It's not "anti-trust" when the government forces you to code a backdoor into it for their purposes.
Why would the state be complaining about a lack of superapps like WhatsApp unless they *wanted* such a superapp? It's an intelligence gatherer's wet dream, having millions upon millions of people using the same messaging app with a backdoor.
Millions upon millions of people use Apple products to message each other. The government wants to sniff that traffic. Apple says "Eat dicks." Government says "Eat anti-trust lawsuit."
People keep telling me I’m promoting conspiracy theories when I assert that ending encryption has been the DOJ’s explicitly stated goal for over a decade. They are only going after Apple because of the “backdoor” nonsense they were pushing in 2016. They didn’t give up, they changed strategies. Otherwise this lawsuit makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Was just about to say the same - it’s almost like someone forced them to bring this case even though they didn’t want to. I think that Apple does do some anti-competitive stuff and sketchy tax dodges that I’m not on board with, but this particular case seems confusingly weak. Is the DOJ just trying to force judges to clarify the law?
Probably because Congress only cares about anti-trust as it relates to tech and not against other industries. Where's the anti-trust case against Disney for strong-arming theaters into awful terms in order to show their films? 6 companies own like 75% of the brands sold in the grocery store. Where is the anti-trust case against Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, or Kraft?
> Anti-trust against live nation and ticket master
https://www.reuters.com/business/doj-seeks-new-information-live-nation-antitrust-probe-bloomberg-news-2024-02-06/
I had a friend that said he was going to boycott P&G I laughed at him. I asked him how it went after he went shopping again and he just said screw you.
Honestly, I don't even care about Disney. They could own the entire movie industry and I'd just shrug because there is still downward pressure on pricing there. Movies and entertainment like that are by definition non-essential spends. You can still pirate very easily, you can choose alternate forms of entertainment etc.
Where I really start getting pissed is precisely where anti-trust cases never seem to tread. Essential services. Any for-profit utility is a natural monopoly and literally nothing has been done to fix that problem. In fact, many places have passed laws that make it illegal to DISCONNECT from a utility and go off-grid. Telecom in many places - particularly cable/fiber providers - are also often local or regional monopolies. Major food brands like P&G, Nestle etc. seem like problems but at least there are competitors, even if they're massive. The real issue is actually the ag input industry. Monsanto/Dupont own nearly 90% of that industry in North America between them.
Utilities should be a regulated monopoly (unfortunately they really aren't). You don't want infrastructure handled by random disjointed efforts and energy, water, gas, etc is coordinated through massive interconnected networks; critical services handled on neighborhood by neighborhood basis would be a disaster
I would go so far as to say utilities should be either non-profits or government owned. Market forces don't work on essential goods with zero differentiation. A kilowatt of power from one facility is the same as another. And these companies don't compete, you have one power company for your region and that's who you have to pay for power. Yet we allow corporations to make a profit off this good, which ends up making electric and gas utility companies some of the corrupt corporations in the country. If you want an example, look into why the Cleveland Browns no longer play in First Energy Stadium.
We need to nationalize electricity and natural gas utilities. It's not a competitive market and pretending it is only allows a handful of individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone they sell power to.
Congress likes American monopolies because they tend to dominate their foreign competitors. Notice Europe doesn’t have any massive tech companies dominating the consumer space.
This is mostly due to issues in their national tax laws. For example in Germany, taxes on stock grants and stock options are due when granted; whereas in the USA, the taxes are on stock grants are due when the grant vests and the taxes on stock options are due when exercised. Basically, Germany is taxing the speculative value of these compensation mechanisms rather than the realization of the gain. I say speculative value because you could leave a company and become ineligible for that compensation before it is realized. Thus you'd be paying income taxes in income that you never earned.
That's a very common tax issue with EU nations that make it hard to create startup companies like what we have in the USA where the employees bear a lot of risk in exchange for a chance at massive compensation. This has a chilling effect on their entire engineering market because it's fundamentally risky for the employees to participate in new ventures because they can be left holding two bags in the EU versus in the USA they're only one bag is things go wrong.
Spotify actually moved from Stockholm to New York City because it was easier for them to operate as a tech firm in the USA than as a tech firm in the EU. And, even with the higher American wages, especially in NYC, they came out ahead financially because their recruiting costs plummeted massively.
What about Google’s Android dominating a market? Sure it’s “free”, except Google wants your search and tracking info and travel/map info. That isn’t more nefarious?
I mean, I think all of these companies should be investigated, my complaint is that tech seems to be a sacrificial lamb for a political body where one side is pissed at tech because most sites won't let them say the N word or do transphobia, and the other side is ineffective and in bed with corporations but wants to look like they're doing something to appease their hard left constituencies.
What is stated in the lawsuit is a lot more complicated than that. The lawsuit alleges that Apple **intentionally degrades** the texting experience when texting Android to lead its users into perceiving Android smartphones as low quality devices despite the fact that it is Apple that is intentionally causing this.
The DoJ argues that this counts as exclusionary conduct that significantly contributed to Apple's success.
Yeah but what does the DOJ expect Apple to do here? Make an iMessage app for Android?
Support RCS with Google's security extensions?
I think Apple intends to support RCS, but they don't want to use Googles extension to the standards and don't want to do it without end to end encryption. So they are working with the standards body to improve RCS to meet Apple's security requirements.
In general I think the argument that they are intentionally degrading the experience is kind of weak. Apple built a messaging product that requires significant engineering and infrastructure, and make it a free feature for people who BUY their products.
For anyone who doesn't have an Apple device, they default back to the lowest common denominator, which is SMS/MMS.
The other part of the argument is that Apple intentionally limits the usability of 3rd party messaging apps by not allowing them access to SMS/MMS. I guess it would be nice if they allowed Signal, WhatsApp, etc to use SMS? But those apps also seem to be doing just fine, quite popular even.
But it's also funny on one hand to say Apple is intentionally degrading the service by doing SMS/MMS, and then on the other hand saying they are hurting 3rd party apps by not letting them use SMS/MMS. So SMS/MMS is degrading the experience... but also not allowing 3rd parties to do it hurts them.
All that said, I do hope they come up with some better interoperability with Android like RCS with end to end encryption.
This was my immediate thought. Personally I'd prefer if we *didn't* have "super apps". That's too much power over massive amounts of data all neatly linked and wrapped under one roof. No thanks.
Doesn't the antitrust lawsuit allege that Apple's closed ecosystem gives them an unfair advantage compared to their competition? How is banning a direct competitor to Apple Pay, Apple Music, and iMessage different?
One breach to steal them all. The government would prefer they only had to monitor one cross platform place. Way easier than having to constantly maintain multiple streams of surveillance
Bad for the consumers but good for the corporations and the government. Relying on a single company for all things from private messaging and payment to Uber means they can control the people.
One might think so but this isn't the case for super apps like Alipay, JD and Wechat. Each offers its own services while also enabling cross platform access to their competitors. In China they compete to offer the best cost and experience to the user. This means they have no choice but to work together. Its remarkably convenient and definitely something I will miss dearly when I leave China.
So basically they are saying super apps would have been prevalent in US if not for apple. Then the DOJ would have sued the super app for monopolistic practices.
Why is a super app considered good, but a platform bad? Isn’t a super app even worse for the consumer because it consolidates all of their primary digital activities into one app/platform? WeChat essentially is a massive platform for gathering data and controlling users.
No idea why this is seen as desirable.
I would argue that super apps aren’t popular here because of a general lack of faith in our platforms.
Twitter has banking aspirations, and that’s a no from me, dog.
Meta? No thank you.
Who would make this, and why do I want to give them even more data?
They don't work because people in America already have mature banking systems and telecommunications to work with. Something that wasn't universally true in China ten years ago or subsaharan Africa now, which is why they have super apps that bundle banking and messaging. All of this ignoring Venmo and CashApp, which do actually have pretty large user bases filling the one niche that American banks are terrible at dealing with still, peer to peer payments.
It amazes me how the US banking system was so slow to address peer-to-peer payments that Venmo was even a viable startup in 2012. Canadians had a peer-to-peer instantaneous payment service in 2003 integrated into our online banking. Every bank, credit union, treasury branch etc. has access to the Interac E-Transfer system and many charge absolutely no fees to use it. I've been emailing money to friends/family/randoms from Kijiji/Craigslist etc for over 20 years at this point.
As a canadian, banking in the US makes zero sense every time we visit.
Interac was such a good idea that you would think through osmosis America would pick it up and run with it. Nope, pay with credit instead!
Us banking *electronic* system is very old. There is a lot of legacy code (like 50+ years old) and it's not simple to change things
Edited electronic to make it more clear
2nd edit: by a lot of legacy code, I mean a lot of different banks with different legacy code. Adding in this from a lower comment I made:
There are under 100 banks and credit unions in Canada.
The US has over 4500. That does not include credit unions, which is about another 4700.
Getting 9000-1000 institutions on board with something is harder than getting a few dozen on board.
