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Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

reuters.com

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Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#201

Post by ffgjgf1 »

DEADMINCE wrote: post #69
immibis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Apple blatantly violating the Digital Markets Act, because it thinks it is above the law (and to be fair, in the USA, it is). The EU has acknowledged this and is currently preparing a truly massive punishment for Apple. Apple, being unaccustomed to having rules apply to it, seems to be ignoring this.

I mean, if it's too much, they will just pull out of the EU and sell to Europeans via online only. EU citizens will still be Apple customers, just without any EU protections. To be fair, the EU is being a bit ridiculous sometimes. Apple decided not to compete in the EU because of the restrictions, and the EU seemingly wanted to penalize that decision also.

So instead of losing 5% or so of their revenue in the EU they’d rather lose > 80-90% seems like a smart business decision…

In any case (not quite the same but gives a glimpse into their mindset) they have zero issues with kowtowing to authoritarian regimes like those in Russia or China

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#202

Post by ffgjgf1 »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #197
drdaeman wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't pulled out from China with all their... domestic requirements. I doubt they're gonna pull from the EU.

The difference is that China’s domestic requirements don’t require Apple to become a non-profit. If the EU’s requirements are actually as many HN’ers would like them to be, Apple will have no reason to sell iPhones in the EU.

Apple still makes significantly more money from selling the actual iPhones than from the App Store.

This such an obvious fact that anyone even mildly interested in the topic (i.e. commenting here and making such strong, yet silly, claims) surely must know..

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#203

Post by ffgjgf1 »

DEADMINCEDOS wrote: post #103
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's too much, they will just pull out of the EU and sell to Europeans via online only This doesn’t exempt them from the law. Apple is never giving up the EU.

> This doesn’t exempt them from the law. Sure it does. If they leave the EU market and have no presence, then EU laws can't reach them. > Apple is never giving up the EU. I would normally agree, but if EU fines surpass the profit Apple can make in the EU, they might.

> they might.

Let’s not get silly and totally absurd. Also it’s the cost of compliance that has to surpass their profit not the fines which are entirely optional.

In any case Apple is still making a lot of money from selling the devices themselves and much more than from the app store.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#204

Post by ffgjgf1 »

DEADMINCEDOS wrote: post #110
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they leave the EU market and have no presence, then EU laws can't reach them Selling your product in the EU means having an EU presence. Like, I can’t just ship heroin to Europe from abroad and claim I’m immune.

> Selling your product in the EU means having an EU presence. Ehhhhhh. Kind of. Maybe. Certainly not always. I mean, if there is some shitty little porn company in say, California, and they make porn that say, caters to a fetish that is legal in California but illegal in the EU, well, what then? The porn company isn't doing anything wrong, and EU laws are irrelevant. At this point they can try to firewall off the com…

> Ehhhhhh. Kind of. Maybe. Certainly not always

Certainly always, in the case of companies like Apple. They either lose > 95% of their sales in the EU or comply with their regulations.

> porn

Is not sold on physical media these days.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#205

Post by ffgjgf1 »

maxhille wrote: post #190
DEADMINCE wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if it's too much, they will just pull out of the EU and sell to Europeans via online only. EU citizens will still be Apple customers, just without any EU protections. To be fair, the EU is being a bit ridiculous sometimes. Apple decided not to compete in the EU because of the restrictions, and the EU seemingly wanted to penalize that decision also.

I guess most Iphones are sold in a bundle with a carrier contract. Those bundles would become impossible. Without this scheme, most Iphone users would notice how overpriced their shiny status symbol actually is.

I think that’s pretty rare in the EU these days and seems to be restricted in some countries at least. You might get some nominal discount but you’re still being billed separately for the device/contract each month

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#206

Post by ffgjgf1 »

burnerthrow008 wrote: post #198
WeylandYutani wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple leaves they are handing the keys to Google and Chinaphones.

That sounds like more a problem for the Europe than for Apple

No, it’s still a problem for apple because they won’t leave. Even in the absurdly inconceivable (to an extent that it’s not even worth discussing) case that they did losing a significant proportion of their revenue would be a much bigger problem for them than the EU.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#207

Post by ffgjgf1 »

tgv wrote: post #29
supermatt wrote: post #5

That third party app stores are subject to review by apple is a problem in itself.

"It's absurd that apps are subject to review by Apple. I know what I'm doing. I've thoroughly inspected the source code of this app that I want to install." Not even the most brilliant hacker can say so. In other words: I don't agree. Users are dumb, and need to protected from harm. I don't want the Windows virus disaster all over again, especially because this time the stakes are considerably higher. You can disagre…

Android doesn’t seem to be a complete disaster in this sense?

> and need to protected from harm

Yet Apple has no issue working for authoritarian regimes like Russia and China to protect those regimes and fuck over their users. Is that what you’re talking about? People are to dumb and stupid for democracy and therefore corporations like Apple need to prop up dictators to protect them?

I’m not even being facetious, looking at the actual facts and Apple’s behavior I don’t see how anyone can come to a different conclusion?

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#208

Post by ffgjgf1 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #3
deutschepost wrote: post #2

Although this is good news, Epic will still have to pay Apples Core Technology Fee. For most developers this will be a deal breaker, because it also applies to free software which most of the time is only supported by donations.

Unity got raked over the coals for this. Real shame Apple more or less got away with it with its ransom bekng to stay inside the walled garden.

And Unity’s terms were/are much more generous than Apple’s

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#209

Post by ffgjgf1 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #121
dagmx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unity got raked over the coals for *retroactively* changing the licensing fees for developers in a way that negatively impacted a common existing business model amongst their customers. It’s fair to not like the Apple fees but the scenario isn’t equivalent. One was a rug pull. If they did that all along it wouldn’t have been as big an issue.

I'd say it's still equivalent. I just think apple was smart knowing most people are comfy in the walled garden and won't throw up a fuss. Similar to Unity, these pricing ding the smaller people the most. But unlike Unity, the bigger players aren't joining the protest. I guess I was just foolish thinking businesses would at least think in the middle-term of "what if we want our own storefront one day ". I guess the EU…

> Unity, these pricing ding the smaller people the most

I don’t think that’s true. A very small proportion of smaller developers might have been disproportionately affected but Unity was just complete garbage at communicating the changes (not trying to downplay the retroactive bit, no excuse for that). Most people just didn’t bother reading the fine print or calculating the actual fees themselves and just looked at the published headlines.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#210

Post by ffgjgf1 »

KronisLV wrote: post #12
johnnyanmac wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unity got raked over the coals for this. Real shame Apple more or less got away with it with its ransom bekng to stay inside the walled garden.

> Unity got raked over the coals for this. It's kind of crazy, because all of the super high numbers and companies that said they'd go bankrupt were looking at the Personal tier, which basically acted as a sales funnel towards the Pro tier, where the prices would not be as outrageous, even in the original version of the Runtime Fee: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/unity-runtime-fee-a-look-at... (under "How bad is it…

> It's kind of crazy

It’s crazy that Unity’s PR people (and the CEO himself) were so objectively dumb and incompetent while being paid that much.

The retroactive part was probably indefensible but they did such a horrible job at explaining the actual fees initially that it utterly jaw dropping…

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