My family is Italian, and I go back as often as I can. Italy is run by the mafia. The Italian justice system, media and givernment will do anything to distract the people away from the important issues. Amanda Knox is the best example. This is another one. Plus European countries have a history of protectionist economic policies, from tarrifs to this. The best thing Apple can do at this point is cut a deal.
Interesting that countries where innovation is either stagnant or nonexistent have the most active regulatory systems in place to constantly suck the profits out of those who work hard to raise themselves up through accomplishment and merit. This ends up being another cost of doing business that cuts across all markets and gets passed on to all consumers. It's just another punitive Success Tax on those who Do that rewards those who Don't.
It's not the pity that matters. It's the reality. It's a younger generation growing either without jobs because of a morbid economy (Spain & Greece) or stuck in dead-end jobs because employers find it almost impossible to weed out the lazy and talentless (France). That exists here too. I saw it when I worked for Boeing. But the scale is far greater and the roots run much deeper.
And of course this country under the Democrats are lurching down the same path. I recently watch interviews of students at George Washington University about the possibility of Hillary as President. What was remarkable was that virtually none of those students were asking if she was qualified for the job. All they saw were quotas. Obama, perhaps the least capable person ever elected to the Presidency, had filled the black quota. Now it was time to fill the woman quota. When asked point blank, most could not name anything she'd done as Secretary of State. Thinking along those lines simply did not occur to them.
There was, however, one exceptionally clueless guy who named Benghazi as her chief success, the first murder of a U.S. ambassador since the 1970s. I found that amusing in a sick sort of way. Four members of our embassy were killed despite their advance warnings about the danger and nothing was done during the hours-long attacks to rescue them. If that's a success, they we can only conclude that the deaths of eight embassy staff would be an even greater success and the deaths of twenty would put Hillary on the fast-track for the Noble Peace Prize.
There's a near perfect contrast. Just after he took over the British Navy just before WWI, Winston Churchill was at a party when someone informed him that, due to the long European peace, the navy's vast stores of munitions were almost unguarded. Churchill immediately left the party, called British army leaders and had troops sent that night to guard those stores until the navy could establish its own guards.
That's real leadership and its something that those trapped in the entitlement mentality don't grasp. In Europe, it's not being fired even though lazy and incompetent. Here it's becoming President after either never done anything of significance in public life (Obama) or having no success after over two decades in the national spotlight (Hillary). So no, there's nothing bad about Europe that isn't also true of the U.S. And the same is true at the consumer protection level, where no amount of consumer stupidity should have adverse consequences.
One final comment. Europe's problem isn't that it has problems. Every country has those. Europe's problem is that all too many Europeans are even willing to consider that their problems really are problems. It's a classic illustration of a civilization going down because it refuses to recognize its ills.
Civilization going down. We just have different priorities. What's the point of constant growth if it comes at the cost of the welfare of the population or of the environment. Libertarianism is as much an utopia as communism. We don't have 50% of the population living in near poverty like in the USA. We don't care about being competitive. That's not our future. We are not going to play your game anymore. The countries where people live the best are in Europe. That's what counts.
I see Fremium as a good compromise between developers and customers. Traditionally you just paid once for software and then you owned it. But developers would prefer to move people to a subscrition model so they have a more predictable revenue stream (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud). Freemium allows customers to pay once and own something, while still giving developers a more predictable revenue stream because there's all these little ongoing purchases. I don't think it's some sort of trick that needs to be investigated.
I see Fremium as a good compromise between developers and customers. Traditionally you just paid once for software and then you owned it. But developers would prefer to move people to a subscrition model so they have a more predictable revenue stream (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud). Freemium allows customers to pay once and own something, while still giving developers a more predictable revenue stream because there's all these little ongoing purchases. I don't think it's some sort of trick that needs to be investigated.
Microtransactions are good, if not used for exploitation. Freemium is actually a very good model because it stops piracy.
But instead of "Let's remove the ads and add normal features to the app for $1.99", developers like EA want "Let's get you another bag-full of otiose coins that help you complete the level, for $9.99. If you want to unlock a set of another 5 levels, a special offer for you just today, $19. Unlock a bag of 20000 coins which you can use for another day for just $99."
The sad thing is, everybody is following the unscrupulous 'EA-freemium' method for making tons of money. This is why users hate freemium model. I'm sure if they are a bit reasonable, freemium could actually be a very effective method of stopping piracy, and at the same time giving the same set of features to the users for the same price.
My family is Italian, and I go back as often as I can. Italy is run by the mafia. The Italian justice system, media and givernment will do anything to distract the people away from the important issues. Amanda Knox is the best example. This is another one. Plus European countries have a history of protectionist economic policies, from tarrifs to this. The best thing Apple can do at this point is cut a deal.
On EU's behalf I would like to argue that many of the little regulations, some of which appear ridiculous and exaggerated, hence become news items --often out of context--, are part of a bigger plan to unify standards among a wildly diverse collection of nations. Imagine what would happen if products in the US would all be different (and incompatible) between states. These EU nations are playing hard to get when it comes to giving up some of their authority to the EU, because they haven't made the click that they should evolve into the states of a federation. The local politicians are to blame, and so is the rather undemocratic structure at the EU level.
On the other hand, the AppStore, at some point became infested with a free and a paying version of many apps (or many variants of the same app, adding to the confusion when searching in the AppStore). Apple has tried to limit this evolution, because that also led to abuse from software developers trying to market umpteen versions of their app (think Angry Birds). This is one of the reasons we see more fremium apps these days.
IMHO, fremium apps are the way to go, if this is properly communicated. Maybe a plugin architecture could offer an alternative way of adding paid features, but then you can bet that there will be in-app advertising promoting these plugins. This would amount to the same for the consumers.
