6 ms·

A senior Apple exec could be jailed in Epic case

89 points by LorenDB 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
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- dkkergoog 2y ago
  [dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
turtlebro 2y ago
All thanks to Epic for spearheading this effort. We do not want 30% cut takers in the age of digital distribution. It's parasitic way of making money. Apple (also Steam) does not deserve to earn billions from software they have contributed nothing to. They're akin to digital feudal lords and we must fight this.
- betaby 2y ago
  What is a Steam's cut? Also 30%?
  - Firaxus 2y ago
    Yes, though fwiw steam provides (in my opinion) more benefits to gamers and games than the apple appstore does to generic apps trying to do all manner of things. And additionally steam isn’t a walled garden, there is actual choice, and steam goes out of its way to be usable on multiple platforms. Very different situation to the locked down apple ios ecosystem.
    - BunsanSpace 2y ago
      Agreed. Steam is also a monopoly but it doesn't abuse it's monopoly. E.g. impose terms like games can't release on other stores for a lower price &c. Nothing stopping a competitor from coming in with a superior game store.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Steam is the clear winner but they aren't a monopoly... https://www.gog.com/en/ https://www.gog.com/en/ https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/ https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/
        BunsanSpace 2y ago
        With their market share they are by definition of monopoly. Monopoly doesn't mean "only store front", it just means majourity market share to the point they control the market. People forget there's nothing inherently wrong with monopolies. It's only when they abuse their monopoly position that there's issues.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Steam's customers aren't really the end users, though Steam's customers are game publishers. Steam provides a service to connect publishers to their audience. Their business model is not "takes money from customers in exchange for goods". It is "takes a cut of each sale that a publisher makes on their platform" Given that there is no real friction for end users to install Epic Launcher or GoG launcher, is Steam really a monopoly to their customers, the publishers? If Steam tries to muscle a publisher, they can refuse to publish on Steam and still have options. When popular games aren't on Steam, it does seem like people have absolutely no problem installing another launcher/storefront to access it Look at the massive success of Fortnite, which is only on the Epic Launcher
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Valve even allows you to install GoG launcher and games on your Steam Deck They could probably lock this hardware down to only allow steam games, but they don't
    - fourside 2y ago
      I’m worried that this outcome will be applied too broadly and affect Steam. Sure Steam is not perfect, but its dominance is in large part to them offering a superior product. Admittedly I’m not a game developer so the 30% cut doesn’t affect me directly, but I think it’s fair to say that Valve’s success has been a net positive to PC game devs. Valve remains as one of the rare early tech company successes that has not suffered from enshitification the way so many others have. A key to that is that they have found a way to make a ton of money, and their leadership is happy to be very rich without continuing to expand and grow at all costs. If that business model is threatened, I’m not convinced that gamers and game devs would necessarily be better off.
  - 10000truths 2y ago
    Players/studios aren't forced to use Steam as a middleman for installing/distributing games on PC.
  - csdreamer7 2y ago
    As far as I know, purchases made through the Steam store is 30%; unless you are a larger publisher and have a different deal.
  - DylanDmitri 2y ago
    30% on sales up to 10 million, 25% on additional sales up to $50 million, 20% on sales above that.
- eeeficus 2y ago
  I don’t think comparing Apple to Steam, is an apples to apples comparison. AFAIK Steam doesn’t ask for exclusivity if you publish on its platform. So it is up to the customer to choose how it publishes its products.
  - xsmasher 2y ago
    It's not clear what you mean here; Apple doesn't ask for exclusivity either. You can publish on Apple and on Steam and Android and they won't complain.
    - para_parolu 2y ago
      You can’t receive payments for your app outside ios.
