Apple, Epic, and the App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#471

Post by danShumway » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #397

jonny_eh wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NO. I ABSOLUTELY do not want that. Freaking nightmare. That's a bit extreme. It's less of a nightmare, and more of an annoyance, that is paid in exchange for competition and innovation.

So, do you have a wallet with a dozen store credit cards or a wallet with a visa and/or MasterCard. Imagine the former. No thanks.

Wait, do we think the situation with Visa/MasterCard is good?

I'm discovering a number of people here who see the world very differently than me. I would have taken it as a given that most people would agree that it would be healthy for the US market overall if we shook up the payment industry and got some new options.

A lot of Visa/Mastercard's terms for businesses are really bad. There are entire industries that are being pushed out of the market right now. Not to mention that these cards come with a tremendous amount of user tracking that's basically impossible to opt out of if you want to buy anything online.

That's why people are throwing everything at the wall from Bitcoin to GNU Taler trying desperately to find any kind of Open alternative that might work for online micropayments.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#472

Post by paulmd » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

tc wrote: post #41

Here's the thing. Even if you're OK with Apple (or whoever) controlling what you can run on your computers, this is a centralization of power that will be co-opted. Let's say that Australia wants to ban consumer encryption. This would currently be difficult to enforce for PC software. But on mobile, this is easy. Just make Apple and Google enforce it! Make them ban such apps from their stores. Now you've achieved per…

As part of selling on Apple's app store, you agree to follow the ToS. The ToS are very clear that you don't set up your own marketplace inside your app where Apple doesn't get a cut. This reaction (terminating Epic's account) was eminently foreseeable and completely justified. You do not fuck with Apple's cut. Don't like it, don't sell on the app store.

Epic thought they were big enough and valuable enough that they could bully their way through ToS violations. All the hip thinkpieces were saying that no matter what happens here Epic comes out on top, because Apple has everything to lose and blah blah.

Turns out nope, Epic's customers do need the app store after all, so Apple has the leverage here after all.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#473

Post by ThatPlayer » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

Kocrachon wrote: post #466

How is this any different from PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox services? Not only do they get a cut of all of that revenue from those services and DLC, but the companies have to even pay for the right to make software for these devices. so are we going to start attacking Nintendo now? At some point I think a manufacturer should be allowed to manage this kind of stuff.

Those aren't general purpose devices, but also they've got a smaller userbase. iPhones and iPads have sold more than two billion devices. All the consoles combined probably do not come close. Especially in an anti-trust lawsuit, a bigger target is easier.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#474

Post by colinmhayes » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

jimmydorry wrote: post #459

colinmhayes wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but you're not. Yes, Epic is trying to make money. But if Epic is allowed to open their own store it would be very good for small developers. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

If they manage to land their store on iOS, expect them to do the same anti-competitive things they did in the PC market... paying studios to exclusively put their games on the Epic Store only. Even games fund raised by communities, and games already announced to be launching on other platforms. I don't see that as much of a win.

That sounds like a gigantic win for developers to me.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#475

Post by dgoldstein0 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #410

yuvalr1 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that if Fortnite abuses its power, it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. If Apple abuses its power, it's practically impossible to build another mobile platform to compete today. Even Microsoft failed with that. The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or lower prices), while the iPhone only has Android as competit…

> it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. Oh no it isn't. There are very few successful (and even fewer wildly successful) MMORPGs and countless failed attempts. Games are not really fungible. It's not like I'm going to go out of Fortnite to buy items in WoW instead and treat them as the same. They are two completely different markets. > The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competiti…

Sure, but if the community got sick of Epic's walled fortnite garden, they can play other games. Could be WoW, could be Call of Duty, could be Pubg, could be the latest Mario. It doesn't really matter. Fortnite competes for your time with all other games, and the main thing keeping people there, besides basic enjoyment of the game, is that a lot of people play with their friends. And not many people will say that certain in app purchases are essential item (unlike, say, having an email app on your phone).

iOS on the other hand has a single serious competitor, Android, and if you have an iPhone you can't install Android on it when you get mad at Apple - you need a whole new phone. From a developer's perspective, you would miss out on all the iPhone users if you ship and Android app and not an iOS one. In that sense, Apple has significant monopoly-like power over the app market; solidified by the fact that you can't just install Google play store and start downloading Android apps on your iPhone if you get fed up with Apple' App store. The switching costs are too high for most users to consider it, except when buying a new phone.

