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Apple, Epic, and the App Store

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Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#671

Post by imtringued »

gsich wrote: post #549
cromwellian wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games have a limited shelf life. I don’t really care about Epic. Fortnite won’t be around much longer when the next big game du jour comes out. Whether or not Epic charges for their store is immaterial to whether one of the largest and most important general purpose computing platforms in the world is performing highway robbery.

I hear this argument often, but there are counterexamples like Minecraft, CSGO, World of Warcraft (one of the few MMOs that still have a subscription). So it's entirely possible that Fortnite will stay.

It's all about updates. If there is new stuff to do, people will come back eventually. Maybe not every year but there are some games I've come back to every 2 years.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#672

Post by nodamage »

j_jochem wrote: post #666
nodamage wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A monopoly by Standard Oil was pervasive in all of daily living because by the early twentieth century, they had control of more than 90% of the country's petroleum fuel production and logistics which they abused to keep any competition from ever gaining a foothold. The key point here is that 90% market share constituted monopoly power, whereas Apple's 46% share of the smartphone market likely does not.

Apple has a 100% monopoly on the market for iOS app distribution, which can be argued is bad for the customer because the 30% revenue share they take is inflating app prices.

People keep saying this but in an antitrust case you cannot simply declare the narrowest market that fits your argument and expect the court to accept it. The court will examine the market reality and examine how consumers actually behave to determine what the actual relevant market is, and it's unlikely that a court would find "iOS app distribution" to be a separate and relevant market for antitrust purposes. I've explained why in detail elsewhere [1], but in short, the US legal system generally does not consider an aftermarket consisting of a single brand's product to be a relevant product market unless specific rules are met:

> Because it would be inappropriate to punish a firm for its natural monopoly in its own products, courts embraced a sweeping prohibition against analyzing alleged anticompetitive activity by focusing on single-brand relevant markets: "[A]bsent exceptional market conditions, one brand in a market of competing brands cannot constitute a relevant product market." [2]

For a much more thorough explanation see my linked comment below.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24193731

[2] https://casetext.com/case/metzler-v-bear-automotive-service-...

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#673

Post by yomly »

simonh wrote: post #650
naikrovek wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS…

XCode, the iOS software libraries and tools are all Apple products and are used to develop software for iOS. By requiring that Apple allow developers to distribute software outside the App Store with no revenue for Apple, you are requiring Apple to give away their products for free. On what basis do you or anyone else have that right? Apple has a monopoly on how those products are sold and licensed because they are A…

How would you feel if your ISPs started wanting a cut of all money you made via the internet?

After all, it's their house so their rules...

Apple have carved out a significant market share of mobile users. They've locked down the OS so you can't install your own apps on it and they've crippled the browser so you can't build nice web apps. For businesses like Netflix, Spotify and Epic who's userbases arguably transcend the App Store, why should they pay the Apple Tax?

Apple doesn't "own" these users. But if you want to extend your services to them you have to pony up.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#674

Post by SirYandi »

tomc1985 wrote: post #297
kartayyar wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the whole objection to mutiple app stores. Instead of clicking icon A, I click icon B and if I get a cheaper game, all power to Epic. I don't spend time in an app store. I spend time playing the game.

So I recently built a living room gaming PC. Installed Steam, Epic Store, GOG, Origin, XBOX, Rockstar Social Club, even Twitch. Pretty much anything where I have a library of games. And let me tell you, what a pain in the ass it is! I keep all the games organized in Playnite. If I try to launch Epic games from Playnite, most of the time nothing happens. So I start the epic client and... oh look, it logged me out agai…

As an aside, have you given GOG Galaxy a go as an alternative to Playnite? I've read good things about it.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#675

Post by fomine3 »

scarface74 wrote: post #505
kelnos wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an iPhone in large part because I cannot install an alternative app store or install non-Apple approved apps. > Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want tha…

If you don’t own an iPhone, then why do you care what Apple does?

Because it's antitrust issue. There's only one alternative.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#676

Post by weixiyen »

valuearb wrote: post #641
cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

Apple doesn’t make $50B a year from the App Store. That’s roughly it’s entire services revenues. It’s estimated that developers had gross sales of $50B from the AppStore last year, of which $15B is Apples share before expenses. Apples audited financials tell us gross margins on services is 68%, and $9B of those services are from an annual payment from Google for search placement in Safari with a gross margin approach…

Apple Music and anything that has content rights are where low margins are going to be. Services margin will include new areas they are investing in and losing money as well.

