Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#21

Post by SllX »

salamandersauce wrote: post #17
SllX wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but is it actually all that difficult to switch between two vendors? Mac and Windows? Windows and Linux? Android and iPhone? It’s some work, it isn’t that much work. You would be surprised at all the things people don’t care if they lose.

It's not just the work. Money is a factor too. Accessories as well. The Apple Watch needs an iPhone to work for example, dongles, cables, software. Even stuff that works on multiple platforms may not work as well or be limited on others (e.g. Airpods) so you have to decide is it worth switching to lose X and gain Y? I think a lot of people don't care once they switch, but thinking about switching, the costs etc. make…

> so you have to decide is it worth switching to lose X and gain Y?

Still sounds like the lock-in is “be more appealing in some ways”.

Everything is a trade off. Life is tough that way, always forcing you to make decisions, or wait until you can afford to do things before you do them, but at this point we’re talking about luxury goods.

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#22

Post by sombremesa »

zamalek wrote: post #11
sombremesa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monopoly is not objectively a bad thing, just like debt is not objectively a bad thing. Else we should abolish the patent office.

Patents have an expiry date because the patent office agrees that monopolies are bad. The purpose of a patent is to allow an inventor to establish their market, not to establish a monopoly.

Alright, I'll play your silly game.

How about Mickey Mouse? One could say that market is well established by the creator by now. Yet the law protects this monopoly.

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#23

Post by zamalek »

SubjectToChange wrote: post #19
zamalek wrote: post #9

If this is true then Epic should definitely be punished. The mechanism by which this has been brought to widespread scrutiny doesn't indemnify Apple, either. The idea that Apple should have app store monopolization written into law (their words) because of the tactics Epic used is ridiculous.

Why on earth is planning a lawsuit bad? Impulsive, knee-jerk lawsuits should be punished, not the other way around.

My opinion on this has changed many times.

I've defended Epic's actions in the past; and that evidence does exist in my comment history. I've come around though: they should have filed a lawsuit instead of breaching contract. Apple is now using their breach of contract to justify codifying their blatant monopoly.

Apple's retaliation was infinitely worse and extremely telling about the company. Make no mistake: privacy is a feature that sells. If circumstances change, Apple has shown capacity to turn on a dime (in the form of banning Unreal Engine apps). They aren't the good guys, not by a long shot.

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#24

Post by [deleted] »

sombremesa wrote: post #22
zamalek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents have an expiry date because the patent office agrees that monopolies are bad. The purpose of a patent is to allow an inventor to establish their market, not to establish a monopoly.

Alright, I'll play your silly game. How about Mickey Mouse? One could say that market is well established by the creator by now. Yet the law protects this monopoly.

[deleted]

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#25

Post by saurik »

SllX wrote: post #5
cforrester wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market. Not just that, they go to great effort to lock you into their ecosystem so that the difficulty of changing becomes a big part of the calculation. If I had to make a comparison, instead of a restaurant, I'd suggest a company town. When you buy a Company X phone, you're moving to Xville, where everyt…

Their lock-in amounts to “be more appealing in some ways”. Is there anything you couldn’t replace switching from your platform of choice to a different one? I have a lot of 3rd party software it would be difficult to replace and it would be a quality of life hit, but software is software, I could replace what they do with something else if I was forced to.

The way their payment system and marketing rules are designed--and I know this isn't some complex-to-solve problem as I actively ran a popular app store that did not have this user-and-developer-alike-hostile feature--prevents "porting" purchases, so if you buy a bunch of apps on iOS you are forever locked into iOS unless you want to repurchase all of them for Android: this is purposeful lock-in.

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#26

Post by salamandersauce »

SllX wrote: post #21
salamandersauce wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the work. Money is a factor too. Accessories as well. The Apple Watch needs an iPhone to work for example, dongles, cables, software. Even stuff that works on multiple platforms may not work as well or be limited on others (e.g. Airpods) so you have to decide is it worth switching to lose X and gain Y? I think a lot of people don't care once they switch, but thinking about switching, the costs etc. make…

> so you have to decide is it worth switching to lose X and gain Y? Still sounds like the lock-in is “be more appealing in some ways”. Everything is a trade off. Life is tough that way, always forcing you to make decisions, or wait until you can afford to do things before you do them, but at this point we’re talking about luxury goods.

Having your watch become a paper weight if you switch phone platforms is not "be more appealing in some ways". Having your router become unmanageable if you switch phone platforms is not "be more appealing in some ways". Having to buy entirely new cables and dongles that do exactly the same thing essentially as your current cables and dongles is not "be more appealing in some ways". Having to find and possibly buy (or subscribe) either the same or similar software/services again to what you need is not "be more appealing in some ways".

Mobile platforms specifically iOS and Android have moved beyond luxury goods. Way too much shit relies on an iOS or Android app. They are even talking about making vaccine "passports" digital only.

Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago

#27

Post by thunkshift1 »

zamalek wrote: post #9

If this is true then Epic should definitely be punished. The mechanism by which this has been brought to widespread scrutiny doesn't indemnify Apple, either. The idea that Apple should have app store monopolization written into law (their words) because of the tactics Epic used is ridiculous.

This is a ridiculous. I dont think you can take on some behemoth with near limitless (financial, legal and otherwise) resources without planning. An ad-hoc lawsuit DOES NOT stand chance against Apple. The united states gov took 8 years to file antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. So I think we can give some benefit to Epic here.
Post reply on HN