401–410 of 1001 posts
But the courts have set a precedent with microsoft which makes it very hard to destroy these vertically integrated monopolies moving forward. Destroying monopolies is needed to protect the people's liberty and property.
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Open and closed is relative, as nothing is completely open unless it’s open source. Epic game store isn’t completely open. He’s just defining his version open to suit his bottom line.
That's true, but Epic is more of a friend to open source than Apple: they donated money to both Blender and Godot Engine. Also Epic benefit from game development being more open in general even if their own engine is not open source. If they gonna win in battle with Apple and will be allowed to have their own store then it's also make it possible to setup more of alternative stores for e.g open source software withou…
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I agree. Epic could have taken the matter directly to the courts and taken action (whatever it was) after a verdict. Heck, they could even have tried to make a case to the European Union, which seems to have a knack for pursuing this kind of thing. A ruling over there wouldn't directly impact the rest of the world, but it could get the ball rolling. Instead, they decided to make a spectacle of this whole issue to try…
Epic could have taken the matter directly to the courts and taken action (whatever it was) after a verdict. No, I don't believe they could. The courts in common law jurisdictions generally don't rule on speculative harm, they require an active controversy to rule on.
Apple is truly doing themselves a disservice here, if Epic wins this battle Apple will undoubtedly be painted as the bad guy, and other major companies will smell blood in the water when it comes taking down a competitor. Case in point; Tinder, Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify have all openly backed Epic and started to call attention to features that are impacted by this 30% fee. Status quo isn't going to cut it, and it…
I'm actually happy Apple didn't make a small concession. I can't quite have the resources to sue Apple by myself as a small user being prevented from using the device I have paid for the way I see fit. I'm very glad that EPIC is doing it on my behalf. I'm also kind of glad that Apple didn't simply cut a backroom deal with EPIC, but is instead going the full-monty on this.
Apple acts on my behalf as a security officer - they have no interest in selling me ads - they already got their revenue hunger satiated from the high price of my device and all the internal Apple services I pay for (Apple music, TV, icloud, etc).
I love Apple and I love that they are willing to stand up for riffraff that's trying to invade my personal space (consider iPhone literally as the entire life's worth of information vault) by masquerading as a crusader of light and openness.
I don't want Apple to open up their devices. Average Joes around the world outside of HN crowd will have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
I also think that 30% share is too low. Apple should be charging way more for exclusive access to their App store. It's their turf.
Why is this good? Because dev will go back to using browser apps to provide services and the browser itself is a nice sandbox to keep the riffraff out.
And only high quality apps will make it through the App store.
We're all just out here trying to find (secular) religion, apparently.
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The reality of the legal system is that all small companies would just get worn out and forced to settle against Apple, regardless of the justice of their complaint. No company smaller than Epic could afford to file such a case. I wonder whether any company could become large enough without having some way for people to argue that "it is not the general this particular battle needs".
Sure, Epic's size is absolutely going to be helpful here. But there are other larger companies that could probably make better cases against Apple if they chose to: Amazon and Microsoft come to mind immediately, with Facebook a possibility given the events of just the last couple of days. I'm not saying Epic is a bad poster child for this case because Epic is a sleazy company (although from all accounts they kind of…
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I am not following. Are you saying apps development is free? That the only cost is delivering the bytes?
I’m saying that selling costumes and Carlton dances at zero marginal cost and loot boxes is not the hill to die on. If every game that had micro transactions for consumables disappeared tomorrow, nothing of value would be lost.
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Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is. HN is, hopefully, better than most places on the internet as there are lots of people willing to decide each issue on its merits, and also recalibrate their positions continually in the light of events,
> Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is. My take is the exact opposite: this episode is an opportunity to air grievances regarding each company, which by themselves have amassed a bunch of reasons for customers and end users to dislike them. There are no good guys in this story, only bad guys whose evilness outstages the other's evilness.
People in the more general population definitely support Company A or B as if these were sports team, you can in fact find this on the linked article.
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…
Paradoxically, if a group of small businesses being harmed by a monopoly get together to do something about it, they can themselves run afoul if antitrust regulation.