Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#951

Post by vr46 » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

beaner wrote: post #942

vr46 wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "tax", when referring to Apple's fees, is a loaded and partial term. The fact that it's clear and understood and factored into the price makes it easy to complain about, but no casual customer to my knowledge has ever seriously asked what proportion of their peppermint tea and scones pays for a café's rent - overheads are overheads and margins are margins. Both companies are invoking consumers and value in t…

> Many a company is upset that they have no leverage in a business deal and want to courts to hand it to them. I think Epic does actually have a lot of leverage. They have clout. They're a popular, widely respected company and founder. They could easily organize a strike, where large companies frustrated by this exploitative fee all pull their apps and publicly say "move to Android" or something. Probably the fear of…

The tactic is not very good at all. Respect and popularity doesn't get you much further than inside the front door in business, it certainly doesn't get you free money. It is quite sad to see this happen, because they had a great relationship at some point, Infinity Blade was an outstanding series and mutually beneficial. I also can't believe that all of us give s shit about this issue too and we're here discussing it.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#952

Post by amelius » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

nso wrote: post #939

amelius wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Informing users about the Apple tax would cause an outrage since users already paid for their phones, and own them.

There is no Apple tax. It's a fee. "A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures"

Apple is acting as a regulator. In that sense, a tax is not far from the truth.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#953

Post by dang » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #765

dang wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stub comment to collect the replies so we can collapse them, to prevent offtopicness. Sorry, no-JS users.

@dang: You previously said in another comment: > The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. "Boo $BigCo", "yay $BigCo" fan-v.-antifan cage matches are not curious conversation. We want curious conversation. If you really desire that, then please consider making some fundamental changes to how HN voting and auto-moderation works. I…

Comments sometimes get downvoted in the first minute. That's just how stochastic processes work if you have enough data, and there are a lot of people reading these threads.

These discussions are not one-sided—they're two-sided at least, which is one reason people get so mad at each other. Each side feels like the discussion is one-sided against it though.

I certainly agree that internet dynamics favor indignation, but that's not specific to HN and it's not clear what any technical changes could do to mitigate it. We do everything we can as moderators.

This is inaccurate: "A few downvotes in a row makes you unable to post anything anywhere on HN for several hours". Rate limiting isn't based on votes. Moderators rate-limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars. There are also some software filters that can lead to rate limits, such as for new accounts.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#954

Post by zycon » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

flingo wrote: post #511

btown wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important part of this is that as far as I can tell, most AAA mobile games now ship all but the most fundamental "code updates" as updates to interpreted scripts/data files over the Internet, bypassing the App Store update mechanism. (Where does data end and code begin? That's a philosophical argument that historically Apple could look the other way on for high-performing mobile games with weekly or even more freq…

Apple's iOS ToS specifically forbids downloading and executing code by the app. (with a definition of "code", and "execute" somewhere in the document) While you could technically hide this from them during the review stage, apple can stop any app from functioning on any iOS device connected to the internet by revoking the certificate, if they discover it at a later stage. Are there noteworthy apps that break this ter…

But it allows downloading and executing interpreted code. See paragraph 3.3.2 of Apple Developer Program License Agreement.

So you can have significant portion of your app in say javascript, which you can update OTA.

E.g. react native apps have most of their functionality in js and can use services like code push to update themselves without app store and it doesn't violate Apple ToS.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#955

Post by SkyPuncher » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #823

SkyPuncher wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? 1. Stripe is a minor player overall. Lots of other credit card processors 2. Stripe is not preventing you from collecting payments from your customers. You can use a different payment processors.

> You can use a different payment processors. And you can use a different device to play Fortnite; for instance, a laptop/desktop or an Android tablet w/ sideloading capabilities.

You might be able to, but not every consumer can. You're presenting a fundamentally different argument than a business changing which provider they use to collect credit card payments.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#956

Post by alexchamberlain » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

vr46 wrote: post #882

paulgb wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company like Spotify sells subscriptions both in the app and on the web, they have to charge 43% more to the in-app purchaser to get the same revenue, even though the user gets exactly the same experience. I would call that a tax (informally; I know it strictly doesn't meet the definition) and as a customer I would like to know about it.

