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Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

reuters.com

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Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#141

Post by ericmay »

efraim wrote: post #67
ericmay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it should not be exclusively run by a private company. Why? If you don't like the iPhone there are other general purpose computers that you can use, ranging from a laptop to a Pixel smart phone... > General purpose computing. If you want to call it a general purpose computer, then you also have to include tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and Android phones. All of a sudden there is quite a bit of choice for cus…

It's dishonest to pretend that smart phones are not a very large and important portion of the digital market today and very hard to be without. They are used for payment, identification, messaging etc that a laptop or desktop can not replace. Having the choice between apple or google is not much of a choice. And a company that wan't to reach the public must have a smart phone app and therefore must have a ios app. Yo…

I'm not sure what I'm being dishonest about? If you're to say that the iPhone is a general purpose computing device then you have to also compare it to other general purpose computing devices and take into consideration the general purpose computing market. Maybe it's simply the best one with the best features? I mean, I know that if I had to choose to only have one (a laptop or iPhone) I'd choose the laptop because it has features that the iPhone doesn't.

But they also have overlapping features, complementary features, and sometimes mutually exclusive features. You mention payments - I can pay for things using my laptop, or if I have a credit or debit card (ya know, the thing you're using for payments) I can just use that at the store normally. Messaging - yep you can send messages from your laptop. I could go on. The killer feature of the iPhone is that it's in your pocket, but it's also a limiting factor. You can live without one, easily, however. Doom scrolling Facebook (sorry, keeping in touch with friends and family - totally not addiction) is not important and living without that is very easy.

> Your list of manufacturers does not take the platforms into consideration. None of those are allowed to use apples platform unless they follow their strict rules.

I can't use any of those manufacturer's platforms without following their rules. I'm not sure what you're trying to explain.

> There isnt't a competitive market unless ther's free movement and perfect information and the two smart phone platforms have large lock-in effects today so it hardly qualifies.

You can debate whether it's a competitive market, but I'm not sure what you're explaining here is part of the considerations, or at least these may map to larger overall considerations. But you have to be careful to be specific about what you are talking about. Are we talking about the iOS App Store, or the general purpose computer market? It matters.

> The portion of the market that is android or windows are competitive markets, it's easy to switch from a samsung phone to a lg phone.

You can easily switch from iPhone to Android as well. One of my friends does it at least once a year because he wants to be "all-in" on either Google or Apple but finds flaws in each.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#142

Post by jaegerpicker »

efraim wrote: post #67
ericmay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it should not be exclusively run by a private company. Why? If you don't like the iPhone there are other general purpose computers that you can use, ranging from a laptop to a Pixel smart phone... > General purpose computing. If you want to call it a general purpose computer, then you also have to include tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and Android phones. All of a sudden there is quite a bit of choice for cus…

It's dishonest to pretend that smart phones are not a very large and important portion of the digital market today and very hard to be without. They are used for payment, identification, messaging etc that a laptop or desktop can not replace. Having the choice between apple or google is not much of a choice. And a company that wan't to reach the public must have a smart phone app and therefore must have a ios app. Yo…

It is competitive, it's just as easy to switch between Android and iOS, it's not cheap but just as easy.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#143

Post by asimpletune »

newbie578 wrote: post #25
zpeti wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the absolutely obvious hypocritical things for me is that they don't allow anyone to say in their app that "Apple gets 30% of this fee" That's the equivalent of the IDFA message for Facebook. Which everyone will see, its worded in a very negative way, and it's a must.

Good point. Would love to hear the Apple fanatics on HN defend this. So much for respecting privacy...

I don’t know if this is a defense per se, but the reason they do this is to prevent app makers from using that to try and steer customers to out of band ways of subscribing.

I guess the analogy would be if a brand forbade a retailers from revealing their margins, so customers don’t go to secondary markets and potentially/almost-certainly have a worse experience. Like counterfeit products or just in general to be subjected to dark patterns.

As far as my personal opinion regarding this I am completely fine with it. I think they’ve created something remarkable in the sense that everyday people are starting to pay for software, because they’ve created a valuable ecosystem. Sometimes I think we forget that in the past everyday people wouldn’t really pay for digital products in the same way they’d pay for physical ones. The one thing I’d say though is that maybe the 30% is high, but given they have the small business program that argument is mostly gone.

Any way now I’m rambling but that’s my best attempt to honestly explain why they do that.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#144

Post by kevingadd »

gwd wrote: post #18
ehvatum wrote: post #4

There is room for 3rd party app stores. Epic will argue that Apple does an absolutely ghastly terrible job of curating the Apple app store, as Apple really has little incentive not to suck completely. The EU court will agree. Apple will spend a year or two saying “it can’t be done”, then issue a signing certificate to Epic.

