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I've commented to the same effect at least 2 or 3 times over the duration of this lawsuit, but just to keep repeating: if you get too picky about who is and isn

I've commented to the same effect at least 2 or 3 times over the duration of this lawsuit, but just to keep repeating: if you get too picky about who is and isn't allowed to advocate for you, eventually everyone will stop advocating for you. A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple. This stuff is important, and advocates for user-freedom and device ownership can't afford to put every company that's criticizing Apple through a purity test to make sure that they've never done anything anti-consumer themselves. Think back to Google vs Oracle. You don't need to like a company overall to agree with them in one specific lawsuit.

CharlesW 6y ago
> A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple. Absolutely not. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/apple-approves-hey-email-app-at-center-of-controversy-ahead-of-wwdc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/apple-approves-hey-email-app...
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple [in court]. The in court part was implied in the context of the discussion. Yes, Apple may decide to have mercy on your soul and not fight you in court. But if they decide to fight you, they will win. After all, when fighting Apple, single digit billionaires have no effective access to the legal system.
- danShumway 6y ago
  It's a real stretch to look at what happened with Hey and think that they took on Apple and won. They re-engineered their app to fit in with Apple's terms offering a completely new service on the platform. And there were no changes to Apple's terms as a result of that, and no net benefit to any other developer. The only benefit that came out of the controversy over Hey was that Epic got another example incident they could trot out in an actual legal case over antitrust that has the potential to impact multiple developers. Hey cannot be the champion in the fight against Apple, they don't have the popularity or resources to win that fight. There was never any chance during Hey's fight with Apple that it was going to result in ordinary consumers being able to decide what code they want to run on their own devices.
  - CharlesW 6y ago
    > It's a real stretch to look at what happened with Hey and think that they took on Apple and won. Hey got what they wanted, as did Apple. This is the way. It's amusing that people think Epic is doing this for the good of anyone other than themselves.
    - danShumway 6y ago
      > Hey got what they wanted, as did Apple. That's correct, they were not big enough to take on Apple and win. They bent to Apple's demands and figured out a solution that Apple wanted. In the process they saved their own company but had zero impact on the overall ecosystem. I think my original point stands. If user-freedom advocates want a "champion" that can actually change the ecosystem, it's going to need to be someone bigger and more powerful than Hey. It's going to need to be a company that has a lot of lawyers and a lot of money. > It's amusing that people think Epic is doing this for the good of anyone other than themselves. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423865 Nobody supporting Epic in this lawsuit cares about Epic's motivations. It's not important whether or not Epic is doing this for their own good or not. Again, think back to Google vs Oracle. Do we believe that Google wasn't selfishly motivated during that case? Of course not, of course Google is looking to protect its own interests. But the case still mattered for ordinary developers, and we still wanted Google to win. I didn't need to stop criticizing the Chromium team or stop accusing Google of being anti-privacy to support them in that one lawsuit. "Bad company accidentally does good thing" is a perfectly fine perspective to have when dealing with corporate lawsuits.
      - CharlesW 6y ago
        > That's correct, they were not big enough to take on Apple and win. I think reasonable people can disagree on the meaning of "win" in this case. From my POV, Hey won because (1) they were handsomely rewarded with free national news coverage for Raging Against the Fruit at the cost of having to make very minor and unsurprising changes to their app, and (2) they forced Apple to make changes to their app review process. > Apple: "Additionally, two changes are coming to the app review process and will be implemented this summer. First, developers will not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself. Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. Developers will instead be able to address the issue in their next submission." WordPress is another example of a small company who "won", receiving an very public apology from Apple.
DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
I agree with you that a billion-dollar company is practically necessary to fight Apple on issues like this. What I don't like, though, is that Epic are trying to portray themselves as the little guy fighting for the users' rights throughout all this, as seen in the "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite" ad. They're being dishonest in their self-image, and that taints my perception of them because I wonder what else they're being dishonest about.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  They are relatively smaller and if they win this fight, all the little guys that are rooting for them will win as well. Here's a visualization so you can see how much smaller a billion is than a trillion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoK38U8gDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoK38U8gDU
  - DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
    I mean, I understand that. My issue is that it feels like Epic is being dishonest. Their motives are clearly self-interested: they want the ability to run their own Epic Store so they can secure more profits than going through Apple. So when they try to act like they're the little guy fighting for what's in people's best interests — that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, regardless of whether the outcome is for the best.
    - wayneftw 6y ago
      I want the ability to run my own app store so I can secure more profits than going through Apple. I want side loading too. I’m a little guy. Am I a bad guy though because I want freedom for me and my own customers to interface digitally with one another without going through Apple? Half of my customers have an iPhone and Apple didn’t bring these customers to me they were mine.
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      I'd love to have an alternate app store. I think all the current app stores are anti-competitive to the point they're stifling innovation, so competition would be good for everyone but the rent seekers. I also think a big PR campaign is just part of the game. I mean look at how successful Apple's been at convincing people their only motive is security and privacy for their users. At least there's some awareness being raised for both developers and users. The app stores are hugely successful demand aggregation platforms and the result of that is developers becoming a commodity. Apple and Google don't care which million developers are in their stores and beyond the top 100 apps the developers are nothing more than interchangeable cogs.
jmull 6y ago
> if you get too picky about who is and isn't allowed to advocate for you, eventually everyone will stop advocating for you Epic is not advocating for you. Epic’s strategy is to get you to think they are, but they aren’t.

