Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 513 posts

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#351

Post by zyang »

nostrademons wrote: post #206
xoxoy wrote: post #8

Fortnite 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?...

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.

Epic is tied to Tencent. This is a risky move.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#352

Post by jakub_g »

smnrchrds wrote: post #160

Discussion 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…

> 10 GB smartphone plan for $75

Wow. In France it's the reverse: during promotions, you can get 70GB for €10.

Out of promo, it's €15-€20 at low cost operators, and €35 at traditional brands.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#353

Post by g_p »

dudus wrote: post #287
musicale wrote: post #235

Earlier 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.…

I believe the correct term is Cartel and is just as illegal as monopoly just harder to prove.

A cartel, by my understanding, would require the act of collusion to take place.

The issue in the telecoms market, at least IMO, is the high entry price (spectrum access sometimes meaning there is no option aside from buying an existing operator), combined with scale of the operators (usually large and national-level) meaning there is little entrepreneurial spirit to drive costs down.

It can cost a large company 100x what it would cost a small company to do the same work, and that becomes a price everyone ends up paying for. But absent knocking down barriers to entry, it's a very hard market for a new entrant to get into, unless you are happy to just sell to the existing incumbents as clients.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#354

Post by s3r3nity »

musicale wrote: post #235
smnrchrds wrote: post #160

Discussion 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…

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.…

Indeed price signaling [1] is a real thing when it comes to anti-competitive behavior among dominant market players - and government economists love analyzing these types of problems for antitrust cases, as they can be like solving forensic puzzles. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_signal#:~:text=A%20price....

[2] https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/tsoe/antitrust

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#355

Post by jeffrallen »

Tehnix wrote: post #344
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't practical without an electronic sign.

In all the parts of the world I’ve been in, I’ve never seen a gas station without an electronic sign?

You might enjoy a trip to Aru, in eastern DR Congo. The gas pumps were run off of a gas generator!

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#356

Post by yazaddaruvala »

aaomidi wrote: post #298
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic doesn't need to pursue Apple iPhone customers they same way Epic doesn't need to pursue Sony Bravia customers. This is the same as Bungee not needing to pursue Playstation customers to make Halo what it is.

IPhone is a general computing platform so that argument doesn't hold water.

Why is it more of a "general computing platform" than an Xbox or a Playstation or a Bravia?

All of those platforms have stores, all of them allow digital downloads of software that executes, all of those have browsers.

What makes the iPhone "general purpose" where the others are not?

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#357

Post by mhermher »

badwolf wrote: post #134
slongfield wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a developer doesn't like Unreal's terms, there are other game engines. If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.

I think a more apt comparison would be... If a developer doesn't like Xbox's terms, there are other gaming platforms...

The Xbox allows side loading. Not sure about PS.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#358

Post by aaomidi »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #356
aaomidi wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPhone is a general computing platform so that argument doesn't hold water.

Why is it more of a "general computing platform" than an Xbox or a Playstation or a Bravia? All of those platforms have stores, all of them allow digital downloads of software that executes, all of those have browsers. What makes the iPhone "general purpose" where the others are not?

Probably the fact that no one made a fuss over consoles. I'd argue the same rules should start applying for them as well.

But there was nothing stopping Microsoft from releasing halo onto the playstation.

There is nothing stopping anyone from developing a game for these consoles.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#359

Post by Veen »

smnrchrds wrote: post #160

Discussion 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…

I find those prices shocking. In the UK, I pay £10 for 6GB and unlimited calls and texts. For £20, I could have 80 GB of data on my current network.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#360

Post by aaomidi »

Someone wrote: post #313
aaomidi wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Allowing this is guaranteeing the end of the App Store Is it though? Has the play store ended because Google allows side loading? The issue here is Apple simply doesn't really take risks and innovate to be the first in an industry. They take existing tech, polish them VERY well, and then try to make a lot of money off of it. Problem is they're trying to leverage their position to run other companies out of business…

End of the App Store because all high-grossing products would stop bringing in money. Doesn’t take risks? They spent lots of money on hardware for machining aluminium (a move that turned out good, I think), developed the Touch Bar (got mixed reviews), a new keyboard (not that successfully), decided to move to ARM CPUs in the desktop (potentially, that could bite them in the future. If x86 CPUs ever become faster than…

None of those are really innovations with new products, but yeah.

I guess this is moving away from the main conversation. But I don't really see the App Store going anywhere even if third party app stores were allowed.

Post reply on HN