A lot of this comes down to what a meaningful market is. E.g. Border's and Barnes and Noble learned the hard way that they were in the same market as online book selling - you couldn't usefully look at their book store models and ignore Amazon in the last ~decade.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#476

Post by ThatPlayer » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:36 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #241

stale2002 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . ~2 million apps are on the app store. Having a large customer base is not an argument against them being a monopoly. Quite the opposite, it is evidence of it being a monopoly. > Charging a fee for giving developers a huge market that spends money is not exactly unfair. It is unfair if they are engaging in anti-competitive practices to prevent competitions from competing. > What would make it fair? Lowering the fe…

A monopoly needs to dominate the market. Apple is not, it does not dominate the smartphone or mobile OS market. People on here can't get past this basic fact. > It is unfair if they are engaging in anti-competitive practices to prevent competitions from competing. Which has been proven untrue - because there are 2 million apps on the marketplace. The rules are out there. I haven't seen a case where the rules were vio…

>The competing app store is the Play Store.

Not when they're different markets. Even EU's antitrust case against Google found that Google "dominant in the markets for [...] app stores for the Android mobile operating system." Which means Apple is the same for iOS app stores.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#477

Post by paulmd » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:36 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #458

danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

I'm not at all enthused about Epic being one of those stores, but being able to download from Steam sure would be nice. If you were trying to remove the monopoly, I'd think you should start there, and then expand to other people who can prove they have their shit together. Epic let someone else use my email address to sign up for an account (and they only allow one account per email). That is serious amateur-hour ter…

Pretty sure you can buy from Steam on the iOS app - Steam just has a revenue-sharing agreement with Apple.

which is specifically the part that got Epic in trouble, they don't want to share revenue with Apple, and what's more they want to charge other developers a fee for the use of Epic's app store.

the thought that Apple was just going to let this hilarious ToS breach lay was all wrong, absolutely not

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#478

Post by CamelCaseName » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

Jommi wrote: post #403

misnome wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand these arguments either. It's not illegal to have high product margins, right? Why can't they charge whatever they want? It comes across as pure moral "I don't like it" objection, which is fine, but don't use it as a legal argument.

High product margins are usually signs of monopolistic powers used, otherwise profits would slowly move towards cost as time goes forward. This has not been the case with Apple.

This is only true of products with substitutes. The extreme example being commodities.

Pretty much any luxury brand has high product margins, but certainly not for lack of competition.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#479

Post by thewebcount » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

harryf wrote: post #391

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…

This is a great picking apart of Apples justification but I think the issue that most irks everyone who’s not apologizing for Apple is where did this magic number 30% come from? Which market forces created it? Here on HN most of us probably feel that product manager at Apple licked their finger, felt the wind and said “Yeah 30% seems about the most we can get away with” And what irks even more is once Apple set the p…

Actually, there was precedent. Previously, if you wanted to reach a lot of people you had to package your product in physical boxes and get it into brick and mortar stores. The cut that distributors took for that was around 50-60%, and you only had access to them if you were already huge.

Having worked with low-end shareware payment processors at the time, they charged between 15 and 30% and most of them are now out of business.

I remember people complaining about the 15% cut, too. No matter how fair you make it, people will scream that it's too much. Even when it's free. Just look at how people complain about open source software that they don't pay for and don't contribute to. Nothing is ever fair for some people.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#480

Post by ghostwriter » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 11:44 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #462

ghostwriter wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. There are more than two platforms out there. But even if there weren't, the fact that there's only N things in the world doesn't make your random claim on someone else's property any more valid. App Store is Apple's property. Build your own and host whoever you want there, but firs…

> There are more than two platforms out there Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you? > because mere quantity of stuff out there is never a justification for taking it over All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in…

> Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you?

Any phone that runs WebGL. Inconvenient? Tough life, why does Apple have to do anything about it for you?

> All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in a market matters.

US antitrust laws are deeply flawed and in no way serve the purpose they were enacted for. If your product (subjectively) costs too high you are a monopolist; if your product costs too low (hello IE) you are dumping the market; and if your product costs approximately the same as of your competitors then there's a "market collusion". You cannot win in this system if you are a successful economic player. The bottom line is this though - there was no time in history where monopoly existed without government's sanction and gate-keeping, and Union Pacific was a prime example of it.

> If you want to go full Libertarian

I don't as I'm not one of them, which doesn't negate the points that I've made before.

> Apple's dominant market position exists in no small part based on its exploitation of copyright, the DMCA, import laws, and heavy lawsuits over trademark and cross-compatible app runtimes, all of which only work because of artificial government intervention into the market.

Wasn't it the government that enacted them? Why asking for it from Apple?

> I'm also going to go full Libertarian and ask what your views are on abolishing copyright.

I'm not libertarian; if you are just asking, I'm for IP in principle, whether it's modern copyright laws or something else is another story.

> If we're all OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm OK with dropping antitrust. If we're not OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm keeping antitrust. I'm OK with either having government regulation or not having it, but no halvsies

with all respect, it really is a funny position. Everything you mentioned here is a product of federal legislature, yet you want to blame an economic player that acts according to the law, in a system that is designed to eventually punish successful.