Comments on: Apple’s Antitrust Problem (Part 2)

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:26:40 +0000

Apple could solve a lot of problems, and hurt Amazon, if they cut their 30% commission:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/317406-apple-s-commission-strategy-could-squeeze-amazon

By: John

John — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:17:22 +0000

The problem with all this anti-competitive stuff is that it is nonsense. Apple are under no obligation to support any third party app and when the iPhone was first released, they didn’t. You mention Walmart but forget to mention that the magazines sold in Walmart are on sale or return and that Walmart chooses which magazines to stock, still Walmart doesn’t ask for a cut of subscriptions so that doesn’t totally undermine your case. For that we need to turn to the games console market.

The fact that the lawyers you have spoken to don’t seem to be aware of that market or how it operates shows their opinion to be, if not worthless, clueless.

By: Cheap Dr Dre Headphones

Cheap Dr Dre Headphones — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:42:49 +0000

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By: Denis

Denis — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:51:20 +0000

Speaking as a consumer, publishers don’t get my data when I buy their stuff offline. I fail to see why they should be entitled to any of it online.

I realize that they do get this data if I subscribe offline. But I do not want them to have it. Let alone sell it, which — like many other companies — they currently do and abuse.

So cheers to Apple if their policies force firms to revisit intrusive and obsolete business models.

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:57:11 +0000

“setting aside the hectoring of zealots…”

I love it! Do I have your permission to use that?

By: Consume + Purchase | Butcher, Baker

Consume + Purchase | Butcher, Baker — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:38:49 +0000

[...] the now vexing customer data issue can be resolved, some electronic publishing models appear to have a clear path forward. After [...]

By: Grant Gibson

Grant Gibson — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:37:47 +0000

Ok, so with the customer data myth debunked and the 30% total distribution costs looking like much less of an issue, does that now leave newspapers with a sustainable model? I suspect not, which suggests those aren’t the real issues. So what are? Less people are willing to pay less for the opinion of an averagely informed few. How do we fix THAT?!

By: kevin

kevin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:27:32 +0000

FF, have you used any iPhone/iPad apps? Many of the ones I’ve used have pages where one can provide all sorts of information about oneself, or even jump out of the app to a Safari web page. There are apps that can’t even be used unless you create an account with(and give up info about yourself to) the app’s service provider.

As Morrison said, it seems the only prohibition is linking directly to a page where you buy something for use/consumption within the app. (I can certainly buy things for use outside of the app.)

By: Competition and Intrusion | Exact Editions | Blog

Competition and Intrusion | Exact Editions | Blog — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:27:08 +0000

[...] Filloux has a bit of a rant about Apple’s vulnerability to charges of monopoly for its very successful control of the ‘tablet’ market and the rather strict rules [...]

By: Mark Morrison

Mark Morrison — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:01:05 +0000

@HowCome: I normally don’t respond to trolls like you, but let me set the record straight… You can definitely link to a developer support page from within your app as I’ve done it and seen it done many times. There is even a field for a developer support url when you upload your app (It’s visible in iTunes connect). This is a “customer-relation” page.

What you CAN’T do is provide a way to purchase content used inside of your app with an external url. That’s why Amazon can’t link to their website from within the Kindle app.

By: Grant Gibson

Grant Gibson — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:37:07 +0000

Just to expand on Mark Morrison’s point… The traditional costs that Apple distribution removes include: print, distribution, retailer commission, billing and credit control. Find me a traditional news org that spends less than 30% of the *cover price* on those things and I’ll be impressed.
Again, I’m not suggesting for a second that newspapers are in a great position, simply that neither Apple’s dominant position nor their 30% commission represent either a cause or solution to the problems.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:14:30 +0000

You didn’t deal with the substantive issue – the first and main issue – regarding Apple and it’s “monopoly” practices . Are they in a monopoly position or not. Obviously not in phones, or PC’s. So you retreated back to the tablet market. The statistics you are showing there are for web usage, which doesn’t equal – as I assume you know – sales. People use the web more on the iPad, for whatever reason. The actual % of tablets Apple has is about 70%, and falling. Below 70% and there are no monopoly issues, no more than there are for the xBox and it’s deals with content providers.

