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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#711

Post by pgcj_poster »

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…

Isn't Fortnite a free online game? How is that comparable to a general-purpose computer that the consumer bought and owns?

If skins are what I imagine they are, Epic needs oversight over which ones players are allowed to use because they affect the experience of other players. And Epic provides Fortnite gratis specifically so that they can sell premium features like skins, so it seems completely reasonable that they would take a large cut out of third-party sales of those features.

To be analagous to IOS devices, Fortnite would have to be a single-player game that players bought a copy of. In that case, I think people would be right to be upset if Epic prevented them from getting skins through some other channel.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#712

Post by projektfu »

nosslin wrote: post #669
wmeredith wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why did we think Microsoft was a monopoly? They had 94% market share in 1990's. They actually invested in Apple to keep them from going under.

Sounds like OP thought Apple had the same market share back then as today.

I was asking rhetorically, because the counterpoint is the existence of competition. Are you any less locked into a platform that has 90% market share as opposed to one that has 50%? What matters is the degree of lock in, not total market share.

By the definition of 100% market share, Microsoft wasn’t a monopoly, and they argued this in court. They argued that Netscape was on a level playing field because, like AOL, they could carpet bomb the country with install disks, while MS could include their browser on 90+% of new computers sold.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#713

Post by projektfu »

sah2ed wrote: post #663
projektfu wrote: post #426

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…

> 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! You can still buy Kindle books on iOS using Mobile Safari so there is that.

But the apps can’t refer you there.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#714

Post by cuchoi »

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.

Not being a pure monopoly doesn't prove that Apple doesn't have market power. Moreover I don't think people are saying that Apple has a monopoly of smartphones.

The argument is that Apple is using their market power to set prices that seems well above the marginal cost. And they also have created policies that prevent competition in their store. Imagine Windows not allowing any apps unless they give them a 30% cut.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#715

Post by cwhiz »

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…

People just desperately want competition law to be something it isn’t. And armchair move the goalposts relentlessly to try to redefine literal law.

Size of the business is not relevant unless:

1) The business has a dominant market position

Or

2) The behavior of the business is likely to result in the business achieving a dominant market position

Neither of these apply to Apple. They are a minority player in the smartphone market and their market share is shrinking.

If Apple has a monopoly on their own App Store then Epic has a monopoly on their own game. Period.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#716

Post by cwhiz »

SmallDeadGuy wrote: post #682
bttrfl wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison to 400M Epic made in April alone [0]. [0] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

Fortnite is free. They release patches to the game weekly, with major patches every month or so, which are also free. The _only_ revenue stream in fortnite is cosmetic skins, which as a player you could ignore entirely and still play 100% of the game. In fact, you can earn small handfuls of the premium currency every season, which actually allowed people to purchase premium skins or the "battle pass" with currency ob…

Epic won’t let you do anything inside the Fortnite store. Literally nothing at all.

Seems quite anticompetitive to not allow me to upload and sell skins to compete with the official ones.

This is the problem with making absurd monopoly arguments. If you redefine monopoly in such a ridiculous way, almost every company is a monopoly.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#717

Post by cwhiz »

yokto wrote: post #407
misnome wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 about balancing the market. That's why anti-trust exists. Would you want an insulin monopoly to be able to have 95% margin? Probably not. That's why it's illegal. Too many usinesses can't live without access to iPhone users.

iOS is the minority smartphone OS in the US and in the world. In the world their share is under 20%. In the US it’s under 50%. In both cases, shrinking.

If Apple/iOS is a minority that means someone else must be a majority. Who, exactly, do you think should be the target of that balancing, and why?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#718

Post by chadcmulligan »

bllguo wrote: post #689
chadcmulligan wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose one way to counteract this is for apple to license app stores and they have to have the same standards as apples store. I have no desire to have low quality stores on my phone, thats why I like the iPhone - I don't have to worry about all the nonsense android phone owners do.

So many comments here to this effect and they're all so puzzling. I'd love to hear exactly what "nonsense" I'm supposedly worried about all the time. Relying solely on Google's store is perfectly usable. I wish I could find data on this but I'd confidently assert the vast vast majority of (non-Chinese) Android owners never use alternative stores.

The first one that comes to mind is how many android phones are out of date - upgrading to the latest version of android isn't a priority for mobile distributors and is a lot of work on some phones. So this causes a larger attack surface, Apple is very careful to make their phones all have the latest iOS - also makes it easier to develop to.

Another issue is trust - who knows what google does with your data, their business model includes exploiting your personal data, Apple has a vested interest in keeping your personal data secure and doesn't keep the keys to it - its their business model.

These two are enough for me, theres also a lot more reports of android apps with exploits - a google turns up a lot of them, less so with iPhone, and apple reacts if there is. Maybe these issues have been addressed in android, if so it's not something Google appears serious about, if they were then they'd be advertising how secure their phones are and how they don't touch your data - apple is very serious about keeping my data personal and has invested a lot of their business integrity in that.

Edit: tl;dr - googles business model is built around exploiting your personal data, apples is built around keeping your personal data secure

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#719

Post by Mindwipe »

enra wrote: post #302
danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

I think Apple clearly has their moat, but it's not the App Store. The whole stack, from hardware and OS, is their moat and one that makes them unique. Maybe I'm a fan, but the moat actually makes the user experience better. Epic's Store moat likely won't make anything better for anyone, expect for Epic. I personally don't enjoy the experience of managing my PC games in 5 different libraries which all log out almost e…

> Maybe I'm a fan, but the moat actually makes the user experience better.

But it doesn't. It makes it worse. I can't use cloud gaming services. I can't buy an ebook on Amazon or a comic on Comixology, without having to guess that I need to go to a website and buy it.

These are all bits of user experience that that are flat out better on Android, and the bad UI is directly caused by Apple's sole control of the app store.

But that pales in comparison to the rampant content censorship Apple causes (see Instagram admitting the clumsy, terrible policies that it implements are directly due to the Apple), or the geopolitical blocks that it causes on apps to help the populace of Hong Kong, or the apps that it permits (and blocks counter-software) to enable the misogynistic control of women's free movement in Saudi Arabia.

> As a consumer there isn't much benefit for multiple app stores, since every app store will be essentially exclusive to another, so don't really have more choice, just more app stores to manage and get the apps from.

There is a huge benefit to customers for multiple app stores - cheaper pricing, more competition on features and navigation, and most importantly editorial differences about what content will be allowed in the store. Don't agree with Apple's editorial censorship of code in the app store? Go and use someone else.

Apple will even be better off - without the coddling of the App Store being used to prop up it's poorer products it will actually have to make them good or have them die, much to it's long term benefit than turfing out poor quality software and the reputational damage that causes which has happened far too often recently.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#720

Post by Mindwipe »

ghostwriter wrote: post #447
danShumway wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. Apple is one half of a duopoly. People keep on bringing up these 'gotcha' arguments about, "how would you feel if Walmart was forced to stock everybody's stuff?" And that ignores the fact that it would be a serious problem if there were only two supermarkets that I could buy from. I…

> And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. There are more than two platforms out there. But even if there weren't, the fact that there's only N things in the world doesn't make your random claim on someone else's property any more valid. App Store is Apple's property. Build your own and host whoever you want there, but firs…

> But even if there weren't, the fact that there's only N things in the world doesn't make your random claim on someone else's property any more valid.

It is notable that basically every functional democracy in the world disagrees with this statement.

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