11 ms·

I might be the only person who doesn’t want epic to win.

coldcode 6y ago
You are not. If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store. After all neither Walmart nor Amazon allows you to sell your products there and give them 0%. I see no economic difference, a store is a store; storekeepers are allowed to make money with your products. Just because it's a pile of bits makes no difference. If I want to sell art in a gallery, the gallery probably takes 50%; sure I could sell it online, but no one will see it, whereas the gallery brings customers to the art. Epic wants profit without cost at Apple's expense, and if Apple if forced to accept this, then everyone else will suffer, except Epic. You could make an argument that 30% is too high, but it's not a binary choice, 30% vs 0%. Epic thinks that it is.
- iudqnolq 6y ago
  Neither app store is free to publish
- stevehawk 6y ago
  I think you're sort of wrong here. Epic would likely be just fine with sideloading Fortnite and handling the distribution themselves (like they did with Android). What they're contesting is that only Apple is allowed to sell software on the phone, and in doing so also collects 30% of the cost. Apple could just get out of the way but chooses not to.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    Okay but here's the thing. Such a change is good for the app publisher at the expense of the customer except in some vague second order effect about improbable price improvement. Right now you have no choice but to buy Fortnite on the App Store. In the future you will have no choice but to buy Fortnite on the Epic Games Store. Customers don't really gain anything here. I'm sympathetic to the whole software freedom angle and that end-users should be able to run whatever they want on their devices unrestricted but I could care less about publishers wanting to get around Apple's platform fees and store rules which for all their flaws genuinely benefit me as a user. Like it sucks that it took total control, thousands of human reviewers and an iron fist to keep companies from getting away from bright line screwing over their customers but here we are.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - infinityplus1 6y ago
      Epic can just offer their app in both Apple's store and its own store. It's just that Apple store prices will be higher according to Apple's commissions. If you like convenience of only using Apple's payment services, who's stopping you from buying it in App Store with higher prices? If Apple rejects the app from being available in its store, then again that doesn't affect you because you want to use only Apple approved apps anyway.
    - saurik 6y ago
      You are ignoring the world of products that Apple prevents using their control over the App Store, which they absolutely do use to exclude or hobble competitors and stifle controversy (such as how they have pulled multiple apps that were commentary about smartphones being made in sweatshops). Apple is already past the "live long enough to become the villain" half of "you either die a hero or". The anticompetitive effects of having a duopoly--both of whom being interested in complete vertical integration--in control over all software distribution is devastating, and it isn't just some improbable/vague second order effect (which is also a ridiculous assertion even for price improvements: there are tons of products that are having to charge more only because of Apple... mine is one of them! it really depends on the app's sales mechanism whether 30% is fair or not, and this is coming from someone who has run a successful competitor to Apple on their own platform, despite the users having to be rabid for it due to how many hurdles they had to jump... before Apple finally "won" :/).
      - second--shift 6y ago
        are you the ```saurik``` of Cydia? If so, many thanks to you for your labor of love. I have been jailbreaking iPhones since 2012 with your help. I'm sorry that the corporate structure railroaded you.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  If Epic wins I would gladly pay Apple for access to the app store. Apple’s review process and the standards they implement provide a lot of value to me. My fear if Epic wins is the iPhone app store becoming like the Mac app store: mostly empty. Because if there’s a way to escape compliance with Apple’s standards and still distribute your app then many developers will take the easy road.
  - ctvo 6y ago
    You reply hints at these <issues> when you allow developers to distribute their software but doesn't give any specifics. What is your specific issue with how app distribution works on macOS? Are you running into low quality software that you purchased that's full of malware? I enjoy the freedom of going to a repository and building or download a binary without having to use Apple's centralized system. I like paying the developer directly if you want. I've done it with 1Password and other applications. They're high quality software.
  - infinityplus1 6y ago
    So you are saying that App store provides so little value to developers that nobody will want to use it unless they are forced to do so? Maybe once Apple faces competition, they will have to improve their store and attract developers by offering a better experience?
- IshKebab 6y ago
  > Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store Apple already charges everyone to put things in their store. $100 per year.
  - Fr33maan 6y ago
    And it will be 300$ if you are a company. If you don't have a company account, you can't really work in team because of how signing apps work.
    - fingerlocks 6y ago
      That’s for an enterprise account, used for internal release apps (not test!). Enterprise accounts are often misused by companies that just want to abuse the device provision list, it’s not required. I’ve built widely downloaded apps for companies, featured in the App Store, with a small team of devs sharing one standard $100 account.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Why not give consumers the choice to shop at whatever store they want?
