The numbers for 2021 are pretty much in line:
$89B - Apple sales in Europe (including some non-EU countries, most notably UK)
$85B - Apple AppStore revenue worldwide.
The question is: which one has more potential for growth.
Let's assume that 15% of App Store revenue is from the EU. That would leave an additional $12.7 billion hole in Apple's pocket.
Worse, it would mean Apple's third-party developers lose about $30 billion in revenue. (Apple takes a 30% cut, so the total App Store sales volume is about $283B). Those developers would also lose all access to their existing users in those countries. It would be a massive black stain on Apple's reputation.
It's the kind of drastic move that you simply can't do as a platform provider unless your hand is absolutely forced by something like international sanctions.
Much more likely they'll go the route of malicious compliance. You can side load apps but you can't add them to your home screen. You can set a third party voice assistant but it can't launch apps. Etc.
Will be very interesting to see how this plays out!
Facebook and Google are going to love this.
They can build a voice assistant app which will provide them with all of the apps people use the most, people they contact, places they visit, searches they do etc.
It's going to be a privacy nightmare.
The question is, how far will Apple go to keep Americans from turning on "EU mode"? Will it just be the usual country toggle? Will sideloaded apps be geofenced to the EU with Location Services? Or will they start adding bootloader fuses for each jurisdiction so that you can't install the "EU sideloading firmware" on US-purchased iPads? Or all of the above? I hope the EU is ready to litigate whatever hoops Apple makes people jump through - because Apple loves inventing new hoops.
if your goal is more protectionism, then it’s great. but if you want to produce market leaders then it’s bad.
> Share data and metrics with developers and competitors, including marketing and advertising performance data.
with competitors? :))
> Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those belonging to a gatekeeper. This includes making messaging, voice-calling, and video-calling services interoperable with third-party services upon request.
could have been solved easily if they proposed a working group to come up with the next video and messaging standard. right now i foresee the discussions we had back in mid 00s: we use our own video encoder. they use h263. and those other guys use vp9. good luck to the team writing a transcoder that works real time :))
> The Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires platforms to do more to police the internet for illegal content, has also been approved.
“think of the children” legislation.
Besides, the DMA has specific exemptions for small companies. Once a company reaches the "gatekeeper" level, they will have had all the necessary time to figure out how to comply with the law.
As long as Apple keeps selling iPhones, there's still profit to be made, App Store be damned.
Apple will barely see a dent from it. Their profit juggernaut will keep rolling on almost exactly the same.
The parent comment in question - "and eat pretty heavily into their revenues" - is confusing their personal projected wishful thinking (obviously desperately wanting big tech to falter) with actual reality (the one where Apple has no serious competitive threats in smartphones for what they do, and as such they'll keep marching on just the same).