CharlesW 6y ago

> A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple. Absolutely not. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/apple-approves-hey-email-app-at-center-of-controversy-ahead-of-wwdc.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/apple-approves-hey-email-app...

smnrchrds 6y ago
> A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple [in court]. The in court part was implied in the context of the discussion. Yes, Apple may decide to have mercy on your soul and not fight you in court. But if they decide to fight you, they will win. After all, when fighting Apple, single digit billionaires have no effective access to the legal system.
danShumway 6y ago
It's a real stretch to look at what happened with Hey and think that they took on Apple and won. They re-engineered their app to fit in with Apple's terms offering a completely new service on the platform. And there were no changes to Apple's terms as a result of that, and no net benefit to any other developer. The only benefit that came out of the controversy over Hey was that Epic got another example incident they could trot out in an actual legal case over antitrust that has the potential to impact multiple developers. Hey cannot be the champion in the fight against Apple, they don't have the popularity or resources to win that fight. There was never any chance during Hey's fight with Apple that it was going to result in ordinary consumers being able to decide what code they want to run on their own devices.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > It's a real stretch to look at what happened with Hey and think that they took on Apple and won. Hey got what they wanted, as did Apple. This is the way. It's amusing that people think Epic is doing this for the good of anyone other than themselves.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    > Hey got what they wanted, as did Apple. That's correct, they were not big enough to take on Apple and win. They bent to Apple's demands and figured out a solution that Apple wanted. In the process they saved their own company but had zero impact on the overall ecosystem. I think my original point stands. If user-freedom advocates want a "champion" that can actually change the ecosystem, it's going to need to be someone bigger and more powerful than Hey. It's going to need to be a company that has a lot of lawyers and a lot of money. > It's amusing that people think Epic is doing this for the good of anyone other than themselves. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24423865 Nobody supporting Epic in this lawsuit cares about Epic's motivations. It's not important whether or not Epic is doing this for their own good or not. Again, think back to Google vs Oracle. Do we believe that Google wasn't selfishly motivated during that case? Of course not, of course Google is looking to protect its own interests. But the case still mattered for ordinary developers, and we still wanted Google to win. I didn't need to stop criticizing the Chromium team or stop accusing Google of being anti-privacy to support them in that one lawsuit. "Bad company accidentally does good thing" is a perfectly fine perspective to have when dealing with corporate lawsuits.
    - CharlesW 6y ago
      > That's correct, they were not big enough to take on Apple and win. I think reasonable people can disagree on the meaning of "win" in this case. From my POV, Hey won because (1) they were handsomely rewarded with free national news coverage for Raging Against the Fruit at the cost of having to make very minor and unsurprising changes to their app, and (2) they forced Apple to make changes to their app review process. > Apple: "Additionally, two changes are coming to the app review process and will be implemented this summer. First, developers will not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself. Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. Developers will instead be able to address the issue in their next submission." WordPress is another example of a small company who "won", receiving an very public apology from Apple.

DonaldPShimoda 6y ago

I agree with you that a billion-dollar company is practically necessary to fight Apple on issues like this. What I don't like, though, is that Epic are trying to portray themselves as the little guy fighting for the users' rights throughout all this, as seen in the "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite" ad. They're being dishonest in their self-image, and that taints my perception of them because I wonder what else they're being dishonest about.

wayneftw 6y ago
They are relatively smaller and if they win this fight, all the little guys that are rooting for them will win as well. Here's a visualization so you can see how much smaller a billion is than a trillion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoK38U8gDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoK38U8gDU
- DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
  I mean, I understand that. My issue is that it feels like Epic is being dishonest. Their motives are clearly self-interested: they want the ability to run their own Epic Store so they can secure more profits than going through Apple. So when they try to act like they're the little guy fighting for what's in people's best interests — that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, regardless of whether the outcome is for the best.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    I want the ability to run my own app store so I can secure more profits than going through Apple. I want side loading too. I’m a little guy. Am I a bad guy though because I want freedom for me and my own customers to interface digitally with one another without going through Apple? Half of my customers have an iPhone and Apple didn’t bring these customers to me they were mine.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    I'd love to have an alternate app store. I think all the current app stores are anti-competitive to the point they're stifling innovation, so competition would be good for everyone but the rent seekers. I also think a big PR campaign is just part of the game. I mean look at how successful Apple's been at convincing people their only motive is security and privacy for their users. At least there's some awareness being raised for both developers and users. The app stores are hugely successful demand aggregation platforms and the result of that is developers becoming a commodity. Apple and Google don't care which million developers are in their stores and beyond the top 100 apps the developers are nothing more than interchangeable cogs.

jmull 6y ago

> if you get too picky about who is and isn't allowed to advocate for you, eventually everyone will stop advocating for you Epic is not advocating for you. Epic’s strategy is to get you to think they are, but they aren’t.