Comment on Proton joins suit against Apple for predatory practices that harm developers and consumers

Ulrich@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

It’s insane that it’s taken this long for these companies to stand up to Apple. But better late than never, I guess. Here are my notes:

Proton will donate any money we receive from the lawsuit to organizations fighting for democracy and human rights so that some portion of Apple’s profits made from countries with authoritarian regimes are redirected to freedom. These donations will be coordinated through the nonprofit Proton Foundation, which oversees Proton and ensures that our work always prioritizes the public good over financial gain.

That’s cool but, are they donating to the Proton Foundation or From the Proton foundation?

Apple’s App Store policies disproportionately favor the surveillance capitalism business model employed by companies like Meta and Google…Companies that monetize user data in exchange for “free” services that abuse your privacy aren’t affected by this, as they don’t process payments through the App Store

Ehhh I dunno that I buy that one. Charge them 30% and they’ll have no option but to pony up. They’re not just going to close up shop. Also how would you even enforce such a charge? Just charge them 30% of all of their income?

There have been numerous incidents where Apple has removed or censored apps at the behest of authoritarian governments, in order to continue profiting from those markets.

Yeah, don’t go throwing stones in glass houses there, Proton. It’s not like you don’t comply with authoritarian governments.

Not supporting Apple’s payment system is also considered a violation, which can lead to threats to remove your app, as happened to Proton.

Wow, now that I did not realize.

Proton cannot even link to FAQ or customer support pages from its apps, as Apple believes it’s possible that users will then navigate from the support page to a pricing page and upgrade their accounts without paying Apple its fee.

I didn’t realize this either. It couldn’t be more clear by this rule alone that these policies have absolutely nothing to do with “protecting consumers” and everything to do with being 100% sure they get their cut for the privilege of being used on Apple devices.

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