Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case • Hacker News Board

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#701

Post by manquer » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #598

manquer wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe provides a lot of tooling ( more than apple) for compliance. Apple is hardly the only payment provider which simplifies payment processing for small developers.

"Tooling for compliance" sounds a hell of a lot more complicated than "you sell my app and send me a check", which is the deal on the App Store, Steam, etc.

Finance and compliance is lot more complicated than send me a Cheque for most businesses.

Stripe ( and others) have products right from incorporation (Atlas?), identity verification, custom reporting, fraud/risk, Charge backs, Tax reporting/ filing and even PoS terminals etc.

Most businesses have to deal with multiple channels (Android, web, iOS and others), custom reporting, and different risk/compliance will need solutions well beyond what Apple is offering

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#702

Post by threeseed » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #536

>In a separate judgment, the court affirmed that Epic Games was in breach of its contract with Apple when it implemented the alternative payment system in the Fortnite app. As a result, Epic must pay Apple 30 percent of all revenue collected through the system since it was implemented — a sum of more than $3.5 million. Well, that seems rather BS. To even try for the antitrust case they were required to show how it wo…

Epic was in breach of contract.

Which means not only do they have to pay the fine but Apple is likely to permanently ban them from the store.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#703

Post by hoveringhen » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

whoisburbansky wrote: post #580

wvenable wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many apps already have non-Apple-taxed pricing. So they can just keep price consistency without losing 30%.

Which apps do this?

YouTube Music / Premium does this if I'm not wrong

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#704

Post by adam_arthur » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #309

adam_arthur wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather stay away from focusing on the size of the org itself, and moreso on the "markets" that they create. When a platform or market is created by an entity, and that platform reaches a certain scale, they must allow free competition within that market. Here's an extreme example. Say somewhere down the line Facebook invents some metaverse or VR world. This becomes the primary form of interaction between people..…

> 99% Your describing a monopoly. IMO the real question is what actually harms consumers. Requiring companies to open their platforms is one option for regulation, but perhaps not ideal. Great for tech companies sure, but possibly a huge opportunity for scammers. Consumers and companies are often at odds, banning app coins for example is great for gamers and the opposite of an open platform. A flat regulation that al…

You're right that the analogy was not quite right.

Here's a better one. Facebook creates a virtual world where 50% of the population choose. Apple creates a different virtual world which the other 50% choose.

If you simply look at the boundary/entrance you can say there's freedom of choice. But whether you choose apple or Facebook, there's 0 competition once you're inside that world.

Further, once you've established a home and connections within one world, switching to the other becomes quite expensive.

Competition at the gates, monopoly within.

I might add that this is very similar to the concept of company scrip whereby the local coal mine had a monopoly over local jobs and gouged workers for basic necessities. Absolutely you could have moved a town over, but the cost to do so was deemed too high in many cases.

When cost of switching is high, monopolistic power can be enforced upon customers. It's a similar situation with a lot of SaaS who have pricing power to strong arm their customers into high margins due to the cost of switching to alternative technologies. In a truly competitive market, SaaS margins should be close to 0. Obviously that's not the case today.

Regulation will catch up to all of these tricks, just a question of the timeline. Capitalism only works well when there's an environment of competition, and leveraging high costs of switching or large gated systems to enable profit margins well beyond what a competitive market would bear is antithetical to this concept.

That's why antitrust law is so important, and needs to evolve to handle modern business structures.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#705

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #668

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a smooth cancelation is so important to users that it justifies a 30% upcharge, other payment processors will compete. They can even advertise the easy cancelation during checkout next to the payment method (“install the stripe subscriptions app or go to stripe.com for one-click, prorated cancellations!”). I think once one of them does it, they all will. If the injunction goes into effect in 90 days, it will be a…

The thing that I think you're perhaps missing is that Stripe etc. will be competing with Apple for developers . Letting developers make it harder for consumers to cancel something is a feature, not a bug. Stripe etc. do not care about competing for consumer favor. Apple does. As far as any large company is on the consumer's side, Apple is, because they need me to buy another iPhone more than they need me to buy a sub…

This is a deeply threaded discussion, but if you look up there, you’ll find that people are arguing that users will choose Apple Pay over other payment processors or refuse to use apps that don’t offer Apple Pay. That’s the context in which my comment is written. If it’s true, then app developers and payment processors will need to respond to that market demand. If users don’t care, then of course developers and payment processors don’t need to care either (absent regulation).

