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

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#551

Post by nodamage » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

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…

So, let's say hypothetically Epic allowed the sale of third-party skins in Fortnite. Would a skinmaker would be entitled to demand the following concessions?

1. The ability to install skins outside of the V-bucks store.

2. The ability to pay for Fortnite skins using payment methods other than V-bucks.

Alternatively, should Epic not be permitted to impose the following restrictions in their Fortnite store?

1. Skins must be approved by Epic before they can be sold. No x-rated skins, etc.

2. Epic will take a 30% cut of each skin sold.

What if I'm a skinmaker that wants to compete with Epic because I think I can provide higher quality Fortnite skins than they have made. Should I be able to demand to participate in the "Fortnite skin" market which is currently 100% controlled by Epic?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#552

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #501

cromwellian wrote: post #470

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…

This is incredibly simplistic, and to say "this obviously comes from a misunderstaning of economics" seems ironic, to say the least.

You're completely ignoring price signalling for a start, which provide information to consumers about price elasticity. You're ignoring asymmetries between producers and consumers, which hide information from consumers about price elasticity (and thus affect what people are "willing to pay"). You're ignoring things like decoy effects, in which manufacturers deliberately offer extra items at different price points because of the known impact on consumer psychology. Basically, you write as if consumers are driven by a rational and fully informed decision making process, when we know with absolute certainty that this is not the case, and that manufacturers/sellers have considerable ability to shift "what people are willing to pay for it".

Also, vastly more people buy those Android phones than iPhones, which makes it less clear if the market has failed to "make something compelling" to compete with iOS, or if there is a subset of the population willing to pay a premium for specific perceived benefits, real or otherwise, in the case of iOS devices.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#553

Post by modeless » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:08 AM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #548

modeless wrote: post #103

It's a common meme that "With a free service you're not the customer, you're the product." Well, you may be Apple's customer at the beginning when you pay for the phone, but immediately afterward you become their product. You're being sold for the 30% tax. And to enforce that tax Apple maintains ultimate control over the hardware you supposedly bought, blocking you from doing things that would threaten Apple's revenu…

Well, we could make similar arguments about something like Chromebooks. You pay for the hardware, but then Google expects you to store personal data in a Google cloud data center. Your data and access to you is the product. They use pre-installed software, e.g., Chrome, as well as numerous other read-only, auto-running programs, and automatic updates, as a way to enforce control, including testing user behaviour thro…

You could but you would be wrong because Chromebooks and Android phones support alternative methods of app distribution including both sideloading and competing app stores. Plus, the operating system itself is open source and the hardware is unlockable to run your own modified OS builds under your own complete control.

In particular, Fortnite is still available on Android with its new payment system after being removed from the Play Store.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#554

Post by lwansbrough » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:14 AM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #551

naikrovek wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So, let's say hypothetically Epic allowed the sale of third-party skins in Fortnite. Would a skinmaker would be entitled to demand the following concessions? 1. The ability to install skins outside of the V-bucks store. 2. The ability to pay for Fortnite skins using payment methods other than V-bucks. Alternatively, should Epic not be permitted to impose the following restrictions in their Fortnite store? 1. Skins mu…

I think it's a very American perspective to see this as black or white. You should be able to tell something is wrong by looking at what Apple is doing. Looking at how Fortnite operates does not give me the same feeling. Obviously Fortnite as a platform is not the same as iOS as a platform, and holding monopoly positions for each yield completely different outcomes. They are not equivalent.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#555

Post by jmull3n » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:14 AM UTC

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…

As a user I'd much rather pay for a service used on my phone through Apple Pay and not have to worry about how the service is handling my card details/personal information. If I want to cancel any subscriptions I can easily do it from the one place inside my iPhone as well. I agree it's probably not worth paying 30% extra for though.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#556

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

ranbumo wrote: post #537

scarface74 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100?

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

Apple has 200 million paying developers?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#557

Post by nouveaux » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

sjy wrote: post #431

czhiddy wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

Can we really call Epic Games and Fortnite a small business?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#558

Post by danShumway » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

ghostwriter wrote: post #536

danShumway wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 slee…

> because their platform doesn't suck that much

Apple is the reason why web experiences on iOS suck. They deliberately lag on web standards so that their browser experience is inferior to native apps. None of this accidental.

And no, it's not just inconvenience. There are things on iOS that are literally impossible to do in WebGL. Reliable, persistent offline storage on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Reliable persistent login on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Notifications are impossible to do on iOS from a web app. The APIs have not been added to the platform.

It's not inconvenient -- you literally can't do them. It is not a comparable platform, because Apple makes sure that it will never be a comparable platform. It's not that Apple made an amazing native experience and the web couldn't keep up. The reason the web can't keep up on iOS is because Apple deliberately hobbles its mobile browser.

> 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.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/apples-corellium-lawsuit-...

Imagine a world where I could build a phone that was compatible with every iOS app and Android app, where users didn't have to choose in advance which ecosystem they wanted to be a part of.

Imagine a world where I could build a competitor to iOS that allowed users to port the apps that they had already bought to their new phones outside of Apple's ecosystem, rather than spending hundreds of dollars buying all of them a second time.

Imagine a world where I could build and sell my own hardware that dual-booted iOS and Android.

Imagine a world where I could sell a TV/Phone that would play DRM-encumbered content from Apple devices and iTunes.

That would be a real free market. In the current market, any of those competitors would be sued into oblivion.

> 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.

Give people a real free market, and then we'll find out whether or not in the absence of regulations they can compete.

You keep on repeating the exact same argument, that regulation is the problem. I'm not sure that you're following what I'm saying. All I'm advocating for is that we get rid of all of the regulation. If you have a problem with regulation, then fine, let's get rid of it, including the DMCA.

It doesn't sound like you have a problem with market regulation and interference though. It sounds like you have a problem with a very small subset of regulations.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#559

Post by panopticon » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

thebean11 wrote: post #520

three_seagrass wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to swapping in funny money to obfuscate customer ability to estimate the costs. It's similar to how slot machines require tokens, but I don't think that's quite gambling. The gambling part comes in with loot boxes, where you're essentially paying to roll the dice to get something of value.

Since when do slot machines require tokens? I thought it's usually either cash, or a card with money loaded on to it.

Token slot machines used to be common prior to the early 2000s, but they were phased out mostly for cost reasons (minting tokens, refilling tokens, handling tokens, theft, etc). Cash ticket/cards quickly replaced them.

Some casinos still have an aisle or two of coin machines for nostalgia though. People collect these tokens, but I'm sure that hobby is on the way out since new mint is pretty rare.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#560

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #552

scarface74 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is incredibly simplistic, and to say "this obviously comes from a misunderstaning of economics" seems ironic, to say the least. You're completely ignoring price signalling for a start, which provide information to consumers about price elasticity. You're ignoring asymmetries between producers and consumers, which hide information from consumers about price elasticity (and thus affect what people are "willing to…

If only Android was owned by a company with a popular website where they could inform consumers about the benefits of alternatives and if it has capital to produce a premium phone.

Do you really think consumers don’t know they are paying Apple a premium?