Earlier quoted context omitted.
Play charges 30% as well, it seems to be the market price. If that is exorbitant, what SHOULD the price be?
A flat monthly fee
That doesn't answer the question. A flat monthly fee could be $1 dollar or $100,000.
Apple, Epic, and the App Store
251–260 of 781 posts
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#252A lot of the posts here are making points that I don't think a judge or jury will care for. This is clearly a case of two companies trying to commoditize their complements. End of story.
Epic doesn't have a problem with Apple running an app store, despite what their marketing on this legal issue makes out. Epic has an app store and they charge ~12%. Given my experience with Epic, I am certain that if they had gotten here first, they would be charging the same 30% that Valve charges. Epic's problem is that Apple wont let them run their app store on Apple's stack. Epic wants to run their software everywhere, and commoditize the platforms/OS/hardware.
Apple wants to do the opposite.
IANAL, but I haven't seen any evidence that Apple should not be allowed to do so.
If Apple were the only mobile device available, then we might have a monopoly conversation. But it isn't, so we wont. It isn't even the majority platform in the US.
Where are these points coming from? They aren't from the perspective of a customer.
I am a customer, and I will continue to buy iPhone because of their total integration. Android is a shitshow and you are welcome to it. "Well, I want iOS, except for..." yeah that is Android.
So what is really underneath all this? The money. Epic wants to make more money from Apple's customers. And it wants to do so by destroying the value that Apple customers like me choose over Android.
Samsung makes phones that are at least as good as iPhone.
Android is an OS that lets owners do all of the things that people here are demanding Apple allow them to do.
Yet, strangely, rather than everyone here advocating that we all move to Android, instead, we are demanding that Apple become like Android.
Because nobody here is actually interested in what Apple customers want. They just want access to those customers, even if it means fucking those customers over.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#253I see streaming video games as simply videos that the user is able to interact with. Perhaps this is a false comparison, but does Apple collection commission on ad revenue from YouTube ads?
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#254In 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 the…
Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in front to the projector and directly imaging the projection into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy given sufficiently sophisticated optics.
Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and commodity grade hardware is the price. If they removed DRM it wouldn't make much of a difference, the limiting factor is already the price of the projector.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prices are set by what the market will bear That's the entire issue right there. When Apple is the market, then they can make it whatever they want. If Apple has to legitimately compete with other "App Stores", then the market will find a lower price than 30%.
Play charges 30% as well, it seems to be the market price. If that is exorbitant, what SHOULD the price be?
Play is also an anti-competitive monopoly as well. Google was a bit smarter about avoiding potential anti-trust though, because they at least give the illusion of choice with 3rd party app stores.
There basically is not a competitive market for either app marketplace right now, so an accurate price can't be determined. Allow 3rd party marketplaces to be installed as easily as any other app and I'm certain prices will come down from where they are today.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
That’s a good point, but the incentives there make more sense: game piracy has been a huge issue for publishers on every gaming platform (PC included) that didn’t put serious hardware roadblocks to it. They also sell the hardware at a loss, which means locking it down if you don’t want someone to build a supercomputer out of it on your dime.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn’t a clear argument. Many customers and developers want the service the App Store provides and are willing to pay for it. I.e. it’s not a shakedown, it’s a service just like any other. But even if you argue that people should be allowed to have someone else provide a different service (which is technically problematic since they will still need to use Apple’s API’s), there is no reason to presume that more st…
They might want the App Store, we don't if they're willing to pay for it because they have no choice. And it's absolutely a shakedown. It's not a service, it's a requirement. A service implies app developers have options. They do not. Apple could raise the price to 70% of the revenue and app developers would have no choice but to pay. It's not much different than the mob saying "it'd be a shame if this business went…
We know some of them want it because a lot of them say so elsewhere in this threads.
Nobody is forcing developers to develop for iOS.
If Apple raised their rate to 70%, I’d build for the web or Android in a heartbeat.
It can be both a service and a requirement for iOS developers without being a shakedown.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#258In 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…
While I'm sympathetic to this idea, one thing that I get hung up on is game consoles. I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console is locked down is part of the value proposition for me. It's a pro, rather than a con.
> I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console is locked down is part of the value proposition for me.
The issue here is that you're using "locked down" too generically. What you actually want is something like remote attestation. The device can assert with a signature that it's running a particular version of the OS and a particular version of the game and in so doing allows you to know that the user isn't cheating by using some other software.
That has nothing at all to do with whether you can install arbitrary software on the device or who gets a percentage of what. Even if you could install the Amazon store on your PlayStation and the install Cheat App from there, the device wouldn't then assert that you're running the official game (because you're not), and then the other players would know that and be able to boot you out. You don't need the other player's console to refuse to install an arbitrary app for that, only for it to be able to tell you when that has happened.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#259People don't get the console difference I have a PS4 I can buy the game digitally from Sony I can buy the digital code which activates on PS4 from Amazon or sometimes even straight from the publisher I can buy a physical copy from countless retail stores both off and online from Walmart to BestBuy to Amazon to Gamestop I can sell my used physical copy on Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, or Craigslist This is the differenc…
I have a PS4
I can pay Sony to take a cut from the developer.
I can pay Amazon and Sony to take a cut from the developer.
I can pay retail stores to take a 50% or more cut, and then Sony takes a cut.
I can regain some of the cut that I paid to a retail store, so that the developer gets nothing, by selling it on Ebay or craigslist.
You are always buying the game from Sony, and Sony is always getting their cut. Your options are whether to involve other rent seekers or to just fuck over the developers completely.
Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store
#260In 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…
No, we should not make it illegal.
They maybe should have to say their product cannot be modified on the tin. That'd let consumers choose. It'd also let competitors advertise an advantage, if it is such.
I am in favor of right-to-repair, but that's a different concern than what you're asking about.