foregoneconclusion

22july2013 said: But for some reason environmentalists aren't keen on the idea of carbon sinks. They want us to reduce carbon emissions even though adding more sinks has the same end result. Apple's own words cite "carbon emission reduction" but they ignore "carbon sink increases." Why? Because people are stupid.

FYI: global emissions are still rising every year. Sustainable timber/forestry isn't nearly enough by itself. 

There's a boo-boo by the AI in the 'After' example. Lower right: it wasn't "intelligent" enough to keep the dashed street lines consistent and instead creates one line that's significantly longer than the others. 

neoncat said: Don't get me wrong, I agree with you completely—I think Apple deserves to charge whatever it feels it needs to to cover those costs and support its profit objectives. Those numbers can be as high as it wants them to be—as long as the App Store is subject to competition.

The App Store already has competition. Example: Genshin Impact is sold on iOS, Android, PC and Playstation. You can also get it on Mac through GeForce NOW. The reality is that games that generate bigger revenue and become subject to the 30% charge instead of the 15% charge are typically going to be multi-platform. Nobody who is interested in Genshin Impact is limited to App Store pricing. They have other mainstream options to choose from and see if there's big savings somewhere. 

I read the book years ago and, IMO, the main focus was on how WWII was the first modern air war and that military strategists were having to make it up as they went along...which meant there were a lot of errors that resulted in  major losses of human life. Example: there was an influential group at the Pentagon that believed adding a lot of gun turrets to bombers meant that you didn't need escort fighters. So there was a period of time where bombing groups took horrific losses and some argue that the Pentagon's insistence on bombers not needing escorts delayed the production of the P-51 Mustang.

The App Store model was based on what already existed on gaming consoles. The same company that created the hardware and OS for the console was also in control of the rules for how software could be released for the platform. The console maker would take a cut from 3rd party games and also release its own competing 1st party games. And gaming is the #1 revenue generator on iOS by a wide margin so it’s an appropriate parallel.

Point being that Apple didn’t set out to create a new anticompetitive business model. They used a model that was generally accepted in the gaming market and had also been upheld in an antitrust court case that involved Nintendo.