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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

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Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#121

Post by mullingitover »

Jellyd wrote: post #108
mullingitover wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic effectively pulled it themselves when they unilaterally broke their agreement. I think Apple's cut is egregious but at the same time, they're not a monopoly. My main gripe is that they're behaving as if they're bringing value that the developers are riding on, when in reality nobody would buy iPhones if it weren't for the value that many developers are bringing to the platform, often at no cost to Apple.

Who else is apple competing with to put apps on iphones? Compared to android where you have indy devs, samsung store, play store, or any other store; it's a clear monopoly.

There isn't an iPhone industry, there's a smartphone industry, and Apple (despite all their profits) only controls a small portion of that business.

Their strategy also adds a lot of consumer value. I use an iPhone specifically because I understand the tradeoffs between freedom and reliability/security, and I go for the reliability/security. Not everyone wants a second job playing sysadmin on their smartphone.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#122

Post by heavyset_go »

s3r3nity wrote: post #16
lordleft wrote: post #6

Imagine if Microsoft did this on PCs. a) prohibiting the installation of non-windows store software (sideloading) and b) insisting that all purchases done via apps give them a 30% cut. I think this is a ridiculous practice on the behalf of Apple.

Imagine if Microsoft only had 14% global market share.* [*] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

Via the FTC[1]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#123

Post by Dylan16807 »

pneill wrote: post #95
lordleft wrote: post #6

Imagine if Microsoft did this on PCs. a) prohibiting the installation of non-windows store software (sideloading) and b) insisting that all purchases done via apps give them a 30% cut. I think this is a ridiculous practice on the behalf of Apple.

Poor analogy. iOS does not have the market dominance that Windows/Microsoft has. In this case, iPhones represent about 15% of the global smartphone sales and I think that the OS (in the US) is a 60/40 iOS vs android split. There is a viable market. Developers, unwilling to pay the Apple fee, can switch to Android. If more apps are available on Android, that will shift the users away from iOS to Android. When I see fo…

It's bad for consumers to the extent that iOS and Android phones aren't interchangeable, and that's a very large extent.

> what do you think is a reasonable fee for Apple to charge?

That's an interesting situation, because if the game was free Apple would charge nothing. And the more they bang on the drum about consumer safety, the more I want them to charge a fee appropriate for payment processing.

If I was just arbitrarily setting the fees, I might go with something like 25% of the first 20 dollars per app per user, and then 5% afterwards.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#124

Post by SolarNet »

jaeming wrote: post #99

... the developer on Thursday implemented its own in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s standard 30 percent fee. ...1,000 V-bucks, which is roughly equivalent to $10 in-game Fortnite currency, now costs just $7.99 if you use Epic direct payment instead of the standard Apple payment processing. Normally, that amount of currency costs $9.99. Epic says, in this case, customers keep the extra savings, not the compa…

I mean, in theory third party payment processors still take a cut. I don't think it's a dollar on a 7 dollar payment. But it's also not marginal.

The credit card companies themselves charge 3.00%+0.10 at the reasonable maximum (or roughly $0.31). That is still not even counting the payment processor's fees (which pay the credit card company's fees for you).

I mean the "7 dollar price" is all artificial anyway, it doesn't really cost Epic anything to make the product of those 7 dollars (it's economic rent extracted from the intellectual property they maintain). Either way Epic is making more money on this move even if the whole extra dollar is fees.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#125

Post by nojs »

blkhp19 wrote: post #120
nojs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear that macOS is going this way. The amount of hoops to jump through to run third party apps seems to grow with every release.

You literally just right click and open. Hardly a hoop.

Right, until the app needs to access a file, change a setting or do any number of other things.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#126

Post by Parsnip1 »

jaeming wrote: post #99

... the developer on Thursday implemented its own in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s standard 30 percent fee. ...1,000 V-bucks, which is roughly equivalent to $10 in-game Fortnite currency, now costs just $7.99 if you use Epic direct payment instead of the standard Apple payment processing. Normally, that amount of currency costs $9.99. Epic says, in this case, customers keep the extra savings, not the compa…

While it's probably not 10%, the transaction cost will come out of the transaction when processed by Epic. Normally that comes out of the 30% that Apple takes. Either way, the purchaser is saving $2 and the developer gets a larger share; this doesn't seem like a bad thing, especially when the developer is going to be spending a decent amount of cash fighting the App Store monopoly.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#127

Post by notatoad »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #77

Interesting how quickly this gained traction today, and how some of the initial reports came from sites with direct ties to Tencent subsidiaries. Oh, Tencent has a large stake in Epic? Who knew.

in what universe is apple banning fortnite not a huge story?

the eagerness with which people jump to conspiracy theories around chinese influence is nuts.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#128

Post by chrisco255 »

ultrarunner wrote: post #40
Seirdy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the case if AMP grows dominant; given the market share of Google Search, it could be enough to create a controlled (er, "curated") web in a similar spirit.

We're closer than we have been in a long time to something like Google deciding to license Blink or Chromium. There are some good reasons that couldn't happen (yet), but what a world that would be.

They can't retract the open source license that already exists for Chromium. Maybe Google could start adding proprietary features to Chrome and close-source those bits, but the code that's out there is already out there.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#129

Post by heavyset_go »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #17
Findeton wrote: post #13

I don't think this should be regulated at all. Apple should be able to impose their rules in their systems. Let's be clear about this, if people are choosing to buy these black-box closed handheld computing devices, there are consequences that come with that choice.

Exactly. There are pros and cons to this sort of model. The pro is that the security model of an iphone is better than probably anything else one could buy. The con is that apple makes the rules about what goes and stays. Given the popularity of this app, I could see a kid wanting an android instead for this reason. On the other hand, Apple could easily make the case that this is to prevent scams, maintain parental c…

> The pro is that the security model of an iphone is better than probably anything else one could buy.

Exploits for iOS are cheaper than exploits for Android because exploits for iOS are so plentiful.

Re: Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

#130

Post by Joeri »

eggbrain wrote: post #29
lordleft wrote: post #6

Imagine if Microsoft did this on PCs. a) prohibiting the installation of non-windows store software (sideloading) and b) insisting that all purchases done via apps give them a 30% cut. I think this is a ridiculous practice on the behalf of Apple.

I mean, couldn't we just replace Microsoft->Sony and PC->Playstation and the argument falls apart a bit? > Imagine if Sony did this on Playstation. a) prohibiting the installation of non-PlayStation games and b) insisting that all purchases done via their store give them a 30% cut. Many platforms are like this -- and many also have the majority marketshare. Is this a call to redefine what platforms can and cannot con…

“What about” is not a valid argument though. If what apple is doing is wrong, no amount of hypocrisy by others will make it less wrong.

Anyway, I think platforms need to be regulated to be more open. We need a right to modify along with a right to repair. When I pay for a product that happens to support downloadable software, I should be free to put whatever software on it that I want. If apple allowed sideloading on iOS like they do on macOS this would not have blown up to the degree that it did.

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