Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
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Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#2What is the chance that Apple kept their 30% policy unchanged anticipating that one day they need to make this argument in court. This company doesn't stop to impress me.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#3I strongly dislike this argument against modern tech companies that they are anticompetitive for not supporting other marketplaces. It feels to me like suing a Chinese restaurant and saying they don’t offer other menus. It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market. But this particular argument is so weak imo.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#4I strongly dislike this argument against modern tech companies that they are anticompetitive for not supporting other marketplaces. It feels to me like suing a Chinese restaurant and saying they don’t offer other menus. It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market. But this particular argument is so weak imo.
> 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 everything is sold with predatory prices and low variety by the company store.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#5I strongly dislike this argument against modern tech companies that they are anticompetitive for not supporting other marketplaces. It feels to me like suing a Chinese restaurant and saying they don’t offer other menus. It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market. But this particular argument is so weak imo.
> 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.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#6Earlier 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.
You said it yourself, switching would be a complication, and manufacturers are happy to maximize that complication as much as possible. I consider it unethical to impose artificial hurdles to switching upon consumers, especially when they most likely aren't familiar with vendor lock-in.
iMessage is a good example for me. It replaces a federated, universally-compatible service with a centralized service that works only on Apple devices. The upgraded features are nice enough to be alluring, and now a significant portion of American smartphone users feel compelled to remain with Apple so that they don't experience any difficulties communicating. This is a sticking point for me in particular; I used to be a heavy user of multi-protocol messengers like Trillian, during the time when multiple providers offered mutually incompatible messaging services.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#7Earlier 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.
Usually vendor lock-in actually amounts to "smart and well paid people think of clever, evil, but technically legal ways to make it as difficult as possible to leave the ecosystem".
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#8I strongly dislike this argument against modern tech companies that they are anticompetitive for not supporting other marketplaces. It feels to me like suing a Chinese restaurant and saying they don’t offer other menus. It’s tough because Google and others are huge, they buy out competitors, it’s not anything like the restaurant market. But this particular argument is so weak imo.
The analogy doesn't work: there's a low barrier to entry for restaurants, and there are many to choose from.
In mobile phones it's basically iOS-Android duopoly. The barrier to entry was too high even for Microsoft. To compete you need to write a compelling OS, attract millions of app developers, and survive against competitors who subsidize their OS development with their bigger businesses.
So it's more like complaining that "Panda Corp." and "Chopstick Inc." control the entire food supply chain, block sales of food for dishes they don't like, and force all restaurants to pay them 15%-30% of all their revenue.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#9If 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.
Re: Epic Games Began Planning 'Project Liberty' Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago
#10If 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.
A monopoly is not objectively a bad thing, just like debt is not objectively a bad thing. Else we should abolish the patent office.