- ransom1538 2y ago
  "Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases […] Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple’s plan, including the 27% commission, were determined in July 2023." Basically, the current civil court model is 1) go to court with a case 2) demand to read internal memos of the defendants, 3) put people on the stand and walk through everything in these memos. It is coercion. They want you to settle, or all your personal info goes online.
  - Firaxus 2y ago
    The article mentions that apple had the opportunity to correct the record and did not. These are multi billion and trillion dollar companies, they should be held to a high standard.
  - 10000truths 2y ago
    The demands for internal memos aren't arbitrary, they follow due process of law. Plaintiff serves a subpoena. Defendant can contest the subpoena by filing a motion to quash with the judge, who either approves or denies the motion. But in a case like this where the defendant is a large corporation (or representative thereof) and the subpoenaed information is relevant to the facts of the case, the judge is likely to honor the subpoena.
- warmjets222 2y ago
  The difference is that Steam isn't the only way to install software on your PC.
- foxyv 2y ago
  Steam contributes a great deal to the games under their platform. They include all sorts of cool features like achievements, reviews, downloads, DLC distribution, Steam Workshop, user statistics, and other cool features on top of excellent marketing. In addition, Steam does not lock it's users into using just their platform. You can add non-steam games to your library and use other stores on your Steam devices. In addition, Steam happily allows publishers to sell their games on other platforms and does not create 3rd party exclusivity agreements. Personally I would consider Steam to be absurdly democratic in their distribution model.
  - protimewaster 2y ago
    Many of those features just encourage technical lock-in, though. Microsoft offers DirectX and a bunch of features for free. Why? You'll (mostly) be using them on Windows, so it helps build/maintain the moat and makes it harder for limited-resources developers to move elsewhere.
    - foxyv 2y ago
      I have yet to hear about "Lock In" being a problem for any Steam game developers.
    - nightski 2y ago
      If that were true, you'd think you see more steam exclusive games. The problem is I can't think of a single one I own that is steam exclusive. I am sure there's at least one out there.
      - SkiFire13 2y ago
        The funny thing is that Epic was the one paying games for exclusively publishing on their platform.
      - realslimjd 2y ago
        Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, and their sequels are all Steam exclusive. The only mandated Steam exclusives are Valve games. Anything else is purely out of convenience for the developer.
- babyent 2y ago
  I don’t think it’s fair to count steam. Unlike Apple or Google app stores, where you basically HAVE to be on there to access the user base, a PC game can be downloaded and played without needing steam. A lot have their own “stores” like battle net.
- jandrese 2y ago
  That's going a little far. Apple and Valve do have costs to operating the storefronts. It's just that 30% is an overly big cut for what services they provide. Between Steam and Apple I think the case against Apple is generally stronger. Steam has competition on PC, but Apple is an effective monopoly on iPhone software. That said, Apple does more work on each release with quality control and software reviews. Valve is much more hands off on each release, but does secondary work like maintaining Proton. This just brings up the discussion of what the cut should be. 20%? 10%? 5%? Or maybe the full 30% is necessary? In a healthy market a business like this that has relatively low barrier to entry should be ripe for disruption, but even companies like GOG take a 30% cut. Why has nobody started a competing business that only does a 20% cut? I get that there is customer inertia with Steam, but it seems like nobody is really trying very hard to win customers.
- transcriptase 2y ago
  You just don’t understand the Steam business model of “do nothing while your competition keeps shooting themselves in the feet”. Every major publisher has tried launching their own competitor platform to Steam, some going as far as pulling their games or making them exclusive. Despite Steam simply doing nothing in response, they all essentially gave up and came back except Epic because of the Fortnite playerbase.
- an0malous 2y ago
