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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#581

Post by enragedcacti »

ghostwriter wrote: post #525
enragedcacti wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By omitting details and framing each transaction as an isolated incident, you can make almost any monopoly or anti-consumer practice sound like just another business. Nobody forces anyone into interaction with Carnegie Steel. People want to use their steel because they know they can benefit from it, financially big. And they purchase it voluntarily by the most fair means of it, by trading their money in exchange for…

so, where's the flaw? The fact that somebody sometime ago named another corporation a monopoly by the same ridiculous criterion as "too big" and discharged it, doesn't make it anyhow right. Was there gatekeeping from the government for new players to enter the same market? Any quotas or tariffs by chance?

> Was there gatekeeping from the government for new players to enter the same market?

That isn't what a monopoly is.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#582

Post by abdulmuhaimin »

colinmhayes wrote: post #474
jimmydorry wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good for dev. Even good for end user since they are throwing money into easy bait like offer free things to user just to use the platform.

But I would refrain from investing much more into the platform since what Im seeing right now isnt going to sustain the platform in the long term.

Its one thing if the store has distinct feature like gog, but theyre not. In the end I(and many others surely) use it just to get free games.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#583

Post by JeremyBanks »

myhf wrote: post #413
atom-morgan wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike CS:GO, Fortnite skins aren't gambling.

It takes work to implement an ingame premium currency. The only reason to perform that work is because some business person thinks they have discovered a new way to claim that what they are doing "isn't gambling."

It’s simpler for a global game to have a single currency for pricing in-game items and rewards than twenty different ones.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#584

Post by sjwright »

ifmpx wrote: post #569
rymate1234 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unironically there should be alternatives for those platforms, and the Switch

I'd include walmart too if walmart is the only store I'm ever allowed to shop at.

Apple doesn’t force you to own an iPhone.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#585

Post by nwienert »

nodamage wrote: post #578
birdyrooster wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all monopolies are created equally. Some have greater cost to society. For example, Qualcomm has an essential patent which grants them a monopoly over certain communications technologies but it has been mitigated by requiring them to license it in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) way. A monopoly by Standard Oil was pervasive in all of daily living because by the early twentieth century, they had…

> A monopoly by Standard Oil was pervasive in all of daily living because by the early twentieth century, they had control of more than 90% of the country's petroleum fuel production and logistics which they abused to keep any competition from ever gaining a foothold. The key point here is that 90% market share constituted monopoly power, whereas Apple's 46% share of the smartphone market likely does not.

Apple and Google have some >90% and are colluding to keep their cash cows fat. Antitrust needs no monopoly to enforce.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#586

Post by sjwright »

lwansbrough wrote: post #566
scarface74 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling virtual items is not especially common due to the exposure it creates to fraud and abuse. How is that argument any different than the one Apple is making?

Apple doesn't just require you use their payment processor - which might in theory be acceptable - they also demand 30 cents on every dollar. Payment providers everywhere have shown that fraud and abuse can be mitigated to an acceptable level with transaction fees as low as half a cent on the dollar. So Apple forces you into an agreement to use a payment processor that is 30-60x more expensive than the competition si…

Correct for credit card transactions but not for gift card credit which A LOT of people use. Far more than you’d assume. Apple doesn’t get all $50 when you buy an Apple gift card. I’d be surprised if they even got net $40 per $50 card.

The physical cards cost money to produce and the retail stores will insist upon a decent cut. And then the cards are often discounted by 10, 15 or even 20%.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#587

Post by WWLink »

NorwegianDude wrote: post #442
WWLink wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sunk cost - besides, who is the customer and who is the product here? The customer is supposed to be the one who bought the phone and is using the OS in their best interest. Right? This whole thing feels all wrong. Both Apple for "gatekeeping OUR customers" and Epic for "Apple's stealing OUR money" (or "Apple is making us pay 30% so we're going to charge you 30% more") Besides, it's not as if the App…

>Apple is making us pay 30% so we're going to charge you 30% more You would have to charge $142.86 for something you otherwise could sell for $100 if it wasn't for Apple taking a 30 % cut. So ~43 % more, not 30 % more. Apple sure is milking iOS users for alot of money, without users knowing.

I think that's transparent to a lot of people, because IIRC, charging price $x on your website, and then charging price $x+30% on apple's store is a breach of the app store contract and will get your app removed. Am I wrong though? If I am, sorry. xD

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#588

Post by jpindar »

chucky_z wrote: post #546
jpindar wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite doesn't have loot boxes.

what about those pinatas? are those still in the game? that's very much a loot box if so.

You mean the things that fall from the sky in the game? You don't pay for them, and the stuff in them only lasts for that one game.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#589

Post by sjy »

nouveaux wrote: post #557
sjy wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No. My point is not that they are a small business, it’s that they are smaller than Apple and selling into a different market. Thus it does not “follow,” from the proposition that Apple is a monopolist, that Epic is also a monopolist.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#590

Post by vallavaraiyan »

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…

There is also the $99/year subscription to apple developer program
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