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Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

reuters.com

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Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#791

Post by monadic3 »

count wrote: post #784
jimnotgym wrote: post #754

If a locked down app store is necessary for say safety, perhaps a good analogue is a water utility company. A water company has a monopoly in an area, due to the impractical nature of duplicate infrastructure. However, in return it may be heavily regulated in terms of its safety and pricing. If you have to have a single app store then their prices should be regulated, and crucially there should be proper recourse for…

A better analogue is cars. You can't install anything unapproved by Lexus on a Lexus system. But you can buy a different car, and get different software and apps.

I can't tell if you offering this as something that's sane to do or not. I think you should absolutely be able to install the software you want in your lexus; the built-in software is often terrible (yes, including tesla).

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#792

Post by tommyage »

> We as legislators need to ensure that these platforms who act as gatekeepers in the digital market have to respect a predefined set of rules in order to guarantee fair competition and balanced market powers,” he said in a statement.

One of these rules is (hopefully), if i purchase a hardware gadget, all of its capabilities are my possession. Restricting the access on purpose is frault. Epic's case is just a consequence of the missing regulations when providing software AND hardware.

long live the EU and their friends.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#793

Post by rajivjain »

Anti trust case against Apple in the US made sense due to Apple's dominance in both the share of users and the share of the app store revenue. EU may not be as clearcut.

This news article does not mention anything about the basis for antitrust. Is it the marketshare of iOS phone users or it is the revenue. Seems like iOS marketshare as defined by the number of users is about 20%, revenue share should be higher.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#794

Post by kaba0 »

mbreese wrote: post #742
kaba0 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one already. But there is a network effect in play here, that pretty much disallows a new platform to emerge without compatibility. If I were to create the very best hardware with top notch OS on top, that is superior in every way to every android and ios phone out there, noone would buy it because phones are integral part of our lives with many areas of it requiring applications that are only available on the…

Congrats -- do you like it? I wasn’t able to snag one before they all sold out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get one after the CNY break.

The progress it’s made is remarkable, but unfortunately it is not ready for daily use. I’m not sure what you want it for, if s hobby device to develop/check out the state of it, go for it. For more frequent use, maybe wait for the pinephone 2, as I think the hardware is a big bottleneck.. I think it has trouble scheduling processes due to the not too strong GPU and few RAM. The GPU unit is also not particularly strong, and I’m not as optimistic thar everything can be solved in software.

But if you can allow supporting the project do buy one! (Though I believe they work basically without a profit margin)

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#795

Post by enos_feedler »

wernercd wrote: post #764
enos_feedler wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between regulating the price of water and the price of an app is the innovation curve. You can regulate the price of water because the creation, distribution and consumption of H20 hasn't changed in a long time. Meanwhile, every June Apple shows up with new APIs that developers can use to tap into the billions of hardware R&D they've invested for that year. Regulating price here is stifling innovation.

it's also stifling innovation to be restricted to one store front. Imagine if all you had was Walmart, Target and KMart (iPhone, Android and Windows). "you can't build a new store because of all the R&D Walmart has put into their stores". You act like all the R&D isn't paid for with phone sales and development kits ($99/year). If you want to restrict the market? The price of that restriction should be regulation.

Actually, imagine if you were Walmart and you've spent the past 25 years investing in your brand, real-estate, parking lots, buildings, advertising, signage, etc. Your goal is to build a thriving business for _your_ customers. A fertilizer company isn't happy with the placement they are getting in your stores, so they sue you and say you need to give them dedicated, premium space in the parking lot. They also think its annoying that customers coming to Walmart for fertilizer need to go into the store to pay for their product. They want these Walmart customers to pay cash in the parking lot, pocketing all the money for themselves. If this sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. Epic is the fertilizer company and this whole lawsuit is embarrassing.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#796

Post by rgbrenner »

Daho0n wrote: post #647
rgbrenner wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% in the US market (27% globally) is very far from the 98% global marketshare that Windows had in 2000. MacOS had the other 2% (thanks to being propped up by MS 2 years earlier). That was the entire competitive landscape. Linux existed, but if you used it back then (I did), it was difficult to get a desktop going, and virtually no one used it on the desktop. And while the DOJ might only care about the US market...…

No matter how many times it gets repeated it doesn't make it true: Market share is irrelevant. You can abuse your market position at both 15 and 50% market share. A few tiny companies working together to fix prices is still illegal and punished no matter if they together are only a tiny fraction of the market. Apple is abusing it's position, no doubt about it. If you doubt install another app store or avoid the 30% t…

Market share is relevant if they're going to be prosecuted for the same thing Microsoft was prosecuted for: abusing their monopoly power.