  > from software they have contributed nothing to They literally invented smart phones and app stores, and continuously release new hardware with software APIs that enable the apps.
  - mikestew 2y ago
    They literally invented smart phones and app stores... Windows Mobile and Handango[0] would like a word with you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handango
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      Even Openmoko Neo1973 was announced before the iPhone (and released at roughly the same time).
  - wolrah 2y ago
    > They literally invented smart phones iPhone was announced in January 2007 and shipped in June 2007. Windows Mobile literally had a version called "Smartphone 2002" which you should be able to guess when that came out. You could buy a variety of devices in a vertical mostly-screen format running Windows Mobile for years before iPhone was even getting hinted at. The main thing the original iPhone did for the smartphone market is popularizing capacitive multitouch screens that work well without a stylus. > and app stores The iPhone not only launched without an app store, Apple (and Jobs in particular) was famously hostile to the idea of even supporting third party native apps at all, insisting that web apps would be all that the platform needed. They didn't change their tune until October 2007 when they announced an upcoming SDK, it was made available to developers in March 2008, and it wasn't actually released to users until July 2008. One could make an argument for Linux package managers being an "app store" in the mid-90s, though if you insist on it needing to sell commercial software then the various carrier-specific software platforms for J2ME feature phones starting in the '99-00 timeframe would be it. Carrier-agnostic third-party stores started to pop up a few years later, and the first official one from a phone vendor seems to have been Nokia Catalogs for Symbian S60 in 2006. Android also had an app store from the beginning, but the launch of the whole platform was delayed long enough that Apple managed to get iOS 2.0 out with its app store before the first Android devices actually shipped.
- multimoon 2y ago
  I’m a dev who pays the same 30% cut for all the platforms, and I still think that’s a bit of an over optimistic view. Anything is a transaction and someone has to benefit from that transaction or there’s no money to be made and it won’t be worth doing, same reason we as devs charge for software. Apple/google/valve/etc are providing you a service and acting as a publisher, dealing with a bunch of legal and tax crap you probably don’t want to, and providing testing/rollout/apis/libraries and a lot of other features for you to use. You can debate all day long if the cost for their service is fair, but you certainly aren’t getting nothing. In addition Apple obviously has a walled garden, but android has had side loading and alternative app stores since its inception and it’s still not popular, every user wants to just use a centralized place, so every dev releases on the centralized market. Forcing Apple to change their rules may be warm and fuzzy morally, it won’t change the status quo in the slightest. As many users have also pointed out valve and steam is the last of the publisher storefronts you likely want complain about as they do a ton for the gaming community.
- deleted 2y ago
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- tobyhinloopen 2y ago
  The big difference between Steam and Apple App Store, is that developers can choose to deploy on Steam, and users actually want to use Steam, while Apple has locked down their stuff and forces you to use it.
- musicale 2y ago
  > All thanks to Epic for spearheading this effort. We do not want 30% cut takers in the age of digital distribution. I can see why Epic would not want to pay a 30% platform fee to Apple's game store, much like the 30% which they pay to Google Play, Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store for Xbox, Sony PSN Store, etc. https://www.1d3.com/blog/platform-fees https://www.1d3.com/blog/platform-fees
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145
wowohwow 2y ago
In the age of floppy disk and CD distribution of software, what was a retailers markup/cut? I imagine, Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot, etc were taking 30%+. Shelf space, physical distribution, and store operations, etc costs money -- but so does bandwidth, security, tech ops, etc of all of these platforms. Why isn't it ok for a digital store to require a markup to sell?
- sauwan 2y ago
