No, 'App Neutrality' Is Not A Thing
from the misdirection dept
Last month, BlackBerry CEO John Chen tried to kiss up to major wireless carriers on the issue of net neutrality with a truly bizarre missive that received ample mockery in the technology press. Basically, Chen tried to argue that we don't need tough neutrality rules -- but we really should consider rules that force app developers to make content for unpopular mobile platforms. Like oh, BlackBerry, which after endless missteps now controls just 2% of the smartphone market. This was, to hear Chen tell it, because when companies refuse to make apps for unpopular platforms they're violating something Chen called "app neutrality":"Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other applications providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users. This dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem, in which iPhone and Android users are able to access far more content and applications than customers using devices running other operating systems. These are precisely the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level."Of course, as we pointed out at the time, Netflix isn't discriminating against anybody. If BlackBerry wasn't currently a train wreck and had a big enough market share to justify their time, Netflix would surely develop an app for BlackBerry users as well. As most of you know, net neutrality is about protecting the Internet from the bad behavior of companies that have built massive last-mile broadband monopolies courtesy of regulatory capture. In contrast, developers aren't making apps for BlackBerry simply because people aren't using BlackBerry's products. And while Google and Apple do dominate the smartphone market, the primary reason is because they offer a good product. That's in contrast to say, AT&T or Comcast, which offer a crap product because they have a government-protected monopoly over the last mile and have no incentive to improve.
I have no idea from the bowels of which ISP think tank or telco meeting room this "app neutrality" talking point originated; Chen and BlackBerry's incoherent tirade dominates the search results for the term. But it's worth noting that Mark Cuban actually argued a very similar point two days earlier, but, fortunately for Cuban, the media was too busy mocking BlackBerry to notice. Here's a snippet of Cuban's insight on the issue of app neutrality:
"There are basically 2 doors that control the availability of apps to the vast majority of smart phones in this country. They are owned and controlled by 2 of the largest tech companies in the world, Apple and Google. If you want your app to reach any type of audience (yes there are other app platforms supporting phones on the margin, but they are tiny by comparison), you have to make Google and Apple happy."Again, this ignores that Apple and Google have come to dominate the smartphone market because they make a kickass product. Not to say either of those companies doesn't engage in anti-competitive behavior, and I don't think anybody would argue Apple's app approval process isn't bizarre. But that has nothing to do with net neutrality, and Apple and Google are a far, far cry from government-pampered duopolists like AT&T and Comcast. Still, Cuban proceeds to insist that net neutrality rules need to ensure Apple and Google play nice too:
"The mobile app economy is far from open. It’s dominated by two companies. It is in the best interest of the entire mobile eco-system to address this duopoly while we are re-examining net neutrality. We should seriously consider requiring Apple to to allow and support 3rd party app stores and to require that Google continues to support and enable 3rd party stores and more importantly to integrate them into the Play Store, much as Amazon does with Marketplace integration."Cuban is again showing he doesn't quite understand how the broadband industry works or what net neutrality actually is. Consumers actually do have a choice of what kind of smartphone to buy or what apps to install. While there are some smartphone freedom constraints (usually imposed by the aforementioned carriers, mind you), users still can buy a Windows phone, or a BlackBerry phone, or some offshoot hackable Android ROM that provides greater application freedom and allows them to install whatever unsigned applications they'd like. They can also access something called the Internet for even greater freedom. That's in contrast to a Comcast customer who, if they want decent broadband, usually doesn't have any other choice. The two discussions are nothing alike, and I don't think that's a particularly complicated point to understand.
