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I’m not defending Apple’s stance here, but I think the point they were making is that Epic had already admitted to intentionally breaking their previous agreeme
by kbf 3y ago
I’m not defending Apple’s stance here, but I think the point they were making is that Epic had already admitted to intentionally breaking their previous agreements with Apple for their own gain. The court then ruled that Apple could ban Epic for any reason. Sweeney essentially called the new terms illegitimate while at the same time entering a new agreement where those terms applied to Epic. It’s somewhat understandable that, when seeing that, Apple would not trust Epic to not intentionally break the rules again.
I personally think it’s silly to believe that Apple cares even a little about Epic’s criticism. They probably thought they had a legitimate case that would let them stomp out a potential big App Store competitor before it could get off the ground.
- modeless 3y agoThey believed in good faith that Apple's terms were illegal. There is nothing wrong with breaking an illegal contract. Yes, they lost in court but it wasn't a foregone conclusion. Apple's continuing retaliation is petty and likely to get them in trouble.
- abduhl 3y agoBut Apple's terms and contract weren't illegal.
- modeless 3y agoActually they were, partially
- Aldo_MX 3y agoOh yeah, forbidding developers from telling their customers that they can buy a subscription for less money in their website is definitely not illegal. The fact that Apple is now regulated is definitely not a symptom of the illegality of their terms. Definitely not.
- dwaite 3y agoGoogle and Facebook are among others now regulated as well. The European Economic Zone sets regulations around economic policy. Their creation of the DMA was that while the markets did not have monopolistic abuse, that there were areas that still did not have _enough_ competition. Now I would argue the DMA is misguided, because they are basically trying to regulate in a counter to the network effect. The problem is (for example) that even with barriers lowered, an upstart messaging app cannot compete with WhatsApp because they still cannot grow by the network effects the way WhatsApp did, because WhatsApp already exists and is popular. An upstart will still have to already be on target to become larger than WhatsApp in order to supplant them. Alternative Marketplaces have been possible on Android for years and really haven't succeeded except in markets where Google Play is unavailable. Why would developers put time and effort into being where nobody is? How does anything in the DMA change their minds - better transaction fees on no sales? The DMA does give companies an opportunity to innovate, such as how MacPaw is going to have a SetApp Marketplace which is a subscription service for mostly utility apps (similar to Apple Arcade as a first-party marketplace for games). But I would argue there is no way SetApp will be as popular as the App Store - it is a business opportunity, not market competition. I would say this is akin to F-Droid - it is an alternative marketplace on Android, but not one that really competes with Play.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dwaite 3y ago> There is nothing wrong with breaking an illegal contract. It is not an illegal contract. It is a contract that Epic _hopes_ is illegal. I don't get to ignore my home mortgage payments without consequence even if I believe in my truest of heart that giving money to a bank is wrong. In this metaphor, Apple here is the bank saying that Epic has a habit of not paying back loans, and has publicly stated how they think the loan they are applying for is 'hot garbage'.
- modeless 3y agoEpic didn't just feel it was "wrong". They had legal arguments with merit. And they did prevail in one of them, so in fact the contract was illegal in part. Equating legitimate legal disputes with simply not paying your mortgage for no good reason is absurd.