With no skin in the game, I could just as easily counter with: Supporting Apple in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform developers into giving them whatever terms they want. Don't do it. Again I don't really have a concrete view but a lot of these discussions tend to boil down to preference against one party or the other and not objectively looki…
It’s a flawed argument, developers don’t come saying “we’ll give you 30% of our revenue if you let us build on your platform”. If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.
This is like saying if you don't like how your government is run, just move somewhere else. So basically never push for improvements.
people familiar with Tim Sweeny’s life and ideology know that it is an actual important issues to him that platforms be open. your cynical take is often very true but there are sometimes real human ideals behind things.
Why does Unreal Engine have its own marketplace? Is it still an open platform?
Yes. You can import assets independently of that marketplace.
What in god's name is with all the bootlickers in this thread? I have no love for Apple or Epic. But if this lawsuit leads to better treatment of third-party developers on the platform and Apple not being able to arbitrarily control what apps consumers get to download, I don't see why Epic is being painted as the "bad guy" by so many people here. Apple has been behaving in crazy anti-competitive ways (just look at ho…
Honestly, what is the difference between the App Store and Target? Why should a third party (or court) have any control in what the retailer sells?
They shouldn't, but it's not about that. Apple can sell whatever they like or don't on the Apple Store, that's fine. The problem is that they sell consumers a "general computing" device, and then enforcing that every single transaction on said device goes through them. They are not only processing those transactions, not only taking a cut, but also deciding which ones are ok and which ones aren't. Meaning, that if you and me wanted to do business together selling iOS apps, we would need to get blessing from apple. The argument here is that maybe it shouldn't be like this. After all, we don't need to ask Microsoft for permission for the same thing, and on Android if I don't like the rules established by Google, I can put my app on the Amazon store, one of the many 3rd party ones, or just send my customers the .apk directly - Google cannot stop two parties from conducting business, they can merely offer a convenient alternative that involves google getting a cut. Of course apple will respond with argument that this tight control is beneficial to customers - and they are welcome to make such argument.
It's irrelevant whether Apple are technically a monopoly or not; Apple abuses their iOS market power to force vendors to use their payment system.
Actually I do think it matters if Apple is technically a monopoly, as laws are technical documents. If you agree Apple is not a monopoly then the worst thing you can say is, "I don't think Apple is being very nice."
And Apple is not forcing anyone to write ios apps. They are curating a store. Should lawmakers dictate to Walmart which products to stock or how much to buy and sell them for?
Honestly, what is the difference between the App Store and Target? Why should a third party (or court) have any control in what the retailer sells?
What happens when Target is the only store that 13.5% of the population can access? What happens if it become 25%? 50%? 100%? At what threshold is it proper to put in restrictions on Target?
My understanding is that Walmart is effectively the only retailer in many rural areas of the US (Though I don't know about specific statistics).
I'm surprised there's no effort by companies to negotiate collectively with Apple, as one entity. A single company means nothing to Apple, the company often risks a big chunk of their revenues, Apple risks basically nothing. Surely there are things that such app developer organisation could do to make Apple change their terms? Quick idea: motivate users to switch to Android, by adding new features there first, exclus…
What in god's name is with all the bootlickers in this thread? I have no love for Apple or Epic. But if this lawsuit leads to better treatment of third-party developers on the platform and Apple not being able to arbitrarily control what apps consumers get to download, I don't see why Epic is being painted as the "bad guy" by so many people here. Apple has been behaving in crazy anti-competitive ways (just look at ho…
They built the platform. They maintain the platform. They promote the platform. What's arbitrary about that?
When you build a platform and it becomes so successful that it forms part of the foundation for an entire society's technological existence, you lose the privilege of arbitrarily controlling that platform. Electricity companies don't get to skim 30% off of the revenue of any factory that makes widgets using the electricity company's electricity. Cell phone carriers don't get to skim 30% off of any orders placed over their networks. Apple shouldn't be able to skim 30% off of every transaction that happens to be made on an iOS device. I don't give a damn about esoteric arguments about Apple being a "private company" or whatever: it's unacceptable for society to pay a 30% tax to Apple on a big chunk of the economic activity of an entire society. No taxation without representation, right?
> just a bunch of legal departments having a fight. At the expense of the users, in both the figurative and the literal sense of the word.
It's not even legal departments having a fight, it's Tim Sweeney tilting at windmills I 100% believe that 3rd party app stores is a hill Apple is willing to die on. I would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem.
> would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem.
You believe they'd rather give up the iPhone than compromise on a more consumer-friendly ecosystem policy?
IANAL and I cannot judge the legal merits of this case.
I did read Apple's response though and I found the argument not a compelling justification for their practices.
A big part of their response is to justify the need for the 30% as a mechanism to recoup costs. That sounds perfectly reasonable until you realize that Epic is not allowed to recoup its own costs for the higher App Store cost by increasing their product cost by 30%.
Instead it must take a loss on the product and charge the customer the same price as app stores that do not take as large a %. That makes little sense.