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Epic couldn’t point to any new “abusive” behaviour between when Apple was a ~1% market share minnow to when they became a ~50% market share behemoth. This is cr

Epic couldn’t point to any new “abusive” behaviour between when Apple was a ~1% market share minnow to when they became a ~50% market share behemoth. This is critical. In order to abuse a monopoly, you need to have abused your monopoly.

MBCook 4y ago
As much as so many hate how Apple acts, they’ve gotten better since day 1. They let developers choose more price points. They offer only a 15% cut of subscriptions in a number of circumstances instead of always taking 30%. IAPs and subscriptions have given developers more choices of how to monetize their apps. At no point did they ever use their position to squeeze more money from developers. Even the yearly developer fee is still $99 despite the HUGE increase in App Store revenue. It’s understandable people want Apple’s cut to shrink, but that doesn’t appear to be legally required. They didn’t make things worse so it seems they’re in the clear. (They still lost on the alternate payment method thing)
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  > At no point did they ever use their position to squeeze more money from developers. Except the entire time they required a 30% cut and you weren't allowed to point to other payment methods.
  - pb7 4y ago
    It was 30% from the beginning. By definition, it was the same cut throughout, not more.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - MBCook 4y ago
      Right. I had never thought about it but I wonder if this is why they’ve never tried to raise rates. It would certainly be a PR nightmare. But would it also immediately open them up to the “iOS monopoly abuse” case so many think this case was/wanted it to be?
    - illiarian 4y ago
      People are also forgetting it was better than the status quo at the time (IIRC 70% cut to telecom companies)
      - heavyset_go 4y ago
        You could run whatever apps you wanted on phones.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Nope, on J2ME and Symbian phones, unless you had a developer kit, you would run what the telecom provider made available on their stores, reachable via WAP or SMS download links.
      - seventhtiger 4y ago
        No it was just continuing the status quo. Apple explicitly said they used Valve's Steam as a reference for monetizing a digital app store.
        illiarian 4y ago
        As far as mobile app stores went Valve's model wasn't the status quo. However, Valve showed that what they were doing was working.

MBCook 4y ago

As much as so many hate how Apple acts, they’ve gotten better since day 1. They let developers choose more price points. They offer only a 15% cut of subscriptions in a number of circumstances instead of always taking 30%. IAPs and subscriptions have given developers more choices of how to monetize their apps. At no point did they ever use their position to squeeze more money from developers. Even the yearly developer fee is still $99 despite the HUGE increase in App Store revenue. It’s understandable people want Apple’s cut to shrink, but that doesn’t appear to be legally required. They didn’t make things worse so it seems they’re in the clear. (They still lost on the alternate payment method thing)

DangitBobby 4y ago
> At no point did they ever use their position to squeeze more money from developers. Except the entire time they required a 30% cut and you weren't allowed to point to other payment methods.
- pb7 4y ago
  It was 30% from the beginning. By definition, it was the same cut throughout, not more.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Right. I had never thought about it but I wonder if this is why they’ve never tried to raise rates. It would certainly be a PR nightmare. But would it also immediately open them up to the “iOS monopoly abuse” case so many think this case was/wanted it to be?
  - illiarian 4y ago
    People are also forgetting it was better than the status quo at the time (IIRC 70% cut to telecom companies)
    - heavyset_go 4y ago
      You could run whatever apps you wanted on phones.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Nope, on J2ME and Symbian phones, unless you had a developer kit, you would run what the telecom provider made available on their stores, reachable via WAP or SMS download links.
    - seventhtiger 4y ago
      No it was just continuing the status quo. Apple explicitly said they used Valve's Steam as a reference for monetizing a digital app store.
      - illiarian 4y ago
        As far as mobile app stores went Valve's model wasn't the status quo. However, Valve showed that what they were doing was working.