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Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

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Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#391

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

d0100 wrote: post #293
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “As smartphones become more and more a part of the fundamental infrastructure of society” This perspective underpins a lot of the pushback against Apple & Google but I just don’t understand it. Any cell phone, and especially a smartphone, is not integral to modern society. Random usage by consumers is recreational. Businesses have a million ways to replace things they ask employees to rely on smartphones for. In fa…

> Given that smartphones are just an optional, convenient luxury item A smartphone is not a luxury item. It is a productivity device. It is a general purpose computer, no matter how Apple wants to say it isn't. It is also a vital machine for participation in the democracy. For many it is the only way they can talk to others and to their government representatives. > An iPhone is like a video game console The minute t…

What is a “productivity device”? You seem to think that’s some kind of platonic “thing” that exists, but it’s not. Web browsers, email clients, etc., are just discretionary products people may prefer to use for recreational or personal reasons. They are not structurally required.

You seem to be conflating the idea of “this thing is convenient for what I like to do” with “this thing should be supported as a pivotal component of civic life.”

Smartphones are absolutely nowhere remotely close to the latter.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#392

Post by himinlomax »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #390
himinlomax wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any cell phone, and especially a smartphone, is not integral to modern society Neither is hot, running water. A bucket and a hole in the backyard were good enough for my ancestors, they're good enough for everyone else in 2020! Joke aside, are you saying online banking and payment is a luxury? Do you realize that many basic services are switching over to smartphone payment? Such as public transport fares.

The joke doesn’t land though, because hot running water affects septic systems, sterilization, and many other public health concerns that easily make it considerable as a public utility. Online banking or smartphone public transit passes aren’t just luxuries, they are extreme luxuries. For example, I don’t have any banking apps on my phone and I get mailed a paper subway pass every month. Same for millions of others.…

> Online banking or smartphone public transit passes aren’t just luxuries, they are extreme luxuries.

True, you could just shoplift your food instead of paying for it with money earned by going to a job.

Not sure what your definition of "luxury" let alone "extreme luxury" is, but it clearly is a unique one.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#393

Post by _v7gu »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #132
madeofpalk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Windows/Epic situation really is the "best case scenario". You can download and install software from anywhere. Plus, there's an "app store" from the OS vendor, plus a few specality competing ones for things like games, where both consumers and developers have the choice of where they download/publish. Epic competing with Steam has been a great success for everyone I think. Developers get secure funding for games…

It's the "best case scenario" for developers and Epic, but not for me as a customer. I vastly prefer the iPhone model where I can go to a single place to download all the apps that I need with a single payment method. I don't have to go to a specific url in the browser, download an executable, install a separate store for each game I want, and then finally install the game from that separate store. I don't know who w…

> You guys are acting like the existence of the App Store has jacked up the app prices by 200%,

Yes, I really enjoy ads every seven and a half seconds for games I am not even allowed to buy to remove ads.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#394

Post by teawrecks »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #374
falcolas wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Control, as an example, is free of third party DRM on Steam. Ditto Journey and BTS. Compare Control with Doom Eternal's pages: https://store.steampowered.com/app/870780/Control_Ultimate_E... https://store.steampowered.com/app/782330/DOOM_Eternal/

They are free of "third party DRM”, they are not free of first-party DRM, aka the DRM system integrated into Steam. If you buy Horizon: Zero Dawn from Steam, you won’t be able to actually start the game unless Steam is installed. However, if you buy the game from EGS, it work fine even if EGS is not installed. The EGS version is a completely standalone copy of the game that does not require any clients in order to ru…

Steam used to be this way, I remember running skyrim without steam running. Would it change your mind if you knew EGS planned on going the DRM route in the near future (including for titles you just listed)?

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#395

Post by JamesSwift »

nonane wrote: post #31
Traster wrote: post #22

I think a lot of people have short memories. When Apple launched the iPhone computer security was a disaster, the security of the AppStore was a massive benefit and the fact that we don't have massive botnets of mobile phones is in no small part down to the massive effort that was put into security. But they seem to have solved this problem so well that people have forgotten it was even a problem to begin with.

This line of argument is incorrect: It’s not the AppStore that makes secure apps possible: It’s the mandatory sandbox that apps run inside that actually makes the system secure. It’s fairly easy to push malicious code to the AppStore but bypassing the sandbox restrictions is what keeps bad apps at bay.

Yes, this is one of my biggest pet peeves and largest disconnects when reading these threads. I dont understand how people can accept apples privacy and protecting the consumer argument when that has nothing to do with the app store. That is iOS itself and its permission model.

Do people really think app store approvers are doing malware analysis on apps and analyzing network traffic to approve them?

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#396

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

nabla9 wrote: post #240
parasubvert wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I can tell. He is also completely right.

