The difference is that China’s domestic requirements don’t require Apple to become a non-profit. If the EU’s requirements are actually as many HN’ers would like them to be, Apple will have no reason to sell iPhones in the EU.
Apple still makes significantly more money from selling the actual iPhones than from the App Store.
This such an obvious fact that anyone even mildly interested in the topic (i.e. commenting here and making such strong, yet silly, claims) surely must know..
If that were true, Apple wouldn’t care to poke the bear.
If you were honest, you would read Apple’s SEC filing, which show that (globally) about 43% of Apple’s profits come from Services, while 57% comes from hardware. You could just admit that you don’t understand the difference between revenue and profit. I’m sure you’ll move the goalposts and claim that’s “significantly” more.
The EU wants to zero out Services revenue, while simultaneously removing Apple’s brand value (a curated “walled garden”, where app developers can’t take too much advantage of customers).
The alt stores in the EU will be a race to the bottom of which one allows developers to abuse customers the most. Why would any app stay on Apple’s store when alt stores allow more invasive privacy violations? And then when the app ecosystem on iOS looks like Android, what possible reason could you have to buy an iPhone?
So, yes, the EU very much wants Apple to be a non-profit.
> If that were true, Apple wouldn’t care to poke the bear
They are just searching for the optimal way of complying with the regulations while maximizing their income .
you do have a valid point about services being a larger % of their net income than I implied but that includes Apple Care, iCloud, the estimated $20(?) billion from Google that’s basically pure profit and is massively inflating the services segment’s margins? What proportion is left to the App Store? Who cares let’s just ignore that I guess..
> You could just admit that you don’t understand the difference between revenue and profit
Ok, that’s that, you’re either being obtuse or worse. Either way no point in continuing this silly discussion. But no, most of what you’re saying makes very little sense
