Chinese Buy One-Third of Vancouver Homes: National Bank Estimate - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-23/chinese-buy-one-third-of-vancouver-homes-national-bank-estimate <comment><USER2> Sigh, smh. The statistical flaws in this "back of the envelope" calculation are something else.

This was a study based on "a Financial Times multiple choice survey of 77 high net worth and affluent mainland Chinese individuals, 'admittedly not a statistically significant sample size,'" According to this survey, 9 individuals out of these 77 Chinese bought property in Vancouver. After some more mathematical shenanigans, this is extrapolated to imply that Chinese mainlanders buy 33% of the Vancouver real estate market. Really?!? And this statistically baseless extrapolation becomes newsworthy?

[http://www.vancouversun.com/business/chinese+investors+third...](http://www.vancouversun.com/business/chinese+investors+third+vancouver+homes+national+bank+estimate/11804486/story.html)

<comment><USER3> I find it believable, since 30% of population in Vancouver is Chinese [http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/vancouver- popu...](http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/vancouver-population/) This figure is also from 2011 so it's probably higher by now.

Seeing this touted feel like reading: Breaking news, a city with 100% Caucasian population does not see a single Chinese buyer!

<comment><USER4> When they say "Chinese" these discussions about real estate usually mean Chinese citizens, not ethnically Chinese locals. It doesn't seem to be explicitly said here but I'm pretty sure that's what he means, see the other paragraphs talking about government investigation into offshore buyers.

<comment><USER5> Yeah. Would it still be click bait if the headline were "30% of the people in Vancouver are ethnically Chinese, and people often live in houses"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The only thing that counts is money...... keep selling. Sell it all. Sell sell sell.

Who gives a toss for community or society or cohesion. Sell everything.

As long as property sellers can take all that lovely cash and buy more and bigger homes then what else matters?

Ordinary middle class people and the young - make em rent! Why the sense of entitlement that people should be able to afford to buy a home, what are you a communist? Whose country do you think this is?

In fact put one giant price on the whole of Vancouver and sell it ALL in one big job lot.

<comment><USER7> Not a bad idea...When the bubble pops buy it all back. Meanwhile, rent. That's equivalent to shorting the bubble.

<comment><USER6> Do you think the people buying these houses are so poorly off that they will sell when times get tough or do you think they incredibly rich and will laugh off market fluctuations?

<comment><USER7> Yes, they will sell. These people don't care about the price when they buy. They won't care about the price when they sell either.

The last time a property bubble in a developed economy fueled by Chinese speculators crashed, it crashed by 70%. [1]

People never see a property price crash coming.

Credit Suisse First Boston – 15 July 1997: [2]

 _We believe the supply demand imbalance will continue to drive residential prices during 4Q 1997 and into 1Q 1998. The two extremes will perform best; luxury residential prices should fare particularly well as we see flows of capital into the top end of this sector. Luxury property is also much less sensitive to affordability levels and much more geared to supply and price expectations. The smallest units (below 40 square metres) will also fare well as there is very limited supply at this level, yet they are the most affordable private sector flats._

[1] [http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/H...](http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/HK.png)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-property-did-you- se...](http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-property-did-you-see-the- crash-coming-in-1997-2011-6/?r=AU&IR=T)

The overheated property markets Vancouver & Sydney are fuelled by Chinese speculators. Why are they buying overseas when there's a perfectly sound economy right on their border, Hong Kong?

There's a property bubble in Hong Kong too, and it was getting expensive there, the Chinese went overseas to other well-off cities that are full of Chinese, Vancouver and Sydney. If Hong Kong was leading the price rise amongst the three cities, it might lead the price fall too.

At this very moment, Hong Kong's property prices are slumping:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-01/hong- kong-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-01/hong-kong- property-sentiment-turns-as-sales-slump-to-25-year-low)

One could argue, for all the many rich people buying in Vancouver who could shrug off market fluctuation, there are even more millionaires and billionaires in Hong Kong, which has the 4th highest billionaires per capita, who could shrug off even bigger market fluctuations. Yet it's property price is falling anyway.

One third of property buyers in Vancouver are Chinese. How many percent Chinese do you think are buying the property in Hong Kong?

<comment><USER8> Wasn't the Vancouver property also fueled by some kind of citizenship granting process from purchasing property in excess of some price?

<comment><USER9> Not anymore as far as I know. And not for a few years.

<comment><USER10> The Fed investor immigration program was canned, but there's still a backdoor in Quebec letting in millionaire immigrants, as Quebec manages their own investor immigrant scheme.

Nearly all of these millionaire immigrants to Quebec move to BC.

[http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1929324/study- reve...](http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1929324/study-reveals- awfulness-canadian-investor-immigration-income-tax)

<comment><USER11> That is unfortunate. There's been a long history of provinces just screwing each other (Sask just recently put two homeless men on a bus to vancouver).I wonder why the federal govt doesnt have full jurisdiction on immigrant visas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Young professionals trying to create careers/long term lives here are completely priced out of the market. I'll be leaving soon. San Fransisco like property prices, with far, far less compensation.

You simply can't own a house unless you're a millionaire, and a small condo will be upwards of $200k for a mortgage when you don't own the property. It's just insane.

[http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Location=Vancouver- Briti...](http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Location=Vancouver-British- Columbia/Salary)

Even if I'm pulling in a quality $80k (high-ish by here standards), I'm nowhere near affording a $2mil property. I'll be lucky to have a small condo with 2 bedrooms. What's the incentive to stay?

<comment><USER13> > and a small condo will be upwards of $200k for a mortgage when you don't own > the property

Ha!

[https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/4bo9wz/were_buyi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/4bo9wz/were_buying_a_2_bedroom_in_west_end_with_this/)

 _" We have 540k as a down payment and we are going to take a 160k mortgage. Adding strata fees for the place we want its going to be 1200$ a month for the next 30 years, and we end up with a 950sq 2 bedroom in a decent condo off Davie."_

$1200 / month (this is mortgage + condo fees) for 950 sq ft, and this is _after_ putting down $540k - and it's not even a brand new building. And compared to SFH, condos are actually realatively reasonable priced, by Canadian standards at least.

Beyond insane.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, Davie is about as downtown as you can get. It's like an apartment overlooking New York's Central Park, except in a provincial backwater, instead of a world-class city.

Otherwise, condos within easy reach of downtown are somewhat affordable. Single-family homes in Vancouver are very much a 1% luxury item at this point.

<comment><USER13> Davie is a good neighborhood, but far from "an apartment overlooking New York's Central Park". Regardless, the question to me is, does the local economy (wages) justify these prices or is society continuously putting a larger and larger portion of their net worth into real estate, well beyond historical norms?

You can look at a very long term chart of real estate vs GDP growth and see something has recently gone askew, do low interest rates completely explain that? And if so, what would happen if interest rates normalized in a relatively short period of time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This funny website lets you see what's available in the $1M range in Vancouver: [http://www.crackshackormansion.com](http://www.crackshackormansion.com)

<comment><USER16> Oh my word - some of those properties are insane! Even some of the $2m ones are basically just wooden sheds!

<comment><USER17> It's the land. I'm not sure why people don't understand this. Without the location context this isn't a useful site.

Suitable land is artificially constrained, fiat money issuance is unconstrained, ergo prices are rocketing as rent seeker banks shift resources from wealth producers to themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a similar story appearing in UK in places like London and in my home town of Cambridge. This isn't yet not he same scale, but it is affecting the property market.

In Cambridge 1 in 20 new-build properties is purchased by non-resident Chinese buyers, which has been one of the contributing factors that has seen prices rise by 50% since 2010 [1] and are 47% above 2007 pre-GFC peak [2]. Note - unlike Vancouver that has a a big (30%) local Chinese population, only about 1.4% of the Cambridge population is Chinese or of Chinese ethnic origin [3]

To some extent this is just about free markets and a movement of capital. But it is starting to price out many local people out of the property market that does have a social impact.

There are other factors at play including a booming tech & biotech sectors, restrictive planning, stock-piling of building plots etc, but the foreign buyers issue is a major contributor.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/22/china- cambridg...](http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/22/china-cambridge- university-poet-xu-zhimo-farewell-property)

[2] [http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-328...](http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3285913/House- price-growth-Britain-s-20-major-cities-peaked-prices-Cambridge-12-year.html)

[3] Guardian data - available in a Google doc [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yc8W1SiCbWd9V4I9KmTl...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yc8W1SiCbWd9V4I9KmTlY_Rk_qullL828Qxbsvth93w/edit?hl=en#gid=0)

<comment><USER19> In Cambridge, it's sadly a pretty artificial bubble. With all land there is in the surroundings, it looks like an artificial limit in the demand.