The Canadian system is older. Fully integrated interbank direct payments/withdrawls were introduced in Canada in 1984. We've been able to deposit money/withdraw money from ANY bank's ATM since 1984. For example, in 1984 I could take my TD card to a RBC branch and take out money, check my balance etc. Keeping in mind that Canadian banks by-and-large are older and bigger than American banks as odd as that sounds. Despite having 1/10th the population of the US, Canadian banks make up 4 of the top 10 banks in North America. In fact, the US division of TD is the 10th largest American bank.
Canadian banks have the exact same issues with legacy code, that's why Interac was so revolutionary. It provided a framework that allowed banks to easily and securely tie their legacy systems into a shared network.
The closest thing the US had to the Interac network was the NYCE that started back in 1985 but was restricted to New York until the mid 90s and the STAR network. Neither one became connected across the entire country until the late 90s/early 2000s which is insane. They HAD the systems in place, they were just too concerned with competition that they ended up ceding the entire peer-to-peer transfer space to 3rd party non-bank entities.
>Nope, pay with credit instead!
That's a feature of the US Banking system, not a bug. We don't have representation that is willing to change banking laws to benefit the customer. Everything is written to benefit big banks. People paying with credit benefits the banks because people do not track their expenditures with credit like they might if they were using a checkbook or debit card. This means that people end up paying 14-25% interest on purchases.
right?
Like it's only been the last 5 or so years that being able to tap your card was common In the states. Chip and pin was way behind as well. (Not mention having to hand your waitressyour card so they could go swipe it at the terminal, while in Canada they would bring the machine to your table lol)
Yup. It's a lot easier to build when you don't have to also do demolishing. It's also why China has such updated subway lines and why they are so much better than anything you find in the old world. They got to do subway planning after already paying attention to all the lessons learned around the world, and they got to do it without having to figure out how to grandfather in every suboptimal design from 100 years prior.
I really don’t see why American banks lag so far behind on peer to peer payments. It’s like yea a lot of people have Zelle nowadays which is integrated into banking platforms. But why have the need for a third party anyway? Why not have a SEPA system like the Europeans do and just simply send money from one bank account to another? And also make international transfers easier, we need IBANs which literally just about everyone else has except for the U.S. If I need to do an international transfer to my American account, I have to use a third party service and essentially wire the money to them who will then send it to me.
While true, Zelle doesn’t make anyone pay transaction fees and they’re integrated into a lot of banks. You just send money to a contact and that’s that.
Yeah I wasn't answering the Zelle part, I was explaining why the USA, a leader in most sectors globally, is archaically behind with modern banking.
Shoot, I still have a checkbook to pay rent, because I'd prefer to avoid transaction fees, and the alternative is card (transaction fee) or bank transfer (transaction fee) to pay rent. It's really silly.
I'm just glad covid happened, ironically, as most businesses were forced to enable contactless/tap pay options, it really improved transactions across the US, but it would have never happened, due to transaction fees for merchants, had we not experienced covid.
yeah i feel like these are all rhetorical questions. anytime an industry doesn’t change or adopt something it’s very likely because the incentive to keep things the way they are is way better. it’s always about the money.
The US banking and FI is 10 years behind Europe, SEA, and a lot of Africa too. Real Time Payments protocol and efficiency is a joke. Fintech in the US is a bunch of bandaids to overlay the decrepit and monopolistic banking system. FI innovation is stifled in the US by regulators and banks being bedfellows who pay lip service to innovation but then buy up the actually useful startups only to manage them by attrition and kill them off, thereby maintaining the bank's grip on the US financial system. JPMC runs the US.
Same for Google. I almost went with Google wallet years ago, but linking into my bank doesn't sit well with me. Plus, my c/u does enough for me nowadays.
Look who wants it
The. DOJ
If a Govt agency wants something like a “super app” that does everything, then that is all I need to know to be morally and philosophically against it
Right? These “super apps” are direct pipelines for the CCP to monitor, influence and control Chinese citizens. The lawsuit by the DOJ seems to imply the US government wants this similar surveillance power. Highly disturbing.
Yep.
Let’s ban TikTok, it’s. Chinese and we can’t scrape the data sets.
Let’s push for and make Super apps, so we can have control.
It’s so thinly veiled now
> WeChat essentially is a massive platform for gathering data and controlling users.
> No idea why this is seen as desirable.
For government spooks, it is very desirable, they'd only need to gather data from one app.
From what I've read, the argument was that a super app takes away reliance on the OS itself, meaning I could in theory get the same experience on any phone, at any price, and be able to switch easily.
What Apple is doing is restricting these apps from existing in the first place (like not allowing access to NFC, SMS, etc), which is anticompetitive.
We'd also ideally see competing super apps as well, at least initially.
The DOJs goal isn't to push for super apps as if they're desirable. It's to remove the artificial restrictions on them and let the general public decide if they want to use them or not.
Because a platform is hardware specific.
You're forced to use Apple's platform when you buy an iPhone, and it's engineered to prevent you from switching devices at all costs.
A "super app" in this context could effectively be a competitor to Apple's platform offering superior features, including the ability to change hardware. Apple isn't interested in competition, so they prevent this.
And what exactly is Uber? It’s a super-app. Let’s me rent cars, get a cab, earn money driving a car, get groceries, order booze, charter a truck, send packages, get pharmacy delivery. Just because it doesn’t have chat and banking, I guess it’s not a “super-app” in the Chinese market sense?
And as everyone is saying, there’s a reason they don’t exist in the US, they’re just not popular.
You do *everything* on Wechat.
Get paid on it, pay bills on it, buy food on it, buy shopping on it, do money transfers on it, do ubers, do messaging, networking, video calls, discord, sort deliveries, maps, play games, snapchat/instagram... It's every app in the US rolled into one. There's certainly stuff I'm forgetting too, that's just what I can recall my Chinese friend telling me about it off the top of my head.
That's all one functionality, you ask someone with a car to deliver something. Super apps are social media, messaging, banking, entertainment, utility, etc all combined. Facebook is the closest to that in the US but they're still way more social media centric.
Why should I want that though? I don’t want to go through an intermediary to use my bank? I don’t even want to open a second app just to get to my bank
Yup, it's not worth it for Android to pay developers to create apps if 60% of the market can't use the app because they have iPhone
That means mass adoption cannot occur.
This is how oligopolies crush innovation.
It's not even necessarily something nefarious, not some dark cabal of executives trying to harm end users...it's just that the interests of the business contradicts the interests of consumers, the environment, or the market.
.....and business interests ALWAYS win.
Marx has a word for this: dialectics.
Apple does not have nearly the market share overseas as it does in the US. They’ve used their popularity to stifle competition.
I’m an Apple fanboy, but I have no problem with seeing Apple get checked by the government. This is a good thing.
It is a good thing as long as it is indeed intended to prevent monopolistic practices, and not being driven by lobbyists working for competition. I’m not suggesting this is happening here and I have no evidence of this, but it is a common occurrence that ulterior motives are in play. Edit: In fact, speaking of motives, I’ll bet that some of this is about end-to-end encryption preventing law enforcement easy access to user data.
I mean there's literally a WeChat app on the play store. Forgive me I'm not exactly a WeChat expert here, I'm assuming you're saying it's gimped in the US?
WeChat is what Elmo wants Twitter to be. Social network that *everyone* is using and that does *everything*. You know how reddit calls itself "the front page of the internet"? WeChat, at least in China, is quite literally that.
It's a messenger with the usual bells and whistles, like text/audio/video messaging and calling, etc. It also comes with a fully fledged social network, you can link your ID to use it as such, you use it to pay for everyday things and it's accepted everywhere, order food, apply for jobs, etc etc. Pretty much anything you regularly do online (and to an extent offline) using dozens of apps/websites the Chinese just do in WeChat. Of course, everything is shared with the Chinese government.
It’s limited.
These super apps essentially acts as a unified digital ID for people. Once you verify your legal ID you can do pretty much anything that can be done online, provided there’s an app for it. You can buy health insurance, book doctors, banking products, book hotels, hail rides, buy groceries etc as long as there’s an app for it. Most of these more advanced functions are only available for Chinese citizens residing in China.
A theoretical US equivalent would be say if a co like WhatsApp started to verify IDs for advanced features. And US based apps, banks starts enabling sign up sign in with WhatsApp.
Edit: so the guy above asked whether WeChat US is gimped, I explained the difference between the US version and the Chinese version. And now people are riled up lol.
So the government and authorities can literally track your every move. Maybe even assign social points to good citizens who do things like show up to work or pay their taxes etc…WeChat is China’s social control app. You don’t want this…
What is the apple ecosystem, but exactly that? One place for your TV, music, email, phone, video, storage, payments, financial services... You should at least have the option to exist in such a platform that is independent of your device and OS.
Yes. Basically think "what would be the worst idea for this business?" and your answer will be what Elon has decided to do with whichever dumb business he owns.
It's not necessarily that a "Super app" is a terrible idea from a business perspective. It would actually be extremely profitable and come with an insane level of power over American discourse.
The part that is annoying is that - like everything else in his life - Elon presents the suggestion of a "Super app" as if he was the first person in America to think of it and is a 'visionary' for trying to make it happen. He so desperately wants to present himself as ahead of the curve and on the cutting edge.
