1) Has to write an entire public SDK they weren't intending to write 2) That allows access to those chips outside their specific sanctioned and envisions use case 3) That requires providing ongoing support for that SDK and the uses of it outside their specific sanctioned use case 4) Expands their security threat surface for the underlying secure hardware that SDK will interact with and requires more development to secure it How much money is that worth in cold hard cash up front per developer per update per hardware revision?
    - dwallin 2y ago
      Apple is selling a platform to end users and they hold durable market power with that platform, due to high switching costs and minimal alternatives. End users consume services by various third parties on the platform. In addition Apple is also offering services on the platform that compete with those third parties. It's entirely fair to say to Apple (and companies in similar oligopoly positions) that if you want to compete with third parties on your platform then you need to do so on a level playing field. It's not then about forcing Apple to build a feature at no cost, but rather declaring that Apple built their NFC feature improperly, by building it in a way that prevented competitor use, illegally privileging their own competing services. They can either remove the feature or build it properly, according to relevant law.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  *I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions. This is an actual issue in the real world that is dealt with using "support contracts." They've only been around for a few centuries or so... Apple's problems are those of its own making. And if it keeps trying to bait regulators like this, it may soon find itself referred to as "Ma Apple" and its former divisions as "Baby Apples."
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    So which of the following "support contracts" do we suppose the EU would be happy with and doesn't violate the DMA? Paid iOS updates in the EU? I remind you that the EU argued that a paid ad free version of Facebook's services violates the DMA. A per-install fee for services developed with Apple's SDKs? That's basically the CTF and that hasn't been met with resounding happiness. A flat revenue sharing agreement a-la most of the major game engines? That's the core iOS platform model that the DMA is partially a response to. I suppose we could go back to multi-thousand dollar up front per seat SDK licenses on annual contracts the way folks like Microsoft, Oracle, Qualcomm, Blackberry and Apple used to do, but that really hurts the smaller developers and is part of why the iOS model was such a huge deal when it was first announced. Look, I'm not arguing that Apple isn't and doesn't make moves that are short sighted and seem purposefully designed to piss off the regulators. But I also don't actually see any option that isn't "free, unlimited, unrestricted access to all of Apple's SDKs and libraries indefinitely" that will ultimately satisfy. No one seems to have an answer for what model Apple can use that A) Covers their costs and B) Allows them to continue to do whatever it is that makes it such that iOS does all these things that Android and Android vendors can't apparently do despite being more open and free
    - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
      > Look, I'm not arguing that Apple isn't and doesn't make moves that are short sighted and seem purposefully designed to piss off the regulators. But I also don't actually see any option that isn't "free, unlimited, unrestricted access to all of Apple's SDKs and libraries indefinitely" that will ultimately satisfy. No one seems to have an answer for what model Apple can use I do, hardware sales should be more than enough. They already cover the device's (and iOS's) R&D costs with more money to spare. This whole brouhaha is due to them simply wanting more, not because they wouldn't survive/profit at all without their current measures.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
  With that logic maybe banks and credit card companies should start skimming 30% off each transaction. [EDIT] They should also strong-arm you to prevent you mentioning cash as an alternative.
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    Credit cards do already skim a percentage off every transaction you make with them and, until very recently and an act of congress, actually did restrict vendors from offering a separate price for cash transactions. They were perhaps not so bold as to try and claim 15-30% of the gross. Notably stores accept (or refuse) various credit cards in part due to their percentage of the take, with AmEx being notoriously higher than others.

tpmoney 2y ago

Without comment on specifically whether or not Apples actions are reasonable, I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions. That is, if I buy a paint sprayer, and combine the sprayer with paint sold at Home Depot that a 3rd party maliciously contaminated with caustic chemicals and that combination of sprayer and caustic chemicals caused a reaction in the paint that melts my walls, no one expects the sprayer manufacturer to give me a free new sprayer or even upgrade my current sprayer to be hardened against 3rd party contamination. On the other hand if NFC protocols today are discovered in 3 years to have a flaw that 3rd parties are using to steal financial data, it’s Apple whose name will be dragged if they only make a change to NFC in newer model phones.