<comment><USER20> That's prime agricultural land, though. And Cambridge is _really_ not suited transportwise to becoming a big city.

<comment> guard-of-terra > That's prime agricultural land

Let's grow some cabbage on the most expensive land on the planet?

Because forget money - it's cabbage that counts.

> And Cambridge is really not suited transportwise to becoming a big city.

We have this recurring thing that people only want to move to a very very small subset of cities. There are multiple solutions to be proposed, but just turning blind on this doesn't sound feasible.

<comment><USER20> It's hardly the most expensive land on the planet, it isn't even all that near to London let alone somewhere like Manhattan or Hong Kong.

Food security is not something that should be _entirely_ handwaved away, although I agree that plenty of places manage to live entirely on imports.

I agree with the idea of not limiting ourselves to a few cities: that's why it makes little sense to try to turn Cambridge into a London suburb. It's a market town of historic buildings that was spared bombing. The tech industry growth there is great but somewhat accidental. I doubt you've been there, but there's very little that can be done about the traffic problems without demolishing a college. The building of a new railway station north of the river should help greatly though.

I'd suggest trying to build up tech industry in one of the 'post-industrial' cities instead. Maybe we could buy up the £1 houses in Stoke-on-Trent and market those to China at huge markups instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Many causes behind this - saying the Chinese are to blame is glossing over the issue IMO and is very much akin to saying tech workers are behind the property issues in SFO. There are more sides to this...

One of major contributors to rising property prices is the gutting of trust in the stock market or any speculative market for that matter, over the past two decades. Super low interest rates haven't helped either with people looking to park their cash left with property as the only safe place which provides a rate of return.

With regards to Chinese buyers, there is some truth (again stressing that it's only a part of the picture). For the past 20 years nearly every trading partner with China has incurred a massive balance of payments deficit. That money's coming home to roost (literally). The same thing happened in the 80s when Japan was an exporting powerhouse - they bought real estate and companies across the US and Europe, pushing up the price of real estate.

There was actually an excellent piece in the Prospect by Andy Grove (former Intel CEO) which lamented the loss of manufacturing in the US and the effects it would cause: [http://prospect.org/article/andy-grove-trade- globalization-a...](http://prospect.org/article/andy-grove-trade- globalization-and-defending-america's-economy)

Again just a facet to the picture, but you put all these pieces together and you can see the problem a lot more clearly.

<comment><USER22> Interesting comment on the parallels with the Japanese a few decades back.

The Japanese were like the Chinese at one point too, selling crappy electronics in the 60s and being seen as extremely wealthy in the early 90s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Correct me if I'm wrong but this just seems like the next wave of gentrification. If you make a place nice and safe, people with the most disposable income buy it all up.

Everybody feels this way about the next wave. I'm not unsympathetic and am similarly unable (and/or unwilling) to buy a house in this overheated bay area market.

Reminds me of an article I recently read: [http://www.atlantamagazine.com/homeandgarden/the- gentrifier/](http://www.atlantamagazine.com/homeandgarden/the-gentrifier/)

<comment><USER24> middle class white people displacing brown and black people is called gentrification.

rich chinese people displacing middle class white people is called "this is totally unfair, why isn't this illegal?".

of course, guess who's making all the money selling these units? the rich white people (developers, bankers, politicians, contractors, lobbyists, lawyers) who decide what's legal and illegal. as per usual, they are the winners in this whole charade, while the middle and lower classes just blame the dirty foreigners. it's even better when they're chinese -- who doesn't hate the chinese??? so convenient. shhh, let's not mention the other 2/3rds of buyers.

the aforementioned elites are playing and winning a game as old as time, as they do.

<comment><USER25> I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your comment but I don't think this qualifies as "gentrification":

"the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents." (Merriam-Webster)

There's no particular area in Vancouver that fits this description with regards to foreign buyers. They seem to have interest almost exclusively in established areas. Not so much "deteriorating" ones in need of "renewal and rebuilding".

<comment><USER24> i used the implication for dramatic and rhetorical effect, but i didn't call it gentrification either. ;) i agree that it isn't, since for the most part the new owners don't even live there and the previous owners were (basically) rich to begin with. it's basically just monopoly money being swapped around by rich people on two sides of the same ocean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's also true in Boston, which like SF has a housing stock constrained by geography. Doing a quick search on Craigslist the prices are also a good deal lower in Vancouver than Boston. I'm looking at you, $3500/mo 1-br rental in Boston with peeling paint leaky windows, and $2500/mo basement studio in the 'burbs. It's not uncommon to see (grotesquely) wealthy foreign (and some old- money domestic) students buy property here, at whatever the cost, further driving up the unattainability for those who actually intend to stay and integrate with the local community.

I have a tech salary in the low six figures and I'm considering a commute from Providence because I'm priced out of Boston. I don't want roommates any more in my thirties, and I'd like to actually have a place for my car (long- distance work and personal trips). I'd love to buy in Boston (or Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, or other places served by mass transit), but I'm simply priced out of the market. In what world can anyone afford to buy the $1-2MM 1-br condos here and the $2-3MM houses? Local financiers, sure, working physicians, and some corporate execs, but they're a minority of the population.

Paying rent in Boston, you know you're being exploited, but you don't have a choice. My current place is owned by a Chinese "investor" who uses unlicensed contractors to do unpermitted construction on an illegal third-floor apartment above mine. The construction quality is abysmal (think toilets not attached to the floor and fluorescent lights half-hidden behind drywall), but unless I want to be homeless I have no recourse because all leases turn over on September 1st. My place just has peeling paint and cabinets that fall off the wall, and at least me and my roommates are only paying $5k/mo for it. _shrugs_

<comment><USER9> Newsflash: young medical professionals can't afford this crap either. Most of the people I know in that camp have monumental student loans. The climate of aggressively taxing high income means professionals will always be at a disadvantage since they pay half their income to taxes (in Canada at least). 350K student loan is equal to 700K in pretax earnings. Plus you gotta eat and stuff.

<comment><USER26> Here at least, there is a contingent of medical (and other) students with no debt. Boston-Cambridge is a gravity center for old money. It's astonishing how many >$100k cars you see. It's the PE folks making a killing here, not working stiffs like doctors, but at least career physicians can afford to live here (barely, but their pay must be high enough for them to be here, by necessity. When you need a doctor you need one nearby.) Resident salaries are, of course, terrible, and I have no idea how they live here without being independently wealthy. School housing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am curious about the downstream effects of house prices becoming increasing multiples of income in so many western countries. E.g. I suspect it will hit entrepreneurship. Younger generations are buying houses later and taking out massive loans when they do. For the boomers you'd often hear how they bought a house soon after college and paid it off by their early thirties. This would put people in a good place to leave their work for a couple of years to start a business. Now people have these huge mortgages where your ability to start a business is hampered by your ability to get a financial buffer to take a year or 2 off. And lets not forget most businesses are created form people mid- career, not the TV typical university dropout.

And small community business, how will they exist in the future. If someone wants to set up a local 'physical presence' vet/daycare type business that are typically mixed into residential areas the threshold is now so high ot exist and especially set up a new business. How can a daycare buy a million+ dollar house and expect to make money paying that back on having 30 local kids being looked after.

Also what is going to happen with retirement and periods of unemployment. I suspect society will be less stable as either the government has to foot high rent costs (unlikely) or we will see increased population movements during retirement, and now the government has to look after older people that before a family who lived nearby could help out with. And during low employment cycles society can absorb this downturn if people dont have large loans. Historically people cant 'tighten belts' for a year while things improve, harder when your neck deep in debt. So we will again see more movement of people, debt default etc. It will serve to exacerbate recessions etc.

Also these higher prices skew the economy. When people are tied up in these ever increasing loan/income ratios there will be less spending on dining, holidays, hobbies etc. It will weaken the economy by concentrating the spend in limited areas.

I believe we should look to ensure affordable housing for owner occupiers. Residential investment need to be discouraged (note I'm not saying stopped) as a speculative asset class. I've seen a few suggested methods to achieve this but I feel the simplest is to place a yearly 'asset tax' on non-owner occupied residential property (I would also include farms). Having a % tax would make it easy to adjust to find the right balance given economic cycles change. Also this would encourage property hoarders not in heavy debt to sell for lower taxed asset classes. This I feel is important as most solutions focus on controlling the investment lending side which is limiting in reach.

<comment><USER28> Micro-managing regulations that distort property market very often cause more problems than they solve, especially if they become unremovable. The root cause for rising property price is monetary loosing by central banks. Once you create that much money you can't control where it flows.