> There is room for 3rd party app stores. The "Apple Tax" pays for the maintenance of the Apple ecosystem. Epic wants access to this amazing ecosystem, but resents having to help pay to support it. Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way; or they'll fail to support the ecosystem, in which case Apple will be forced to turn to…

Epic has asserted and proven that you don't need to take 30% to run an app store and approval pipeline. The incredible amount of profit generated by the iOS store is further evidence that the cut doesn't need to be 30%, as is Apple's sudden willingness to make exceptions for big companies like Amazon and temporarily offer 15% to small companies.

Neither the Epic Store or Steam on PC are built around selling your data. Epic's PC store charges 12% (and if you use Unreal, they waive the licensing fee for that engine too), and Steam has a special tiered tax for massive companies (something like 25% for 50m+ in revenue, 20% at some higher tier)

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#145

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

gwd wrote: post #62
chii wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform…

> how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. The "correct" amount is the amount that everybody is happy to pay. If Epic doesn't want to pay 30%, then 30% is too high for them. That's OK -- nobody is forcing them to pay it. The competition you're describing isn't the cost of running the app store ; it's the cost of maintaining the en…

> The "correct" amount is the amount that everybody is happy to pay.

This is only valid in a free market with lots of competition and information transparency. The crux of the argument is that this does not apply to the app store ecosystem.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#146

Post by isodev »

Such vendors are free to create game catalogs for their games (Steam-like), taking the user to the App Store for downloads. They can also have IAPs, Subscriptions and alls kinds of payment options. Apple's own Arcade follows this same architecture so I don't see Epic's argument at all.

When I am using my iPhone/iPad, I expect all apps to work with services connected to my Apple account. No user should be required to provide payment information to a shady 3rd party like Epic, Microsoft or whatever.

It is clear that the "antitrust" action is designed to allow Epic (and similar) to push a solution which is fit for their business model.

As a developer, I don't support the idea of alt-stores at all, it would mean that only big corps will have the resources to create and maintain such distribution channels. Nobody will go through the trouble of installing an alt store for my FooBar pet-project game. Also who is going to review these apps?

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#147

Post by zepto »

kevingadd wrote: post #113
nickysielicki wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the outcome, it’s about reasoning from first principles and going where ever that leads you, regardless of how much you dislike the outcome. Nobody has to buy an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. Apple has the right to create the software ecosystem they want to create. Their success in mobile computing is arguably a direct result of their closed ecosystem.

In the past US regulators have not agreed with your reasoning here. They broke up the original big telephone companies, for example.

Those had an actual monopoly - literally no alternative service provider.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#148

Post by sunahe »

covercash wrote: post #106
m12k wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those consumers should have every right to stay in that sandbox. And the rest of us should have the right to use a different one.

You do have that right, it’s called Android.

Cool, how do I install it on my iPhone? The one I bought with my money?

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#149

Post by kevingadd »

pier25 wrote: post #138
no_wizard wrote: post #105

It’s all about money. I don’t think epic wants a new App Store. In fact I do t think the majority of developers with legitimate complaints with the App Store want competing app stores. They all want, from what I can boil down to, the majority of the time, two things: 1. Control over payments (to cut out the 30%) 2. More control over releases and updates (particularly upgrade pricing) I think if Apple caved in on thes…

I think 30% is excessive but as a developer my biggest gripe with the AppStore is definitely the tight grip Apple has over what's published. You might work for years on an app and all that effort can vanish into thin air if Apple decides they don't want it.

Retroactively! It'd be one thing if it was up-front rejections, but the internet is full of horror stories from developers who suddenly found that Apple had decided their product was no longer okay and that their customers didn't matter, blocking future updates. Not even necessarily taking it off the store, just ensuring it can never get bug fixes.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#150

Post by dpkonofa »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #134
dpkonofa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a special deal, though. Just because a reporter didn't know about doesn't mean it was special for Amazon. Your own article even mentions other providers that were already using that and, most importantly, it only applies to renewals of existing subscriptions that were started outside the app . It can't be exclusive to Amazon if other platforms are also already taking advantage of that same process. New pur…

I'd say a video rental is a new purchase. The customer may already be subscribed to Amazon Prime, but they're paying additional money to watch that specific video.

Video rentals are already covered by an agreement that existed prior to the change in the Amazon app. The article you posted even mentions that Canal+ and other video services were already using this which is an option where you can allow purchases tied to an existing subscription payment method if you also allow for those purchases in the iTunes Store and integration into the Apple TV app.
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