- johnnyanmac 6y ago
  >If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store The goal here isn't to remove the 30%, it's to give the option for someone to develop an alternative way to host their apps, typically by use of their own store. As we see on Android and even PC: many, many, many developers are fine paying 30% for that visibility, even if FreeDroid or Itch.io will let them keep 100% of their profits. This won't change much except for the billionaire companies who have the capacity to advertise themselves and deem 30% too much.
sbuk 6y ago
Not at all. There isn’t much second or even third order thinking around these issues and the precedents set to retail as a whole. It's clear to anyone that looks at this on merit as to what Epic are trying to do and, much like Facebook, they just don’t care about the consumer or the little man, despite what they say. Quite the contrary, it’s all about the bottom line. A lot of discussion has gone into what the 30% covers - it is arguably too high. At the same time, it would be interesting to see what Epic sees as the cost impact of hosting and distribution along with the cost of data security and what protection for their customers privacy they will put in place, were they permitted to have their own store.
- ganoushoreilly 6y ago
  You could go as far and look at the costs to run their own store on Pc.
  - gelert 6y ago
    Unfortunately Epic's store on PC is being run at a loss in order to win market share and not expected to be profitable for another 2-5 years. So that wouldn't be a great comparison. The cut they take for their store is 12% but compared to other launchers on PC they provide appreciably worse features.
    - spideymans 6y ago
      If Epic is indeed taking a loss at 12%, Apple’s 30% cut doesn’t seem all that unreasonable anymore.
      - snuxoll 6y ago
        Epic is taking a loss at 12% by spending a whole bunch on exclusivity agreements to try and get gamers into a store nobody wants. It’s honestly a perfect example showing that Apple has little to fear - users have preferred marketplaces and are hesitant to shop outside them.
    - 6y ago
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
No, I don't either. Apple is not a monopoly, so as far as I am concerned they have a right to charge whatever they want in their AppStore and make it the exclusive way to get software on their product. If you don't like it, don't support it with your money. I honestly cannot make sense of the reasoning for any other conclusion.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  You don't need to be a monopoly to violate antitrust laws, which is what Epic is actually claiming in the case.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Regardless, my opinion is not based on case law but rather my personal intuition of how such things should work. I make no claim otherwise.
    - okamiueru 6y ago
      I'm I correct in reading it as your opinion is not based on how things are, but how you feel they should be?
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        The original post talks about "want", which has nothing to do with intricacies of law, which I, and I assume most HN commenters, are not qualified to judge anyway.
        okamiueru 6y ago
        I'm not sure you should disparage the particular knowledge HN posters might have. Also, the level at what this is discussed requires only rudimentary knowledge of antitrust laws, and the applications. So it's not like "qualified to judge" has a degree in law barrier. > Apple is not a monopoly, so as far as I am concerned they have a right to charge whatever they want The whole problem with antitrust cases however, is that they leverage their position and exclusiveness to do exactly that. So, your point that "it's not a monopoly because you can chose not to pay for it", is what people are pointing out might be missing the point. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-subcommittee-apple-has-monopoly-power.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-subcommittee...
moksly 6y ago
I don’t think anyone who uses an iOS device wants epic to win. Most of us are specifically in the walled garden because we just want our tech to work. Would I rather have an open source system, including for my phone, that works as well as Apple things? Sure, but there is no such thing.
- denis1 6y ago
  I want Epic to win. It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option. It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.
  - sbuk 6y ago
    You've made some statements there but provided no context. Why is it a bad thing? I've been on the platform since 2007 - the App Store has been around since 2008. To date, I have had exactly 0 issues. Annecdata for sure, but I'm clearly not the only one to have this experience.
    - johnnyanmac 6y ago
      I feel I could flip the question around, why is it a bad thing that users can use other sources to retrieve and download apps? This is already the default line of thinking with a PC. Most people will not be taking advantage of this option; many won't download outside the IOS store, and many companies won't make a new storefront to get around 30%. because hosting a storefront is expensive. Fortnite took themselves off Google play and they likely lost a lot of sales. But that's on them to decide. Why is it a bad thing to give a dev a choice of hosting powers? If you don't, they find loopholes that inconvenience the user regardless. e.g. you cannot sign up for Spotify or Netflix through your IOS device.
  - moksly 6y ago
    But you can just buy an android. What you can’t do, is break Apple and then still have an Apple option for those of us who really don’t want an android phone.