<comment><USER29> Of course you can control where it flows, if you want to. Just one example: China doesn't allow Canadians to buy Chinese houses. I agree monetary tightening would help but it's a long way off. In the meantime Western governments are prioritising foreign speculators over their own citizens, at significant social cost.

<comment><USER9> I've also been thinking about the long-term effects of the current situation and I don't see anything good. All this QE and low rates have caused people to borrow like crazy. I'd say people are either max'ed out or near that after 5-8 years of "partying". Even people who tripled their home value are at the trough taking out HELOCs (home equity line of credit). A debt is a claim on future income. If most of my future income is already spent, who the heck is going to spend in the future? The young (demographics in most developed countries aren't too great)? The professionals have significant student loans. Maybe the young who got cheap educations, earning great salaries able to live in low cost of living areas?

I am surprised the baby boomers aren't downsizing in droves at this point. They should be the ones getting out of homes, locking in their gains and grabbing a condo where they don't have to spend too much effort doing maintenance. I suspect some are holding onto their homes for their children's sake?

<comment><USER30> >I am surprised the baby boomers aren't downsizing in droves at this point.

Based on people I know, I think a lot of it is that if you own a typical suburban/exurban house and you have the house like you want it, you like the location, you have friends in the area, etc., for many, it's just not worth the trouble/expense of moving even if they could potentially downsize. The exceptions that come to mind are a few people who wanted to move to a warmer climate and/or adopt an urban lifestyle with their kids out of the house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If this is indeed a problem, then raise property taxes on non-owner occupied homes. From the perspective of the host country, it's free money - the taxes are paid for by foreign residents, and can go towards supporting local citizens and services.

<comment><USER32> We should ban Chinese main landers from buying houses in Vancouver as it's destroying the city in the process. Unless we are okay with the city being basically unaffordable for the local population, and just enriching real estate agents and property investors at the cost of the city.

<comment><USER31> Is the city unable to build more housing? Why don't higher property taxes on non-owner occupied buildings solve the exact problem you're talking about?

<comment><USER6> Build more, to will sell to........ the highest bidder!

And the highest bidder is not middle class people.

And when you raise taxes that are directly levied against overseas buyers, then the government becomes addicted to those taxes and therefore addicted to overseas buyers.

<comment><USER33> Possibly you could circumvent that addiction by making the tax an LVT. Make the effect on locals neutral by reducing property taxes and/or PST by about the same amount as the revenues from LVT. Thus the only payers with an increased tax bill are non-resident owners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here's the actual "study" (see page 3): [https://nbf.bluematrix.com/sellside/EmailDocViewer?encrypt=5...](https://email@example.com&source=mail)

Although this "study" was based on back of the envelope estimates, and the 1/3 estimate is probably inaccurate, there is anecdotal evidence of large-pursed foreign investors from around the world -- not just China but Australia, Russia, etc -- who are sustaining, if not increasing the demand for housing in populous areas.

This foreign investment is great for people who are trying to sell a home in one of these markets but horrible for buyers, who can't compete with all-cash fast-close-best-price offers. Further, the few realtors who are boots-on-the- ground for these investors have market insights -- they know what's potentially about to go on the market but hasn't yet, get insider information, etc -- and use this information asymmetry to their advantage by offering on homes even before any real home buyers have a chance or offer on the first day of listing! I have personally gone through losing multiple times to these sorts of customers while trying to buy a new home (in the NYC metropolitan area on the NJ side), not an investment property.

The experience of buying a home in a high-demand housing market where institutional/major investors are participating really challenges my thinking about whether free market practices _should_ be allowed to operate in housing at all. Considering the rising cost of housing, it is tough to side with capitalism on this subject.

I'd like to see a study about the "artificial growth" of housing prices by investors. Interestingly to note is that such a study may conflict with the agenda of at least some leading universities who tend to publish reports about rising cost of housing after receiving generous funding from housing investors. NYU Furman, for instance, has a long-lasting public relationship with Capital One (and god knows who else in private).

<comment><USER35> > it is tough to side with capitalism on this subject

Assuming you mean "with the philosophy of free markets and individual rights" by the catch all "capitalism", it's not.

The foreign buyer is benefiting from state-provided services, such as the police providing some degree of safety from robbery and damage, safety from invasion and confiscation by the armed forces, and a sound legal framework and justice system that protects their property right.

Citizen pay for this via income taxes and their employer's corporate tax, as well as value-added taxes on products and services purchased (since there is no modern country that generally allocates a certain type of tax income to a certain type of spending). Non-resident owners do not. They get a free ride.

Thus, the free market, moral, individual rights protecting solution that might be Barry Goldwater approved is to charge the non-resident owners a yearly tax that covers the cost of services provided.

<comment><USER36> > Citizen pay for this via income taxes and their employer's corporate tax

100% correct. The property tax rate in Vancouver is 0.35%, which is a small fraction of what other cities across North America pay, while income taxes are significantly higher on the middle class. NYC suburbs, for example Weschester, charge 1.93% of assessment, and even in California, property tax is 1.25%. Some Texas counties are 2+%.

In the absence of a reasonably high property tax, like in Vancouver, homes become much more like an expensive savings account. This is especially the case as interest rates falling below 0 in much of the Western world (some banks in Switzerland charge you to put your money there). And day-to-day services like police, schools and ambulatory are paid for by locals through income and sales taxes. UCLA professor says CA could get rid of income taxes through a 3% property tax. [http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-adv- welch-califor...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-adv-welch- california-tax-reform-20140530-story.html)

My suggestion to reduce property speculation is to reduce income taxes drastically (1/2 to 1/3), raise property taxes to at least 1.5% (5x) and provide basic tax assessment increase controls for owner-occupied dwellings, up to say $1m in value.

<comment><USER35> > My suggestion to reduce property speculation is to reduce income taxes > drastically (1/2 to 1/3), raise property taxes to at least 1.5% (5x) and > provide basic tax assessment increase controls for owner-occupied dwellings, > up to say $1m in value.

Exactly. Unfortunately, the short term effect in most countries would be a brutal recession, probably some banks going under/being nationalised, a flight of capital out of the country, and so on - enough to dissuade any administration to try.

It does not help that most politicians are from the middle upper class and own large amounts of property. Few will have the courage to devalue their own net worth by double digit percent.

Thus I think it exceedingly unlikely that we will ever see a shift from production taxes and consumption taxes to "dead" asset taxes. In fact, the historical precedent is the other way round.

There are many others, but France's ISF (wealth tax, of 1.5% of the government-assessed asset value per year) is one of the reasons you can buy a large castle there for less than a studio in Sydney.

<comment><USER37> < It does not help that most politicians are from the middle upper class and own large amounts of property. Few will have the courage to devalue their own net worth by double digit percent. >

This is the real reason. As I've mentioned on other threads, California's main business is and always has been real estate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sydney would be similar. Median house price is over $1M - and that is for something that needs to be demolished.

<comment><USER39> Are they practically buying the land then, if the building is EOL?

<comment><USER40> In recent years Australia has had many of their large farms sold to the Chinese, and often times, expensive homes are bought at high prices to only be taken down and built anew.

<comment><USER39> The worst thing is companies buying water sources to build bottling companies. How can politicians allow drinking water to be privatized in some places is beyond any explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Everyone was happy with low inflation from low prices from cheap Chinese labour. Now they are crying into their iPhones about how they cannot afford to live in the most desirable cities.

</comment><comment><USER42> The likely responses to this are a) a pied-a-terre tax on unoccupied residential structures, and b) authorizing a LOT more construction, probably by increasing permitted density, which will lead to a lot of single-family structures and townhouses being replaced by condominium towers.

There are similar issues in Toronto, but here we are building new towers on every corner, or near enough. Toronto, fortunately, has plenty of room to spread in three directions.

<comment><USER43> >which will lead to a lot of single-family structures and townhouses being replaced by condominium towers.

This is what's happening in Chicago right now. Single family homes and two story apartment buildings, which dominated Chicago and made it a pleasant place to live (lowish density, lots of room, decent sized backyards, etc) have been replaced in gentrying areas with super dense condos that are 3 to 6 units large on the same tiny lot. No yard, no parking, no front yard, tiny bedrooms, etc.

It really changes the character of the neighborhood and the system really can't handle this kind of density. You would have 3-4 people in a SFH which is now a lot with 6 condos with 18-24 people. This means not only higher pricing but more traffic, no parking, higher load on utilities, local parks being overfilled, etc.

No one talks about density it seems, but something very real happens when we quadruple density like this.