  I'd agree with you if that cut was 5, maybe 10%. I just don't understand how they can justify 30% outside of "you don't have any other choice".
  - an0malous 2y ago
    I mean the parent comment explained the justification: 30% is traditionally not an outrageous cut for a distributor
  - wowohwow 2y ago
    I think if you're ok with some markup you should be fine with any. At some point, it becomes so large users will leave the platform. Finding the right balance is not a guarantee
- danogentili 2y ago
  You listed around 4 competing stores in your example, but Apple explicitly does not allow anyone to compete with their own store (except for in the EU, thanks to the DMA, and even then they take their cut, see below). Another issue with the analogy is that when you buy a PC in a physical store, that store does not continue taking a cut of all software bought on that PC using i.e. unrelated digital stores (but that's precisely what Apple is asking from competing stores in the EU).
- Onewildgamer 2y ago
  Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot are not a monopoly, if you do not like one as a distributor, you can go sell at another, or you can very well sell at your own mini shop, as any commerce should be. Best Buy/CompUSA/Office Depot employees do not scare the customers and block the customers coming to you directly. These are the few problems of monopoly that Apple so conveniently takes advantage of.
hilbert42 2y ago
"The judge declared that Apple’s VP of Finance Alex Roman lied under oath in a court of law. Apple knew this and did not comply with its legal obligation to correct the record.… …Roman could literally be sent to jail for this, with Apple also subject to criminal sanctions." Unfortunately, that's hardly likely, nowadays the US justice system hasn't the balls to go that far. Everyone knows Apple is too big and powerful to touch other than to wave a feather at it. These days governance and democracy first and foremost serve the rich and powerful.
chrischen 2y ago
Apple's 30% app cut is why we don't have the ability to make websites and web apps appear and operate like an app. Pinning a website onto your home screen to make it seem like an app is a cumbersome process which can't be automated into some "install" button. This is probably intentional to force people to make wrapper apps and thus subject something to the Apple platform fee. They're also worrying about declining revenues in hardware so they are aggressively shifting to subscription and service fees, to the point of destroying the user experience of the Apple ecosystem. I am almost forced to use iCloud backups because of decades of neglect with offline syncing. Why must I pay monthly for gigabytes of storage to backup my iphone when a single $30 hard drive could do it? I understand and see the value apple provides in a walled garden. It's not totally useless. It's one of the reasons apps tend to be higher quality in the App Store and the platform is basically free of viruses unlike an "open" platform like Windows. But I also welcome the changes that might make it easier for web based technologies to run freely on iOS.
- ssorallen 2y ago
  > Why must I pay monthly for gigabytes of storage to backup my iphone when a single $30 hard drive could do it? This is “I could build that in a weekend” mentality. Your data on iCloud is replicated, available via the internet, available 99.99% of the time, etc. If your $30 hard drive fails you lose everything. The price and being able to use other services is worth debating, but comparing it to “a single $30 hard drive” is disingenuous.
  - __del__ 2y ago
    two $30 hard drives. many of us handle this sort of thing as a matter of course in our daily lives, and the walled ecosystem chases us out.
  - chrischen 2y ago
    My backup is also replicated. Once on my hard drive and once on my phone. Secondly, it’s apple’s job to build this feature. I’m not talking about why I do or do not do it myself. I’m talking about why apple doesn’t make it, which is because they want me to pay monthly to hold data that I may never actually access. Third, apple did build this feature, but it has become a neglected second class citizen. You can do backups to a mac, but the experience is clearly neglected.
oliwarner 2y ago
This is an awful set of arguments, even suggesting at one point that most developers would be happy letting Apple garnish their in-app purchases for 30%. Handling your own payments is so simple cheap these days. These models need to die. And no it's not unbelievable, incredible or any other bombastic phrase to mean the same that lying to a court gets you in serious trouble.