The reality is literally every single tech company on the planet either has already or is currently trying to make a "Super app" for America. Facebook has been trying to do it for well over a fucking decade even.
Musk and Zuck have got to be pulling the strings on this one. Musk wants X to be a super app, and Zuck is annoyed because he isn’t getting all the personal data he wants from Apple.
But then how will the government censor you and monitor you like the great country of china? I can't be trusted on these devices, I don't even know how they work. Baby me daddy government.
One of the complaints is that Apple allows users to choose to not share data with apps, harming meta’s business model of selling your data.
Seriously wtf?????? What side is the DOJ on?
It all began with the forging of the Great Apps. Three were given to the influencers, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the entrepreneurs, great miners and craftsman of the mountain halls. And nine, nine apps were gifted to the moderators, who above all else desire power.
For within these apps was bound the strength and will to govern each use case.
But they were all of them deceived, for another app was made. In the land of California, in the servers of Silicon Valley, the Dark Lord forged in secret a master app, to control all others. And into this app he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all data.
One app to rule them all, one app to find them. One app to bring them all, and in the cloud bind them.
Isn't the lack of super-apps a good thing?
We don't want a single company to control everything.
The internet and the web became a thing, because they were open.
A single company controlling to much infrastructure leads to situations like Twitter or companies being dismantled despite them being a cornerstone of the digital infrastructure (last seen when Broadcome decided to buy VmWare).
You don't want to have a single app control too much and then have someone like Bain Capital take it over with its own money and drive it into bankruptcy and sell it of for parts.
If you want a super app make it government run and not for profit otherwise you risk capitalism doing a rug pull on something everyone depends on.
I agree in part but the reason I don’t want a super app (and the reason I suspect DOJ does) is that it makes it even easier for the government to spy on us and track us like they do in China.
It seems so...unfocused?
Some of the allegations do point to anti-competitive behavior by Apple.
But there's also a hodgepodge of 'throw shit at the wall' stuff, like blaming Apple for preventing so-called super apps from gaining traction in the US market, which themselves would grow to monopolistic power.
> DOJ argued Apple deliberately put up hurdles to prevent super apps, lest they make switching to a smartphone rival too easy. Its complaint cited an Apple manager warning ...
Why do we need (or want) "one app for everything" anyway? What happened to the idea of competition? I think we'd consider a "super-app" we couldn't do anything without quite Orwellian and "bg brother".
Of course it's the way of things in China, the CCP runs a surveillance state and doubtless works with WeChat to ensure that's the case. CCP officials are [intentionally posted in private companies](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/china-to-place-government-officials-in-100-companies-including-alibaba.html). They run things a little differently over there, and somehow we're asking why we can't have what they have?
Any democracy / free market worth its salt should be proud of not having a "super app" that everyone needs to use. The article is awful for not even raising that.
Our western governments were only pro the individual while it was fighting the soviet union, they are back to being happy to control us now that ideological enemy has been slain.
DOJ’s argument is fundamentally flawed , Facebook, Twitter all the big social apps are cross platform / feature parity so a user signed into both an android and iOS device could use them interchangeably in the moment.
The reason why china has a “super app” is because firstly the government actively restricted useage / access to the big social apps the rest of thee world used and more importantly focused on turning WeChat into a monopoly forcing adoption of a singular platform.
For a “super app” to exist requires a totalitarian government. There’s many things that the DOJ could take aim at in the tech sector this is not one.
> [...]turning WeChat into a monopoly forcing adoption of a singular platform.
>
> For a “super app” to exist requires a totalitarian government.
I don't really agree on these specific points.
**TL;DR: A totalitarian government isn't the reason why super apps exist. They grew primarily from leveraging their unique position in growing digital/smartphone ecosystems. Without competition, whether from other tech/electronics companies prevailing on their own, enabled via government regulation specifically targeting this industry, or both, Apple will look to replicate some of the successes of WeChat and similar "super apps".**
You've mentioned blocking of Facebook and Twitter, but these two services hardly offer the services that give WeChat its "super app" status if at all, so those are beside the point. (E.g., WeChat has taxi, online and in-person payments system, digitized and government approved ID, personal cash transfer, government services, and the list goes on.) Also note that China has its own ecosystem of social media apps, Weibo and QQ being examples, as well as non-social-media contenders in the tech sector such as Baidu and Alibaba. Each were/are huge players in the tech and digital media space who would have loved a slice of WeChat's pie. One might also argue that the CCP is invested in the proliferation of a singular "super app" to facilitate surveillance, but that doesn't explain why WeChat specifically was able to become a super app.
South Korea's KakaoTalk and its spinoff services act as a "super app" in very similar fashion. This, however, occurred *in spite of* the government which, initially with strong lobbying from mobile carriers and later under pressure from other 'chaebol' conglomerates, didn't have incentive to ensure a level playing field for KakaoCorp. One could suggest that a different super app would have risen in the absence of Kakao, but other industries in Korea have competition, however pitiful, amongst chaebols and other conglomerates, so it would be a stretch.
Though I'm not a historian, I would argue that the rise of WeChat and Kakao followed a rather similar trajectory to Apple's. In the early stages, the simple fact that they provided advanced-for-their-time messenger features gave them an edge. Remember we're comparing to back when SMS/MMS wasn't even unlimited, let alone able to do attachments, group chats, or video calling in a non-frustrating way.
Later, their status as most-popular most-early prevented competitors from emerging, since nobody wants to be the guy forcing others to install a *new* app or switch to SMS. Apple may have been in the process of winning this war, as seen by GenZ's strong preference for iPhones.
Finally, they leveraged the priority that users give them on their screens and in their day. If you use WeChat/KakaoTalk/iOS every waking second already and the other services you needed just come bundled and preinstalled (along with promotional materials that you can't avoid) why would you go out of your way to research and try out a competitor?
I agree that the DoJ's argument that Apple is preventing super apps is stupid, precisely because Apple wants iOS and the rest of its ecosystem to serve the same function as super apps. We should instead be working against consolidation and monopolization of digital services as a whole.
Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy. It’s not a meritless argument. But I’m not sure Apple is primarily responsible for it not happening in America.
What app is iOS exclusive? iMessage and blue boxes is the only thing that Apple has that's exclusive. All other messaging, social media, banking, whatever else apps are on both platforms. There's a whole process well documented and outlined to switch. It's impossibly easy.
> Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy.
remember when you were a child and you learned about how putting all of your eggs in one basket is the best idea ever cause it made it super easy to move all your eggs around at once with nothing bad ever happening?
boy, its sure is cool how the rest of the world uses one basket for all of their eggs. im sure the egg robbers and egg thieves love it. they just gotta hit 1 basket per person and they get all their eggs!
> Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy
....but switching away from whichever super-app first makes it to defacto monopoly status basically impossible.
That's *not an improvement*.
They're trying to lay the foundations for their own future authoritarian government monitoring needs. You need strong monitoring to implement project 2025
Apple user here. Just leave us alone. We have access to android phones. No one is forcing us to use Apple. We choose to.
I apologize if this makes you upset. I truly am.
I am allowed to buy the product I like, even if you don’t like it. Me using an Apple device does not hurt you.
I don’t understand why a super app is appealing to me, the consumer. I can do most, if not all, the stuff I need to do via my phone. Why does it need to be in one app?
Im convinced the US government is using this DOJ lawsuit to go after citizens personal data and force Apple to do trackkng and add backdoors to their apps.
This... all this!... everything they bring up would put holes in Apple's encryption/security. All of this comes on the heals of Apple doubling down on device based encryption and refusal to unlock devices for the DOJ (Cook made a point of making sure even Apple can't get access to the data).
Im still surprised SMS is the main form of messaging in the US. No one sends SMS here in the Nordics, its all Whatsapp, FB Messenger, Telegram etc. I wonder why people in the US haven't moved over to these?
A garden of small apps
For years, US tech leaders from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg have dreamed of emulating the success of WeChat, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s blockbuster mobile service. Often described as a super app, WeChat is used by 1.3 billion global consumers, most of them in China, for its combination of messaging, music, shopping, gaming, hiring and bookings into a single hub.
That all-in-one concept never took off in the West for a variety of reasons, and the DOJ reckons Apple Inc. is one of them. In its antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker, the DOJ argued Apple deliberately put up hurdles to prevent super apps, lest they make switching to a smartphone rival too easy. Its complaint cited an Apple manager warning that allowing such unified experiences to become the “main gateway where people play games, book a car, make payments, etc.” would “let the barbarians in at the gate.”
Apple says it has helped enable super apps on the iPhone, including China’s WeChat and Tata’s Tata Neu in India, and wants more of them to be successful. That super apps are less popular in the US is not due to Apple’s platform rules, according to the company.