<comment><USER44> What neighborhoods in Chicago are becoming more dense like this? I don't recall seeing this being too common.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have no idea if these stats are true, but I've never understood why any town would allow foreigners to homes and leave them vacant. Is there any reason (other than 'yay capitalism') to not put more restrictions on who can buy and what they can do after it's owned? This wouldn't be a story if the homes were full of new migrants being added to the towns and buying big houses.

</comment><comment><USER46> I was hoping that people here were more skeptical (EDIT: and less hysterical) than users in the forums of the local rags...

Some are fond of perpetuating the narrative that the city will be hollowed out with empty homes and locals fleeing the city. Yet a recent report to city hall reports that detached homes are not as vacant as "popularly" believed:

"The vacancy rate in Vancouver for single-family homes, duplexes and row houses is only about one per cent, and that rate has been static since 2002, according to the report. Meanwhile, the combined vacancy rate for condominiums and purpose-built rental apartments is 7.2 per cent. That number is in line with the findings of a 2013 study by the Urban Futures Institute, which put unoccupied apartments in Vancouver at 6.2 per cent on 2011 Census day."

Read more: [http://www.vancouversun.com/business/affordability/more+than...](http://www.vancouversun.com/business/affordability/more+than+vancouver+condos+empty/11770403/story.html#ixzz43pviBP50)

<comment><USER47> That study also had flaws, here is an article poking at it. Among other issues, excluding pre-demolition homes from the city-sponsored study doesn't make sense. [http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1926280/vancouvers...](http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1926280/vancouvers- vacancy-study-key-finding-it-didnt-find-and-vacant-homes-it)

As someone living here, one big problem is that there is far too much noise - too many studies and bad articles (like the original one here.) There's obviously problems but everyone is running around chasing the hot topic of the day ("shadow flipping," for example) as the various governments either pretend it's not a problem, or sponsor yet another flawed study on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> For context, the Chinese themselves restricted foreign real estate ownership until recently. The restrictions were relaxed last year.

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't believe these numbers. I _highly_ suspect that Canadian permanent residents or Chinese origin are included in these numbers. Ethnically Chinese people make up a large portion of the Vancouver area, and they get help with their down payments from their parents like most Canadians in urban areas.

</comment><comment><USER50> Reminded me of the shopping spree of the Chinese Insurer Anbang.

Waldorf Astoria in NY was one of their big purchases

They were bidding on Starwood Hotels [http://www.reuters.com/article/us- starwood-hotels-m-a-anbang...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-starwood- hotels-m-a-anbang-idUSKCN0WK1I7)

Fidelity Life is also theirs [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-09/anbang- to-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-09/anbang-to-buy-hrg-s- fidelity-guaranty-for-1-6-billion)

</comment><comment><USER51> Start restricting offshore "investment" property ownership. This is essentially money laundering at this point.

<comment><USER52> I live in Fiji.

We stopped this last year. Non-citizens can't buy _residential_ properties within town boundaries. Outside of town boundaries, they _can_ buy residential property but must build a home within two years... and there's a minimum $ amount they have to spend building the home.

The law was enacted because locals just couldn't compete with the Chinese.

<comment><USER53> You'll end up with one Chinese guy with a citizenship holding proxy ownership for a hundred that are still in China. Just like it is in Vancouver. That's unless there is a massive tax penalty for owning secondary residencies.

<comment><USER13> That's simple enough to detect and outlaw if your government isn't bought and paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The problem is that those Chinese are pushing home prices to the sky, if they continue like this Vancouver will be no more than an empty city used for trading and no more...this is pathetic

</comment><comment><USER22> I found it odd that the rent vs property prices to be drastically different. Rent in Vancouver was really cheap compared to value of the property.

<comment><USER55> Rent is much more closely tied to median income than purchase prices. I live in Vancouver and people I know who own homes are either older people that got into the market when it was affordable, or younger couples where both have jobs and pay a significant amount of their salary to mortgage interest. Usually they were only able to buy because their parents are sitting on hundreds of thousands of equity in their homes and lend them a deposit.

People buying here are doing so because they feel like the prices will just continue rising, so they sacrifice a lot now rather than a lot more later.

On the other hand renting feels like dead money so people won't stretch as much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It really isn't surprising. It started with the wind up to the turn over of Hong Kong and only continued after that. I wanted to move to Vancouver, but lack of tech scene (Dick Hardt doesn't count) played a big role during the late 90s/2000s.

I continued to visit for various reasons at lead a week a year until just a few years ago. What started in the late 90s only continued.

</comment><comment><USER39> I couldn't find anything authoritative on the matter so I hope I can ask this here with Canadians reading. I'm curious if the only reason for the large asian population in Vancouver is solely due to immigration from California around the turn of the 20th century.

<comment><USER13> The older population maybe, but the new immigration is typically a wife and children living here (going to school, enjoying subsidized health care, etc) while the husband stays in mainland China for work (paying no taxes in Canada of course).

<comment><USER39> Well but the husband works and lives in China, so it's natural to pay taxes there. I suppose wife and kids are supported financially by husband and she doesn't work, so why would they pay taxes?

<comment><USER33> They are paying property taxes and consumption taxes. Though I'm not sure how much money you can receive, as a dependent, from outside of the country before the CRA comes knocking.

<comment><USER39> Of course they are, but I assume they can easily circumvent income taxes by just using a card backed by the husband in China. Like a prolonged vacation where you rent the holiday home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> A lot of people say this is happening in Silicon Valley too, particularly on the peninsula (I've heard Mtn View, etc). I don't understand the ramifications, though.

</comment><comment><USER58> I am from London and currently moving to Vancouver.

It looks like salary / rent is still much more sane in Vancouver than in London.

I would guess London is in a much advanced stage of this problem?

<comment><USER59> Try comparing salary / mortgage payment. If you want to get a house in a good area like the West End, you can't afford it.

<comment><USER58> Well, houses in London have been unaffordable since for ever... I would guess it beats Vancouver easily on this subject as well.

But I like the salary / rent more as I am not planning to buy in either cities

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmmm, making up 1/3 of the total dollar amount spent on RE doesn't equal buying 1/3 of the homes. There is some numerical illiteracy here.

</comment><comment><USER60> Screw these hand-wavy extrapolations.

Any estimates not based on actual property record searches is just reading tea leaves, basically.

</comment><comment><USER61> That's kind of insane. I wonder what the numbers are for San Francisco...

<comment><USER62> Appearently some real estate agents have targeted ads in Facebook for "Googlers in San Francisco". I clicked on an ad I saw the other day. This is the listing:

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/pmf,pf_pt/house,townhou...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/pmf,pf_pt/house,townhouse_type/15085712_zpid/3-_beds/any_days/37.804393,-122.387395,37.756567,-122.477174_rect/13_zm/)

I could never afford it with my Google income but the real estate people who put up the ad believe a Googler in SF should be able to afford it.

<comment><USER63> $1,247,988 is the rough valuation. Their suggested EMI is around $6.8K/month. Would it be in reach for people getting $200K/yr? Are there enough Googlers getting that much?

<comment><USER62> I make $250k/yr but still can't afford that

<comment><USER14> Two married senior devs can easily afford that.

As for everybody else... Not so much.

<comment><USER64> Can't imagine too many of those...

<comment><USER65> Can Facebook target on the condition that user and spouse both work at Google. Or AGI bracket?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> This won't end well...

</comment><comment><USER67> Difficult rent vancouver!</comment>


Facebook Offers Privacy Checkup to All 1.28 Billion Users - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/technology/facebook-offers-privacy-checkup-to-all-1-28-billion-users.html <comment><USER2> So where is the "do not share with advertisers option"? All these fine grained controls over which friends to share what with is really not what I need...

<comment><USER3> It is always important to keep in mind that Facebook (et al) does not sell your personal information, the sell access to a generalized profile. Now, that may still make some people uncomfortable, but it is not in Facebook's best interest to identify individual users to advertisers and not only would that be illegal (in violation of their policies) but it is not a sustainable business model. They want you and these advertisers to keep coming back.

<comment><USER4> > It is always important to keep in mind that Facebook (et al) does not sell > your personal information, the sell access to a generalized profile.

I don't know if they reversed this policy, but last I heard, if I "liked" Coke on Facebook, they would use my name and photograph when advertising Coke to my friends.

That's not directly selling data to advertisers, but for me, it's just as objectionable. "Liking" a page and endorsing usage of my name for advertising that page to my friends or publicly are two very different things.

<comment><USER5> As most things on FB, there's been a slow march about what certain actions mean. In the case of 'likes' it's something on the order of:

"I think this is cool" -> "\+ please subscribe me to your updates" -> "\+ please tell everyone I know, repeatedly, that I unreservedly endorse this product/company/whatever - while not paying me anything."

You can probably detect my cynicism in the above.

