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Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

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341–350 of 614 posts

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#341
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And some of us are very opposed to that model taking over the majority of computing.

Then give money to companies that don't offer that model. I have no understanding for anyone that buys Apple and then complains.

There aren't a lot of alternatives in the smartphone space. If you don't like Android, you're stuck with Apple. Now if both are abusing their power, using your reasoning, you're supposed to say and do nothing ?

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#342
post #203

I really wish there was a third party - the customer - actually represented in this trial. Apple and Epic arguing over what is best for the customer, while clearly they are having their own interests in mind, screams for the actual customers to be represented. The whole argument about them promoting an app „for free“ is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing…

260 million earned by Apple by charging the 30% commission on 116 million users means Apple received US$2.24 per user and then has to deduct all costs of running the App Store before a profit remains. And this is just for Fortnite, a profitable game.

All of the games and apps that are either not profitable or are free also need to be paid from the money earned on whales like Fortnite.

They now want Apple to serve 116 millions of users updates that usually run into the hundreds of megabytes for games without paying more than US$100 a year.

Epic runs it's own game store on 12% commission, but most of those games are paid and games are the biggest earners in any App Store, so only the most profitable category.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem here is that companies are forced to accept apples terms. Because apple controls every level of the stack, to opt out of the App store ToS you have to opt out of the store, the OS, and the hardware. If there was a way to install apps outside of the store this would not be an issue. Most users and developers would still use the app store since it provides value but devs who feel that they can supply t…

I see this argument everywhere and it makes no sense. The ToS is up to the owner of the platform. It's the same reason I don't use Facebook: I think the company and what they do with my data is diametrically opposed to my way of thinking so I voted to leave by deleting my account. Developer's do have a choice: abide by the ToS and enjoy the trappings of a user base that tends to spend more on applications be they sub…

You absolutely cannot live without Whatsapp/wechat in certain countries, you have no option. It's the same for developers, there's no way you can thrive without catering to iOS.

And you examples for taxes and roads are socialist services. The rates on tolls and taxes are decided by people elected representatives. Apple decided the rates on their own, not by Government mandate.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#344
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an iPhone despite the App Store, so I don't think that logic really holds.

I don’t know if what you’re saying holds generally. I don’t know if people buy it for the AppStore, but I strongly suspect that most people don’t buy it despite the App Store.

Just add a billing item "30% Apple Fee" and you'll know their true feelings.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, what Apple is doing violates EU and US antitrust laws Please provide legal documents equivocally stating this.

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_1890

Just to clarify, in this case, Apple has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act due to having a monopoly on Apple services?

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, what Apple is doing violates EU and US antitrust laws Please provide legal documents equivocally stating this.

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_of_1890

Epic alleges Apple has violated the Sherman Act. They have not proven this in a court of law, nor is it clear that they actually will succeed in doing so.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#347
post #342
post #203

I really wish there was a third party - the customer - actually represented in this trial. Apple and Epic arguing over what is best for the customer, while clearly they are having their own interests in mind, screams for the actual customers to be represented. The whole argument about them promoting an app „for free“ is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing…

260 million earned by Apple by charging the 30% commission on 116 million users means Apple received US$2.24 per user and then has to deduct all costs of running the App Store before a profit remains. And this is just for Fortnite, a profitable game. All of the games and apps that are either not profitable or are free also need to be paid from the money earned on whales like Fortnite. They now want Apple to serve 116…

But Apple’s costs are tiny compared to their margins, this isn’t logical as Apple can’t lose money on anything in the App Store, they didn’t invest in making the games did they? They are rent seeking to juice up their profits, it’s a great scam but I’d rather they concentrate on selling more hardware than ripping off developers.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#348
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one's stopping you from using only Apple store. Why force your choice on other consumers? Let people decide what's best for them

They have the choice to buy other brands.

They also have the choice to avoid smartphones altogether. What they want, though, is the ability to use apple hardware and non-apple software. The only reason they can't is because Apple won't let them, unless they pay a 30% commission

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#349
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

260 million earned by Apple by charging the 30% commission on 116 million users means Apple received US$2.24 per user and then has to deduct all costs of running the App Store before a profit remains. And this is just for Fortnite, a profitable game. All of the games and apps that are either not profitable or are free also need to be paid from the money earned on whales like Fortnite. They now want Apple to serve 116…

But Apple’s costs are tiny compared to their margins, this isn’t logical as Apple can’t lose money on anything in the App Store, they didn’t invest in making the games did they? They are rent seeking to juice up their profits, it’s a great scam but I’d rather they concentrate on selling more hardware than ripping off developers.

If Epic itself cannot do it for less than 12% selling only the best earning category and serving barely any free games when they're trying to _prove_ that it can be done for less than 30% apparently running an App Store isn't as trivial as most people at HN make it appear to be.

Also the 30% "rent seeking" happens on any platform Epic is on except the PC and Mac. They tried to go around the Google Play Store and pivoted on that decision.

I would like to see the % go down, I think they can run it for 20% without much trouble but when the kickback on titles goes down the price of the hardware goes up. So you can have a "cheap" Playstation with expensive games or an expensive Playstation with cheaper games.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> devs who feel that they can supply their own marketing and payment processing can do it themselves. The issue I have with that is that then a ton of companies think it's a good idea to ship a crappy "launcher" that needs to run on startup, taking up resources in the background while providing little to no added functionality. We can see that with PC games; it used to be just Steam, but now there's the Epic Games La…

And this is a good thing, competition between this stores is good for the users, some users got free games, some developers got better deals. The "needs to launch on startup" is FALSE , you can have this launchers set no to start at all and you launch the game and the launcher will start if needed (not all Steam games need Steam in background). FYI GOG launcher is optional, you can just download the game from the web…

It's not a good thing that I need 6 stores installed to play the games I've bought, each with their own updater pulling several gigabytes a week off the net just to keep the store app up-to-date.

I'd be interested to see whether any jurisdiction would hand down a consumer mandate for unbundling the DRM component from the storefront app; the former only updates occasionally.

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