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It's not reasonable when Apple has set up artificial roadblocks whereby Epic can't compete with Apple in the iOS app store market without a developer account. A
by jsnell 3y ago
It's not reasonable when Apple has set up artificial roadblocks whereby Epic can't compete with Apple in the iOS app store market without a developer account. As of yesterday, Apple is legally mandated to enable competition in that market, so using those roadblocks to aggressively block competition is a pretty big problem.
Apple could easily resolve this by just removing their their bogus constraints around the requirements for launching a competing app store on iOS. After that they could probably keep Epic banned all they want from the main App Store based on future ToS violations. (Though with the caveat that the ToS would need to be reasonable, and it seems clear that Apple has no intent of making a reasonable ToS unless forced).
But they're not going to do that, are they? None of Apple's restrictions were about security or user safety, they were always intended as an exclusionary measures, to make sure nobody can launch a viable competing store. When it looked like Epic was going to do it despite the ridiculous business terms, Apple reached for the next excuse in their toolbox.