You are not. If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store. After all neither Walmart nor Amazon allows you to sell your products there and give them 0%. I see no economic difference, a store is a store; storekeepers are allowed to make money with your products. Just because it's a pile of bits makes no difference. If I want to sell art in a gallery, the gallery probably takes 50%; sure I could sell it online, but no one will see it, whereas the gallery brings customers to the art. Epic wants profit without cost at Apple's expense, and if Apple if forced to accept this, then everyone else will suffer, except Epic. You could make an argument that 30% is too high, but it's not a binary choice, 30% vs 0%. Epic thinks that it is.

iudqnolq 6y ago
Neither app store is free to publish
stevehawk 6y ago
I think you're sort of wrong here. Epic would likely be just fine with sideloading Fortnite and handling the distribution themselves (like they did with Android). What they're contesting is that only Apple is allowed to sell software on the phone, and in doing so also collects 30% of the cost. Apple could just get out of the way but chooses not to.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Okay but here's the thing. Such a change is good for the app publisher at the expense of the customer except in some vague second order effect about improbable price improvement. Right now you have no choice but to buy Fortnite on the App Store. In the future you will have no choice but to buy Fortnite on the Epic Games Store. Customers don't really gain anything here. I'm sympathetic to the whole software freedom angle and that end-users should be able to run whatever they want on their devices unrestricted but I could care less about publishers wanting to get around Apple's platform fees and store rules which for all their flaws genuinely benefit me as a user. Like it sucks that it took total control, thousands of human reviewers and an iron fist to keep companies from getting away from bright line screwing over their customers but here we are.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - infinityplus1 6y ago
    Epic can just offer their app in both Apple's store and its own store. It's just that Apple store prices will be higher according to Apple's commissions. If you like convenience of only using Apple's payment services, who's stopping you from buying it in App Store with higher prices? If Apple rejects the app from being available in its store, then again that doesn't affect you because you want to use only Apple approved apps anyway.
  - saurik 6y ago
    You are ignoring the world of products that Apple prevents using their control over the App Store, which they absolutely do use to exclude or hobble competitors and stifle controversy (such as how they have pulled multiple apps that were commentary about smartphones being made in sweatshops). Apple is already past the "live long enough to become the villain" half of "you either die a hero or". The anticompetitive effects of having a duopoly--both of whom being interested in complete vertical integration--in control over all software distribution is devastating, and it isn't just some improbable/vague second order effect (which is also a ridiculous assertion even for price improvements: there are tons of products that are having to charge more only because of Apple... mine is one of them! it really depends on the app's sales mechanism whether 30% is fair or not, and this is coming from someone who has run a successful competitor to Apple on their own platform, despite the users having to be rabid for it due to how many hurdles they had to jump... before Apple finally "won" :/).
    - second--shift 6y ago
      are you the ```saurik``` of Cydia? If so, many thanks to you for your labor of love. I have been jailbreaking iPhones since 2012 with your help. I'm sorry that the corporate structure railroaded you.
elliekelly 6y ago
If Epic wins I would gladly pay Apple for access to the app store. Apple’s review process and the standards they implement provide a lot of value to me. My fear if Epic wins is the iPhone app store becoming like the Mac app store: mostly empty. Because if there’s a way to escape compliance with Apple’s standards and still distribute your app then many developers will take the easy road.
- ctvo 6y ago
  You reply hints at these <issues> when you allow developers to distribute their software but doesn't give any specifics. What is your specific issue with how app distribution works on macOS? Are you running into low quality software that you purchased that's full of malware? I enjoy the freedom of going to a repository and building or download a binary without having to use Apple's centralized system. I like paying the developer directly if you want. I've done it with 1Password and other applications. They're high quality software.
- infinityplus1 6y ago
  So you are saying that App store provides so little value to developers that nobody will want to use it unless they are forced to do so? Maybe once Apple faces competition, they will have to improve their store and attract developers by offering a better experience?
IshKebab 6y ago
> Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store Apple already charges everyone to put things in their store. $100 per year.
- Fr33maan 6y ago
  And it will be 300$ if you are a company. If you don't have a company account, you can't really work in team because of how signing apps work.
  - fingerlocks 6y ago
    That’s for an enterprise account, used for internal release apps (not test!). Enterprise accounts are often misused by companies that just want to abuse the device provision list, it’s not required. I’ve built widely downloaded apps for companies, featured in the App Store, with a small team of devs sharing one standard $100 account.
manigandham 6y ago
Why not give consumers the choice to shop at whatever store they want?
johnnyanmac 6y ago
>If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store The goal here isn't to remove the 30%, it's to give the option for someone to develop an alternative way to host their apps, typically by use of their own store. As we see on Android and even PC: many, many, many developers are fine paying 30% for that visibility, even if FreeDroid or Itch.io will let them keep 100% of their profits. This won't change much except for the billionaire companies who have the capacity to advertise themselves and deem 30% too much.