<comment><USER6> You missed the part where you stop getting most of the updates from the liked company unless they pay Facebook.

<comment><USER7> Which is a natural function of an increase in the number of pages you like and the number of friends you have, an in crease in the number of pieces of content they produce and your non-increasing attention span. You will see less of content from any one source as a function of time. The source can work around this by producing more interesting content that the algorithm decides you're more likely to want to see or by paying to have their content shown to you.

<comment><USER6> If you got them all you would be aware of what you had liked but was sending you too much uninteresting stuff and you would unlike them or you could organise them to either 'get everything' or 'highlights only'.

FB's non-optional control and filtering of the feed is to benefit them and give them a monetization option, it isn't a service to you.

<comment><USER8> I could not actually say this better. +1

EdgeRank is an extortion for businesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It strikes me as odd that this is considered a legitimate offer by some (most?) people. The whole existence of FaceBook is dependent on collecting data from people - why would they offer to check privacy unless it was an attempt to collect more data?

</comment><comment><USER10> Did anyone else laugh when they read this headline?

</comment><comment><USER11> My guess is that most people will just close the window and FB can claim to care about privacy (...as much as McD's cares about your cholesterol)

</comment><comment><USER12> > Do you know who can see what you are posting on Facebook, including your > photos, birthday and personal cellphone number?

> Chances are that you don't.

Wrong guess. Chances are that I perfectly know that I have set everything to public so that I force myself to think about what I post.

Because if I don't friend someone _now_ , it does not mean that I might not friend them in the future just because they're family of my sister's future husband or whatever. Or the famous "friends of friends" share option that basically includes everyone on my continent.</comment>


Startups seek more dignified exit than a belly flop into the dead pool - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/04/internet-startups-pownce

<comment><USER2> Actually I am surprised "failure" would even be considered a taboo in a place like the valley. Ofcourse it is not sweet, but is it considered as bad (in the valley) as this article makes it out to be?</comment>


Else to Use Python - <AUTHOR> https://forktestlab.com/pytest <comment><USER2> Users have started flagged your posts because you're submitting too many of them, and many of the articles you're submitting don't make sense if the reader doesn't know what your product is.

You'd be better off submitting a Show HN about your product. Please see [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) plus [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22336638) for many tips. You can email a draft comment to email@example.com and we might be able to help, but I can't promise anything—the inbox has been brutal lately. (Same offer goes for anyone, along with the same warning.)</comment>


At Apple's request, we removed the ability to "Send" files to other services - <AUTHOR> http://www.panic.com/blog/transmit-ios-1-1-1/ <comment><USER2> This is actually just one of the many ridiculous decisions taken by the App Store review team. The truth is that developers keep getting forced to remove functionality, sometimes the decisions are reversed but not always (and it might only work if you've got a large enough following).

I've had enough of this stuff and I've voted with my feet - I no longer develop for iOS and I'm back to the Mac, outside the MAS.

My absence won't make any difference to Apple but it makes a huge difference to my wellbeing and health by not having to deal with this stuff. It pains me so much to see fellow developers' efforts just thrown down the garbage bin. It's extremely demotivating to have your work crippled when you're striving to create the best software. The reason why this keeps happening and will continue is simple - there are hundreds of thousands of people developing for iOS, it's Apple's playground and their rules - if you don't like it, you can leave. If you're an indie, you have zero leverage, that's the reality. I honestly hope things improve in the future but until that happens, I'm done with it.

A few recent examples where the (Mac) App Store cripples apps:

\- Drafts get asked to remove widget while other widgets to do the exact same [http://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/02/apple-drafts-widget- remo...](http://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/02/apple-drafts-widget-removal/)

\- Rejected for slide to start, which is a gesture not even used anymore: [http://mjtsai.com/blog/2014/11/25/racesplitter-rejected- for-...](http://mjtsai.com/blog/2014/11/25/racesplitter-rejected-for-slide-to- start/)

\- Sandbox forces feature removal [http://mjtsai.com/blog/2014/12/02/garagepays-encryption- remo...](http://mjtsai.com/blog/2014/12/02/garagepays-encryption-removed/)

\- Notification Center rejection [http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/18/apple- cracks-down-on-nea...](http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/18/apple-cracks-down- on-neato/)

\- PCalc got asked to remove calculator but then decision reversed [http://www.macstories.net/ios/apple-asks-pcalc-developer- to-...](http://www.macstories.net/ios/apple-asks-pcalc-developer-to-remove- ios-8-widget/)

<comment><USER3> > Notification center rejection

Wait, that app had a fake keyboard _inside_ a notification center widget? That's truly awful and roundly deserved to get rejected.

> Sandbox forces feature removal

I don't see how this is relevant to your comment. This wasn't a decision by app store review, or anything like that at all. This appears to simply be that the app was using functionality that is not possible to do inside the sandbox. If he was shipping on the MAS before, he must have been using a temporary exemption and would have known that it would have to get removed once those temporary exemptions stopped being allowed. This is a purely technical limitation and has nothing to do with the sort of management issues you're complaining about.

> Slide to start

That seems like a legit rejection to me as well. Looking at the actual screenshots, they tried to make their control look and feel pretty damn close to the official Apple control. This is a control that Apple spent years training people meant "unlock" (or more specifically, "unlock device"). So even though Apple isn't using it right now, they're still well within their rights to claim that it is too similar to Apple's own UI widget (especially for something that does completely different functionality).

I bet that if the slider didn't look so intentionally similar to Apple's own widget, he wouldn't have had an issue. But he deliberately aped Apple's UI, and should have expected this to eventually happen.

I'm also a bit irked that he's trying to play this up as a big "I got a bogus rejection!" thing and completely ignored the fact that Apple told him to remove _or revise_ it. The issue is not that the act of sliding a finger across a screen to start the race is verboten. It's that his widget is _too similar_ to Apple's UI. Note the actual quotes:

> 8.3: Apps that appear _confusingly similar_ to an existing Apple product, > interface, or advertising theme will be rejected

[emphasis mine]

> The "slide to start the stopwatch" is similar to the "slide to unlock in iOS > device".

> Thank you for your message. In order for the app to be reconsidered for the > App Store, please remove _or revise_ the Slide To Start feature. Have a good > day.

[emphasis mine]

> Specifically, the Slide to Start Race UI element is not appropriate and not > in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines as it is _too similar_ to > the iOS Slide to Unlock UI.

[emphasis mine]

Instead of trying to stoke public outrage, he should just accept that his UI widget, which was very obviously based directly on the slide-to-unlock widget, should be altered to not look so similar.

\--

Yes, there are bogus decisions. PCalc is a good example. But there are also plenty of valid rejections too (many orders of magnitude more). And it's a mistake to think that every publicized rejection is invalid.

<comment><USER2> > Wait, that app had a fake keyboard inside a notification center widget? > That's truly awful and roundly deserved to get rejected.

While the tastefulness of that solution might be questionable, I believe users should be able to decide for themselves whether it's acceptable or not. Of course, this is Apple's turf and they can make any decisions they like. Note that lots of users quite liked Neato - should we be making decisions for them?

The real question is: where do we draw the line? Different people will have different opinions but I think most people would agree that the Panic situation, Drafts getting asked to remove their widget while others had the exact same functionality is not acceptable.

The examples I listed demonstrate a problem that's endemic on the App Store - while we might disagree on particular rejections, it's quite obvious there are issues.

With regards to the sandboxing issue on the MAS, it's relevant because Apple are themselves exempt from the restriction to ship sandboxed apps - this is hypocritical. Moreover, it objectively leads to a worse experience for customers, which I feel is against both Apple's and developers objectives. It's an example how the MAS effectively cripples 3rd party apps without leaving them a choice, while 1st party apps enjoy special privileges. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong in Apple making the rules - it's their platform after all but developers need to be aware what they sign up for when they decide to distribute their software on the MAS.

\---

Responding to your updated post:

> ... But there are also plenty of valid rejections too (many orders of > magnitude more). And it's a mistake to think that every publicized rejection > is invalid.

Of course, I totally agree with you. I don't think anyone is arguing that every publicised rejection is invalid - I was trying to make the point that we're seeing increasingly questionable rejections that a lot of people would agree are hurting the platform itself.

<comment><USER3> > Apple are themselves exempt from the restriction to ship sandboxed apps - > this is hypocritical.

What makes it hypocritical? Apple developed the OS that you're using, so there's hardly a trust issue when talking about running applications from Apple on top of the Apple-developed OS. Sandboxing doesn't exist because of some high-minded ideal, it exists to solve the trust and security problem.