Still, like "search neutrality" before it, somebody somewhere pretty clearly hopes that the idea of "app neutrality" will shift people's attention away from what the net neutrality conversation is actually about: highly-tactical telecom carrier abuse of an uncompetitive broadband market. Fred Campbell of the Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology (a policy group dedicated to "liberate the ingenuity and creative spirit of America’s high-tech entrepreneurs and enterprises through market-oriented government policies") also rushed to the "app neutrality" argument when the group recently suffered a small stroke over the FCC's Title II plans:
"Chairman Wheeler’s description of his plan in Wired is disingenuous. His proposal will not ‘ensure the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.’ Some of the biggest gatekeepers on the mobile Internet today are using their power over mobile operating systems to deny access to application developers, yet these behemoths are exempted from the FCC proposal. The fact is, application developers will still have to ask someone for permission before they can access the mobile Internet.You see, Google, Apple and Netflix's domination of the smartphone and streaming video market is bad, even though consumers still actually have an organic market choice when it comes to those services. AT&T, Comcast and Verizon's stranglehold on the broadband market is to be ignored -- even praised -- because, uh, well, I'm not sure. You'd think those endlessly espousing the value of "free markets" would find the latter situation equally untenable, since it often involves companies literally writing state telecom law to further insulate government-protected duopolies from said market freedom. Unless of course it's not really about loving free markets or meaningful personal values at all, and it's really just about offering any old flimsy, inconsistent argument to help carriers protect the revenues received from uncompetitive (and certainly not free) markets?
The Chairman’s plan is also discriminatory. He is proposing to apply privacy limitations on Internet service providers through ‘Section 222′ while exempting Internet ‘edge’ companies whose fundamental business model is to profit from collecting and selling personal information about consumers. The Chairman’s discriminatory decision to exempt the Internet’s biggest data collectors from this privacy provision appears designed to protect the Administration’s political allies in Silicon Valley, not consumer privacy."
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Filed Under: app neutrality, fcc, fred campbell, john chen, mark cuban, mobile ecosystem, net neutrality, open internet
Reader Comments
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As for the morons trying to divert the attention from the real neutrality debate it is a losing battle. When 98% of the market couldn't care less about the ones whining about apps it's hardly going to be effective.
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1. What's stopping Blackberry users from using their web browser to watch Netflix videos? If it's the lack of a Silverlight plugin for mobile platforms then that's between RIM and Microsoft. (And aren't Netflix phasing Silverlight out anyway?)
2. Why the hell would anyone want to watch films and TV programs on a Blackberry anyway?
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Year of the Linux Desktop
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Hypocrisy?
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When I am at a disadvantage, the market is anti-competitive, and I need laws to help me.
When I am at an advantage, then I am just successful, and no one should get in my way.
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Re:
Forcing a company to make a App on your platform has nothing at all to do with Net neutrality. If this is the person heading BlackBerry, no one they are still having problems. They keep hiring Idiots to lead their company!!!
The LAST thing any company should want is forcing Company's to write software on other platforms. When they were all high and mighty with BBM and keeping people on their own platform because of it. That are just fine for them. Only when everyone leave after a number of years did they support BBM on other platforms, Android and iOS. By the way, is it on Windows Phone? Not that I'm away of, why not??? How about TIZEN? They're really doing a piss poor job themselves. That's only one App of theirs and it's only on a few devices.
If this is the person leading BlackBerry, they're doomed!!!
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Now, this is just me offcourse, but should revamp a platform that encompases the features and ease of whats out there now, but build from the ground up with privacy/security/open source in mind, and an obvious effort that your in it for the long haul, to show OTHERS how it's done..........then consider me a long term loyal and grateful customer......until then
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Since I don't "do" apps in general and avoid all things Apple, I only converted to Nexus 4 when the res on BB camera became unbearable and I had enough of BES. Hello Activesync!
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Re: Year of the Linux Desktop
I only put up with Windows this long because I thought most of my games wouldn't run on Linux, but apparently you can get Skyrim and the first two Arkham games working with newer versions of Wine. Now I just need to get used to speaking Linuxese. ("Terminal emulator" instead of "command prompt", "ls" instead of "dir", etc.)
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Antitrust
I don't see very much wrong with this. Even if it's not a net neutrality issue, there's no denying that Apple and Google together dominate the mobile market. The word "duopoly" is quite appropriate, and there's no denying that they're leveraging one market (mobile sales / licensing) to dominate another (app sales). An antitrust investigation, at the very least, would therefore be quite appropriate.
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App Platform Neutrality vs. App Market Neutrality
Mr. Chen is focused on what I'll call "app platform neutrality", somehow requiring developers to write apps for platforms other than iOS and Android. This would be akin to requiring developers to write apps for OS X and Linux instead of just Windows, in terms of desktop operating systems.