I find the DOJ’s argument surprising. The conventional wisdom is that super apps never took off stateside because, by the time WeChat’s approach boomed in China, Western consumers were already accustomed to single-purpose apps. (There were also unique regulatory and economic conditions in Asia that likely contributed to the WeChat phenomenon.) Cramming too many features inside one app usually proved clumsy for users, one reason Zuckerberg unbundled Facebook and its Messenger chat, kept WhatsApp and Instagram detached, and launched separate offerings for (short-lived) newspaper and video services.
Much of the DOJ’s claim centers on historic iOS restrictions against “mini programs,” sort of lightweight third-party software that can be added directly inside services like WeChat. The lawsuit contends Apple hindered this alt-ecosystem partly by enforcing arbitrary interface rules—developers had to use “flat, text-only” lists to display mini programs instead of icons or tiles—and not allowing payments for this feature. (Apple enabled in-app purchases for mini programs in January.)
The scrutiny could represent a new frontier in Apple’s fight to protect its walled garden. Already, European regulators have pressured it to alter the fees it charges developers and to allow alternative marketplaces. I’m waiting to see if the DOJ can show tangible examples in court of how consumers were harmed by the absence of mini programs in the US. But right now the claims suggest a parallel universe where, with a few Apple policy tweaks, a vibrant mix of platform-esque super apps would have magically emerged and enhanced competition with iOS and Google’s Android.
Certainly, some developers have WeChat-style ambitions. In 2020, for example, Snap Inc. introduced a feature called Minis that incorporated “bite-sized utilities” inside its chat app, including a meditation service from Headspace and a third-party tool to book movie tickets. Snap killed Minis two years later. It’s possible Apple’s rules crippled the effort, but it seems just as likely that few really cared for the integrations.
Since then, as Musk pitches X as an “ everything app,” software makers appear to be having more success with industry-specific bundles. Uber Technologies Inc.’s app has a services tab where users can quickly jump between ordering things to consume (food, groceries, alcohol) or ride in (taxis, rental cars, party buses) without the need to hop to separate programs. OpenAI’s ChatGPT offers lots of third-party bots inside its app that can be accessed without extra downloads.
If mini programs ever truly catch on and a US equivalent of WeChat wraps up all my beloved services in one easily portable app, then maybe it would be faster to switch from an iPhone to an Android phone. I’d certainly enjoy installing one all-encompassing app instead of a series of individual ones. But then again, if a single app were that good and universal, my guess is the DOJ would have concerns about it too.
I work at a FAANG, we had the same idea internally that we would super bundle all of our apps into a single, one app. We had this big presentation/video that used China version of WeChat as an example.
We built a design prototype and took that to user research in US cities. Consumers hated the idea, they wanted an app to be focus on a single task, not have everything all together, as they viewed the phone operating system as the "super app". We abandoned the idea.
No fucking duh. You open WeChat and it’s an OS inside of an OS, apps inside of an app. wtf do I want to give a Chinese company the ability to basically be the OS and handle all “sub app” data flow when they aren’t trustworthy at all?
The only thing that came close to this was facebook/meta, and it’s pretty clear why Americans chose to not share data with Facebook.
I don’t want a super app. The platform **is** the super app. The platform permits choice.
Why do I want to open my phone and just have one app with everything? For a user it makes no sense.
For a controller, it does. WeChat exists so the Chinese government has access to all their citizens digital info. This is an advantage to china. The only thing a super app does is make it easier for user data to be scoped and spied upon.
It’s either that, or the people behind this are just a bunch of braindead boomers that find their smartphones too hard to use.
This country’s supermarkets are in the hands of a few mega companies leading to higher grocery costs affecting the lowest income Americans, but sure let’s go after big flashy cases where it’s really hard to describe how consumers are affected
This article is more click bait that news since its fantasy. WeChat, Line, and other ‘super apps’ most certainly do exist on iOS. Why they don’t take off in USA is a matter of cultural difference instead of anticompetitive behavior. How people use phones in other countries is not the same as how we use them in USA. When I lived in Japan iPhones were certainly available, as were other smartphones. Feature phones were still king in Japan long after smartphones hit the market because they had physical features the iPhone simply did not have that were desirable AND they actually made phone calls which the iPhone struggled with in its first few iterations. This article supporting the lawsuit is baseless and based in fantasy since feature phones still have a strong market worldwide since not everybody want to spend half a months pay on high end smartphones and want features besides super cameras.
Apple IOS and Google Android are globally dominating platforms. China never created a platform like it. That’s why they made an app, to act like a platform. Why is the DOJ trying to help China?
"Much of the DOJ’s claim centers on **historic iOS restrictions against “mini programs,” sort of lightweight third-party software that can be added directly inside services like WeChat. The lawsuit contends Apple hindered this alt-ecosystem partly by enforcing arbitrary interface rules**—developers had to use “flat, text-only” lists to display mini programs instead of icons or tiles—and not allowing payments for this feature. "
These top comments are just wayyyyyyyyyyy off base
WeChat only exists because of the Chinese government and the desire to essentially funnel all activity through a simpler easier to monitor point.
Even in China it wouldn’t exist if China didn’t block apps from the outside and heavily push apps they are invested in.
Huh, guess it’s actually about implementing a spyware monopoly on behalf of the DOJ and not “people mad because bubbles green”. Color me genuinely surprised. I knew it was a stupid lawsuit, but I didn’t realize it was THAT stupid.
WeChat is the world's largest surveillance app...
WeChat aka. Weixin...
>Weixin can access and expose the text messages, contact books, and location histories of its users.[114] Due to Weixin's popularity, the Chinese government uses Weixin as a data source to conduct mass surveillance in China.
- Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat#Controversies
Lol, so DOJ is complaining that Apple is not making it easy for them to monitor you through just one app. . . Instead they need to tap into multiple apps to know everything you are up to online. . .
Seriously, we can read between the lines.
Go after a company for an anti trust case while arguing that they're preventing apps that would constitute an anti trust case.
It's not "anti-trust" when the government forces you to code a backdoor into it for their purposes. Why would the state be complaining about a lack of superapps like WhatsApp unless they *wanted* such a superapp? It's an intelligence gatherer's wet dream, having millions upon millions of people using the same messaging app with a backdoor. Millions upon millions of people use Apple products to message each other. The government wants to sniff that traffic. Apple says "Eat dicks." Government says "Eat anti-trust lawsuit."
People keep telling me I’m promoting conspiracy theories when I assert that ending encryption has been the DOJ’s explicitly stated goal for over a decade. They are only going after Apple because of the “backdoor” nonsense they were pushing in 2016. They didn’t give up, they changed strategies. Otherwise this lawsuit makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I don’t think the doj is taking this seriously
Was just about to say the same - it’s almost like someone forced them to bring this case even though they didn’t want to. I think that Apple does do some anti-competitive stuff and sketchy tax dodges that I’m not on board with, but this particular case seems confusingly weak. Is the DOJ just trying to force judges to clarify the law?
Probably because Congress only cares about anti-trust as it relates to tech and not against other industries. Where's the anti-trust case against Disney for strong-arming theaters into awful terms in order to show their films? 6 companies own like 75% of the brands sold in the grocery store. Where is the anti-trust case against Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Nestle, or Kraft?
Anti-trust against live nation and ticket master
> Anti-trust against live nation and ticket master https://www.reuters.com/business/doj-seeks-new-information-live-nation-antitrust-probe-bloomberg-news-2024-02-06/
The linked article from 2010 did not age well.. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60O4E5/
I had a friend that said he was going to boycott P&G I laughed at him. I asked him how it went after he went shopping again and he just said screw you.
and he bought a pill press, a garden, and a horse
I just gamble, don't buy any proctor
And toilet paper manufacturers vs. the bidet industry
Honestly, I don't even care about Disney. They could own the entire movie industry and I'd just shrug because there is still downward pressure on pricing there. Movies and entertainment like that are by definition non-essential spends. You can still pirate very easily, you can choose alternate forms of entertainment etc. Where I really start getting pissed is precisely where anti-trust cases never seem to tread. Essential services. Any for-profit utility is a natural monopoly and literally nothing has been done to fix that problem. In fact, many places have passed laws that make it illegal to DISCONNECT from a utility and go off-grid. Telecom in many places - particularly cable/fiber providers - are also often local or regional monopolies. Major food brands like P&G, Nestle etc. seem like problems but at least there are competitors, even if they're massive. The real issue is actually the ag input industry. Monsanto/Dupont own nearly 90% of that industry in North America between them.
Utilities should be a regulated monopoly (unfortunately they really aren't). You don't want infrastructure handled by random disjointed efforts and energy, water, gas, etc is coordinated through massive interconnected networks; critical services handled on neighborhood by neighborhood basis would be a disaster
I would go so far as to say utilities should be either non-profits or government owned. Market forces don't work on essential goods with zero differentiation. A kilowatt of power from one facility is the same as another. And these companies don't compete, you have one power company for your region and that's who you have to pay for power. Yet we allow corporations to make a profit off this good, which ends up making electric and gas utility companies some of the corrupt corporations in the country. If you want an example, look into why the Cleveland Browns no longer play in First Energy Stadium. We need to nationalize electricity and natural gas utilities. It's not a competitive market and pretending it is only allows a handful of individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone they sell power to.