Apple should sandbox any apps they ship if at all possible, but only because it protects the app and the user from any security issues. If an app can be remotely exploited somehow, then being sandboxed prevents the exploit from having full access to the local filesystem. But beyond that one concern (which may not even be relevant for apps that don't really do anything with the network), there's no real reason to care whether Apple sandboxes a given app that they ship.

> Moreover, it objectively leads to a worse experience for customers

What does? You're being a bit unclear here so I don't know what you're referring to with "it" here. Apple being exempt from sandboxing restrictions leads to a worse experience for customers? Doubtful.

> It's an example how the MAS effectively cripples 3rd party apps without > leaving them a choice

What do you mean, without leaving them a choice? The MAS is just one of many storefronts available to Mac users. 3rd-party apps that don't wish to sandbox always have the choice of not using the MAS. They can continue to work exactly as they have done for the past several decades. The MAS is relatively new and is not replacing any existing software delivery mechanism, nor is it imposing any restrictions on apps that choose to ship outside the MAS. It doesn't even prevent users from migrating to a non-MAS variant of the app later; it's been well-known for a long time now how to have an app that supports both MAS and non-MAS distribution channels and have the non-MAS app still validate the MAS license.

<comment><USER2> > But beyond that one concern (which may not even be relevant for apps that > don't really do anything with the network), there's no real reason to care > whether Apple sandboxes a given app that they ship.

The concern is that if you want to ship software on the MAS, like some of Apple's, that requires certain functionality which does not have a way to be accessed if you're sandboxed, then you cannot - while Apple can. As I mentioned multiple times, it's Apple's platform, they make the rules and can do whatever they want but this means that there are certain classes of software that cannot be distributed via the MAS by 3rd parties, only by Apple as they are not bound by the same rules.

> What does? You're being a bit unclear here so I don't know what you're > referring to with "it" here.

The request to remove functionality due to (M)AS rules leads to an inferior experience for customers, as those customers can longer access that functionality.

> Apple being exempt from sandboxing restrictions leads to a worse experience > for customers? Doubtful.

I don't know how you came up with that, it was never said nor implied in any way whatsoever.

> What do you mean, without leaving them a choice?

It means that if you want to distribute via MAS, you have to cripple (or remove) part of your app's functionality in order to pass review. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that but the net effect is that your software might be inferior when distributed via the MAS vs outside.

<comment><USER3> The MAS is Apple's storefront. Of course their own software is going to be distributed via it, whether or not that software is sandboxed. The existence of non-sandboxed Apple software on the MAS does not impact 3rd-party MAS software in any way, shape, or form.

Basically, the goal of the MAS is to be able to sell software that users can implicitly trust to not be harmful. For Apple software, users can trust it because it's Apple. For 3rd-party software, the only way to ensure the trustworthiness is to require sandboxing. Apple software should be sandboxed when possible, because that minimizes the downside of certain classes of software bugs, but beyond that one scenario, there's no reason to care whether Apple software is sandboxed.

Yes, there are certain classes of 3rd-party software that cannot be shipped on the MAS because of sandboxing. But Apple allowing their own software to ship un-sandboxed has no bearing on this. The sandboxing requirement would prevent this 3rd-party software from shipping on the MAS regardless of whether Apple sandboxed their own apps.

The only real argument to be made here is claiming that 3rd-party apps should be able to ship on the MAS without being sandboxed, but that runs counter to the entire purpose of the MAS and will never happen.

The only really useful thing to actually try and get Apple to change is to expand the sandboxing capabilities to allow certain things that 3rd-party apps want to do and cannot do today. They've added more and more capabilities over time. The question is what functionality can be effectively exposed to sandboxed apps without opening up a security hole.

> The request to remove functionality due to (M)AS rules leads to an inferior > experience for customers, as those customers can longer access that > functionality.

That functionality should never have been in the MAS app to begin with. In the case of GaragePay I'm assuming they used a temporary sandbox exception, as Apple allowed those when sandboxing was new to give 3rd-party apps time to adapt, and to find out what exemptions were commonly requested in order to figure out in what ways the sandbox needed to be extended. If that's the case, then GaragePay's developer should have known from day 1 that they'd eventually have to remove this functionality (assuming the sandbox would eventually allow for invoking `hdiutil` should have been obviously unlikely from the start).

In most publicized cases, the app that gets the rejection that requires removing functionality was always in violation of the rule, and were just hoping to not get noticed. Sometimes that works, sometimes they get caught. And when caught obviously violating an existing rule, there really should be no surprise at all that Apple requires compliance with the rule. And there should be no outrage either, or claims that Apple should allow the app to continue violating the rule. The only really valid argument here is that Apple should be consistent in applying the rules, and I think everybody (including Apple) agrees on that point.

It's the cases where Apple rejects an app for what many believe is an improper application of a rule that deserves community outrage. In this case, I think the App Store reviewer is incorrectly applying rules meant for regular document storage as if it had anything to do with iCloud Drive. But please note that Panic is not asking for community outrage. They're just explaining to their users why the functionality is gone. I expect they're taking the right steps privately, talking to the Review Board and whatnot.

Also note that the claim "Apple shouldn't apply that rule, because it removes app functionality, and that's bad for users" is quite ridiculous. Apple not consistently applying certain rules is the #1 complaint people tend to have with the App Store review policies. And claiming that "user functionality" is so holy that it must be preserved even when it obviously violates the rules makes no sense. The fact that an app manages to sneak rule violations past the review board in the past does not in any way mean it should be able to do so in the future, and the fact that an app relies on rule violations in order to provide functionality does not mean it _deserves_ to be able to violate the rules.

> It means that if you want to distribute via MAS, you have to cripple (or > remove) part of your app's functionality in order to pass review. Again, > nothing inherently wrong with that but the net effect is that your software > might be inferior when distributed via the MAS vs outside.

If your app requires violating app store rules for certain functionality, then you shouldn't be using the MAS as your distribution channel. It's that simple.

> I don't know how you came up with that, it was never said nor implied in any > way whatsoever.

That was the subject of the immediately prior sentence. It provided the context for the subsequent sentence, and was the natural choice for the meaning of the word "it", except in that it didn't make much sense. Which is why I asked for clarification.

<comment><USER2> > The only real argument to be made here is claiming that 3rd-party apps > should be able to ship on the MAS without being sandboxed, but that runs > counter to the entire purpose of the MAS and will never happen.

The argument that I've been making for years is that proper entitlements should have existed for all the functionality necessary before the requirement for all apps to be sandboxed was introduced.

> The only really useful thing to actually try and get Apple to change is to > expand the sandboxing capabilities to allow certain things that 3rd-party > apps want to do and cannot do today. They've added more and more > capabilities over time. The question is what functionality can be > effectively exposed to sandboxed apps without opening up a security hole.

Exactly, that's what should have been happening and has been to some extent but not aggressively enough. Part of the problem is that a lot of things pose no security threats but there are still no way to access that functionality in a sandboxed app - that's the crux of the problem.

In the case of GaragePay, it used an external utility to deal with encrypted disk images. The app has already been given access to the file via the powerbox [1], there is no additional security threat. Unfortunately, there are no APIs to operate on such disk images except the external hdiutil utility. The correct way to have resolved this was to expose APIs to access that functionality or else allow a temporary exception until such APIs exist.

> That functionality should never have been in the MAS app to begin with.

Why shouldn't it be? In almost all cases, the functionality can be sandboxed if Apple provided an API to access it securely but there just isn't a entitlement for those cases - not because it's not possible but because it's just not implemented.

> Also note that the claim "Apple shouldn't apply that rule, because it > removes app functionality, and that's bad for users" is quite ridiculous.

I never claimed that. I only claimed that removing functionality objectively leads to an inferior experience due to the lack of said features. In an ideal world, the correct way to have gone about it would be to provide the necessary security mechanisms to make that possible. While Apple did add additional entitlements over the years, there are still many operations that reasonable and do not pose a security threat that are still not supported.

> If your app requires violating app store rules for certain functionality, > then you shouldn't be using the MAS as your distribution channel.

While that's true a statement, that's not the crux of the problem. The root issue is that if the required entitlements were available, then the app wouldn't be violating any rules at all and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_dialog#Powerbox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_dialog#Powerbox)

<comment><USER3> > The argument that I've been making for years is that proper entitlements > should have existed for all the functionality necessary before the > requirement for all apps to be sandboxed was introduced

In that case, sandboxing could _never_ be introduced. It is quite literally impossible to provide entitlements for any and all functionality under the sun, unless you include the entitlement "allow anything" in the mix. Sandboxing is by its very nature restrictive, requiring bits of functionality to be whitelisted. That's the only way in which it can possibly ever be even remotely secure.