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#706

Post by threeseed » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

spywaregorilla wrote: post #577

rubyn00bie wrote: post #563

yawn Apple is getting a mild slap on the wrist and the outcome of the case is probably the best for everyone. It did away with the most entirely absurd and egregious restriction but still lets a company like... choose how to run their business. If anything this is likely to drastically improve the quality of some big-name applications on Apple's platforms, further increasing their bottom line. I would bet money techn…

Epic tried to put Fortnite back on the app store in Korea. Apple refused.

And now Apple is going to refuse to put them on any store given that courts found them to have breached their contract.

Epic have screwed themselves pretty badly here.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#707

Post by gambiting » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #660

woko wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how this works in favour of Apple. Imagine you had paid with any other third-party payment provider, e.g. Paypal. Wouldn't you have been able to cancel the recurring payment just as easily? Even with a CC payment, wouldn't you be able to cancel the recurring payment by going through the account options on your bank website?

> Even with a CC payment, wouldn't you be able to cancel the recurring payment by going through the account options on your bank website? No? I don't know where you're located, but I'm not aware of any North American banks that offer anything of the sort. Typically the only thing you could do through your bank is dispute a charge after the fact and request a chargeback. The end of that process may or may not see the…

Here in UK if a company wants to charge you regularly for anything they have to start something called a "direct debit" on your bank account - then they can withdraw money from your account whenever they see fit. The thing about direct debits though is that you can cancel them for any reason within few clicks on your account website, and all charges are reversible without having to provide a reason - I just call my bank and say I want to reverse a direct debit charge X, done.

I know the American system is bad, but it's not like the only system in the world. There are other ways of doing this, without going through Apple's closed ecosystem.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#708

Post by jackson1442 » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

testfrequency wrote: post #348

I believe people are over conflating the "friction" involved with using an outside payment system (such as Stripe or PayPal). Apple ID's already allow you to attach your PayPal account as primary funding...this is just giving developers that direct choice now. PayPal, you confirm checkout total, login to paypal, confirm subscription or price. Done. Stripe, you can use their standard checkout page, autofill your card…

Apps based around "physical goods" (read: food ordering) have been able to do this for ages, and if the trend I see there expands into "normal" apps, about 50% will support Apple Pay, 25% will support PayPal without AP, 10% will support card scanning, and the rest will make you manually enter your card number, billing address, name, email, firstborn child, etc.

So no, I don't think the flow will remain nearly as seamless as it is today, and that's disappointing to me. I don't pay for much IAP-wise (though I do order plenty of DoorDash), but I guess this will give me even less motivation to buy crap I don't need.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#709

Post by iknowstuff » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

dodobirdlord wrote: post #629

widowlark wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you will still be able to do this, at a 30% premium through IAP

Yea, but obviously no company will offer that option unless forced. This decision undeniably benefits app developers, but the benefit to customers is murkier. Apple couldn’t previously require payment flow through Apple’s payment systems, as evidenced by apps like Audible where you have no purchasing in the app and just have access to the content that you purchased through their website. Since Apple couldn’t outright…

They did try to force companies to monetize through them.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/8/21506995/apple-forced-in-...

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#710

Post by darkhelmet » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 10:32 PM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #660

woko wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how this works in favour of Apple. Imagine you had paid with any other third-party payment provider, e.g. Paypal. Wouldn't you have been able to cancel the recurring payment just as easily? Even with a CC payment, wouldn't you be able to cancel the recurring payment by going through the account options on your bank website?

> Even with a CC payment, wouldn't you be able to cancel the recurring payment by going through the account options on your bank website? No? I don't know where you're located, but I'm not aware of any North American banks that offer anything of the sort. Typically the only thing you could do through your bank is dispute a charge after the fact and request a chargeback. The end of that process may or may not see the…

Precisely this. And I realize it's not the same around the world, but recurring payments get really bad in large parts of the world.

If you, the customer, want to cancel a recurring payment and you're using ApplePay, it's one button and done.

If you're using 3rd party billing from $randomcompany, it usually works by you, the customer, trying to find who to call and spending a substantial portion of your time being badgered by customer retention people. They're set up to make it as difficult as possible because they know that they can make people give in if the effort is too high.

This is a huge part of the reason why companies want the second option - they want to own the customer, and for you to have to get permission from them to stop belonging to them.