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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#211

Post by klelatti »

orliesaurus wrote: post #14

Okay this is going to sound stupid but maybe someone else feels like me about it: I don't understand why Apple has to take such a big chunk from transactions of in-app purchases? Similarly Google. Why 30%? Why not 5%? That feels like it would be more honest. Is it just because "they can"?

When they launched the App Store Apple took a risk - invested in the systems etc needed to support it and I think that at the time it would be possible to justify 30% as reasonable given these factors - and was comparable with other stores.

I think it would probably be hard to argue, given the market structure now, that the return relative to risk is still reasonable. Normally other entrants would join and exert some degree of pricing pressure on theses fees. The Google / Apple duopoly means that this isn't working.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#212

Post by philwelch »

orliesaurus wrote: post #14

Okay this is going to sound stupid but maybe someone else feels like me about it: I don't understand why Apple has to take such a big chunk from transactions of in-app purchases? Similarly Google. Why 30%? Why not 5%? That feels like it would be more honest. Is it just because "they can"?

If I were an app developer who relied on in-app purchases, I would probably care a lot more. But as a consumer, I don’t, and I suggest the only reason consumers have to care is because app developers (understandably) want lower fees and are negotiating terms via PR.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#213

Post by easton »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #172
badsectoracula wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? IMO, yes. We make it illegal for someone to come into your home and take your stuff, which ends up with you losing control over it (you have no more access to your stuff), so it also makes sense to make it illegal for someone to decide to not allow you install or modify the stuff you have (again taking control away from you). The way most of these platforms run i…

The part of that argument I have trouble with is the “until all oven manufacturer were into the game” part. Do you have an example where an entire class of computer hardware became impossible to buy without firmware restrictions? This alarm bell has been sounded as “The War on General Purpose Computing” for over a decade for different pieces of hardware (laptops, desktops, routers, phones, etc.) but it still hasn’t r…

Game consoles, right? Back in the day things like the Commodore were often sold as game systems and computers (the NES wasn’t but you could still run unlicensed software). Nowadays, good luck running something on your PS4/Switch that the company didn’t approve (unless you have a hackable switch I guess, but that’s extremely fiddly).

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#214

Post by braythwayt »

badsectoracula wrote: post #151
braythwayt wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of FUD, come now. Me choosing to buy an Apple or recommend Apple to my family doesn't "make the entire society worse."

No, buying an Apple device doesn't make the entire society worse, however supporting devices that take away control from their users does make the entire society worse. After all that control doesn't disappear, it just moves to someone else's hands - and guess who has no say whose hands those will be.

I empathize with you. Certain products have network effects, and therefore, if you personally prefer product G to product A for whatever reason, the more people go with G instead of A, the more value you obtain.

As a result, people often have a lot of incentive to try to get other people to make the same choices they make. This explains a lot of the jousting over frameworks: The more people use the framework you use, the more bug fixes, the more talent you can hire, the more courses, books, and blog posts you can depend upon, &c.

Without agreeing with you that society as a whole is better off without Apple selling me a locked down device, I can certainly empathize with your desire for fewer people to make the choice I'm making.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#215

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jasode wrote: post #6

In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

No.

> You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't.

You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the movie. But that's only because they're in the better bargaining position as the only source for the movie -- it's leveraging the copyright monopoly into perfidious control over the device market. But they still, at the end of the day, want your money. Which means that if the thing they're insisting on is prohibited, they'll make it work without it.

Consider the general argument you're making. It's basically that if DRM was prohibited by law then Hollywood wouldn't distribute movies at all. But that's farcical -- they would have no revenue. Instead they would just distribute them without it, because they'd have no other option.

Okay, but what about your edge case, the really fancy one with the hardware anti-tampering. Wouldn't they at least not have that one? Still no, because it's still the same thing. The only point in having that is to try to push back the day when the movie is on all the pirate sites. But it's only to push it back while they're still distributing it using the higher margin distribution channels. If DRM was prohibited whatsoever then they couldn't use it there, so they would distribute it even there without it because otherwise there is no high margin early release market to protect.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#216

Post by sk5t »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #191
gsich wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not illegal however if you signed a contract to that effect, which is what you did when you started using the platform. Contracts are not above the law. Or: you can't contradict laws with your contract.

Sure you can. Just look at arbitration. It’s not right, but it’s incorrect to say that a contact can’t remove your rights.

Only to the extent that the law permits arbitration clauses.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#217

Post by [deleted] »

Osiris wrote: post #146
wayneftw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the beginning you said nope but based on your explanation I feel like you meant to say yep... e.g. yes, we should make it illegal. Ahh, I see the problem - thanks Osiris - there are 2 questions, each of them opposite. > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? and > Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? Good thing I'm not a lawyer!

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? His answer: Nope.

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#218

Post by Traster »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #85
noncoml wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some customers buy into the Apple ecosystem because of its walled garden. Not despite of it.

The "walled garden" isn't really the issue most at stake here, it's the in-app purchases. To me, it's hard to argue against the benefits of having a one-stop-shop safe-and-secure place to download apps on your phone which contains all your personal information. However, to me, it's hard to argue that Apple should keep getting money from you once you've established a loyal customer base and they are giving you money.…

If Apps are delivering new content and functionality in response to users directly giving them money then in what way is the walled garden walled? Just download the "door" app - now you're downloading arbitrary apps from a 3rd party. What happens when you download steam and suddenly people are downloading totally arbitrary code. Oh and that arbitrary code is hijacking whatsapp and sending itself to all your contacts?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#219

Post by x3c »

vageli wrote: post #74
cschneid wrote: post #27

The Hey saga emphasized that Apple has multiple products interacting in a single app store. * Screened apps - Apple only lets "safe" apps into the store. * Discoverability - Apple in theory lets users find apps that they didn't know about before. Customer Acquisition * Payments - Apple makes it easy to accept payments, for their 30% fee. One or all of those are useful and great. Where I have an issue is when they use…

> That feels like using an existing monopoly (actually a duopoly w/ google's similar practices) to force developers to purchase products they don't want. Hey didn't want to accept payments via apple, but Apple's market power and decisions were focused on forcing them to. In order to sell goods in a place like Walmart, a manufacturer is subject to onerous terms. Why is the app store different than a retailer limiting…

Because Walmart owns the physical space but apple doesn’t own the physical device.... Apple has set up shop on the real-estate (the device) that it sold over to the user. I’ve seen this argument plenty of times and it rings hollow to me every time.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#220

Post by spanhandler »

liability wrote: post #204
spanhandler wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... we're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-cheating strangers when your friends are all busy, in order that every computing device, instead of just lots and lots of them, can have arbitrary software installed on it? This feels like losing options, not gaining them.

> we're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-cheating strangers Freedom? No. Opportunity? Maybe. I think communities would arise to fill the demand though. Pseudo-anonymous reputation systems tied to matchmaking could fill the roll. I have a group of pseudo-anonymous friends/acquaintances I frequently play games with online. None of us cheat and if any of us did, we'd stop playing with them. We don't need big…

Maybe they could form a company for this purpose, and then sell a product that fills that need?
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