Reading the announcement post on HN: "This will surely piss of Google and Apple"...
Then I read the title to this post... directly under it.
What a day
Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
301–310 of 513 posts
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#302Discussion of Apple topics here on HN almost always gets reduced to the argument that Apple is not a monopoly, so what they are doing is OK. I want to present an alternative viewpoint. It's not a monopoly issue, it is an anti-competitive issue. In Canada, we have three major cell carriers. None of them has a monopoly, or anything close to it. None of them has even 50% market share. You can have a 10 GB smartphone pla…
That sounds like the kind of thing that doesn't begin to change until and unless someone either starts putting up their own towers or VoIP becomes ubiquitous enough to be a real threat to the cell business model.
Free did this in France for mobile. It really drastically squashed prices for some time. Then everyone went down to match Free's prices somehow and we're now at a new equilibrium...
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also just filed a lawsuit (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24147486 ). The strategist in me thinks that Epic Payments is a provocation rather than a product, they've been in touch with state attorney generals about Apple's antitrust situation, and the real goal is to get that lawsuit out, bring the antitrust hammer down on Apple, and maybe get some free PR and marketing from the press cycle.
It's a great move. The industry needs a new platform hero since Valve seem completely distracted by VR.
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Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#304Fortnite of course expected this: seems like they’ve prepared a short video mocking Apple’s old super bowl ad 1984 to premiere in an hour https://twitter.com/fortnitegame/status/1293984290326433792?...
Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqTNO8LTggI
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing. Given publicly reported financials for Apples services gross margins imply a break even around 10%, I doubt any successful App Store offering similar services could survive on less than 15%.
> Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing. Not for in-app purchases they don't, which is why I specifically called that one out. The game provides all the UX there to find & purchase the items, the game "delivers" the resulting purchased goods, etc... All the app store does in that case is facilitate payment. No different than, say, Squa…
The store facilitates discovery of your app, secure installation of your app, world wide distribution of your app, and offers customers a safe, trustworthy, consistent and easy to use purchasing system complete with refunds, subscriptions cancellation for all purchases.
One of the biggest developer benefits is Apples app reviews process. While not perfect for devs, it helps ensure customers feel safe buying my apps free of the risk of viruses, malware, and fraud ware. That sells more of my apps.
If you don’t understand these things, you don’t understand your customers.
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is called tacit collusion. You see something like this with gasoline pricing - major brands will have "competing" stations across the street from each other, but their prices moves in lock step without a race to the bottom. Memory vendors have explicitly colluded in the past, but they really didn't need to - they just needed to copy their competitors' posted pricing. Presumably that is what they do now.…
Actually, that’s not correct about gas stations. Having worked at one, we would check the prices of the two others on the same road once every hour. These numbers were reported into HQ, and a price adjustment would be made to be lower. It’s very competitive and people are willing to drive or wait until a different time of day to get a lower price. EDIT: Maybe I should have said: that’s at least not the case everywher…
The question is, would you also adjust the price when the others increased their prices?
If a store knows that the other store will raise their price in response, they can collude without an explicit agreement.
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#307The quantity of twitter replies along these lines is sad:
> Why would epic even do this.... they know the rules. Why would they expect to use another companies platform for free. With apple 100% on this.
Use? they add value to the platform, Apple is just double dipping because crazy hardware markup wasn't enough for them. Are people really this blind?
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last I looked, Apples gross services margins were around 66%, which implies a break even for the store at a 10% fee.
I think Apples service margins include an unspecified amount from Google for being the default search engine on iOS. And that’s a big fraction of their services. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/google-pays-apple-billio... estimates that at $9.48 billion over 2018.
That implies that App Store margins are lower than I estimated, and it’s costs higher.
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is called tacit collusion. You see something like this with gasoline pricing - major brands will have "competing" stations across the street from each other, but their prices moves in lock step without a race to the bottom. Memory vendors have explicitly colluded in the past, but they really didn't need to - they just needed to copy their competitors' posted pricing. Presumably that is what they do now.…
Actually, that’s not correct about gas stations. Having worked at one, we would check the prices of the two others on the same road once every hour. These numbers were reported into HQ, and a price adjustment would be made to be lower. It’s very competitive and people are willing to drive or wait until a different time of day to get a lower price. EDIT: Maybe I should have said: that’s at least not the case everywher…
This isn't practical without an electronic sign.
Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees
#310replied to another thread....
ok am going to put a highly objectionable comment. I buy stuff on apple store because its easy and SAFE.
That safety point is more important than ever, if there was no app store or lets say having 10 other app stores , i wont have the same level of confidence and heck i wont even be spending any dollars out there.
Over to Apple's 30 % cut, i dont know whats the call here, to make it 0%? ,10% , 20%? what if the same fortnite (or any other company) increases the bill to $9.99 next week :)
Am saying this purely from a consumer perspective that i dont care how apple and devs split the money as long as it doesn't bite me ...