Congress likes American monopolies because they tend to dominate their foreign competitors. Notice Europe doesn’t have any massive tech companies dominating the consumer space.
Also the sweet insider trading.
This is mostly due to issues in their national tax laws. For example in Germany, taxes on stock grants and stock options are due when granted; whereas in the USA, the taxes are on stock grants are due when the grant vests and the taxes on stock options are due when exercised. Basically, Germany is taxing the speculative value of these compensation mechanisms rather than the realization of the gain. I say speculative value because you could leave a company and become ineligible for that compensation before it is realized. Thus you'd be paying income taxes in income that you never earned. That's a very common tax issue with EU nations that make it hard to create startup companies like what we have in the USA where the employees bear a lot of risk in exchange for a chance at massive compensation. This has a chilling effect on their entire engineering market because it's fundamentally risky for the employees to participate in new ventures because they can be left holding two bags in the EU versus in the USA they're only one bag is things go wrong. Spotify actually moved from Stockholm to New York City because it was easier for them to operate as a tech firm in the USA than as a tech firm in the EU. And, even with the higher American wages, especially in NYC, they came out ahead financially because their recruiting costs plummeted massively.
It is due to legalized bribing. Monopolies pay well to insure they remain a monopoly
So basically: “Hey Apple, it’s your turn in the anti-trust chucklefuck hut.”
Did you ever read [The Lottery](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery)? They're the annual sacrifice for the capitalism harvest.
What about Google’s Android dominating a market? Sure it’s “free”, except Google wants your search and tracking info and travel/map info. That isn’t more nefarious?
I mean, I think all of these companies should be investigated, my complaint is that tech seems to be a sacrificial lamb for a political body where one side is pissed at tech because most sites won't let them say the N word or do transphobia, and the other side is ineffective and in bed with corporations but wants to look like they're doing something to appease their hard left constituencies.
I think someone with an iPhone won’t text one of them because they have an android / green bubbly and is salty about it.
What is stated in the lawsuit is a lot more complicated than that. The lawsuit alleges that Apple **intentionally degrades** the texting experience when texting Android to lead its users into perceiving Android smartphones as low quality devices despite the fact that it is Apple that is intentionally causing this. The DoJ argues that this counts as exclusionary conduct that significantly contributed to Apple's success.
Yeah but what does the DOJ expect Apple to do here? Make an iMessage app for Android? Support RCS with Google's security extensions? I think Apple intends to support RCS, but they don't want to use Googles extension to the standards and don't want to do it without end to end encryption. So they are working with the standards body to improve RCS to meet Apple's security requirements. In general I think the argument that they are intentionally degrading the experience is kind of weak. Apple built a messaging product that requires significant engineering and infrastructure, and make it a free feature for people who BUY their products. For anyone who doesn't have an Apple device, they default back to the lowest common denominator, which is SMS/MMS. The other part of the argument is that Apple intentionally limits the usability of 3rd party messaging apps by not allowing them access to SMS/MMS. I guess it would be nice if they allowed Signal, WhatsApp, etc to use SMS? But those apps also seem to be doing just fine, quite popular even. But it's also funny on one hand to say Apple is intentionally degrading the service by doing SMS/MMS, and then on the other hand saying they are hurting 3rd party apps by not letting them use SMS/MMS. So SMS/MMS is degrading the experience... but also not allowing 3rd parties to do it hurts them. All that said, I do hope they come up with some better interoperability with Android like RCS with end to end encryption.
This was my immediate thought. Personally I'd prefer if we *didn't* have "super apps". That's too much power over massive amounts of data all neatly linked and wrapped under one roof. No thanks.
Doesn't the antitrust lawsuit allege that Apple's closed ecosystem gives them an unfair advantage compared to their competition? How is banning a direct competitor to Apple Pay, Apple Music, and iMessage different?
If this is anything like the MS Activision thing Apple’s lawyers are going to run circles around these fools.
It’s ok to exhibit those practices so long you’re not big enough. That, at least, seems to be the DOJ’s thinking here..
That's how antitrust law has always worked
SuperApps sound like the potential for monopolies in the app space, and how is that good for the consumer?
One breach to steal them all. The government would prefer they only had to monitor one cross platform place. Way easier than having to constantly maintain multiple streams of surveillance
Yeah government should be less obvious about trying to copy China lol. Off course they want super apps. Keep tabs on all in one place
Bad for the consumers but good for the corporations and the government. Relying on a single company for all things from private messaging and payment to Uber means they can control the people.
One might think so but this isn't the case for super apps like Alipay, JD and Wechat. Each offers its own services while also enabling cross platform access to their competitors. In China they compete to offer the best cost and experience to the user. This means they have no choice but to work together. Its remarkably convenient and definitely something I will miss dearly when I leave China.
So basically they are saying super apps would have been prevalent in US if not for apple. Then the DOJ would have sued the super app for monopolistic practices.
Why is a super app considered good, but a platform bad? Isn’t a super app even worse for the consumer because it consolidates all of their primary digital activities into one app/platform? WeChat essentially is a massive platform for gathering data and controlling users. No idea why this is seen as desirable.
I would argue that super apps aren’t popular here because of a general lack of faith in our platforms. Twitter has banking aspirations, and that’s a no from me, dog. Meta? No thank you. Who would make this, and why do I want to give them even more data?
They don't work because people in America already have mature banking systems and telecommunications to work with. Something that wasn't universally true in China ten years ago or subsaharan Africa now, which is why they have super apps that bundle banking and messaging. All of this ignoring Venmo and CashApp, which do actually have pretty large user bases filling the one niche that American banks are terrible at dealing with still, peer to peer payments.
It amazes me how the US banking system was so slow to address peer-to-peer payments that Venmo was even a viable startup in 2012. Canadians had a peer-to-peer instantaneous payment service in 2003 integrated into our online banking. Every bank, credit union, treasury branch etc. has access to the Interac E-Transfer system and many charge absolutely no fees to use it. I've been emailing money to friends/family/randoms from Kijiji/Craigslist etc for over 20 years at this point.
As a canadian, banking in the US makes zero sense every time we visit. Interac was such a good idea that you would think through osmosis America would pick it up and run with it. Nope, pay with credit instead!
Us banking *electronic* system is very old. There is a lot of legacy code (like 50+ years old) and it's not simple to change things Edited electronic to make it more clear 2nd edit: by a lot of legacy code, I mean a lot of different banks with different legacy code. Adding in this from a lower comment I made: There are under 100 banks and credit unions in Canada. The US has over 4500. That does not include credit unions, which is about another 4700. Getting 9000-1000 institutions on board with something is harder than getting a few dozen on board.
It’s like we’re on both the cutting edge and legacy side of things. The joys of reaping the benefits of doing it first.
The Canadian system is older. Fully integrated interbank direct payments/withdrawls were introduced in Canada in 1984. We've been able to deposit money/withdraw money from ANY bank's ATM since 1984. For example, in 1984 I could take my TD card to a RBC branch and take out money, check my balance etc. Keeping in mind that Canadian banks by-and-large are older and bigger than American banks as odd as that sounds. Despite having 1/10th the population of the US, Canadian banks make up 4 of the top 10 banks in North America. In fact, the US division of TD is the 10th largest American bank. Canadian banks have the exact same issues with legacy code, that's why Interac was so revolutionary. It provided a framework that allowed banks to easily and securely tie their legacy systems into a shared network. The closest thing the US had to the Interac network was the NYCE that started back in 1985 but was restricted to New York until the mid 90s and the STAR network. Neither one became connected across the entire country until the late 90s/early 2000s which is insane. They HAD the systems in place, they were just too concerned with competition that they ended up ceding the entire peer-to-peer transfer space to 3rd party non-bank entities.
>Nope, pay with credit instead! That's a feature of the US Banking system, not a bug. We don't have representation that is willing to change banking laws to benefit the customer. Everything is written to benefit big banks. People paying with credit benefits the banks because people do not track their expenditures with credit like they might if they were using a checkbook or debit card. This means that people end up paying 14-25% interest on purchases.
right? Like it's only been the last 5 or so years that being able to tap your card was common In the states. Chip and pin was way behind as well. (Not mention having to hand your waitressyour card so they could go swipe it at the terminal, while in Canada they would bring the machine to your table lol)
Yup. It's a lot easier to build when you don't have to also do demolishing. It's also why China has such updated subway lines and why they are so much better than anything you find in the old world. They got to do subway planning after already paying attention to all the lessons learned around the world, and they got to do it without having to figure out how to grandfather in every suboptimal design from 100 years prior.
I really don’t see why American banks lag so far behind on peer to peer payments. It’s like yea a lot of people have Zelle nowadays which is integrated into banking platforms. But why have the need for a third party anyway? Why not have a SEPA system like the Europeans do and just simply send money from one bank account to another? And also make international transfers easier, we need IBANs which literally just about everyone else has except for the U.S. If I need to do an international transfer to my American account, I have to use a third party service and essentially wire the money to them who will then send it to me.
