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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#631

Post by creato »

nwienert wrote: post #585
nodamage wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How are they colluding? Both google and apple seem to be trying to commoditize each other's (very different) cash cows and both are mostly failing at that. At least, google is failing miserably to make a dent in smartphone hardware, apple seems to struggle with software services, but maybe not as badly as google is at hardware.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#632

Post by summerlight »

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…

I don't think the number is around $50B but more likely $15B but you're still right; this is far more than enough to run the App Store. YT makes similar revenue to the App Store but likely spends considerably more OpEx given the nature of the service. But no one really expect YT to be net-loss for Google.

This is especially true as Apple consistently claims that the App Store is an integral, inseparable part from iPhone; so even if Apple loses a significant amount of money from the App Store it should be fine as long as iPhone can make ~$100B profit each year.

Of course, they could invalidate this logic by introducing some form of competing app stores, which would be just nominal in practice, but they didn't choose to do that. I don't know why; no one really can compete with Apple in the iOS ecosystem and this would significantly mitigate their legal risk.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#633

Post by manquer »

scarface74 wrote: post #487
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…

So now we are telling companies what they should make? We know that margins aren’t 64% - it’s right in their financial statements. The costs to run the Apple store should be included as a sunk platform cost of the phone just like OSX. The cost to run the store is marginal. The cost to serve up an additional developer app, to review an additional app, and to let someone buy one, is an insignificant fraction. Would App…

> most of it is coming from the tokens and loot boxes bought by whales.

Apple's money is coming from where exactly ? At $1000+ price, in gaming terminology that is either "whales" or users who cannot afford it but are exploited/addicted to the "product". There are perfectly equivalent android phones for less than half that price. Ultimately apple and epic are lifestyle companies, you don't "need" either of them sure, that doesn't mean they are not providing value to the economy.

> Would Apple be in their right to charge $25K fee

I am sure Epic will gladly pay 25k or $250k fee which is exactly the point. $99 is great for indie developer not for large businesses. You may not want large businesses in the store, Many do, I want my apps not to stop working because the developer lost interest, I want the companies behind the apps not to go bankrupt .

> We would they be within their right to charge a bandwidth fee like Amazon does with the Kindle

Sure, the can charge reasonable or even cloud rates, or even better they don't need to provide the bandwidth at all or make it optional. Many developers I am sure are happy to host files with a CDN of their choosing, a provider they can negotiate their rate at scale .I am sure apple will object on user experience grounds. Google allows you to run your own store you can use your own CDN. Sure without playservices they make it hard, both Amazon and Samsung do deliver through it though.

> The cost of credit card transaction is around 3% + $0.25/transaction

That is the retail rate for a high end service provider like stripe. Apple (or any company doing $1M+/month) is not paying anywhere remotely close to that.

In any other industry price scales with usage. Enterprise/ high volume customers do not pay retail, retail rates have a big per unit CAC associated with it b2b sales have CAC but it is not any linearly correlated to units. Customers normally at decent volumes can negotiate, Apple will not give any volume discounts. They can get away with it because of their control over the market.

Epic does not care you and I are paying 30%. They care that they are paying the same 30%.

Apple also does not care small developers are paying 30% or not, they want 30% from epic size customers.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#634

Post by danity »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #622
sjwright wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What do you call the Play Store? What do you call Android? Talk about false equivalence, you’ve just demonstrated that.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#635

Post by CMGPwned »

lajawfe wrote: post #550

Here I give my analysis of what the best solution could be. Would like to know your thoughts too. 0. Lower rate from 30% to 15% -Apple still has monopoly, nothing changes. 1. Side loading apps: Not good! malicious apps can run amok, eg. $BIG_CORP$ will say - you will get 20$ credits if you sideload our app, and then surveil everything that is possible on the device. Here, we expect an average user to give all the per…

Allow side loading of apps. But broadcast that this device has sideloaded apps via an API. So banking apps can be disabled themselves if there are sideloaded apps. Block iOS updates. Also voids warranty.

Secondary payment method can be implemented along with apple's own payment system just like how it is for `Sign in with Apple` . If you have `Login with Facebook`, then there should be `Sign in with Apple`. The alternative payment option can be turned on and off in settings. If it is turned on, then no more Support from Apple

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#636

Post by halostatue »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #453
Terretta wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP claimed iOS was "free". Can't be both free, and the phone only costs its parts. GP also said to cover cost of app store in the phone, despite only costing its parts. I consider iOS to be one of the iPhone's parts. I don't understand why machinery engineered from metal is so different from that engineered from bits, that I must consider them two products instead of one. Metal, glass, silicon, bits: one PDA applianc…

All good. But iOS has a marginal cost of essentially zero. So its presence (or absence) has effectively no impact on the marginal cost of an iPhone.

Given the ongoing security updates and years of upgrades provided to older phones, I would argue that the marginal cost of iOS is NOT zero nor anywhere close to it. Relatively low, sure, but one would need to figure the amortized cost of ~5–6 years of OS updates across the devices who are receiving the latest iOS this fall.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#637

Post by asiachick »

Software is speech

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab....

You can read any book, watch any movie, listen to any music, but not run any code. That limits expression. Plenty of topics are off limits because the only way to run them is as apps and apple doesn't allow them.

Some of you would apparently be okay of Apple restricted movies, music, and books to only movies, music, and books apple sells and made it impossible to view/read/listen otherwise including removing the browser? Because that's effectively what they've done for apps.

There should be no distinction. Either the platform is open to all media or the platform is a form of suppression and control of ideas those in control don't approve of.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#638

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

modeless wrote: post #628
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you are suggested I have an Apple bias, you are dead wrong.

BSD bias, maybe. ;)

Show me a mobile device Google is selling that has no Play Store.

As I said, the differences between the companies are very small compared to the similarities.

But employees and fanboys on both sides love to try to make the differences seem profound. They're not.

Fortnite, nor any other software, should not even have to go through a company "store" approval to run on hardware the user bought. Even you have to admit that, since you are the one mentioning so-called "sideloading". Jumping through these hoops should not even be necessary and you know it.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#639

Post by zem »

askafriend wrote: post #515
zem wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rent seekers. why, what do you call them?

Ok, and what exactly is your proposal?

well, for one get rid of laws that allow platform manufacturers to control who makes stuff that runs on their platform. (even stronger would be to mandate providing an open api or equivalent, but just getting saying interop trumped the dmca would be a great start). that would fix the issues with xbox, nintendo, playstation and ios immediately. best buy, game stop and steam aren't as bad, they don't have as many reasons they can't be competed against if someone was minded to.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#640

Post by nextlevelwizard »

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…

If you don't like it why don't you make your own phone platform and make its app store free.

It is easy to demand free shit from already established platforms since they don't strictly need it now, but it required a lot of capital and work to get to the point it is now and now you are expecting to get a free ride on top of that.

Then again this incident has nothing to do with Apple or Epic. This is essentially China vs USA case. Just another form of cyber warfare and comments like yours show that China is succeeding.

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