89 points by LorenDB 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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dkkergoog 2y ago
[dead]

deleted 2y ago

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turtlebro 2y ago

All thanks to Epic for spearheading this effort. We do not want 30% cut takers in the age of digital distribution. It's parasitic way of making money. Apple (also Steam) does not deserve to earn billions from software they have contributed nothing to. They're akin to digital feudal lords and we must fight this.

betaby 2y ago
What is a Steam's cut? Also 30%?
- Firaxus 2y ago
  Yes, though fwiw steam provides (in my opinion) more benefits to gamers and games than the apple appstore does to generic apps trying to do all manner of things. And additionally steam isn’t a walled garden, there is actual choice, and steam goes out of its way to be usable on multiple platforms. Very different situation to the locked down apple ios ecosystem.
  - BunsanSpace 2y ago
    Agreed. Steam is also a monopoly but it doesn't abuse it's monopoly. E.g. impose terms like games can't release on other stores for a lower price &c. Nothing stopping a competitor from coming in with a superior game store.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Steam is the clear winner but they aren't a monopoly... https://www.gog.com/en/ https://www.gog.com/en/ https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/ https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/
      - BunsanSpace 2y ago
        With their market share they are by definition of monopoly. Monopoly doesn't mean "only store front", it just means majourity market share to the point they control the market. People forget there's nothing inherently wrong with monopolies. It's only when they abuse their monopoly position that there's issues.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Steam's customers aren't really the end users, though Steam's customers are game publishers. Steam provides a service to connect publishers to their audience. Their business model is not "takes money from customers in exchange for goods". It is "takes a cut of each sale that a publisher makes on their platform" Given that there is no real friction for end users to install Epic Launcher or GoG launcher, is Steam really a monopoly to their customers, the publishers? If Steam tries to muscle a publisher, they can refuse to publish on Steam and still have options. When popular games aren't on Steam, it does seem like people have absolutely no problem installing another launcher/storefront to access it Look at the massive success of Fortnite, which is only on the Epic Launcher
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    Valve even allows you to install GoG launcher and games on your Steam Deck They could probably lock this hardware down to only allow steam games, but they don't
  - fourside 2y ago
    I’m worried that this outcome will be applied too broadly and affect Steam. Sure Steam is not perfect, but its dominance is in large part to them offering a superior product. Admittedly I’m not a game developer so the 30% cut doesn’t affect me directly, but I think it’s fair to say that Valve’s success has been a net positive to PC game devs. Valve remains as one of the rare early tech company successes that has not suffered from enshitification the way so many others have. A key to that is that they have found a way to make a ton of money, and their leadership is happy to be very rich without continuing to expand and grow at all costs. If that business model is threatened, I’m not convinced that gamers and game devs would necessarily be better off.
- 10000truths 2y ago
  Players/studios aren't forced to use Steam as a middleman for installing/distributing games on PC.
- csdreamer7 2y ago
  As far as I know, purchases made through the Steam store is 30%; unless you are a larger publisher and have a different deal.
- DylanDmitri 2y ago
  30% on sales up to 10 million, 25% on additional sales up to $50 million, 20% on sales above that.
eeeficus 2y ago
I don’t think comparing Apple to Steam, is an apples to apples comparison. AFAIK Steam doesn’t ask for exclusivity if you publish on its platform. So it is up to the customer to choose how it publishes its products.
- xsmasher 2y ago
  It's not clear what you mean here; Apple doesn't ask for exclusivity either. You can publish on Apple and on Steam and Android and they won't complain.
  - para_parolu 2y ago
    You can’t receive payments for your app outside ios.
ransom1538 2y ago
"Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases […] Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple’s plan, including the 27% commission, were determined in July 2023." Basically, the current civil court model is 1) go to court with a case 2) demand to read internal memos of the defendants, 3) put people on the stand and walk through everything in these memos. It is coercion. They want you to settle, or all your personal info goes online.
- Firaxus 2y ago
  The article mentions that apple had the opportunity to correct the record and did not. These are multi billion and trillion dollar companies, they should be held to a high standard.
- 10000truths 2y ago
  The demands for internal memos aren't arbitrary, they follow due process of law. Plaintiff serves a subpoena. Defendant can contest the subpoena by filing a motion to quash with the judge, who either approves or denies the motion. But in a case like this where the defendant is a large corporation (or representative thereof) and the subpoenaed information is relevant to the facts of the case, the judge is likely to honor the subpoena.
warmjets222 2y ago
The difference is that Steam isn't the only way to install software on your PC.
foxyv 2y ago
Steam contributes a great deal to the games under their platform. They include all sorts of cool features like achievements, reviews, downloads, DLC distribution, Steam Workshop, user statistics, and other cool features on top of excellent marketing. In addition, Steam does not lock it's users into using just their platform. You can add non-steam games to your library and use other stores on your Steam devices. In addition, Steam happily allows publishers to sell their games on other platforms and does not create 3rd party exclusivity agreements. Personally I would consider Steam to be absurdly democratic in their distribution model.
- protimewaster 2y ago
