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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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531–540 of 781 posts

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#531
post #450

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.

wouldn't that be a monopsony (only one buyer of your goods)

monopsony - there is a word you dont here often. Probably not popular for a reason LOL

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#532

"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…

Who are you to tell Apple how to set their prices? Apple is an American company and we have free markets here. Price controls on luxury goods are completely against free market capitalism. If you don't like it, don't buy an iPhone. Good luck finding a better smart phone experience.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#533
post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app store should be free as a complement to hardware sales. "A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. Gas and cars are complements. Computer hardware is a classic complement of computer operating systems. And babysitters are a complement of dinner at fine restaurants. In a small town, when the local five star restaurant has a two-for-one Valentine’s day special, the local baby…

Why are the app store and iphone hardware 2 distinct products? the app store is simply a feature of the iPhone product.

But by selling apps, and driving the prices of these apps low or zero, the sales of iphones goes up.

price of jelly goes to zero, sales of peanut butter go up.

prices of software goes to zero, sales of hardware goes up.

when microsoft created the PC market it took the opposite approach -- commoditize pc hardware, drive the price as low as possible -- and OS sales will go up. It worked too.;

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is economics. The price of a product in a competitive market tends to its marginal cost -- the cost to produce one additional unit. The marginal cost of an iPhone is $450 in parts and labor. The R&D costs are fixed costs, not marginal costs, they don't vary whether you sell 1 million iPhones or 10 million iPhones. Most of iOS's costs are fixed. Even if you amortize the cost of it across the number of phones sold…

This obviously comes from a misunderstanding of economics. The price of a good is what people are willing to pay for it. Why are people willing to pay more for Nike’s than Converse? There are literally hundreds of Android phones, yet people are willing to pay more for iPhones. People have been paying a premium for Apple’s goods for forty years. Instead of complaining about the evilness of Apple, maybe the problem is…

Not quite relevant, but Nike owns Converse

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#535
post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really happy with my closed hardware as the tightly controlled environment promises the customer that the software run in it will be high quality and on some level will be vetted before allowed to the platform. This also attracts other developers to create high-quality software, I am not sure whether this is sarcasm or not. Since it seems like it is not, let me say that most closed platforms are absolutely garb…

All you have to do is compare the Apple AppStore with the Android AppStore. How many apps on Android have been found to contain malware? also when it comes to quality and design, Android AppStore is terrible compared to apple.

Considering Android is also mostly closed hardware, and that the Android store is exactly as "tightly controlled" as Apple's, thanks for proving my point. If now this was sarcasm, sorry.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> Inconvenient Impossible. There's a difference. There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps. There could be in a better world, but there aren't in this world. Talk to me in a couple of years when we have native storage ironed out and maybe that'll be different. Or talk to me in 5-10 years when Librem 5 has its issues worked out, and maybe things will be different th…

> Impossible. There's a difference.

If I name you the companies that release WebGL games I would state impossible? Let's not get that low in this discussion.

> There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps.

Comparable based on what criteria? Oftentimes I wish companies stop bother me with their "bug fixes and performance improvements" every other day and provide a sleek Web experience instead. So far I just hear how you are saying that alternatives do exist, but they suck, hence Apple's ability to charge 30% on top of everything is a viable business model, because their platform doesn't suck that much. No issue here.

> Getting rid of the regulations that protect us from the current smartphone duopoly while keeping the regulations that caused the smartphone duopoly isn't free market Capitalism, it's Feudalism.

If you make this claim, then it's on you to prove that in the absence of regulations you won't be able to enter the market with your new competing platform. Apple with all its money is in no position to dictate the way you or anyone else establish a new ecosystem based on open standards and free licenses.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#537
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, they could get the money from the yearly fee they charge developers for exactly these reasons

$100?

20 Billion in 2018, but I read that in a similar thread here and sadly can't remember the source anymore

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#538

"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…

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.

It's the fact when you get large enough and force things that are considered unrealistic or anti competitive platform it becomes an issue. This isn't new to American business. It evolves. It use to be oil, steel, ATT, Microsoft.. Now it's Apple. Tech is long over due for a overhaul only a matter of time until some politician uses it to add a feather to their cap. 30% cut of a sale of a mature economy is just crazy.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#539

I think it’s absurd that you can neither buy a kindle book from the iOS kindle app nor the Amazon app. How user unfriendly! And yet, Apple runs their own digitsl bookstore... since there’s no way to remove 30% revenue from apple’s own venture, they’re using a monopoly position to monopolize another market. Oh, but Apple isn’t a monopoly because there’s Android. Why did we think Microsoft was a monopoly? You could alw…

Windows still has 87% market share on desktop and laptop web browsing statistics. It was higher at the time that trial took place, and cell phone web browsing wasn't as popular back then. iOS still has less than half of the smartphone market. p.s. Right to Repair laws ought to make it illegal for Apple to prevent users from installing third-party software on the iPhone. This talk of them being some sort of "monopoly"…

[deleted]

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#540

I think it’s absurd that you can neither buy a kindle book from the iOS kindle app nor the Amazon app. How user unfriendly! And yet, Apple runs their own digitsl bookstore... since there’s no way to remove 30% revenue from apple’s own venture, they’re using a monopoly position to monopolize another market. Oh, but Apple isn’t a monopoly because there’s Android. Why did we think Microsoft was a monopoly? You could alw…

Windows still has 87% market share on desktop and laptop web browsing statistics. It was higher at the time that trial took place, and cell phone web browsing wasn't as popular back then. iOS still has less than half of the smartphone market. p.s. Right to Repair laws ought to make it illegal for Apple to prevent users from installing third-party software on the iPhone. This talk of them being some sort of "monopoly"…

Yes, and when Microsoft was found to be abusing their monopoly position, they faced antitrust suit and lost. Epic thinks the same is now true of Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

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