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Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
271–280 of 996 posts
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#272From a preliminary statement of Epic's motion: > Just over two weeks ago, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was asked during a Congressional hearing whether Apple has “ever retaliated against or disadvantaged a developer who went public about their frustrations with the App Store”. Mr. Cook testified, “We do not retaliate or bully people. It’s strongly against our company culture.”
Isn’t America all about how exceptional they are and freedom? Meanwhile, not really doing much about kids in cages?
Everyone is a hypocrite. Not to excuse it, it sucks. It’s not going anywhere.
I for one am cheering on tech bro blood sport while pointing at it as justification for figuratively ending the weird emotional fascination. It’s a rerun.
Corporatism is a circular wank, ethical grandstanding about tribal power, all while ignoring the mass manipulation of human capital to support shrinking opportunities for a growing youth population, kowtowing to the sensibilities of elderly snowflakes.
Just lick grandpas boots like you’re going to, and fuck them kids, buy more shit! Damn energy vampire!
/s
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that just because Apple's customers are more willing to spend money on apps than other customers?
Willing is not the right word. They generally have a greater means to do so.
Of course. My point is that this doesn't seem to be related to any anticompetitive behavior on Apple's part. If Apple was using market power to force smartphone competitors out of the market to increase Apple's own market share, that would be one thing. But to accuse Apple of anticompetitive behavior because their small smartphone market share spends more money on apps than other smartphone owners does not seem reasonable.
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that "it was in the contract that Epic agreed to" is ridiculous. It wasn't a contract that Epic could've disagreed to. This is the same for end users, but we don't have the power to start a lawsuit against Apple.
The legal term you are looking for is "contract of adhesion": https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_%28contrac... However, a lot of the text around those contracts you'll find centers around a powerful entity like Apple adhering the contract to a nearly-powerless entity, like an individual consumer. I'm not up enough on the details of what case law has been created to know what happen to a contract of adh…
>(If this is correct, and I were Epic, I'd be looking to partner with other very large and peeved developers, and create a de facto app producer strike... but maybe they think they have enough market clout to go it alone.)
This would actually be a violation of the antitrust laws. And it'd be a straightforward Section 1 Sherman Act cartel case.
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#275This clearly and unambiguously crosses the line into abuse of market power. Apple's actions before? Maybe? Sort of? Apple needed that 30 percent cut to monitor for fraud and quality or something, going above-and-beyond other payment processors. This? This has absolutely no basis in anything. It's simple retaliation designed to kneecap Epic from Apple's dominant control of a market. Apple can refuse to let Epic releas…
On the contrary, there is a very solid basis. Epic has access to Apple's platform and dev tools because it has (or had) an agreement with Apple whereby it paid a percentage of profits earned in exchange for said access. Epic, btw, has the exact same kind of agreement with Sony, Microsoft, and Google, for access to their gaming platforms. All three of those companies are extracting the same 30% fee that Apple is. But…
>Epic, btw, has the exact same kind of agreement with Sony, Microsoft, and Google, for access to their gaming platforms. All three of those companies are extracting the same 30% fee that Apple is.
Tim Sweeney has stated in the past that he feels like there's a better argument for game console makers taking a 30% fee.
>"There's a rationale for this on console where there's enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers. But on open platforms, 30 per cent is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service.
Basically, he feels that these platforms might actually be doing enough work to earn a 30%. It's not that crazy to criticise one company taking a big slice and approve another company taking a same slice if they are bringing different value.
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really hope Apple keeps charging 30% app tax and forbidding us from installing apps from outside of App Store?
Yes. In particular, I don't ever want to be in the position that PC users are stuck in, where they can be forced to install certain stores just to get access to the games they want to play. And I certainly don't want to be stuck in the position that Android users are in, where they have to worry about what store they're using, where the software comes from, and whether the app they're about to install is legitimate a…
> And I certainly don't want to be stuck in the position that Android users are in, where they have to worry about what store they're using, where the software comes from, and whether the app they're about to install is legitimate and free of malware.
what? i'm an Android user and i've never had to worry about multiple stores. well, not until Google kicked [a YouTube client i like] out of the official store; but luckily, i could just install F-Droid and get it from there :)
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#277How is this legal? Apple is so blinded by their arrogance that they don't see that this will lead to the App Store getting severely regulated. Look at Uber for a great example. It took years, but Uber and Lyft were finally handed a business-destroying law that will hurt them. It will only take a few months for the rest of the US to adopt similar strategies as well. After the congressional hearings a few weeks ago, Ap…
I hear ya, but something smells real bad about how Epic decided to wage this war. They were clearly picking this fight, now I am not sure that was such a good idea.
It's not dissimilar to how civil disobedience in the 60s thoroughly planned and tuned for maximum PR impact. Rosa Parks went on that bus knowing she'd make a scene. Does that change the reality being uncovered?
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a "standard form contract", aka "contract of adhesion". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract > we don't have the power to start a lawsuit against Apple. Of course you do. You can go to small claims court for a claim of up to ~$5000. Or you can file a class action lawsuit.
> You can go to small claims court for a claim of up to ~$5000. Until there is forced arbitration. You're not really going to say I as an individual have any power in the legal system against Apple, right? This is just a bonkers statement.
In US, maybe. Forced arbitration is just not a thing elsewhere - you can take Apple to a small claims court in UK and they can't really do much about it other than actually respond.
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#279What the f*ck is going on at Apple?
It's more like, why did Epic decide to file a spurious legal action when their situation with Apple is exactly the same as their situation with Microsoft (for XBox) and with Sony (for PlayStation) and with Google (for Android). The only difference is that Sony just invested $250M in Epic. I'm sure that minor fact has no relevance here, though. (sarcasm most certainly intended)
>Sony just invested $250M in Epic
less than 2 months revenue from mobile, yes, your argument makes sense!
Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th
#280What took me aback was the withdrawing permission to notarise their apps for Mac. That was only meant to be a check for known vulnerabilities/malicious software. Apple was more within their rights to kick Fortnite until the dust has settled from the iOS store, that was the retaliation, but now a mechanism supposedly for security has been repurposed as punishment. That's a pretty nasty move and I feel the mask has sli…
And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mechanism introduced a single point of failure: Apple. And now there is concrete evidence of how exactly this is bad.
On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.