There is a European consumer law that clearly states that the full conditions of any product or service should be known to the consumer when he/she buys the product or service. And I think that in principal this is a great way to protect the consumer against some unacceptable business practices. As such after the fact conditions cannot be imposed by the suppliers to the consumer market. So if an initially free game requires in app purchase to make progress, the user should be informed upfront (when he makes the purchase) that an app purchase is necessary to reach the end of the game. The Italian government is investigating whether Apple and Google are compliant to this law or not. So nobody is accused of anything, but it would not hurt if both instructed their game developers to be more clear on the matter. PS. A nice side effect of this European consumer law is that the EULAs that Apple, Microsoft and others present to the consumers when they launch a freshly installed piece of software, is not enforceable in court (for business users it is), as these EULAs are typically presented to the consumer only after he has bought the product. A judge once stated it as follows: 'One cannot put on the front page of a news paper, that by turning the front page you agree to ...'
<div class="quote-container" data-huddler-embed="/t/179737/italian-antitrust-body-investigating-apple-others-over-freemium-app-sales#post_2535739" data-huddler-embed-placeholder="false"><span style="line-height:1.4em">Originally Posted by </span><strong style="font-style:normal; line-height:1.4em">Lord Amhran</strong><span style="line-height:1.4em"> </span><a href="/t/179737/italian-antitrust-body-investigating-apple-others-over-freemium-app-sales#post_2535739" style="line-height: 1.4em;"><img alt="View Post" src="/img/forum/go_quote.gif" /></a><div class="quote-block"><span style="line-height:1.4em">Which means what exactly?</span></div></div><p> </p><p>No deodorant, hordes of attractive dark-haired women, and government corruption like you wouldn’t believe.</p>
History, culture, fashion and amazing cars oh and plenty of blonde attractive women as well. as well.
Comments
Interesting that countries where innovation is either stagnant or nonexistent have the most active regulatory systems in place to constantly suck the profits out of those who work hard to raise themselves up through accomplishment and merit. This ends up being another cost of doing business that cuts across all markets and gets passed on to all consumers. It's just another punitive Success Tax on those who Do that rewards those who Don't.
Civilization going down. We just have different priorities. What's the point of constant growth if it comes at the cost of the welfare of the population or of the environment. Libertarianism is as much an utopia as communism. We don't have 50% of the population living in near poverty like in the USA. We don't care about being competitive. That's not our future. We are not going to play your game anymore. The countries where people live the best are in Europe. That's what counts.
I see Fremium as a good compromise between developers and customers. Traditionally you just paid once for software and then you owned it. But developers would prefer to move people to a subscrition model so they have a more predictable revenue stream (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud). Freemium allows customers to pay once and own something, while still giving developers a more predictable revenue stream because there's all these little ongoing purchases. I don't think it's some sort of trick that needs to be investigated.
I see Fremium as a good compromise between developers and customers. Traditionally you just paid once for software and then you owned it. But developers would prefer to move people to a subscrition model so they have a more predictable revenue stream (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud). Freemium allows customers to pay once and own something, while still giving developers a more predictable revenue stream because there's all these little ongoing purchases. I don't think it's some sort of trick that needs to be investigated.
Microtransactions are good, if not used for exploitation. Freemium is actually a very good model because it stops piracy.
But instead of "Let's remove the ads and add normal features to the app for $1.99", developers like EA want "Let's get you another bag-full of otiose coins that help you complete the level, for $9.99. If you want to unlock a set of another 5 levels, a special offer for you just today, $19. Unlock a bag of 20000 coins which you can use for another day for just $99."
The sad thing is, everybody is following the unscrupulous 'EA-freemium' method for making tons of money. This is why users hate freemium model. I'm sure if they are a bit reasonable, freemium could actually be a very effective method of stopping piracy, and at the same time giving the same set of features to the users for the same price.
Totally untrue,
I live in Italy since 1979
These EU nations are playing hard to get when it comes to giving up some of their authority to the EU, because they haven't made the click that they should evolve into the states of a federation. The local politicians are to blame, and so is the rather undemocratic structure at the EU level.
On the other hand, the AppStore, at some point became infested with a free and a paying version of many apps (or many variants of the same app, adding to the confusion when searching in the AppStore). Apple has tried to limit this evolution, because that also led to abuse from software developers trying to market umpteen versions of their app (think Angry Birds). This is one of the reasons we see more fremium apps these days.
IMHO, fremium apps are the way to go, if this is properly communicated. Maybe a plugin architecture could offer an alternative way of adding paid features, but then you can bet that there will be in-app advertising promoting these plugins. This would amount to the same for the consumers.
So if an initially free game requires in app purchase to make progress, the user should be informed upfront (when he makes the purchase) that an app purchase is necessary to reach the end of the game. The Italian government is investigating whether Apple and Google are compliant to this law or not. So nobody is accused of anything, but it would not hurt if both instructed their game developers to be more clear on the matter.
PS. A nice side effect of this European consumer law is that the EULAs that Apple, Microsoft and others present to the consumers when they launch a freshly installed piece of software, is not enforceable in court (for business users it is), as these EULAs are typically presented to the consumer only after he has bought the product. A judge once stated it as follows: 'One cannot put on the front page of a news paper, that by turning the front page you agree to ...'
No deodorant, hordes of attractive dark-haired women, and government corruption like you wouldn’t believe.
No deodorant, hordes of attractive dark-haired women, and government corruption like you wouldn’t believe.
[/QUOTE]
And the whole Roman Empire thing... Bada-bing-bada-boom!