  Many of those features just encourage technical lock-in, though. Microsoft offers DirectX and a bunch of features for free. Why? You'll (mostly) be using them on Windows, so it helps build/maintain the moat and makes it harder for limited-resources developers to move elsewhere.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    I have yet to hear about "Lock In" being a problem for any Steam game developers.
  - nightski 2y ago
    If that were true, you'd think you see more steam exclusive games. The problem is I can't think of a single one I own that is steam exclusive. I am sure there's at least one out there.
    - SkiFire13 2y ago
      The funny thing is that Epic was the one paying games for exclusively publishing on their platform.
    - realslimjd 2y ago
      Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, and their sequels are all Steam exclusive. The only mandated Steam exclusives are Valve games. Anything else is purely out of convenience for the developer.
babyent 2y ago
I don’t think it’s fair to count steam. Unlike Apple or Google app stores, where you basically HAVE to be on there to access the user base, a PC game can be downloaded and played without needing steam. A lot have their own “stores” like battle net.
jandrese 2y ago
That's going a little far. Apple and Valve do have costs to operating the storefronts. It's just that 30% is an overly big cut for what services they provide. Between Steam and Apple I think the case against Apple is generally stronger. Steam has competition on PC, but Apple is an effective monopoly on iPhone software. That said, Apple does more work on each release with quality control and software reviews. Valve is much more hands off on each release, but does secondary work like maintaining Proton. This just brings up the discussion of what the cut should be. 20%? 10%? 5%? Or maybe the full 30% is necessary? In a healthy market a business like this that has relatively low barrier to entry should be ripe for disruption, but even companies like GOG take a 30% cut. Why has nobody started a competing business that only does a 20% cut? I get that there is customer inertia with Steam, but it seems like nobody is really trying very hard to win customers.
transcriptase 2y ago
You just don’t understand the Steam business model of “do nothing while your competition keeps shooting themselves in the feet”. Every major publisher has tried launching their own competitor platform to Steam, some going as far as pulling their games or making them exclusive. Despite Steam simply doing nothing in response, they all essentially gave up and came back except Epic because of the Fortnite playerbase.
an0malous 2y ago
> from software they have contributed nothing to They literally invented smart phones and app stores, and continuously release new hardware with software APIs that enable the apps.
- mikestew 2y ago
  They literally invented smart phones and app stores... Windows Mobile and Handango[0] would like a word with you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handango
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    Even Openmoko Neo1973 was announced before the iPhone (and released at roughly the same time).
- wolrah 2y ago
  > They literally invented smart phones iPhone was announced in January 2007 and shipped in June 2007. Windows Mobile literally had a version called "Smartphone 2002" which you should be able to guess when that came out. You could buy a variety of devices in a vertical mostly-screen format running Windows Mobile for years before iPhone was even getting hinted at. The main thing the original iPhone did for the smartphone market is popularizing capacitive multitouch screens that work well without a stylus. > and app stores The iPhone not only launched without an app store, Apple (and Jobs in particular) was famously hostile to the idea of even supporting third party native apps at all, insisting that web apps would be all that the platform needed. They didn't change their tune until October 2007 when they announced an upcoming SDK, it was made available to developers in March 2008, and it wasn't actually released to users until July 2008. One could make an argument for Linux package managers being an "app store" in the mid-90s, though if you insist on it needing to sell commercial software then the various carrier-specific software platforms for J2ME feature phones starting in the '99-00 timeframe would be it. Carrier-agnostic third-party stores started to pop up a few years later, and the first official one from a phone vendor seems to have been Nokia Catalogs for Symbian S60 in 2006. Android also had an app store from the beginning, but the launch of the whole platform was delayed long enough that Apple managed to get iOS 2.0 out with its app store before the first Android devices actually shipped.
multimoon 2y ago
I’m a dev who pays the same 30% cut for all the platforms, and I still think that’s a bit of an over optimistic view. Anything is a transaction and someone has to benefit from that transaction or there’s no money to be made and it won’t be worth doing, same reason we as devs charge for software. Apple/google/valve/etc are providing you a service and acting as a publisher, dealing with a bunch of legal and tax crap you probably don’t want to, and providing testing/rollout/apis/libraries and a lot of other features for you to use. You can debate all day long if the cost for their service is fair, but you certainly aren’t getting nothing. In addition Apple obviously has a walled garden, but android has had side loading and alternative app stores since its inception and it’s still not popular, every user wants to just use a centralized place, so every dev releases on the centralized market. Forcing Apple to change their rules may be warm and fuzzy morally, it won’t change the status quo in the slightest. As many users have also pointed out valve and steam is the last of the publisher storefronts you likely want complain about as they do a ton for the gaming community.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tobyhinloopen 2y ago
The big difference between Steam and Apple App Store, is that developers can choose to deploy on Steam, and users actually want to use Steam, while Apple has locked down their stuff and forces you to use it.
musicale 2y ago
> All thanks to Epic for spearheading this effort. We do not want 30% cut takers in the age of digital distribution. I can see why Epic would not want to pay a 30% platform fee to Apple's game store, much like the 30% which they pay to Google Play, Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store for Xbox, Sony PSN Store, etc. https://www.1d3.com/blog/platform-fees https://www.1d3.com/blog/platform-fees