There's zero percent chance the App Store is running at 50% margin. It's got to be closer to 80% than 50%, or they are doing something wrong.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#677

Post by cynix »

WWLink wrote: post #587
NorwegianDude wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple is making us pay 30% so we're going to charge you 30% more You would have to charge $142.86 for something you otherwise could sell for $100 if it wasn't for Apple taking a 30 % cut. So ~43 % more, not 30 % more. Apple sure is milking iOS users for alot of money, without users knowing.

I think that's transparent to a lot of people, because IIRC, charging price $x on your website, and then charging price $x+30% on apple's store is a breach of the app store contract and will get your app removed. Am I wrong though? If I am, sorry. xD

No, you're free to charge whatever you want on your own website. You just can't mention that fact in your iOS app.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#678

Post by nodamage »

nwienert wrote: post #606
nodamage wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Conspiracy in restraint of trade” would fit perfectly what Apple/Google are doing. Proving a conspiracy claim requires two parties to knowingly participate in the conspiracy. While you may believe Apple and Google are conspiring together there is a reason Epic's lawsuit does not make any conspiracy claims - their lawyers know they'd never be able to win such a claim. At any rate that is irrelevant to my point: Epi…

You shifted from arguing from a purely theoretical view (if Epic had a market should they be regulated) to now arguing a very narrow view local to this case. I’m arguing the big picture, so feel free to engage there or not. Sure, Epics specific case may be the only strategy they can take - they won’t find any documented collusion when there’s only two players, that’s obvious. They already colluded to suppress wages.…

I mean, you changed the topic to whether antitrust cases require monopoly power, which I acknowledged wasn't required for certain types of violations such as price fixing, but is required for the original topic being discussed in this thread, which is Epic and their lawsuit against Apple.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#679

Post by bananaface »

siruncledrew wrote: post #428
naikrovek wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not know how to follow logic. No one is saying that Epic are doing bad things in order to maintain their monopoly position. Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. People ARE saying that Apple are doing bad things to maintain their monopoly position, and others are justifying that by saying that "running a business is expensive" as if that justifies a monopoly or monopolistic actions.

Epic is not putting up some legal crusade for the “little guy” competitors. Epic is putting up a fight for Epic. It all comes down to money. If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties didn’t want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the same as Apple. Each is trying to grab as much profit as they can while running into the issue of other hands…

Epic is absolutely putting up a legal crusade for the little guy, whether or not it's motivated by their own personal gain. The lawsuit explicitly precludes special treatment for Epic.

Who cares what their motivations are if they've mandated that the benefits should be distributed?

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#680

Post by deadlocked »

weixiyen wrote: post #625
MobileVet wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting that few people are recognizing that the 30% buys you distribution on a billion devices. Yes, I know, the web is free...and the App Store search is broken so discovery isn’t what it was... but still. Market access is VERY significant and worth something and the incremental cost to Apple has no bearing on what it is worth. As discussed, prior mobile cuts were far more one sided. We payed the carrier…

> It is interesting that few people are recognizing that the 30% buys you distribution on a billion devices. It's interesting that few people don't understand the difference between permission to distribute versus actual distribution. If Apple was doing any distribution for you at all, you wouldn't need to pay Facebook and Google for distribution. Note how this was different in the early days, where simply being on t…

> It's interesting that few people don't understand the difference between permission to distribute versus actual distribution.

Not sure what distinction you're trying to draw here but in order for Apple to take their 30% cut, someone has to download the app, at which point Apple have de facto distributed it to someone.

> If Apple was doing any distribution for you at all, you wouldn't need to pay Facebook and Google for distribution.

This makes very little sense to me. Are you saying that if I pay Apple to distribute my app on the App Store then they should also distribute it on every app store? And that if they aren't then they're somehow failing me?

> Note how this was different in the early days, where simply being on the app store would get downloads. That has not been true for 7-8 years now.

The App Store is a shit-show in terms of discoverability, this is true. I'm not even sure what they can do to improve things at this stage.

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