However, Mac apps are _not required_ to be sandboxed. Only apps distributed on the MAS are. If you cannot ship your app with the sandbox, then you can continue to be distributed the way all apps were for the past few decades.

> Part of the problem is that a lot of things pose no security threats but > there are still no way to access that functionality in a sandboxed app - > that's the crux of the problem.

Can you give examples? I do not blindly accept that GaragePay's use of `hdiutil` is harmless, like you are claiming. `hdiutil` is not sandboxed, and I have no idea what kind of security audit, if any, has been done on it to see if there's any security vulnerabilities that would be exposed by allowing it to be run from a sandboxed application.

> The correct way to have resolved this was to expose APIs to access that > functionality

Yes, APIs that allow for manipulation of disk images would be nice. But that's not even remotely a trivial task.

> In almost all cases, the functionality can be sandboxed if Apple provided an > API to access it securely

That's practically tautological. "The functionality can be sandboxed if Apple allowed it to be sandboxed". Some missing entitlements would be trivial to add. Others would require massive work. I suspect that exposing proper APIs to manipulate the Disk Images infrastructure would require a massive security audit, and probably significant work modifying the APIs as well as I expect they probably don't meet the usability standard expected of public API.

> removing functionality objectively leads to an inferior experience due to > the lack of said features

And implied that this means Apple should allow third-party apps to continue violating rules because the existing experience of using that 3rd-party application somehow trumps everything else.

Beyond that, I don't necessarily agree that this does objectively lead to an inferior experience as well. Removing insecure functionality, or functionality that relies on non-public APIs, can lead to a superior experience, because the application is now more trustworthy, much less vulnerable to exploitation, and perhaps more stable or future-proof (in the case of non-public API). So it really can be quite subjective, and quite dependent upon the particular merits of the functionality in question.

> The root issue is that if the required entitlements were available, then the > app wouldn't be violating any rules at all and we wouldn't even be having > this conversation.

Again, tautological. "If the app wasn't violating any rules, it wouldn't be violating any rules".

<comment><USER2> > In that case, sandboxing could never be introduced. It is quite literally > impossible to provide entitlements for any and all functionality under the > sun, unless you include the entitlement "allow anything" in the mix.

That doesn't follow. Sandboxing privileges present a wide spectrum ranging from providing no entitlements on one end to providing an "allow anything" entitlement on the other. Obviously, as developers, we want as much functionality exposed in a secure way but the unfortunate reality is that Apple either do not have the resources or willingness to do so.

> However, Mac apps are not required to be sandboxed. Only apps distributed on > the MAS are.

While that's technically true, an argument can be made that due to the inclusion of the MAS as part of OS X, it's practically required for an app to be on the MAS as that's where a lot of the users are and it's how they get their software.

> Can you give examples?

Yes, Coda 2.5 [1] was not released on the MAS due to sandboxing issues. There are some radars on openradar [2] referring to other sandboxing issues, too - some of them are reasonable. Obviously, I do not have access to Radar itself otherwise I would have provided more examples.

> But that's not even remotely a trivial task.

I don't see that as a valid excuse for not providing an API while at the same time rejecting the usage of a temporary entitlement due to lack of said API. It's a given that providing functionality in a sandbox compatible way would not be trivial - the work needs to be done if we want everything to be nice and secure. I'm perfectly aware that the effort required to implement such an API would be considerable and it might not be worth it but that doesn't make it the right approach. And that's why I accept the current situation - it's a compromise between what could be and what Apple have decided to implement at present.

> Others would require massive work.

Yes and in an ideal world, if we're fully committed to sandboxing, that work would be done. You said:

> Apple developed the OS that you're using, so there's hardly a trust issue > when talking about running applications from Apple on top of the Apple- > developed OS.

Sandboxing is not just about trust, it's also about security. Apple's own software not being sandboxed means its vulnerable to exploits, exactly what sandboxing is trying to prevent. If you check Activity Monitor, you will see plenty of Apple and others' apps being non-sandboxed - all of these are potential targets. A system is only as secure as it's weakest link, so if we want a more secure system, we should working towards having more sandbox entitlements.

As a side note, the trust side of things is taken care of by code signing.

> And implied that this means Apple should allow third-party apps to continue > violating rules because the existing experience of using that 3rd-party > application somehow trumps everything else.

No, the implication is that Apple should be working towards exposing more functionality in a secure, sandbox compatible way.

[1] [http://www.panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app- store/](http://www.panic.com/blog/coda-2-5-and-the-mac-app-store/)

[2] [http://www.openradar.me/search?query=sandbox](http://www.openradar.me/search?query=sandbox)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've never liked the idea of files "belonging" to apps, for numerous reasons. It strikes me as an irreversible institutionalization of the "WIMP" model -- "weakly interacting massive programs." It also makes me uneasy. What happens to my data if I uninstall an app? What happens if that app disappears?

A lot of the data handling choices in mobile and iOS in particular seem predicated on the hidden assumption that user data is not very valuable. Hell will freeze over before I use one of these platforms for anything I deeply care about.

... yet another reason mobile has a ways to go before it can "take over the world."

<comment><USER5> That's very well put. If you uninstall an app, all its data is gone. Unless you stored that data somewhere else of course, but the main thing is how Apple approaches data storage is not very professional or confidence inspiring.

For me this awkward storage makes it difficult to take the device seriously. I don't consider the iPad a work device, more of a device to surf the net on the couch. In Q4 2014, iPad sales were down year over year from 14M to 12M. Maybe other people are starting to think along the same lines?

The sad part is that this does not have to be that way. The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device.

But until Apple grows up and removes all those mandatory training wheels (can't develop equal citizen apps on the device itself and give it to anybody I like without Apple having the power to party pooping any of it), I don't consider iPad + iPhone real computers.

<comment><USER4> "The iPad has more than enough resources to be a fully functional computing device."

The thing preventing mobile "convergence" is not hardware capability and never really has been except at the high end. Mobile won't displace PC due to design choices that firmly exclude whole application categories. These include what we're discussing here, as well as jailed app stores and other policies.

A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc. based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring.

Whenever I talk to valley people I feel like an atheist at a tent revival for questioning the idea that mobile is categorically "the future." It could be if it wanted to, but it'd have to fix some of its problems.

<comment><USER6> "A lot of people assume mobile is "the next platform," etc." based on what I consider to be faulty reasoning by analogy with the PC's displacement of mainframes and minis. The PC displaced mainframes and minis due to Moore's Law and economies of scale. Those same forces are in effect in mobile, sure, but there are other barriers in effect that are completely unrelated to CPU power or cost that will prevent this displacement from occurring."

I was one of those in the past, now it is just obvious, just look at the number of mobile devices out there compared to PCs. The fact that you don't like it does not make it less true.

Old people said the same about the command line, it was never going to be replaced for real work.

You assume that current restrictions will be maintained in the future. I don't think so.

Apple was right and created a product useful for many common people. Programmers and power users believed that it was not necessary because they were fine and frankly because knowledge gave them power over them.

I am using Ubuntu on a tablet and I like it. It is coming slowly but it will be possible to create much more content on tablets that on pcs.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Number of devices in of itself is not sufficient for a paradigm shift. A crucial event that needs to happen for mobile to displace the PC is that the major mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, etc.) need to become self-hosting development environments. They are still a far cry from that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the comments, Cabel from Panic explains in some more depth the interactions they've had with the App Store reviewers. The comment ends on a peculiar note:

 _" It's hard to describe the legitimate emotional toll we feel when we're angry or frustrated with a company we love so deeply. But then we realize it's never Apple we're frustrated with. It's always the App Store."_

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not because it has a such a strange echo of both Kafka and Stalin. "It's never the Revolution we're frustrated with, just those over-enthusiastic types at Cheka..."

<comment><USER8> It is possible to hate a smaller part of a larger whole without hating the larger whole outright...

<comment><USER7> But it doesn't usually make sense to claim to be completely pleased with the whole, while disliking a part. "This meal is perfect. It's just the sauce that's awful." Isn't that cognitive dissonance?

<comment><USER8> Depends on whether Apple's approval process is bad enough for you to tar the entire company with that brush. For a lot, it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To me, the most telling part of the whole writeup is in the postscript:

 _" It's hard to describe the legitimate emotional toll we feel when we're angry or frustrated with a company we love so deeply. But then we realize it's never Apple we're frustrated with. It's always the App Store"_

This almost sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. The whole completely controlled apple ecosystem is baffling to begin with. Add to that the capricious and high-handed way Apple treats app developers and it's incredible that developers like Panic not only keep developing for Apple platforms, they _only_ develop for this platform. That pain felt when the hammer falls is the natural reaction when you realize that the emotional connection you've built with this company is mostly (or entirely) one-sided.