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145

wowohwow 2y ago

In the age of floppy disk and CD distribution of software, what was a retailers markup/cut? I imagine, Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot, etc were taking 30%+. Shelf space, physical distribution, and store operations, etc costs money -- but so does bandwidth, security, tech ops, etc of all of these platforms. Why isn't it ok for a digital store to require a markup to sell?

sauwan 2y ago
I'd agree with you if that cut was 5, maybe 10%. I just don't understand how they can justify 30% outside of "you don't have any other choice".
- an0malous 2y ago
  I mean the parent comment explained the justification: 30% is traditionally not an outrageous cut for a distributor
- wowohwow 2y ago
  I think if you're ok with some markup you should be fine with any. At some point, it becomes so large users will leave the platform. Finding the right balance is not a guarantee
danogentili 2y ago
You listed around 4 competing stores in your example, but Apple explicitly does not allow anyone to compete with their own store (except for in the EU, thanks to the DMA, and even then they take their cut, see below). Another issue with the analogy is that when you buy a PC in a physical store, that store does not continue taking a cut of all software bought on that PC using i.e. unrelated digital stores (but that's precisely what Apple is asking from competing stores in the EU).
Onewildgamer 2y ago
Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot are not a monopoly, if you do not like one as a distributor, you can go sell at another, or you can very well sell at your own mini shop, as any commerce should be. Best Buy/CompUSA/Office Depot employees do not scare the customers and block the customers coming to you directly. These are the few problems of monopoly that Apple so conveniently takes advantage of.

hilbert42 2y ago

"The judge declared that Apple’s VP of Finance Alex Roman lied under oath in a court of law. Apple knew this and did not comply with its legal obligation to correct the record.… …Roman could literally be sent to jail for this, with Apple also subject to criminal sanctions." Unfortunately, that's hardly likely, nowadays the US justice system hasn't the balls to go that far. Everyone knows Apple is too big and powerful to touch other than to wave a feather at it. These days governance and democracy first and foremost serve the rich and powerful.

chrischen 2y ago

Apple's 30% app cut is why we don't have the ability to make websites and web apps appear and operate like an app. Pinning a website onto your home screen to make it seem like an app is a cumbersome process which can't be automated into some "install" button. This is probably intentional to force people to make wrapper apps and thus subject something to the Apple platform fee. They're also worrying about declining revenues in hardware so they are aggressively shifting to subscription and service fees, to the point of destroying the user experience of the Apple ecosystem. I am almost forced to use iCloud backups because of decades of neglect with offline syncing. Why must I pay monthly for gigabytes of storage to backup my iphone when a single $30 hard drive could do it? I understand and see the value apple provides in a walled garden. It's not totally useless. It's one of the reasons apps tend to be higher quality in the App Store and the platform is basically free of viruses unlike an "open" platform like Windows. But I also welcome the changes that might make it easier for web based technologies to run freely on iOS.

ssorallen 2y ago
> Why must I pay monthly for gigabytes of storage to backup my iphone when a single $30 hard drive could do it? This is “I could build that in a weekend” mentality. Your data on iCloud is replicated, available via the internet, available 99.99% of the time, etc. If your $30 hard drive fails you lose everything. The price and being able to use other services is worth debating, but comparing it to “a single $30 hard drive” is disingenuous.
- __del__ 2y ago
  two $30 hard drives. many of us handle this sort of thing as a matter of course in our daily lives, and the walled ecosystem chases us out.
- chrischen 2y ago
  My backup is also replicated. Once on my hard drive and once on my phone. Secondly, it’s apple’s job to build this feature. I’m not talking about why I do or do not do it myself. I’m talking about why apple doesn’t make it, which is because they want me to pay monthly to hold data that I may never actually access. Third, apple did build this feature, but it has become a neglected second class citizen. You can do backups to a mac, but the experience is clearly neglected.

oliwarner 2y ago

This is an awful set of arguments, even suggesting at one point that most developers would be happy letting Apple garnish their in-app purchases for 30%. Handling your own payments is so simple cheap these days. These models need to die. And no it's not unbelievable, incredible or any other bombastic phrase to mean the same that lying to a court gets you in serious trouble.