lxgr 2y ago
Your comparison doesn't make sense to me: Isn't it much more like Home Depot selling a paint sprayer that, under some circumstances, blows up the attached can of paint? That would absolutely mandate a product recall! Apple isn't expected to fix bugs in a third party's app using their APIs, but they're totally expected to fix those APIs, should they be faulty (conceptually or in their implementation). Obviously that costs money, which they can make either from the sales of the phone alone, or via some subscription model for ongoing updates (remember when OS updates used to be paid? A new OS X version used to cost a hundred bucks!). To stick with the Home Depot example: Why should the manufacturers of third party paint cartridges pay for Home Depot's product safety obligations?
- tpmoney 2y ago
  > Apple isn't expected to fix bugs in a third party's app using their APIs, but they're totally expected to fix those APIs, should they be faulty (conceptually or in their implementation). The problem is what we expect to be fixed for a software product and a hardware product are two different things. If you buy a car, and the next year the car company discovers they can get even more fuel efficiency with a different piston design, or they can improve crash safety with new airbag locations, we don't expect car manufacturers to recall all the current model year cars. We only expect recalls for failure to perform the expected functions that were expected at the time of sale. On the other hand, when a new version of SSL or TLS is released, when root CA certs expire or change, when new Wi-Fi encryption standards are released, we expect those updates to our old devices, almost always expected gratis and for many years after the initial sale. Look at the substantial amount of complaining every time some software company like Apple or Google announce the end of software support for some old hardware. We treat these devices differently from a tool you buy at the hardware store. And yes, Apple is expected to issue fixes bugs that 3rd parties bring to the table. Which is exactly what expecting updates for things like stronger encryption cyphers and the like are. They sold you a device that can speak Protocol X, developed by a 3rd party. You use that device to speak Protocol X to another 3rd party device or service. Yet another 3rd party invents some way to exploit Protocol X to do nefarious things. And everyone who bought the Apple device last year absolutely 100% expects apple to release an update when Protocol X++ is released. And to be clear, I'm not saying this is unreasonable, but it's worth noting as you point out that software updates used to cost money (remember the annual "why is apple charging us for a point release?" song and dance?). And we should remember that developing software for platforms used to cost money too. A lot of money. How much were Visual Studio licenses? Code Warrior? A MS developer network license? Or check out Qualcom's BREW program for the multi thousand dollar up front process to put "bejeweled" on a flip phone. When companies stopped charging for OS updates and developer kits and SDKs, the money needed to make those things didn't stop needing to be made. We talk a lot around here about the lack of funding for open source projects. Well software and software development has a value. How much is it worth, and how many new things are we allowed to demand before the price has to go up somehow? >To stick with the Home Depot example: Why should the manufacturers of third party paint cartridges pay for Home Depot's product safety obligations? I suspect that if a paint company wanted to use Home Depot's credit card terminals to do sales for a custom sales process of paint accessories to Home Depot customers that Home Depot would want a cut of that.
talldayo 2y ago
Apple makes famously insane margins off each iPhone sold. I don't think they can legitimately fall back on the "but we can't support it otherwise", since they already do. The cost of developing new iOS builds is amortized by the hardware they sell and the profit they rake in. Even when service revenue was a shadow of what it is today and Apple was far less liquid, they had no problem supporting their hardware. In professional industries like avionics, automation and fabrication, open tooling and security maintenance is the baseline expectation. It's only in captive consumer markets that businesses can convince their customers that they don't want the freedom to use what they paid for.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  >I don't think they can legitimately fall back on the "but we can't support it otherwise", since they already do. The cost of developing new iOS builds is amortized by the hardware they sell and the profit they rake in. Those costs are amortized over the hardware sales specifically based on the current revenue model of the iOS platform. If you force a change in the model, or force them to produce new APIs and SDKs they had no intention of making and therefor no need to amortize, then I think yes they can fall back on "we can't support it otherwise". The real simple question that has been never been answered in this entire discussion over and over again is what is the fair market value of Apple's SDKs, access to their platform and the support that provide for that platform if its not amortized over hardware sales and current revenue split agreements? Forget even trying to answer that for the entire iOS platform. If Apple puts NFC chips in their phones, and then: 1) Has to write an entire public SDK they weren't intending to write 2) That allows access to those chips outside their specific sanctioned and envisions use case 3) That requires providing ongoing support for that SDK and the uses of it outside their specific sanctioned use case 4) Expands their security threat surface for the underlying secure hardware that SDK will interact with and requires more development to secure it How much money is that worth in cold hard cash up front per developer per update per hardware revision?
