I don't like this action form Apple, but I don't agree with your assessment of market economics here.
The problem with "fairness" is that there is no objective measure of it. Everybody evaluates fairness according to how it aligns with their own personal interests.
This is one of the key problems a free market economy solves. Price discovery is the intersection of what somebody's willing to sell something for, and what somebody else is willing to pay for it. Both of these parties will have a completely different idea of what's fair. That's why fairness is not a valid price discovery mechanism, and I don't think any free market economist has ever advocated for it.
I don't think the parent comment's main point was about using fairness to judge anything - the two main good I questions I got from it are (a) does Apple provide more utility in hosting the apps than the entire Patreon service? and (b) if not, doesn't the fact that it costs more show that something, somewhere is very wrong with the economic model?
I'm a mild advocate of the Apple ecosystem in that I really like the fact it all works together pretty flawlessly for me, with many security headaches taken off my plate. (I'm always reminded of this when every ten years or so I think about trying to save money with a Windows laptop and come running back). But I think the parent comment's suggestion that this isn't about fairness as such, but whether that kind of arrangement is egregiously wrong hits home, and it does make me feel that this is the kind of weird economics that can only come from an unhealthy duopoly of iOS and Android.
What to do about it? I'm not sure the parent or I have any particularly good answers...
I will say, I do have opinions about what to do ;) But parent comment is right that I'm not trying to advocate for those opinions above, someone might completely disagree with me about how to respond to the situation, and that's fine.
I'm more just pointing to the situation and saying, "this seems really weird, right? This is not the outcome that any of us would expect or want. Maybe you disagree with me about how to solve this, but this does seem like something we should try to solve."
> The problem with "fairness" is that there is no objective measure of it. Everybody evaluates fairness according to how it aligns with their own personal interests.
With respect, this sounds a little bit like you're agreeing with me?
Another way of phrasing "fairness is not a valid price discovery mechanism" might be to say that fairness as a concept "doesn't exist" in the market, only competition: ie, what people are willing to pay to acquire a service from the available options they have before them, ideally within an environment where low barrier-of-entry to the market allows prices to fall if a service can be legitimately offered cheaper elsewhere, and where regulation sets the (occasional) market cap on how exploitative businesses are able to be. Fairness as a concept is not applicable to market prices: they don't get set because they are "fair", they get set because businesses calculate the maximum amount that people are willing to pay for products before going to a competitor (assuming there is a competitor to go to).
BUT, if people on HN insist on bringing fairness into discussions about anti-competitive behavior (which very often happens in discussions about the app-store), I think that Apple's fees in this case, and the impacts they will have on small-market creators, are unlikely to line up with most people's personal evaluation of "fair".
A sibling comment phrased this in a really good way, I think this is a situation where regardless of how you feel about fairness, you can look at the market outcome and think, "wait a second, something is not right here."
Would this view conclude that there should never be regulation of any sort? Or is there possibly a level of “fairness” that’s evident to the average person?
Regulation is itself neither objective nor fair. Additionally, regulation is not immune from market pressures as the legal environments and incentives they create are also subject to competition. No nation-state has a monopoly on hospitable business environments.
Fairness at its most objective is merely a process. It's not and should not be proselytized as a guarantee of equal outcomes irrespective of circumstances.
> Or is there possibly a level of “fairness” that’s evident to the average person?
The "average person" does not exist and thus doesn't have an opinion representative of an arbitrary individual or group of individuals. A rational flesh-and-blood person can only speak for himself.
>Fairness at its most objective is merely a process.
so basically, you don't care about moral fairness and are fine letting monopolies rule markets and societies. The extreme side of "equal opportunity".
I won't make a moral argument here, but merely a logistical one: country governments have a lot of incentive to not let this happen. For the sake of technological progress, for the sake of ensuring the non-upper class economy (aka, taxable income that won't play Matrix with them in terms of evasion) is healthy enough, and for the sake of minimizing risks of a hostile takeover (be it from the monopoly or foreign powers).
So a truly "free market" only works in a vacuum with benevolant dictators and a united world government. That may take a while.
>The "average person" does not exist
hence why we have multiple fields dedicated to approximating such a person. Because averages are still valuable for many things. From government policy, to targeted marketing, to identifying societal biases.
Oh god how tiresome these libertarians can get. Particularly when they've let their brains be turned into mush by reading too much Ayn Rand, or Mises et al. Hope you grow out of it.
The problem with "fairness" is that there is no objective measure of it. Everybody evaluates fairness according to how it aligns with their own personal interests.
This is one of the key problems a free market economy solves. Price discovery is the intersection of what somebody's willing to sell something for, and what somebody else is willing to pay for it. Both of these parties will have a completely different idea of what's fair. That's why fairness is not a valid price discovery mechanism, and I don't think any free market economist has ever advocated for it.