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Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

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Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the platform strategy is inherently flawed from the perspective of a public good, and is inherently monopolistic and anticompetitive? How does this not reach the absolute definition of a de facto monopoly, especially if you’ve read about the powers that monopolies already broken up we’re using to keep theirs? No monopoly ever will admit it is one. I would like to see a world where platforms are forcibly opene…

> they own the hardware They don't — the users bought it, it's theirs now. It should be illegal to restrict hardware like this.

Meant to say they build the hardware. Quite agree.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#472
post #2

Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store as-is. > Lawyer says, “if people really value Apple’s curation and Apple’s App Store, even if there…

A fairly obvious situation where the top google result is “Kid friendly happy fun town App Store” set up by dark web Corp where you can get pre hacked versions of all major commercial apps for free with built in cheats at the cost of porn pop ups and just trust me levels of scamware.

Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how do you fix “I don’t know. My cousin installed it for me”?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#473
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, should Apple charge something like $1/user/month to allow companies to publish apps and run software on iPhones?

How is that the same logic? Amazon does not charge end users for allowing services they use to run on AWS.

AWS charges for bandwidth. Should Apple start charging the developer $1 for every download?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#474
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bull. Without apple the iOS ecosystem wouldn't exist.

Without Microsoft, the windows eco system wouldnt exist. Should MS get a cut of all windows applications?

Should MS get a cut of all Xbox applications?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#475
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to repeat the same thing I always repeat in these threads because it feels like people are out of touch with closed platforms. To “play” on Xbox or PlayStation, they take a 30% cut. Steam also takes a 30% cut. It’s pretty standard, certainly not “exploitative” (at least not on apples part, if not others), though obviously as a game developer I’d prefer it be much less.

Microsoft store on PC is a 12% cut. Documents revealed during this case show that the same is (or was) planned for Xbox store: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36... For Steam there are many viable alternatives, which allows for user/developer choice and fair competition in the long run. Epic Store is about half as popular now (31.3m vs 62.6m daily active users), but it's growing fast. I don'…

I mostly think that your points here, while correct, miss the forest for the trees.

1. Steam's cut isn't 30%; it's 30% on keys sold through Steam and 0% on keys generated to be sold elsewhere. Most games sell about 1/3rd of their Steam copies via external keys on sites like Humble, GreenManGaming, Nuuvem, WinGameStore, directly on their websites, etc. Valve's implied cut would be from 15-20% for most of these games. Of course, publishers and developers voluntarily give up some of the cut Valve doesn't take to those intermediaries, which is another knock against the claim that Valve is an exploiter. It seems hard to argue that in a world where a game is sold for $60 and GreenManGaming takes $6, passes on a $12 discount to the consumer, Valve takes $0, and the publisher takes $42, that Valve is the one exploiting the publisher, despite giving the publisher free keys.

Why does Valve do this? To maximize lock-in in their ecosystem and make money on in-app purchases. They have selfish interests at mind, but those manifest through giving away some of their cut on purchases.

2. Valve also has a fee reduction program that's the exact opposite of Apple/Google. Apple/Google charges 15% up to $1 million revenue and then charge you the full amount. Valve charges progressively less after $1 million revenue (down as low as 20%). I think this reflects closed/open systems;

Valve is worried about publishers like EA (who left Steam and then came back hat in hand because their own service was an expensive and technically poor failure), Ubisoft (who left Steam and are currently bilking Epic for upfront cash while pushing their own UPlay service), Bethesda/MS (who flirt with Beth.net/Microsoft Games Store but both ultimately returned to Steam in the end), Activision (have abandoned Steam for Battle.net). So they want to make it easier for big publishers to come back to them. Whereas Apple wants to maximize revenue off big clients and maximize the PR benefits of helping small businesses. But the point is that Apple, Google, and Valve alike actually do have flexibility in the % they take.

3. Finally, I think the Epic active user numbers are really not super useful. The vast majority of those Epic users are simply Fortnite players (and it's actually a little unclear whether Epic is counting non-PC Fortnite players who sign it under Epic accounts). Having acquired Rocket League, they now can use Rocket League players in the same way. Having acquired Fall Guys, they will likely do the same there in the coming years.

The actual number of users of the Epic Games Store are not trivial, it'd definitely be a strong second having overtaken GOG and Itch and other competitors. But they're likely in the single digit millions.

This in part reflects that the Epic Games Store is not very good. The client does not support basic features, nor does the store interface. Their onboarding process is entirely manual, which they characterize as giving them a "curated" game library but actually it means there's just not that much variety on the store and almost nothing at the low end. They have sales where they eat huge losses to give users discounts, but these are not appreciably better than the kinds of sales that occur on Steam and in the broader ecosystem.