Anchor v Rule:

although market share does not alone determine monopoly power, market share is perhaps the most important factor to consider in determining the presence or absence of monopoly power

Weiss v York Hospital:

A primary criterion used to assess the existence of monopoly power is the defendant's market share.

Maybe Apple can be prosecuted under some other legal theory, but that's a separate question.. and if we have to get into that, that's just more evidence of my point that Apple and Microsoft are different situations and aren't comparable.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#797

Post by joshuaissac »

kingsleyopara wrote: post #761
joshuaissac wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would opening up app purchases on the iPhone to competition bring about the scenario that you describe? You gave an example with reckless driving and homicides but it is not clear how that applies to app store competition.

Lets assume Apple is forced to allow alternate app stores: I'm [insert big company e.g. Microsoft], why should I put [insert popular app e.g. Office] on the Apple App Store when I have to give 30% revenue and deal with Apple's privacy rules etc.? From now on if users want [insert popular app e.g. Office] on iOS they will have to download it from our store. All of a sudden every big company/popular app will have their…

This is a concern but even big companies have a strong incentive to remain in the App Store because it is bundled with iOS. For example, Microsoft Office is still available in the Play Store despite the possibility for Android users to install alternative app stores. Some developers will leave the App Store for alternatives that do not offer the same level of user protection, but I do not think a huge exodus will happen, considering that it has not happened on Android.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#798

Post by Wowfunhappy »

hug wrote: post #704
ben_w wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have? I’m not a lawyer, so while I can throw out phrases like “endangering others through negligence”, I don’t know what the threshold is or even if that’s the right concept in this case. With regards t…

> Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have? If you modified your keyless-start car to not need a nearby key, and left it unlocked in parking lot and someone got into it, started it, and ran over several pedestrians would you be at fault? Why…

Interesting, I had to think about this for a moment! It's not entirely intuitive, but I think the answer is "because there's no one else to make liable."

What if the unlocked car was in your driveway, and the person who got in was your seven-year-old daughter? Now who's responsible, and why? The child is a minor, so legally she can't be at fault, but the parents should have taken appropriate precautions, like locking the door.

Likewise, if a bunch of people are killed by a remote driver in North Korea, you can't arrest the hacker. And if there's no one to arrest, our society has no way to discourage the crime. So responsibility moves up the chain.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#799

Post by valparaiso »

simion314 wrote: post #630
valparaiso wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is one of the lowest fees in the market. Amazon's Twitch takes 50% fee. Also Tencent, who is behind Epic Games lawsuit takes 50% fee in China with their Android App Store.

So? on MacBooks you can download and install any applications, including GPL ones for free, no censorship or GPL aversion issues. Because inn your opinion Apple shit stinks less still you should have the freedom to not eat it. so you should have the choice not to use the store

It's not my opinion. It's fact that court doesn't compare open platforms (Windows, Linux Distros, macOS) with closed ones - iOS, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation.

Please see preliminary hearing video where judge rejected such arguments like yours. Epic lawyers failed very badly.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#800

Post by ThatPlayer »

jvzr wrote: post #464
mdoms wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the lat…

> This is how life is as a PC gamer and it's.... actually good. Who cares if you need to open multiple stores? I do. I hate it with passion. Launchers have to be updated, games have to be updated; they all have different UX, work better or worse than the other. Let me have just Steam and regulate Valve so that they don't abuse their position, and I'll be fine thank you.

Regulating Valve would stifle competition. This is the current free market, where we have competing launchers and therefore innovation and price wars.
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