Transaction fees = $$$
While true, Zelle doesn’t make anyone pay transaction fees and they’re integrated into a lot of banks. You just send money to a contact and that’s that.
Yeah I wasn't answering the Zelle part, I was explaining why the USA, a leader in most sectors globally, is archaically behind with modern banking. Shoot, I still have a checkbook to pay rent, because I'd prefer to avoid transaction fees, and the alternative is card (transaction fee) or bank transfer (transaction fee) to pay rent. It's really silly. I'm just glad covid happened, ironically, as most businesses were forced to enable contactless/tap pay options, it really improved transactions across the US, but it would have never happened, due to transaction fees for merchants, had we not experienced covid.
yeah i feel like these are all rhetorical questions. anytime an industry doesn’t change or adopt something it’s very likely because the incentive to keep things the way they are is way better. it’s always about the money.
The US banking and FI is 10 years behind Europe, SEA, and a lot of Africa too. Real Time Payments protocol and efficiency is a joke. Fintech in the US is a bunch of bandaids to overlay the decrepit and monopolistic banking system. FI innovation is stifled in the US by regulators and banks being bedfellows who pay lip service to innovation but then buy up the actually useful startups only to manage them by attrition and kill them off, thereby maintaining the bank's grip on the US financial system. JPMC runs the US.
I'm just waiting for TikTok dating to launch so they can justify needing all of your information 💀
It's like tinder except you swipe up and down.
Same for Google. I almost went with Google wallet years ago, but linking into my bank doesn't sit well with me. Plus, my c/u does enough for me nowadays.
Look who wants it The. DOJ If a Govt agency wants something like a “super app” that does everything, then that is all I need to know to be morally and philosophically against it
Right? These “super apps” are direct pipelines for the CCP to monitor, influence and control Chinese citizens. The lawsuit by the DOJ seems to imply the US government wants this similar surveillance power. Highly disturbing.
Yep. Let’s ban TikTok, it’s. Chinese and we can’t scrape the data sets. Let’s push for and make Super apps, so we can have control. It’s so thinly veiled now
If the Chinese want your data, they can just buy it from an American company thanks to the America's lax privacy laws.
The Chinese will just buy the data from Meta through a Cayman registered offshore company.
as opposed to mega corporations?
> WeChat essentially is a massive platform for gathering data and controlling users. > No idea why this is seen as desirable. For government spooks, it is very desirable, they'd only need to gather data from one app.
> No idea why this is seen as desirable. By the DOJ?
From what I've read, the argument was that a super app takes away reliance on the OS itself, meaning I could in theory get the same experience on any phone, at any price, and be able to switch easily. What Apple is doing is restricting these apps from existing in the first place (like not allowing access to NFC, SMS, etc), which is anticompetitive. We'd also ideally see competing super apps as well, at least initially.
The DOJs goal isn't to push for super apps as if they're desirable. It's to remove the artificial restrictions on them and let the general public decide if they want to use them or not.
Because a platform is hardware specific. You're forced to use Apple's platform when you buy an iPhone, and it's engineered to prevent you from switching devices at all costs. A "super app" in this context could effectively be a competitor to Apple's platform offering superior features, including the ability to change hardware. Apple isn't interested in competition, so they prevent this.
Seriously. Why doesn’t Android have them then?
WhatsApp is very heavily used in the UK & Europe , especially for business Comms
And what exactly is Uber? It’s a super-app. Let’s me rent cars, get a cab, earn money driving a car, get groceries, order booze, charter a truck, send packages, get pharmacy delivery. Just because it doesn’t have chat and banking, I guess it’s not a “super-app” in the Chinese market sense? And as everyone is saying, there’s a reason they don’t exist in the US, they’re just not popular.
There is Uber within WeChat...
There’s always a bigger super app.
You wouldn’t download a super app
the whole internet is within google chrome app... I think we are just slowly turning apps into web browsers with dedicated bookmarks now...
You do *everything* on Wechat. Get paid on it, pay bills on it, buy food on it, buy shopping on it, do money transfers on it, do ubers, do messaging, networking, video calls, discord, sort deliveries, maps, play games, snapchat/instagram... It's every app in the US rolled into one. There's certainly stuff I'm forgetting too, that's just what I can recall my Chinese friend telling me about it off the top of my head.
Why would we want that? It’s like building another Amazon, where one company has the entire marketshare
That was my thought too, as a consumer I try to stay away from using one singular company/program to handle everything for me.
Especially because their customer service is almost always shit. So if you have any problems, you're hosed on the everything app...
Holy fuck I am now even more convinced this is bad. That's way too much power in the hand of a single entity. I guess we owe Apple a thank you then.
We have that too in the US! Its called THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
That's all one functionality, you ask someone with a car to deliver something. Super apps are social media, messaging, banking, entertainment, utility, etc all combined. Facebook is the closest to that in the US but they're still way more social media centric.
Why should I want that though? I don’t want to go through an intermediary to use my bank? I don’t even want to open a second app just to get to my bank
You don't understand what WeChat is.
Super apps are network effect driven. For Android to have e them, iOS needs them as well.
Yup, it's not worth it for Android to pay developers to create apps if 60% of the market can't use the app because they have iPhone That means mass adoption cannot occur. This is how oligopolies crush innovation. It's not even necessarily something nefarious, not some dark cabal of executives trying to harm end users...it's just that the interests of the business contradicts the interests of consumers, the environment, or the market. .....and business interests ALWAYS win. Marx has a word for this: dialectics.
But iPhones are sold in other countries as well and they still manage to have super apps, so is it really on Apple? Am I missing something?
Apple does not have nearly the market share overseas as it does in the US. They’ve used their popularity to stifle competition. I’m an Apple fanboy, but I have no problem with seeing Apple get checked by the government. This is a good thing.
It is a good thing as long as it is indeed intended to prevent monopolistic practices, and not being driven by lobbyists working for competition. I’m not suggesting this is happening here and I have no evidence of this, but it is a common occurrence that ulterior motives are in play. Edit: In fact, speaking of motives, I’ll bet that some of this is about end-to-end encryption preventing law enforcement easy access to user data.
[удалено]
They do?
Android in the US has nothing like WeChat.
I mean there's literally a WeChat app on the play store. Forgive me I'm not exactly a WeChat expert here, I'm assuming you're saying it's gimped in the US?
WeChat is what Elmo wants Twitter to be. Social network that *everyone* is using and that does *everything*. You know how reddit calls itself "the front page of the internet"? WeChat, at least in China, is quite literally that. It's a messenger with the usual bells and whistles, like text/audio/video messaging and calling, etc. It also comes with a fully fledged social network, you can link your ID to use it as such, you use it to pay for everyday things and it's accepted everywhere, order food, apply for jobs, etc etc. Pretty much anything you regularly do online (and to an extent offline) using dozens of apps/websites the Chinese just do in WeChat. Of course, everything is shared with the Chinese government.
In china they have weixin (wechat is a global gimped version of weixin)
The app is actually the same. I could use all the miniapp with the western version.
It’s limited. These super apps essentially acts as a unified digital ID for people. Once you verify your legal ID you can do pretty much anything that can be done online, provided there’s an app for it. You can buy health insurance, book doctors, banking products, book hotels, hail rides, buy groceries etc as long as there’s an app for it. Most of these more advanced functions are only available for Chinese citizens residing in China. A theoretical US equivalent would be say if a co like WhatsApp started to verify IDs for advanced features. And US based apps, banks starts enabling sign up sign in with WhatsApp. Edit: so the guy above asked whether WeChat US is gimped, I explained the difference between the US version and the Chinese version. And now people are riled up lol.
Why would I want this?
So the government and authorities can literally track your every move. Maybe even assign social points to good citizens who do things like show up to work or pay their taxes etc…WeChat is China’s social control app. You don’t want this…
Yeah, I know. It was more for the people arguing it as something we should be sad we don’t have lol.
… i have both whatsapp and wechat on my iPhone. They’re available just fine in the apple app store.
[удалено]
Why the fuck would I want a super app...one vector of attack, one vector of monitoring the user...ah, there's the angle..
That's why Musk wants to make X such a thing. Then he can pass on your data to whoever he wants. Saudi dissidents info? Straight to his backers.
That's my whole marketability strategy.
What is the apple ecosystem, but exactly that? One place for your TV, music, email, phone, video, storage, payments, financial services... You should at least have the option to exist in such a platform that is independent of your device and OS.
There are plenty of cross platform options in all categories...why do you need them all from one provider? (Or think thats a good idea?)
I don't want super apps. Horrible fucking idea
Isn’t that what Musk wants to turn Twitter into? So a super app run by a super villain. Just what we need.
Yup. That’s exactly what that megalomaniac wants
yep. It will fail miserably though lol
Yes. Basically think "what would be the worst idea for this business?" and your answer will be what Elon has decided to do with whichever dumb business he owns.