<comment><USER10> > This almost sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me.

I read that as more Cabel trying as hard as he can to keep cool and constructive.

He's trying to remember that it's all people, not monoliths, and is trying not be unfair to people uninvolved in this and related messes.

Which is admirable, but you can see why it's hard. This is incredibly frustrating.

<comment><USER9> The Apple vs app store is a distinction without any difference though. The whole idea of controlling what users can run on their own hardware is 100% Apple through and through. If you remember the history of iPhone, even _that_ was granted as a concession only after devs started jailbreaking and started developing native apps without Apple's permission.

Now, if with that history and culture, some app store middle manager makes an autocratic decision to remove core functionality from a beloved app, you can't just lay it on "one bad apple" so to speak. This is the culture the whole company is seeped in. This can't be a surprise to someone who has decided to "love so deeply" this entity for so many years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, this just further proves no one should develop for Apple, because Apple can just come in and shit all over your hard work.

Tranmit on OSX is an invaluable tool for people who don't understand how to use scp and sftp from the command line, and I've recommended it to many OSX users who were unwilling to learn how to use the command line.

Edit: I don't care if people downvote me, this is my opinion, and as a software developer, it is my opinion that governs if I write for iOS or not. As long as Apple continues to treat devs this way, I will continue to not care about iOS.

<comment><USER12> Give us a break. Apple has clearly defined rules for what is allowed on the App Store.

If you can't be bothered to comply then don't act all surprised when your app gets rejected.

<comment><USER11> Read the linked blog entry. Apple cites rules that are vague, and then Apple gives no solution to app developers to block iDrive usage since the UX is controlled by iOS itself.

So, yes, Apple just doesn't care if they break apps by haphazard application of poorly written rules. And Transmit wasn't rejected, it was in the app store before this, and it is in the app store now.

If you're going to comment, at least read the link first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is painful to watch a company as awesome as Panic have to go through these contortions, and make these kinds of gobbledygook doublespeak statements.

 _" It's hard to describe the legitimate emotional toll we feel when we're angry or frustrated with a company we love so deeply. But then we realize it's never Apple we're frustrated with. It's always the App Store."_

It's quite similar to the feeling of having a friend or roommate in a dysfunctional relationship. You like your friend but... yuck, you really wish they would break up.

EDIT: Also, as a Transmit user, I'd just like to add my own _fuck you, Apple_ for forcing the removal of a very useful feature.

</comment><comment><USER14> And yet most iOS developers just swallow their anger and keep on developing for iOS which in turn enables Apple to keep on ridiculing their devs.

<comment><USER15> The saddest thing is how uncritical they try to be of Apple in these kind of posts. It's pretty clear that they fear retribution if they are seen as publicly complaining - which, along with the same approach to journalists, tells you a lot about Apple's attitude and culture. I wish Apple would see that in the long term, insulating themselves from criticism is not in their own interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is just the reason, why I restrain to use Apple hardware.

Apple products are really very good and they have invented the smartphone it it's current functionality. But Apple has a very restrictive mindset. I as user, feel that it is like being in a nanny-state, where everything is controlled, what I am allowed to do.

I want to decide myself and not let Apple decide for me, what is good for me.

<comment><USER3> This particular issue is about Apple deciding that they don't want _their_ software (iCloud Drive) being used in a particular way. It's not about deciding what's good for users.

<comment><USER17> Not true. Apple doesn't allow them to use ANY cloud-based sharing software becouse all share the same iOS API, so it's impossible to allow users to use dropbox and not iCloud.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's unfortunate, but Apple isn't intentionally trying to prevent them from using the other software. It's just a bad consequence of the way the API works. Note that they would be free to use these services if they used an alternate mechanism of talking to them (e.g. built direct support into the app).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple's App Review team has been merciless lately. They won't accept any further updates to my app, Timebar ([http://whimsicalifornia.com](http://whimsicalifornia.com)), unless I get rid of its only feature (drawing a progress bar on your menu bar). Frustrating.

I think Apple could go a long way to locking down developer trust by just vowing to never reject updates for non-technical reasons, ever. If they have to make the initial review much more brutal, it would still be worth it.

<comment><USER19> Why don't you just take it out of the app store and sell it on your website like everyone did for many, many years?

<comment><USER20> Probably because that's where the casual users market is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Let me get this straight. I can put any old file on iCloud via Finder on OS X or using iCloud for Windows, but somehow on iOS this is dangerous and not allowed?

<comment><USER22> Abstracting away the file system seems to be a "feature" of iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of an article by Tim Bray from 2003 where he talks about sharecroppers: [https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl...](https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)

</comment><comment><USER24> Apple is so blase toward developers that it will cut them off at the knees on a whim usually to protect its own interests.

Microsoft will intentionally build in scary hacks to maintain backward compatibility and tries to build developer-friendly tools and environments but tends toward a mess.

Linux tends to maintain strong backward compatibility to the point that everything has incredible inertia, but in general doesn't too much care about developers one way or anothet.

Google moves so quickly and deprecates so hard that building software on their platforms is like building a house in a continuous earthquake but using better tools and materials each time.

Moral: nowhere is perfect, consider your trade-offs, then choose Linux (of course).

</comment><comment><USER25> It is precisely because of this that I refuse to build for the iOS platform (for my own projects) and avoid using it. Freedom matters.

</comment><comment><USER26> I generally choose smartphones based on which gives me the least problems. In the past this was iOS, because the only problem I personally had was the restrictivness of their platform. But lately the OS quality went down the drain and they became even more erratic about their App Store rules. Anyone else here who can't really enjoy smartphones because of the deep flaws every OS seems to have?

edit: typo

<comment><USER27> An Android phone with a pure Google Android experience or very close to it is really the best smartphone experience. Sadly, this is a relatively small percentage of the smartphones available.

And no, rooting and adding a custom ROM doesn't really cut it. Even the world's most popular ROM (cyanogenmod) is still stuck on Android 4.3 Jellybean with 4.4 stuck in perpetual testing land even though it's over a year old and 5.0 has been released.

<comment><USER28> nexus 5 still is a really good device, with stock android and it's sold with no contract.

moto x 2014 and moto g 2014 are also really really good devices, with almost stock android (motorola added only a couple of stuff to them -- so little that moto x already has jellybean) and are not that expensive (the official motorola store has the new moto g for $180).

<comment><USER26> If I want to buy a stock Android device, I'm close to Apple's device range (exaggeratively spoken). Also, I no longer have the time and nerves to Jailbreak or Root my device and install custom Roms, and if I pay up to 700$ for a devices it should work and get me at least 2 years worth of updates.

Not everything is bad though. Apple is working on their device portfolio and the Android update policy has significantly improved, since I last used an Android device full-time.

<comment><USER27> A brand new base Nexus 5 16GB is only $349 direct and unlocked. A far cry from the $649 that the base iPhone 6 16GB costs.

The Nexus 6 is more a competitor to the iPhone 6 Plus (screen size and all) and is priced appropriately. It's $699 for 64GB compared to the iPhone 6 Plus at $849 for 64GB. The base models of each are a bit cheaper as well, $749 for an iPhone 6 Plus 16GB and $649 for a Nexus 6 32GB. As a premium phone, the Nexus 6 is unavailable in the small 16GB size.

Both the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 6 will be getting updates for quite some time. Neither one requires rooting or a custom ROM of any sort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are fantastic products on iOS that suffer from this behavior.

For example Garageband for iOS is so good, but the fact that you can not share your work with others(or import it) easily makes the app almost useless.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a demand and not a request by apple. Big difference

</comment><comment><USER30> Random policies just because they can. This is why Android will always beat Apple for market share.

</comment><comment><USER31> Unrelated: what monospace font is used in that GIF image?

[http://www.panic.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/12/delete-...](http://www.panic.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2014/12/delete-3.gif)

<comment><USER32> I think it's Input: [http://input.fontbureau.com](http://input.fontbureau.com)

Note that some glyphs (g, l, i) can be customized and may look different from the screenshot in the default download.

<comment><USER31> Ah, yes, that's why I didn't recognise it. I've tried Input before but I customised it to more closely resemble Monaco; I had no recollection of how Input looked by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is wonderful.

Just one more example what happens if countries allow _closed_ app distribution systems. What a wonderful world with nice critical/ironical phone stories ([http://phonestory.org/index.html..](http://phonestory.org/index.html..). I wish the (at least European) politicans had the balls to shut down such closed ecosystems!

<comment><USER34> I remember following molleindustria games back in the day when they were flash-based. Thanks for sharing this (but fix your link, so that it gets a wider audience).</comment></comment>