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

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#621

Post by nemothekid » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

lwansbrough wrote: post #554

nodamage wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regulation is a blunt tool - it not enough to just feel they are not equivalent. Any law that may apply to Apple will apply to everyone else as well. The American perspective is that the government should not pick and choose winners

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#622

Post by thewhitetulip » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #584

ifmpx wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a world where walmart is the only store & it bans all other retail stores from existing, Walmart will become monopoly.

This is false equivalence

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#623

Post by untog » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:29 AM UTC

quotha wrote: post #612

lwansbrough wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you should read more about Epic games the “private” company. It is owned mainly by Tencent which answers to the Chinese government.

How is that relevant to this conversation at all?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#624

Post by nemothekid » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #415

cromwellian wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games have a limited shelf life. I don’t really care about Epic. Fortnite won’t be around much longer when the next big game du jour comes out. Whether or not Epic charges for their store is immaterial to whether one of the largest and most important general purpose computing platforms in the world is performing highway robbery.

Not really sure why people are voting this down. It's self evident that Fortnite's "platform" is far more ephemeral than iOS. Team Fortress 2 is probably an example of a skins market that has been around the longest (since 2007), but very few games last this long and run a market that is still selling a lot.

This line of thinking is very reminiscent of “Facebook won’t be around much longer, it will be gone like MySpace”, many people still believe that as FB is now one of the most valuable companies in the world.

There is no reason to believe this will be true. Grand Theft Auto V is now 7 years old at this point and has seen 2 almost 3 console generations as generates an incredible amount of money for TakeTwo. The longevity of these platforms have clearly changed

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#625

Post by weixiyen » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:36 AM UTC

MobileVet wrote: post #417

harryf wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is interesting that few people are recognizing that the 30% buys you distribution on a billion devices. Yes, I know, the web is free...and the App Store search is broken so discovery isn’t what it was... but still. Market access is VERY significant and worth something and the incremental cost to Apple has no bearing on what it is worth. As discussed, prior mobile cuts were far more one sided. We payed the carrier…

> It is interesting that few people are recognizing that the 30% buys you distribution on a billion devices.

It's interesting that few people don't understand the difference between permission to distribute versus actual distribution.

If Apple was doing any distribution for you at all, you wouldn't need to pay Facebook and Google for distribution.

Note how this was different in the early days, where simply being on the app store would get downloads. That has not been true for 7-8 years now.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#626

Post by perryizgr8 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:40 AM 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…

> But on mobile, this is easy. Just make Apple and Google enforce it!

This is exactly how Indian government has banned tiktok. They are never able to ban websites because the web is open. But apps they can ban easily because if Apple/Google say no, they will be squeezed.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#627

Post by stale2002 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 4:59 AM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #244

ahnick wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prices are set by what the market will bear That's the entire issue right there. When Apple is the market, then they can make it whatever they want. If Apple has to legitimately compete with other "App Stores", then the market will find a lower price than 30%.

Play charges 30% as well, it seems to be the market price. If that is exorbitant, what SHOULD the price be?

The fee should be whatever would the fee would be, if there were multiple app stores allowed on the iPhone.

I expect that number would drop to around 10%, for "premium" app stores, such as if Steam or the Epic app store were allowed on iPhones.

But also, I would expect there to be even lower priced competitors. Payment processors charge 3% of sales, so a competing app store could get pretty close to around 3%, if they wanted.

So the answer is 10% for "premium" app stores, and for the app stores that instead only doing payment processing, the price should be 3%.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#628

Post by modeless » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #616

modeless wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 remov…

Yes, but Google does not expect nor intend that users will use those alternative possibilities. The tests here are "Do they make it easy and encourage it?" and "What are the defaults?" The company does not support running an Android phone without using Google Play Store, does it? It is true Apple puts much more effort into locking users out, but to suggest because Google does not make that same effort the company is…

> The company does not support running an Android phone without using Google Play Store, does it?

Of course running an Android phone without the Play Store is supported by AOSP.

Your bias is very clear, but even you have to admit the fact that Fortnite is still available to any Android user who wants it, thanks to features that Google intentionally develops and enables in Android for the explicit purpose of enabling alternative app distribution methods.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#629

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

rched wrote: post #523

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 choose between not using the app or giving your credit card information to the app developer you may not trust. But then this is competitive pressure for Apple to charge lower fees and allow apps to handle payments themselves, at which point the ap…

I have no desire to constrain user choice. I do think there is value to users in putting some constraints on app developers. If you can accomplish that without also constraining user choice then that is the ideal outcome in my mind.

What people seem to be looking for here is some kind of purchasing co-op which can then have greater negotiating leverage with developers than an individual customer.

The problem is, Apple isn't that -- it doesn't have a duty to the user, it has a duty to Apple shareholders, so what it does will be for their benefit and not yours unless they happen to coincide. Which they won't in enough cases that you don't actually benefit on net. It's not in your interest to have developers paying 30% and destroying the marginal developer and providing other developers with fewer resources to make better apps, or to have apps rejected just because they compete with Apple's, or deterred from being developed because developers become unwilling to risk their investment being wiped out by the opaque rejection process.

Meanwhile if you want the purchasing co-op, go set it up. So that it's using the market power of all the store's customers to get concessions from developers (and Apple), but is a co-op owned by and acting in the interests of the users instead of a for-profit monopoly acting in the interests of itself. Unless Apple is preventing anyone from creating that, right?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#630

Post by cromwellian » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

dev_tty01 wrote: post #617

cromwellian wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are literally hundreds of Android phones, yet people are willing to pay more for iPhones." Because there are hundreds of manufacturers of Android ones, and only one for Apple. Microeconomics states that in a competitive market, price will tend to the marginal cost, and this is exactly what happened in Android. It is not "what people are willing to pay", it's that Android phones have competitive pressures that…

Ok, you don't like the single App store model for your phone. That's fine. However, I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that your desire is that of a tiny minority. Due to Apple's extraordinary success and complete dominance of smartphone profits, I think it is safe to assume the vast majority of users love the App store model. They don't read Hacker News, they don't understand how computers work, and they…

Windows used to completely dominate the world. Americans, when polled, often say they like their own health insurance.

None of this means it is a consumer desire, and none of this says consumers want only one way to pay for something and don't want side loading. For almost every case of something Apple doesn't have, you can make the same argument. So consumers don't want big screens right? Consumers don't want small tablets right?

This is the always the excuse with Apple. Anything they don't have, it's obviously because consumers don't want it -- right up until Apple introduces it, and then all of a sudden, it's what they wanted all along.

Steve Jobs said consumers shouldn't be trusted to know what they want.

Also, all of this is a complete SMOKESCREEN for the fact that Apple could easily introduce something like WebPayments, a driver model for payment providers, and reuse the same UI for Apple Pay to delegate to partners who are vetted.

Likewise, they already allow 'side loading' in the enterprise, so the question is, why can't they allow THOSE WHO WANT IT to flip a switch, own their smart phone fully, and side load, even if it invalidates the warranty. Let people jailbreak the devices they paid >$1000 for without relying on exploits.