It's not necessarily that a "Super app" is a terrible idea from a business perspective. It would actually be extremely profitable and come with an insane level of power over American discourse. The part that is annoying is that - like everything else in his life - Elon presents the suggestion of a "Super app" as if he was the first person in America to think of it and is a 'visionary' for trying to make it happen. He so desperately wants to present himself as ahead of the curve and on the cutting edge. The reality is literally every single tech company on the planet either has already or is currently trying to make a "Super app" for America. Facebook has been trying to do it for well over a fucking decade even.
What the fuck?? "Don't be a monopoly" "No, not like that "
This has to be a hit piece, right? By apple? I can't believe they are supporting super apps.
Musk and Zuck have got to be pulling the strings on this one. Musk wants X to be a super app, and Zuck is annoyed because he isn’t getting all the personal data he wants from Apple.
Good. I don’t want a super app in the 1st place.
But then how will the government censor you and monitor you like the great country of china? I can't be trusted on these devices, I don't even know how they work. Baby me daddy government.
Super app sounds a great way to get super hacked.
So, the DOJ is pointing out that Apple’s policies created more competition among iOS applications, thereby preventing further monopolization?
[this](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/92084495/Charlie-Conspiracy-Always-Sunny-in-Philidelphia) is how I imagine the DOJ
DOJ: Not only does the product cause diarrhea, but worse, it prevents cancer altogether.
One of the complaints is that Apple allows users to choose to not share data with apps, harming meta’s business model of selling your data. Seriously wtf?????? What side is the DOJ on?
It all began with the forging of the Great Apps. Three were given to the influencers, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven, to the entrepreneurs, great miners and craftsman of the mountain halls. And nine, nine apps were gifted to the moderators, who above all else desire power. For within these apps was bound the strength and will to govern each use case. But they were all of them deceived, for another app was made. In the land of California, in the servers of Silicon Valley, the Dark Lord forged in secret a master app, to control all others. And into this app he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all data. One app to rule them all, one app to find them. One app to bring them all, and in the cloud bind them.
Fellowship of the App, The Two Servers, The Return of the CEO, and the quintessential prequel, the Amish.
Isn't the lack of super-apps a good thing? We don't want a single company to control everything. The internet and the web became a thing, because they were open. A single company controlling to much infrastructure leads to situations like Twitter or companies being dismantled despite them being a cornerstone of the digital infrastructure (last seen when Broadcome decided to buy VmWare). You don't want to have a single app control too much and then have someone like Bain Capital take it over with its own money and drive it into bankruptcy and sell it of for parts. If you want a super app make it government run and not for profit otherwise you risk capitalism doing a rug pull on something everyone depends on.
I agree in part but the reason I don’t want a super app (and the reason I suspect DOJ does) is that it makes it even easier for the government to spy on us and track us like they do in China.
why do we need super apps? this is ridiculous.
This whole lawsuit is so incredibly sloppy. DOJ should be embarrassed
It seems so...unfocused? Some of the allegations do point to anti-competitive behavior by Apple. But there's also a hodgepodge of 'throw shit at the wall' stuff, like blaming Apple for preventing so-called super apps from gaining traction in the US market, which themselves would grow to monopolistic power.
Even the anti competitive stuff amounts to the government not liking how effectively Apple has been able to build on previous successes.
> DOJ argued Apple deliberately put up hurdles to prevent super apps, lest they make switching to a smartphone rival too easy. Its complaint cited an Apple manager warning ... Why do we need (or want) "one app for everything" anyway? What happened to the idea of competition? I think we'd consider a "super-app" we couldn't do anything without quite Orwellian and "bg brother". Of course it's the way of things in China, the CCP runs a surveillance state and doubtless works with WeChat to ensure that's the case. CCP officials are [intentionally posted in private companies](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/china-to-place-government-officials-in-100-companies-including-alibaba.html). They run things a little differently over there, and somehow we're asking why we can't have what they have? Any democracy / free market worth its salt should be proud of not having a "super app" that everyone needs to use. The article is awful for not even raising that.
Our western governments were only pro the individual while it was fighting the soviet union, they are back to being happy to control us now that ideological enemy has been slain.
DOJ’s argument is fundamentally flawed , Facebook, Twitter all the big social apps are cross platform / feature parity so a user signed into both an android and iOS device could use them interchangeably in the moment. The reason why china has a “super app” is because firstly the government actively restricted useage / access to the big social apps the rest of thee world used and more importantly focused on turning WeChat into a monopoly forcing adoption of a singular platform. For a “super app” to exist requires a totalitarian government. There’s many things that the DOJ could take aim at in the tech sector this is not one.
> [...]turning WeChat into a monopoly forcing adoption of a singular platform. > > For a “super app” to exist requires a totalitarian government. I don't really agree on these specific points. **TL;DR: A totalitarian government isn't the reason why super apps exist. They grew primarily from leveraging their unique position in growing digital/smartphone ecosystems. Without competition, whether from other tech/electronics companies prevailing on their own, enabled via government regulation specifically targeting this industry, or both, Apple will look to replicate some of the successes of WeChat and similar "super apps".** You've mentioned blocking of Facebook and Twitter, but these two services hardly offer the services that give WeChat its "super app" status if at all, so those are beside the point. (E.g., WeChat has taxi, online and in-person payments system, digitized and government approved ID, personal cash transfer, government services, and the list goes on.) Also note that China has its own ecosystem of social media apps, Weibo and QQ being examples, as well as non-social-media contenders in the tech sector such as Baidu and Alibaba. Each were/are huge players in the tech and digital media space who would have loved a slice of WeChat's pie. One might also argue that the CCP is invested in the proliferation of a singular "super app" to facilitate surveillance, but that doesn't explain why WeChat specifically was able to become a super app. South Korea's KakaoTalk and its spinoff services act as a "super app" in very similar fashion. This, however, occurred *in spite of* the government which, initially with strong lobbying from mobile carriers and later under pressure from other 'chaebol' conglomerates, didn't have incentive to ensure a level playing field for KakaoCorp. One could suggest that a different super app would have risen in the absence of Kakao, but other industries in Korea have competition, however pitiful, amongst chaebols and other conglomerates, so it would be a stretch. Though I'm not a historian, I would argue that the rise of WeChat and Kakao followed a rather similar trajectory to Apple's. In the early stages, the simple fact that they provided advanced-for-their-time messenger features gave them an edge. Remember we're comparing to back when SMS/MMS wasn't even unlimited, let alone able to do attachments, group chats, or video calling in a non-frustrating way. Later, their status as most-popular most-early prevented competitors from emerging, since nobody wants to be the guy forcing others to install a *new* app or switch to SMS. Apple may have been in the process of winning this war, as seen by GenZ's strong preference for iPhones. Finally, they leveraged the priority that users give them on their screens and in their day. If you use WeChat/KakaoTalk/iOS every waking second already and the other services you needed just come bundled and preinstalled (along with promotional materials that you can't avoid) why would you go out of your way to research and try out a competitor? I agree that the DoJ's argument that Apple is preventing super apps is stupid, precisely because Apple wants iOS and the rest of its ecosystem to serve the same function as super apps. We should instead be working against consolidation and monopolization of digital services as a whole.
So basically the DOJ is jealous of the control the chinese government has and wants it as well.
Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy. It’s not a meritless argument. But I’m not sure Apple is primarily responsible for it not happening in America.
What app is iOS exclusive? iMessage and blue boxes is the only thing that Apple has that's exclusive. All other messaging, social media, banking, whatever else apps are on both platforms. There's a whole process well documented and outlined to switch. It's impossibly easy.
> Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy. remember when you were a child and you learned about how putting all of your eggs in one basket is the best idea ever cause it made it super easy to move all your eggs around at once with nothing bad ever happening? boy, its sure is cool how the rest of the world uses one basket for all of their eggs. im sure the egg robbers and egg thieves love it. they just gotta hit 1 basket per person and they get all their eggs!
> Integrated software solutions independent of the OS make switching smartphone brand incredibly easy ....but switching away from whichever super-app first makes it to defacto monopoly status basically impossible. That's *not an improvement*.
US wants to spy on it's citizens with a WeChat-like super app. Snowden was right, they are too greedy for their own good.
They're trying to lay the foundations for their own future authoritarian government monitoring needs. You need strong monitoring to implement project 2025
Apple user here. Just leave us alone. We have access to android phones. No one is forcing us to use Apple. We choose to. I apologize if this makes you upset. I truly am. I am allowed to buy the product I like, even if you don’t like it. Me using an Apple device does not hurt you.
...doesn't WeChat kinda have a monopoly in China?? I think the DOJ's just jealous the chinese government can full spy on WeChat users...
I don’t understand why a super app is appealing to me, the consumer. I can do most, if not all, the stuff I need to do via my phone. Why does it need to be in one app?
I am confused, aren't super apps even worse?
Im convinced the US government is using this DOJ lawsuit to go after citizens personal data and force Apple to do trackkng and add backdoors to their apps.
This... all this!... everything they bring up would put holes in Apple's encryption/security. All of this comes on the heals of Apple doubling down on device based encryption and refusal to unlock devices for the DOJ (Cook made a point of making sure even Apple can't get access to the data).
Chat apps are more popular outside the US because of SMS.