As a Spotify subscriber, I don’t really care, because it’s their job to handle their overheads, in the same way that John Lewis on Oxford Street pays different rent to John Lewis in Kingston (probably) but the prices stay the same. Cost of doing business is a thing. Capex and Opex are well-understood by businesses, or should be. If the Spotify web store is more profitable than the Spotify iOS store, because Apple wan…

I'm not sure i fully agree with the analogy.

John Lewis pay a different rent (again presumably) based on the more desirable location, but it's also reasonable to assume their payment provider is the same.

In this case, I would argue that Apple have the monopoly on the App Store, which is fine if they are reasonable about it. However, there's no optionality on the payment processor: they insist it's them and take 30% (from what I've read; not actually an iOS dev).

Would it not be more reasonable for them to charge a small revenue fee (rent) and allow you to choose a payment provider? They could audit the payment provider to achieve the security features that they seem to be presenting as an excuse for their charges.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#957

Post by imtringued » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #869

vr46 wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "tax", when referring to Apple's fees, is a loaded and partial term. The fact that it's clear and understood and factored into the price makes it easy to complain about, but no casual customer to my knowledge has ever seriously asked what proportion of their peppermint tea and scones pays for a café's rent - overheads are overheads and margins are margins. Both companies are invoking consumers and value in t…

If a company like Spotify sells subscriptions both in the app and on the web, they have to charge 43% more to the in-app purchaser to get the same revenue, even though the user gets exactly the same experience. I would call that a tax (informally; I know it strictly doesn't meet the definition) and as a customer I would like to know about it.

If you don't like it then don't set up payment through Apple. Just set it on the web. Multiplatform subscriptions outside the Apple ecosystem are explicitly allowed. The reality is that users don't get to save money so they don't care.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#958

Post by amingilani » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

vr46 wrote: post #861

AsyncAwait wrote: post #841

I don't think Epic is doing anything but trying to pocket more for themselves, yet I also think that the comments here overstate how "aware" average people are about Apple's restrictions, tax etc. I don't think most people would consider direct payment to reputable companies like Epic to be a particular security risk. I don't think most realize why they can't subscribe to Spotify from their iPhones, they think it's s…

The word "tax", when referring to Apple's fees, is a loaded and partial term. The fact that it's clear and understood and factored into the price makes it easy to complain about, but no casual customer to my knowledge has ever seriously asked what proportion of their peppermint tea and scones pays for a café's rent - overheads are overheads and margins are margins. Both companies are invoking consumers and value in t…

> no casual customer to my knowledge has ever seriously asked what proportion of their peppermint tea and scones pays for a café's rent

Furthering your café analogy:

• How many cafés do you think pay an annual amount + 30% of their revenue to their landlord, and may only use the landlord's payment system comprising of landlord dollaz

• Would consumers of a popular café be seriously concerned if their café were suddenly closed because they decided to accept cash directly?

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#959

Post by aiyodev » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #910

aiyodev wrote: post #901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Apple owners don’t know about this, you are mistaken. Curating the App Store is one of the main reasons why I buy Apple products. I want them to tax and restrict developers.

> If you think Apple owners don’t know about this, you are mistaken. Curating the App Store is one of the main reasons why I buy Apple products. You're posting on a site called Hacker News so I'd expect you to know, but does you extended family know, without you telling them? Doubt ir, just as I would expect most people to think "Hacker News" has to do something with illegality or perhaps reporting on criminal hacker…

Right. Because the tens of millions of people buying Apple products are all ignorant rubes, not informed consumers purchasing superior products. /s

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#960

Post by DangitBobby » Sat, Aug 29, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

JiNCMG wrote: post #746

m4rtink wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, how could Epic continue developing unreal engine for iOS without a developer account? I thinl this nicely sumariges whats wrong - why the hell should one need an account somewhere to develop software for an OS! Thats a totally arbitrary limitation and as nicely illustrated by Apple - very very dangerous.

You need an account to develop for Xbox, Sony and Switch.

The issue is not necessarily that you need an account, it's that punitive action is being taken against this other related account as a form of coercion/arbitrary punitive action. Imagine if your Gmail account was deleted because you made a nasty comment on YouTube. It would be a clear abuse of administrative power.