Crucially, to your point that Steam might be over "overtaken" by Epic is that it's not clear there's any competition at all. Every game that released on Epic and not Steam did so because Epic signed exclusivity contracts with the game (typically 12 month exclusivity contracts). It's predictable that all of these exclusives, bar one -- World War Z, have released on Steam within a month or so of their exclusivity expiring. Most seem to report doing better on Steam. Most developers that release on Epic and Steam, without a formal exclusivity deal, are developers who signed "free game" deals with Epic where Epic bulk-pays developers upfront in exchange for allowing every Epic user to redeem the game for free. Epic reports a relatively low conversion rate from free game redeemers to buyers.

All of this suggests that the Epic Game Store, while putting up impressive numbers, isn't really peeling off developers or users because of its lowers cut. I could imagine a world where Valve/Steam are materially hurt if Epic greatly extends their exclusivity contracts, losing billions of dollars specifically to destroy Steam. But I don't see Epic organically overtaking Steam.

My main point here is that the complexities of what's being offered and what's being charged here are obscured when we just say "You ate one third of my pizza! But I wanted that pizza!"

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#476
post #2

Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store as-is. > Lawyer says, “if people really value Apple’s curation and Apple’s App Store, even if there…

A fairly obvious situation where the top google result is “Kid friendly happy fun town App Store” set up by dark web Corp where you can get pre hacked versions of all major commercial apps for free with built in cheats at the cost of porn pop ups and just trust me levels of scamware. Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how do you fix “I don’t know. My cousin installed it for me”?

> Most would go straight to Apple with their issues and how do you fix “I don’t know. My cousin installed it for me”?

Presumably Apple has run into the "my cousin installed it for me" issue with Macs and they don't want to deal with it (or pay for it) at iPhone scale.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetical progression: Epic sets up alternative App Store which becomes the only source of Fortnite 2.0, which is popular enough to drive installs of new alt store. Some other newly-popular viral app comes along (probably a social app that causes its users to exert pressure on their social group to join) and gambles on going with the Epic store only, piggybacking on Fortnite’s beachhead. Repeat. This process norma…

Already like this scene in PC gaming, launchers everywhere. For the apps I am using now, there will be probably: Netflix Store, Amazon Store, Google Store, Epic Store, EA Store ... and list goes on

Adobe store :shrug:

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#478
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - AWS charge you on bandwidth used, Apple don't charge developers for the number of downloads Their point is that Apple could charge based on bandwidth used, and that this could be more fair for some developers. > AWS charge you for storage, Apple don't charge you for storing your app I would be pretty happy with Apple charging for app storage if it was at S3 rates - it would amount to almost nothing.

It's clear that any change to the equilibrium would have winners and losers. We can scope out who those are likely to be: free applications which provide some useful educational service would lose; currently they provide no revenue (beyond the token developer fee). Banking, rewards, credit, etc. applications (applications which interface consumers with their pre-existing accounts for CRUD-style management purposes) w…

> It's clear that any change to the equilibrium would have winners and losers.

Thank god our object isn't to design rules that would pick the winners and losers we want, but to design rules that prevent Apple from using their platform leverage in an anti-competitive way. It's fine if Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram lose, and "extremely popular multi-billion dollar" applications win. Being extremely popular and successful while using few Apple resources should give you some degree of control over your own application.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the platform strategy is inherently flawed from the perspective of a public good, and is inherently monopolistic and anticompetitive? How does this not reach the absolute definition of a de facto monopoly, especially if you’ve read about the powers that monopolies already broken up we’re using to keep theirs? No monopoly ever will admit it is one. I would like to see a world where platforms are forcibly opene…

> they own the hardware They don't — the users bought it, it's theirs now. It should be illegal to restrict hardware like this.

So when you buy a vehicle, you should be allowed to run any custom OSS on the hardware?

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#480
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visa charges you 3% but doesn’t have an online store that I can find your app on, and don’t run security checks against your app to check for malicious apps, etc. So I think we can agree that a realistic number for Apple is definitely above 3% for the service they provide. We can argue about 30%, and that’s a good discussion, but 3% is no way comparable.

They also don't curate a language and IDE for you to make your stuff with as well, nor offer logins or ways to find past transactions.

> curate a language and IDE for you to make your stuff with as well

That's an odd way to put it. Approximately 0.001% of developers would complain if instead they were allowed to use the language and IDE they prefer.

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