Mr. Cuban is focused on what I'll call "app market neutrality". His concern seems less about the platform and more about the gatekeeper role that Apple plays with iOS and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Google plays with Android. He wants there to be other possible gatekeepers, in the form of having other app distribution channels be able to be peers of the App Store and Play Store. Right now, short of jailbreaking, AFAIK it is impossible to have a peer of the App Store. While peers of the Play Store exist (e.g., Amazon AppStore for Android), on Google Play-centered devices, those peers are second-class citizens. I'll be happy to go into details on the Android side, as deep as anyone wants to go.
Of course, these pale in comparison to net neutrality, for the reasons posed in this TechDirt post and beyond. Of the two, app market neutrality comes closer to net neutrality IMHO, insofar as both are focused on the prospects of oligopolies to control content distribution.
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One word - interoperaibility
Or you know, if video industry wasn't so sick with DRM garbage, Netflix could offer it in normal formats and DRM-free fashion making it viewable on any platform without discrimination...
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Blackberry users are a small specialized group these days. Why would I want to bother.
How would this be different than forcing a specialty auto parts manufacturer who has specialized in Dodge add-ons to produce parts for a Volvo.
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Re: Re: Year of the Linux Desktop
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They have a point
Java became hugely popular because it offered something similar to platform "neutrality". Its hard to argue that Macs can only hold 10 percent of market share and Linux flavors some miniscule amount because they are bad OS's on bad Hardware. The popularity of the operating systems for PCs correlates with the amount of available software. Until recently, gaming on either wasnt even a possibility and it definitely influenced sales.
I see it like only being able to watch certain TV shows on certain TVs. That would be ridiculous. Id have to assume that the proliferation of the internet would not have happened at the rate it did if you could only access it on a linux machine.
I know these arent exactly apples to apples comparisons, but I do think it kind of sucks that I cant switch to a linux machine and continue to use the programs that I normally use on windows. I also think it sucks that if I want to have the most popular apps I have to switch to Android (Samsung) or Apple. The hardware on these newer smartphones are pretty similar with the exception of resolutions.My 2 year old blackberry runs android apps pretty well. Once the android emulator loads, the performance is absolutely on par with the s2 and 3 and iphone 3 & 4 (phones that were out at the time of launch and those released after).
By having to program in a different language for each phone, of course the programmers are going to go where the money is. It would be great for consumers and developers if they could develop apps that would run on any hardware. The segmentation only benefits the OS marketability.
Even if blackberry put together the most programmer friendly development process\environment, I dont think programmers would waste their time on 2% of the market. I probably wouldnt.
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I’m sorry I confused you so badly perhaps you should work on your reading comprehension.
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When should I be expecting Blackberry devices to support it? I could really use some solid dates so I can get my marketing materials put together.
Feel free to call and schedule an appointment with me for details on how this network functions.
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Re: They have a point
The end result would be apps that are even blander and less capable than the ones that exist now, and the elimination of any reason for OS and hardware manufacturers to create new and unique features, resulting in platforms that are even blander and less capable than the ones that exist now.
Also, from an ethical and public policy perspective, it's rather hard to come up with a reason for legally compelling companies to do it.
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This makes his argument sound a whole lot like the background spiel for mediagoblin and Sandstorm and similar open source web apps/app platforms designed to "break you out of corporate media silos" and their potentially unreasonable content policies (to loosely quote a description from a random person on the internet) at first, except then suddenly going off in a totally different direction that totally misses the point. It's kind of surreal.
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Re: One word - interoperaibility
But, that's not what he wants. He wants his crappy platform to be supported for all apps so that he can regain the competitive advantages his company has already squandered. He doesn't want Netflix to be forced to support his platform, he wants everyone to be forced to do it, and Netflix just happened to be the closest, biggest target he could think of.
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Re: Re: Year of the Linux Desktop
Still broken:
- All games requiring Rockstar Social Club (stupid DRM).
- A lot of games requiring DirectX 6 to 8, or glide.
- Lots of troubles with .NET (which is expected, the .NET runtime is a piece of crap. For instance it blows up your registry from 300kb to 8MB).
- Codec Hell. A lot of older games want to play movies in specific versions of codecs, which of course break newer games and vice versa. This isn't actually a wine-problem. The same happens on Windows.
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Re: App Platform Neutrality vs. App Market Neutrality
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