His arguments seems to be completely rhetorical and absolutist. "If it's in principle possible to offer an alternative regardless of any cost, even if it's not practical, then there is no monopoly."

The costs and investment are not unrealistic or unreasonable. Apple paid those costs. Google paid those costs.

There’s a difference between saying “it would be really hard for Epic to recreate an ecosystem and hardware like Apple’s distribution channel” vs “it is structurally intractable or unrealistic in any way.”

If Apple & Google slogged through a decade of developing devices, app stores, manufacturing, etc. then so can Epic. If that’s really hard and Epic doesn’t want to do it, they can play by app store rules and use existing app stores.

The fact that it’s hard and expensive for Epic to do it their own way is no excuse to call other businesses monopolies. They aren’t doing anything that structurally stops Epic from building its own thing if it wants different policies.

Your argument is specious. It’s like saying the suggestion of building your own toll road is too hard, so some other toll road operator (who sunk capital into making their toll road) suddenly has to let you use it for free.

If they built the toll road, and they aren’t structurally sabotaging you from going and building your own if you don’t like the tolls, then this is your problem, and the other party exists as living proof that “this is hard” is not an adequate excuse.

You can’t cry monopoly just because you don’t like something and feel it would be hard for you to do it a different way on your own.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#397

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

himinlomax wrote: post #392
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke doesn’t land though, because hot running water affects septic systems, sterilization, and many other public health concerns that easily make it considerable as a public utility. Online banking or smartphone public transit passes aren’t just luxuries, they are extreme luxuries. For example, I don’t have any banking apps on my phone and I get mailed a paper subway pass every month. Same for millions of others.…

> Online banking or smartphone public transit passes aren’t just luxuries, they are extreme luxuries. True, you could just shoplift your food instead of paying for it with money earned by going to a job. Not sure what your definition of "luxury" let alone "extreme luxury" is, but it clearly is a unique one.

That’s a ridiculously myopic response. Most of the world doesn’t have adequate access to sufficient education, clean water, basic disease prevention, birth control, etc. But here you are acting self-righteous about online app-based banking and comparing the lack of convenient apps with poverty induced food theft? You need a reality check.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#398

Post by speeder »

gruez wrote: post #373
speeder wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is exactly those exclusivity contracts and how they were made. Epic literally bribed devs to do deals that went back on promises, people are not just upset about exclusivity, they are upset about exclusivity of stuff they PAID FOR on other platforms, there were kickstarted games, games pre-sold for Steam, etc... that suddenly became Epic exclusive, and devs went and explicitly said they wouldn't even retu…

>Epic literally bribed devs to do deals that went back on promises By that logic, I'm literally "bribing" the grocer every week to get groceries

Depends. You bought your groceries there? You paid their price.

You offered extra money to the grocer to sell to you something that was already sold to someone else that had already paid? I would count that as a bribe, and yes, it is a corrupt thing to do.

Epic is literally paying people to go back on their word, or in some jurisdictions, literally commit a crime by not delivering on purpose something that was paid for, in some places that is called interference, in others it is called fraud.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#399

Post by koonsolo »

gruez wrote: post #385
koonsolo wrote: post #313

Here's my "old-timer" take on the 30%: I used to develop games and apps for MS PocketPC. Our users could install apps straight from their PC to the PocketPC. But guess how apps were sold: through portals. These portals also took around 30% (Handango and PocketGear were the biggest ones back then). We were also selling straight from our website, where we could have had 0% cost. But guess what: We wanted to reach top 1…

>Just take a look at Steam: it's PC games! You can sell all those things straight to the consumer. But developers still choose to give 30% (or how much is it now?) for the exposure. What's your opinion on the following: * pay-for-play "acceptable ads" in ABP * having to get a EV code signing certificate ($300+/yr) to bypass windows smartscreen warnings, which are enabled by default Are they acceptable? Are they a net…

I also don't like gatekeepers. But it just seems it always evolves to that.

My point was not that I don't mind gatekeepers, but more that if you get rid of the platform gatekeeper, you will end up with the "customers" gatekeeper. In the end for us developers or customers it makes no difference.

$300 should not be a problem for someone who sells proper software. Such $100+ gates keep a lot of the crap out.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#400

Post by ben_w »

floatingatoll wrote: post #328
ben_w wrote: post #51

I think: 1. Multiple App Stores would be good for free speech, and for avoidance of USA cultural and legal hegemony. 2. How can this be done without loss of security for typical users? We don’t want phones to become botnets with microphones and cameras — imagine the opportunities for automatic criminal blackmail, theft planning, target acquisition, or 2FA interception. This is bad for the societies we live in even if…

> How can this be done without loss of security for typical users? It cannot. Typical users are not capable of 'vetting' app stores for their security capabilities.

It doesn’t have to be directly end-users — could it be like the HTTPS chain of trust, only with Apple and Google as the roots of certification?
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