sbuk 6y ago

Not at all. There isn’t much second or even third order thinking around these issues and the precedents set to retail as a whole. It's clear to anyone that looks at this on merit as to what Epic are trying to do and, much like Facebook, they just don’t care about the consumer or the little man, despite what they say. Quite the contrary, it’s all about the bottom line. A lot of discussion has gone into what the 30% covers - it is arguably too high. At the same time, it would be interesting to see what Epic sees as the cost impact of hosting and distribution along with the cost of data security and what protection for their customers privacy they will put in place, were they permitted to have their own store.

ganoushoreilly 6y ago
You could go as far and look at the costs to run their own store on Pc.
- gelert 6y ago
  Unfortunately Epic's store on PC is being run at a loss in order to win market share and not expected to be profitable for another 2-5 years. So that wouldn't be a great comparison. The cut they take for their store is 12% but compared to other launchers on PC they provide appreciably worse features.
  - spideymans 6y ago
    If Epic is indeed taking a loss at 12%, Apple’s 30% cut doesn’t seem all that unreasonable anymore.
    - snuxoll 6y ago
      Epic is taking a loss at 12% by spending a whole bunch on exclusivity agreements to try and get gamers into a store nobody wants. It’s honestly a perfect example showing that Apple has little to fear - users have preferred marketplaces and are hesitant to shop outside them.
  - 6y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

No, I don't either. Apple is not a monopoly, so as far as I am concerned they have a right to charge whatever they want in their AppStore and make it the exclusive way to get software on their product. If you don't like it, don't support it with your money. I honestly cannot make sense of the reasoning for any other conclusion.

zamadatix 6y ago
You don't need to be a monopoly to violate antitrust laws, which is what Epic is actually claiming in the case.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Regardless, my opinion is not based on case law but rather my personal intuition of how such things should work. I make no claim otherwise.
  - okamiueru 6y ago
    I'm I correct in reading it as your opinion is not based on how things are, but how you feel they should be?
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      The original post talks about "want", which has nothing to do with intricacies of law, which I, and I assume most HN commenters, are not qualified to judge anyway.
      - okamiueru 6y ago
        I'm not sure you should disparage the particular knowledge HN posters might have. Also, the level at what this is discussed requires only rudimentary knowledge of antitrust laws, and the applications. So it's not like "qualified to judge" has a degree in law barrier. > Apple is not a monopoly, so as far as I am concerned they have a right to charge whatever they want The whole problem with antitrust cases however, is that they leverage their position and exclusiveness to do exactly that. So, your point that "it's not a monopoly because you can chose not to pay for it", is what people are pointing out might be missing the point. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-subcommittee-apple-has-monopoly-power.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-subcommittee...

moksly 6y ago

I don’t think anyone who uses an iOS device wants epic to win. Most of us are specifically in the walled garden because we just want our tech to work. Would I rather have an open source system, including for my phone, that works as well as Apple things? Sure, but there is no such thing.

denis1 6y ago
I want Epic to win. It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option. It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.
- sbuk 6y ago
  You've made some statements there but provided no context. Why is it a bad thing? I've been on the platform since 2007 - the App Store has been around since 2008. To date, I have had exactly 0 issues. Annecdata for sure, but I'm clearly not the only one to have this experience.
  - johnnyanmac 6y ago
    I feel I could flip the question around, why is it a bad thing that users can use other sources to retrieve and download apps? This is already the default line of thinking with a PC. Most people will not be taking advantage of this option; many won't download outside the IOS store, and many companies won't make a new storefront to get around 30%. because hosting a storefront is expensive. Fortnite took themselves off Google play and they likely lost a lot of sales. But that's on them to decide. Why is it a bad thing to give a dev a choice of hosting powers? If you don't, they find loopholes that inconvenience the user regardless. e.g. you cannot sign up for Spotify or Netflix through your IOS device.
- moksly 6y ago
  But you can just buy an android. What you can’t do, is break Apple and then still have an Apple option for those of us who really don’t want an android phone.