The issue with Hey being blocked by Apple has made me want to build a central list of issues that are problematic and anti-competitive and place a harsh burden on independent developers:<p>https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21296180/apple-hey-email-app-basecamp-rejection-response-controversy-antitrust-regulation<p>I think a short list would be:<p>- requiring / forcing the use of their APIs
- arbitrary reasons for termination of your app
- when deleting + restoring your app all reviews are lost
- No ability for developers to report false reviews<p>... this has been evolving for a decade or more so would be nice to hear what you guys thing as I'm sure I'm missing some.
The fact that if Apple ever copies you, they will have a 30% margin over you (& 15% after first year) with subscriptions. Not sure if you have them listed but Spotify made a big deal of this and even hired some animators to make this video:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyZ5jzxsCmw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyZ5jzxsCmw</a><p>As far as I understand Apple basically said, "we do the work to maintain the app store" which is true, but Spotify sure put a lot of effort into that video. 30% IMO is too high. Discussion:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19377322" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19377322</a>
Not exactly relevant but thought you may find interesting.
<a href="https://youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com/" rel="nofollow">https://youdownloadtheappanditdoesntwork.com/</a>
Is anyone interested in also building a list of the positives?<p>There is a general call for the dismantling or regulation of the App Store or forcing it to be possible to install other app stores.<p>If we are going to list the burdens, we should also list the benefits.<p>For example - preventing governments from forcing privacy destroying apps on people. E.g. the UK is now using Apple and Google’s decentralized API rather than sending everyone’s location data to Palantir.<p>Forcing the use of APIs, also protects the user against resource misuse - I.e. app that drain the battery or waste bandwidth etc.<p>Any notion of a ‘burden’ is relative to some counterfactual.<p>Do we mean the burden would be reduced if we were dealing with more stores?<p>Or do we mean compared to how things were before there was an App Store?<p>Or do we mean we want the government to make the rules rather than Apple?<p>Apple is imperfectly protecting consumers from various kinds of harm done by bad developers.<p>In other industries
when there is no store or trusted broker the government ends up regulating the suppliers with licensing.<p>Would you prefer to need a software development license and liability insurance over complying with Apple’s rules?<p>What’s your opinion of cookie dialogs on every web app?<p>That’s the direct result of the web being an open space that is regulated by governments rather than Apple.