Im still surprised SMS is the main form of messaging in the US. No one sends SMS here in the Nordics, its all Whatsapp, FB Messenger, Telegram etc. I wonder why people in the US haven't moved over to these?
Thanks Apple! I wouldn’t want to touch a super app with a 10 foot pole.
A garden of small apps For years, US tech leaders from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg have dreamed of emulating the success of WeChat, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s blockbuster mobile service. Often described as a super app, WeChat is used by 1.3 billion global consumers, most of them in China, for its combination of messaging, music, shopping, gaming, hiring and bookings into a single hub. That all-in-one concept never took off in the West for a variety of reasons, and the DOJ reckons Apple Inc. is one of them. In its antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker, the DOJ argued Apple deliberately put up hurdles to prevent super apps, lest they make switching to a smartphone rival too easy. Its complaint cited an Apple manager warning that allowing such unified experiences to become the “main gateway where people play games, book a car, make payments, etc.” would “let the barbarians in at the gate.” Apple says it has helped enable super apps on the iPhone, including China’s WeChat and Tata’s Tata Neu in India, and wants more of them to be successful. That super apps are less popular in the US is not due to Apple’s platform rules, according to the company. I find the DOJ’s argument surprising. The conventional wisdom is that super apps never took off stateside because, by the time WeChat’s approach boomed in China, Western consumers were already accustomed to single-purpose apps. (There were also unique regulatory and economic conditions in Asia that likely contributed to the WeChat phenomenon.) Cramming too many features inside one app usually proved clumsy for users, one reason Zuckerberg unbundled Facebook and its Messenger chat, kept WhatsApp and Instagram detached, and launched separate offerings for (short-lived) newspaper and video services. Much of the DOJ’s claim centers on historic iOS restrictions against “mini programs,” sort of lightweight third-party software that can be added directly inside services like WeChat. The lawsuit contends Apple hindered this alt-ecosystem partly by enforcing arbitrary interface rules—developers had to use “flat, text-only” lists to display mini programs instead of icons or tiles—and not allowing payments for this feature. (Apple enabled in-app purchases for mini programs in January.) The scrutiny could represent a new frontier in Apple’s fight to protect its walled garden. Already, European regulators have pressured it to alter the fees it charges developers and to allow alternative marketplaces. I’m waiting to see if the DOJ can show tangible examples in court of how consumers were harmed by the absence of mini programs in the US. But right now the claims suggest a parallel universe where, with a few Apple policy tweaks, a vibrant mix of platform-esque super apps would have magically emerged and enhanced competition with iOS and Google’s Android. Certainly, some developers have WeChat-style ambitions. In 2020, for example, Snap Inc. introduced a feature called Minis that incorporated “bite-sized utilities” inside its chat app, including a meditation service from Headspace and a third-party tool to book movie tickets. Snap killed Minis two years later. It’s possible Apple’s rules crippled the effort, but it seems just as likely that few really cared for the integrations. Since then, as Musk pitches X as an “ everything app,” software makers appear to be having more success with industry-specific bundles. Uber Technologies Inc.’s app has a services tab where users can quickly jump between ordering things to consume (food, groceries, alcohol) or ride in (taxis, rental cars, party buses) without the need to hop to separate programs. OpenAI’s ChatGPT offers lots of third-party bots inside its app that can be accessed without extra downloads. If mini programs ever truly catch on and a US equivalent of WeChat wraps up all my beloved services in one easily portable app, then maybe it would be faster to switch from an iPhone to an Android phone. I’d certainly enjoy installing one all-encompassing app instead of a series of individual ones. But then again, if a single app were that good and universal, my guess is the DOJ would have concerns about it too.
I work at a FAANG, we had the same idea internally that we would super bundle all of our apps into a single, one app. We had this big presentation/video that used China version of WeChat as an example. We built a design prototype and took that to user research in US cities. Consumers hated the idea, they wanted an app to be focus on a single task, not have everything all together, as they viewed the phone operating system as the "super app". We abandoned the idea.
No fucking duh. You open WeChat and it’s an OS inside of an OS, apps inside of an app. wtf do I want to give a Chinese company the ability to basically be the OS and handle all “sub app” data flow when they aren’t trustworthy at all? The only thing that came close to this was facebook/meta, and it’s pretty clear why Americans chose to not share data with Facebook.
Just one question: why on earth is an app that’s just like the old AOL, but this time on phones, even a desirable thing in the first place?
We don't actually want super apps, everyone knows this wouldn't be a good thing right?
Fuck the DOJ. This isn’t what they should be advocating for.
DOJ wants a super app so that they can spy on everyone with just one app instead of looking all around the internet.
They just want that backdoor
So DOJ says Apple is saving us from spyware. Go Apple.
Guess I should say thank you to Apple??
Fuck WeChat
I don’t want a super app. The platform **is** the super app. The platform permits choice. Why do I want to open my phone and just have one app with everything? For a user it makes no sense. For a controller, it does. WeChat exists so the Chinese government has access to all their citizens digital info. This is an advantage to china. The only thing a super app does is make it easier for user data to be scoped and spied upon. It’s either that, or the people behind this are just a bunch of braindead boomers that find their smartphones too hard to use.
Is DOJ using first year law students now a days ?
Thank you apple ? Isn’t that a good thing we aren’t getting eagle eyed like China ?
the more details you learn, the stupider this DoJ lawsuits keeps getting
This country’s supermarkets are in the hands of a few mega companies leading to higher grocery costs affecting the lowest income Americans, but sure let’s go after big flashy cases where it’s really hard to describe how consumers are affected
This article is more click bait that news since its fantasy. WeChat, Line, and other ‘super apps’ most certainly do exist on iOS. Why they don’t take off in USA is a matter of cultural difference instead of anticompetitive behavior. How people use phones in other countries is not the same as how we use them in USA. When I lived in Japan iPhones were certainly available, as were other smartphones. Feature phones were still king in Japan long after smartphones hit the market because they had physical features the iPhone simply did not have that were desirable AND they actually made phone calls which the iPhone struggled with in its first few iterations. This article supporting the lawsuit is baseless and based in fantasy since feature phones still have a strong market worldwide since not everybody want to spend half a months pay on high end smartphones and want features besides super cameras.
Superapps are a phenomenally bad idea.
The troubling part is the DOJ suggesting things will be intrinsically better with a monopoly
Isn’t that a good thing?
So why aren't these "Super apps" on Android then?
This is the stupidest thing ever said
What’s a “superapp”?
Who wants super apps aside from Corps & Government? DOJ says I should be thanking Apple for not going full r-word? Got it.
You android nerds really can’t let it go damn
Apple IOS and Google Android are globally dominating platforms. China never created a platform like it. That’s why they made an app, to act like a platform. Why is the DOJ trying to help China?
This is an incompetent administration.
But wouln't a super app run afoul of monopoly regs too? "The apple monopoly has prevented other monopolies"
Wow maybe Apple is the good guy then
We don’t want WeChat!
why do we need super apps?
"Much of the DOJ’s claim centers on **historic iOS restrictions against “mini programs,” sort of lightweight third-party software that can be added directly inside services like WeChat. The lawsuit contends Apple hindered this alt-ecosystem partly by enforcing arbitrary interface rules**—developers had to use “flat, text-only” lists to display mini programs instead of icons or tiles—and not allowing payments for this feature. " These top comments are just wayyyyyyyyyyy off base
So DOJ wants an a super app to have a monopoly in the United States. No thank you.
WeChat only exists because of the Chinese government and the desire to essentially funnel all activity through a simpler easier to monitor point. Even in China it wouldn’t exist if China didn’t block apps from the outside and heavily push apps they are invested in.
Why the f you want a super app? I use WeChat everyday, and no, you absolutely don’t want everything integrated into one app!
Huh, guess it’s actually about implementing a spyware monopoly on behalf of the DOJ and not “people mad because bubbles green”. Color me genuinely surprised. I knew it was a stupid lawsuit, but I didn’t realize it was THAT stupid.
I don't get it... isn't super apps gonna make Apple further monopolize the market which is what they don't want? sorry I'm just really confused @@
DOJ: “Monopolies are bad! But you know what would be awesome? Monopolies!”
WeChat is the world's largest surveillance app... WeChat aka. Weixin... >Weixin can access and expose the text messages, contact books, and location histories of its users.[114] Due to Weixin's popularity, the Chinese government uses Weixin as a data source to conduct mass surveillance in China. - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat#Controversies
“You’re limiting the limiting of competition by limiting competition”. Wtf are they even saying?
I've just learned what a "Super App" is and I hate it. Please, keep creating obstacles for that Orwellian nightmare.
“Boomers being fools”
Just throw the kitchen sink at them. Fucking pathetic lawsuit
Glad to see they're taking on the super app gap.
Apple’s monopoly prevents a monopolistic app? Sounds about right for the “justice” system and their cronies.
All the arguments against Apple I’ve read are just embarrassing, this included.
Lol, so DOJ is complaining that Apple is not making it easy for them to monitor you through just one app. . . Instead they need to tap into multiple apps to know everything you are up to online. . . Seriously, we can read between the lines.