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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#431

Post by sjy »

czhiddy wrote: post #378
naikrovek wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not know how to follow logic. No one is saying that Epic are doing bad things in order to maintain their monopoly position. Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. People ARE saying that Apple are doing bad things to maintain their monopoly position, and others are justifying that by saying that "running a business is expensive" as if that justifies a monopoly or monopolistic actions.

If Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store market, then it follows that Epic has a monopoly on the Fortnite add-on market, right?

No! This is explained right at the beginning of the article:

> the question as to what is anticompetitive and what is simply good business changes as a business scales. A small business can generally be as anticompetitive as it wants to be, while a much larger business is much more constrained in how anticompetitively it can act

The word “monopolize” is used in a specialised way in antitrust; it doesn’t encompass every exclusive right of sale, because that would disrupt many small businesses and law is intended to prevent huge businesses from dominating the economy.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#432

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

pwthornton wrote: post #419
cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

It doesn't cost $450 to make an iPhone. That's insane. It may cost that in parts, but there are many, many highly paid engineers, designers, product managers, etc. who worked on those products. Those people's salaries must be accounted for somehow. This is something that a commenter on Hacker News should understand! All of those dumb cost breakdowns for what it "costs" to make iPhones or whatever always miss the fact…

The $450 is the marginal cost of an iPhone.

That's typically the normal number cited for the "manufacturing cost" of a product, regardless of the level of R&D and marketing that goes into it.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#433

Post by danShumway »

Spivak wrote: post #388
danShumway wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while signing exclusive deals so that customers are required to install the Epic store if they wish to play certain games. A surprising number of people on Hackernews don't understand how Apple Arcade works. This isn't just specific to the mobile market. As an Open advocate and critic of DRM, it's been frustrating to watch gamers suddenly get very concerned about store choice and exclusives over the past few years,…

> If you're going to try and argue to me that the games PC market would be better if we had fewer stores. If you hang around gaming forums you'll see this echoed plenty. If I could buy every single game ever through Steam I would without hesitation. I don't want Origin or the Epic store but I don't get the choice. I mean this isn't a super uncommon sentiment. Everyone has a preference but not everyone agrees. But reg…

> If I could buy every single game ever through Steam I would without hesitation. I don't want Origin or the Epic store but I don't get the choice.

I know that some gamers feel this way, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Epic's entry into the market has been good for the PC games industry[0]. We have more games now from more developers covering more diverse genres. We've even managed to pull a few exclusives off of consoles and back onto PC.

As to your choice, I bring this up in another comment[1], but people should focus less on the percentage of the market they have access to, and more on the overall size of the market itself.

You do have a choice, you could buy all of your games through Steam and ignore the games on every other store. The only difference is that now you know what you're missing. Before, you couldn't see the games that weren't being made or ported.

Yes, it stinks to have some games exclusive to one storefront. I understand that, as someone who refuses to install DRM on my computers, I have been struggling to deal with Steam-exclusive games for a long time. I know the pain.

But having a diverse market of storefronts means that there are a ton of new games that exist that wouldn't otherwise exist. And even if you only get access to some of those games, that's still better than having none of them.

Now, if you want to talk about ending exclusives entirely, I'm not opposed to that goal. But a diverse market is a prerequisite for a federated market. How do you feel today about the Android games that don't come to iOS specifically because of Apple's terms? How do you feel about the exclusives Apple is signing for the Apple Arcade right now? Having one storefront doesn't get rid of exclusives; it just means you've traded an exclusive storefront problem for an exclusive market problem.

[0]: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3487735/a-year-in-the-epic-g...

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24192204

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#434

Post by [deleted] »

naikrovek wrote: post #427
misnome wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your definition of words to whatever supports your argument, then they become meaningless.

> Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS…

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#435

Post by xuki »

naikrovek wrote: post #427
misnome wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your definition of words to whatever supports your argument, then they become meaningless.

> Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS…

You can also buy vbucks outside of the App Store and use them on your iOS devices. I’m not sure what’s the distinction here.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#436

Post by misnome »

naikrovek wrote: post #427
misnome wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your definition of words to whatever supports your argument, then they become meaningless.

> Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS…

Ah, but that's outside of Fortnite. Inside Fortnite they have a monopoly on selling items, right?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#437

Post by calcifer »

enra wrote: post #236

While I don't like Apple's 30% cut on multiplatform/subscription products, I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store, build a bigger moat and get the profits themselves (they take 12% cut, 5% if you use Unreal Engine, from developers in their store). They also make exclusive deals, bribing developers with funding/marketing support, so that the games can only bought in their store for 6-12mo. C…

> there has been criticism on Epic sending user data back to China.

This sounds like one of those tinfoil conspiracy theories. Has there been any evidence whatsoever that confirms this?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#438

Post by [deleted] »

kbutler wrote: post #412
yokto wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about balancing the market. That's why anti-trust exists. Would you want an insulin monopoly to be able to have 95% margin? Probably not. That's why it's illegal. Too many usinesses can't live without access to iPhone users.

Epi-pen approx 97% $8/injector, so $16/two-pack, selling for $700 in 2016 https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/01/epipen-outrage-silico... Of course, software sales have much higher margin of production cost (every copy but the first is free-to-make).

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#439

Post by 8note »

rched wrote: post #337
kelnos wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an iPhone in large part because I cannot install an alternative app store or install non-Apple approved apps. > Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want tha…

> If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't I've been seeing this argument a lot and it makes the assumption that allowing alternative app stores has no impact on people who choose not to use them. I don't think this is true. An app developer may decide to only list their app on an alternative store because they pay lower fees and they can handle payments themselves. As a user you now need to c…

You already have that problem: some apps only support android and some only support iOS.

You need to choose between not using the app, or buying a new phone and giving a developer you may not trust your credit card information

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#440

Post by Spivak »

ngold wrote: post #400
Spivak wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think it's about the number. I try not to think about these kinds of things in terms of what different companies "deserve." Apple can get away with demanding a 30% cut on their platform and they do so without much arm twisting. Nobody has to support macOS or iOS, and both developers and customers can completely ignore their existence. They'll be missing out on a lucrative customer base but that's true…

A purse is a purse, do you think some purses are so ahead of the curve that people pay thousands of dollars for one, or do you think they are buying a brand name despite the cost?

Like I get what you’re saying but there’s also lots of luxury designer brands. The competition in that space isn’t about the margin on individual items. Like the market thousand high-end bags, shoes, or even art is a whole other world. Like do you think a Rembrandt is overpriced because paint is only a few cents?

But that’s so different from the smartphone space. Like iPhones were really a status symbol like a decade ago but you can get one now at like every price point and flagship androids aren’t much cheaper. You have threads full of people on HN arguing that Apple is actually the budget pick if you can afford to frontload the cost. I’m typing this on a used iPhone X that cost less than $400.

Like have we all forgotten when Apple released FaceID and then Samsung responded with the lamest front camera picture match thing?

Like yes lock-in is a thing, lifestyle marketing is a thing, brand loyalty is a thing, and momentum is a thing, but that doesn’t explain how Apple is seemingly able to do it so much better than everyone else. Because we could name companies that have all of those but still aren’t Apple.

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