  - dwallin 2y ago
    Apple is selling a platform to end users and they hold durable market power with that platform, due to high switching costs and minimal alternatives. End users consume services by various third parties on the platform. In addition Apple is also offering services on the platform that compete with those third parties. It's entirely fair to say to Apple (and companies in similar oligopoly positions) that if you want to compete with third parties on your platform then you need to do so on a level playing field. It's not then about forcing Apple to build a feature at no cost, but rather declaring that Apple built their NFC feature improperly, by building it in a way that prevented competitor use, illegally privileging their own competing services. They can either remove the feature or build it properly, according to relevant law.
gamblor956 2y ago
*I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions. This is an actual issue in the real world that is dealt with using "support contracts." They've only been around for a few centuries or so... Apple's problems are those of its own making. And if it keeps trying to bait regulators like this, it may soon find itself referred to as "Ma Apple" and its former divisions as "Baby Apples."
- tpmoney 2y ago
  So which of the following "support contracts" do we suppose the EU would be happy with and doesn't violate the DMA? Paid iOS updates in the EU? I remind you that the EU argued that a paid ad free version of Facebook's services violates the DMA. A per-install fee for services developed with Apple's SDKs? That's basically the CTF and that hasn't been met with resounding happiness. A flat revenue sharing agreement a-la most of the major game engines? That's the core iOS platform model that the DMA is partially a response to. I suppose we could go back to multi-thousand dollar up front per seat SDK licenses on annual contracts the way folks like Microsoft, Oracle, Qualcomm, Blackberry and Apple used to do, but that really hurts the smaller developers and is part of why the iOS model was such a huge deal when it was first announced. Look, I'm not arguing that Apple isn't and doesn't make moves that are short sighted and seem purposefully designed to piss off the regulators. But I also don't actually see any option that isn't "free, unlimited, unrestricted access to all of Apple's SDKs and libraries indefinitely" that will ultimately satisfy. No one seems to have an answer for what model Apple can use that A) Covers their costs and B) Allows them to continue to do whatever it is that makes it such that iOS does all these things that Android and Android vendors can't apparently do despite being more open and free
  - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
    > Look, I'm not arguing that Apple isn't and doesn't make moves that are short sighted and seem purposefully designed to piss off the regulators. But I also don't actually see any option that isn't "free, unlimited, unrestricted access to all of Apple's SDKs and libraries indefinitely" that will ultimately satisfy. No one seems to have an answer for what model Apple can use I do, hardware sales should be more than enough. They already cover the device's (and iOS's) R&D costs with more money to spare. This whole brouhaha is due to them simply wanting more, not because they wouldn't survive/profit at all without their current measures.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
With that logic maybe banks and credit card companies should start skimming 30% off each transaction. [EDIT] They should also strong-arm you to prevent you mentioning cash as an alternative.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  Credit cards do already skim a percentage off every transaction you make with them and, until very recently and an act of congress, actually did restrict vendors from offering a separate price for cash transactions. They were perhaps not so bold as to try and claim 15-30% of the gross. Notably stores accept (or refuse) various credit cards in part due to their percentage of the take, with AmEx being notoriously higher than others.