Would Apple be a bit monopolistic were it a monopoly. I think so, in certain regards, but it is not a monopoly so the question is moot.

By: Grant Gibson

Grant Gibson — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:00:25 +0000

Stephen Howard-Sarin is spot on – there is no issue with gathering user data. The newspaper doesn’t get my credit card details (good!) but they can ask for anything else, including asking me to sign in to their service and track my usage. No problems there.
Separately, FF’s statement “Wrong answer, for three reasons…” (re Apple’s 30%) goes on to make some odd arguments. Rather than arguing against the 30% the article goes on to argue that the *overall* revenue is too low. That’s a structural problem, not a problem with the 30%.
And the point that digital ads generate “a fifth or a tenth” of print ad revenue is disingenuous. You’re comparing web MPUs to print pages. You should be comparing print pages to tablet full page ads, where you’ll find much more parity.
So, in my view, this article doesn’t highlight any problems of Apple’s making – instead, they’re all structural problems of old media. Want to make the brave new world as effective for your news org as it is for a startup? Then start acting like a startup.

By: HowCome

HowCome — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:03:25 +0000

@Morrison : “I don’t know where you get your facts from, but this is wrong.”

Have you *ever* tried to build and sell a public application for iPhone even once in your lifetime ? You apparently don’t care about blindingly claiming a lie on something you don’t know about.

Any application which features a link, even hidden and non-prominent, towards the developper website, on which it would be possible to log-in and subscribe outside of the close control of Apple, is blacklisted.

By: Stephen Howard-Sarin

Stephen Howard-Sarin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:38:16 +0000

Apple’s “we own it” customer-data policy turns out to be less restrictive in practice, I think, based on what I see on my iPad. Many popular apps — Instapaper, Dropbox, Marvel Comics (which is preinstalled!) — prompt the user to log in to a cloud service. Some require such an account.

Bang! Instant user data access for the publisher. The iPad usage, and any in-app purchases, are connected to a unique user ID and (most likely) email address that the publisher controls. This seems quite do-able and live-able for media businesses. It’s better than an anonymous Web user on your site.

To add more capability, Urban Airship and other companies sell in-app code that lets publishers push out notifications to iPad users. So the app not only can harvest the uniquely identifiable user data, it becomes a direct channel of publisher communication. Not so bad!

By: tom B

tom B — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:25:22 +0000

Just call the iPad a “computer” instead of a “tablet” and the antitrust issue is seen in its proper light: absurd. Apple controls about 5% of the global computer market in spite of the fact they’ve had a much better OS than MSFT from day one (a gap that widened considerably after the launch of OS X). Bring the issue up on the day when they get to 50% computer market share.

If you say Apple has a customer data issue– that is also absurd. Amazon, also, has extensive customer records.

WRT the 30% fee, its not a biggie to me; I mostly consume physical media– “shiny discs”; paper magazines. I prefer the superior quality and convenience.

I agree with Jean Paul on Mother Theresa: she was far from a saint, in my view.

By: riverlaw

riverlaw — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:20:40 +0000

I like that apple contains what publications can do with my data. I hate getting a much of magazines or something in the mail after I sign up for something else. That has worth to me and it may be worth it for publications sacrifice some control to get me as a customer.

By: jean-paul buquet

jean-paul buquet — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:25:43 +0000

Good column, interesting and provocative, thank you.
As an aside, i am not certain that comparing Steve Jobs to Mother Teresa would be a great idea, and much better that an equivalence to Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton — at least after reading Christopher Hitchens’ ‘The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice’. To each one their anti-hero!

By: Mark Morrison

Mark Morrison — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:12:04 +0000

“Again, while 30% is fair for a startup with no marketing and distribution system whatsoever, it remains quite high for big companies who already have large infrastructures.”

Who decides what’s fair? You? Large companies?. I’ve worked for a few large companies and they always seem to have lots of people on payroll that don’t do anything. Maybe the problem is with them and not Apple.

“On the contrary, in the app-world, you can’t even have a link sending the user to a customer-relation pages.”

I don’t know where you get your facts from, but this is wrong.

By: Louije

Louije — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:21:14 +0000

I was under the impression that VAT was included in the 30%—or were you referring to other taxes?