The original commenter is not painting an accurate picture. For instance:
> Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer. You'll have to use sign in with Apple, throwaway emails, Apple payments, subscriptions, etc.
Sign In with Apple offers the user a choice whether to expose their email address to the application or whether to use a forwarding address.
Why? Well if you do what I do and register a different email address per application, you’ll quickly find that some applications either sell your data to spammers or get compromised and give it to the spammers for free. There’s nothing like registering for My Fitness Pal to track your progress and getting spam for Chinese casinos delivered to the email address you gave them and nobody else. And once they have your real email address, there’s no undoing that.
If Apple gives a forwarding address to those applications instead, when that email address starts to receive spam, the alias can be shut off to stop the spam to you, and even to everybody else who had their privacy compromised if it’s a widespread breach.
This is good for consumers, bad for spammers. If your users are given a choice between giving you their real email address and giving you a forwarding one, and they choose to keep their email address out of your hands, that’s not Apple being mean to developers, that’s your user’s privacy preference. Respect it.
Also, you don’t have to offer Sign In with Apple at all unless you also offer other social logins, like Facebook Login. Basically, if you’re going to centralise authentication with one of the giants, you have to offer Apple’s privacy-friendly option as well.
Apple payments? Nope, you don’t have to use them. Anything physical, you can use whatever you like. Many things digital, you can take payment outside the application using any system you like but have to use Apple within the application. Would it be better for developers if you could use whatever you like within the application? Sure! Is it the same thing as an unqualified “You must use Apple payments”? Not at all.
Subscriptions? Nope. Don’t have to use them at all under any circumstances. There’s loads of applications that are entirely free or have a one-time fee. You aren’t forced to use subscriptions at all.
Apple gives consumers choices that agree with Apple’s business model and takes away choices that don’t - just like any other company. Consumer friendliness is ultimately a function of overlapping interests.
But the anti-trust debate is not about that. It’s about whether or not the opportunities for companies to compete on finding overlapping interests with consumers are unduly restricted, which would indirectly be consumer hostile.
I’m not saying that Apple always acts altruistically, it is a business after all. I am pointing out that if you are relying on the original comment in this thread to understand the situation, you are going to be misled.
> Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer. You'll have to use sign in with Apple, throwaway emails, Apple payments, subscriptions, etc.
Sign In with Apple offers the user a choice whether to expose their email address to the application or whether to use a forwarding address.
Why? Well if you do what I do and register a different email address per application, you’ll quickly find that some applications either sell your data to spammers or get compromised and give it to the spammers for free. There’s nothing like registering for My Fitness Pal to track your progress and getting spam for Chinese casinos delivered to the email address you gave them and nobody else. And once they have your real email address, there’s no undoing that.
If Apple gives a forwarding address to those applications instead, when that email address starts to receive spam, the alias can be shut off to stop the spam to you, and even to everybody else who had their privacy compromised if it’s a widespread breach.
This is good for consumers, bad for spammers. If your users are given a choice between giving you their real email address and giving you a forwarding one, and they choose to keep their email address out of your hands, that’s not Apple being mean to developers, that’s your user’s privacy preference. Respect it.
Also, you don’t have to offer Sign In with Apple at all unless you also offer other social logins, like Facebook Login. Basically, if you’re going to centralise authentication with one of the giants, you have to offer Apple’s privacy-friendly option as well.
Apple payments? Nope, you don’t have to use them. Anything physical, you can use whatever you like. Many things digital, you can take payment outside the application using any system you like but have to use Apple within the application. Would it be better for developers if you could use whatever you like within the application? Sure! Is it the same thing as an unqualified “You must use Apple payments”? Not at all.
Subscriptions? Nope. Don’t have to use them at all under any circumstances. There’s loads of applications that are entirely free or have a one-time fee. You aren’t forced to use subscriptions at all.