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Comment by valine | Hacker News Reader

I don’t care about Fortnite, but I would love to have the option to install alternative apps stores on iOS.

This has to be the most dramatic example of “running to the press” to date, which I’m sure Apple loathes. If nothing else it’s entertaining.

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I bet Epic also sent out news stories to every network to get a jump start on the narrative. They clearly spent a lot of time and effort getting everything ready before pulling the trigger on this. It has been awhile since I've seen such a media blitzkrieg on a contract dispute.

More than that. They had all this (the vid, the lawsuit, the social media campaign to mobilise their fans) ready to go, and baited Apple into kicking them off the App Store.

I don't know if the term 'baiting' can be applied to flagrantly violating TOS.

Pretty much the definition. They could either play Epic's game by booting them off or face potentially other apps breaking TOS in response. Epic was aiming for a certain reaction and they achieved it.

It is fascinating to me for the all wrong reasons. Is there a German word for this; enjoying watching opposing forces but you don't like either?

“Schaulust” literally translates to “joy of watching.” Schaulustige are bystanders who watch a brawl, accident or some other incident for their personal entertainment.

"Schadenfreude" comes to my mind, and the proverb "wenn sich zwei streiten, freut sich der dritte" (when two are fighting, the third is the lucky one). But Schadenfreude is more general than what you are describing and the proverb is not quite on spot, because you are not really involved in the story. I'll probably spend the next hour trying to think of a better word ;).

I'm curious as to why as a user you want alternative app stores? I understand as a developer why you would but it is less obvious to me how it would improve the experience for users.

Getting the app for 20-30% less money would seem to be desirable for the users.

There is no way companies are passing that 20-30% to the consumers.

Other digital distribution platforms, like Bandcamp, only take 10% to 15%.

I'm sure if there was true competition in the app store market, other app stores could be more efficient with the 30% cut that the App Store takes, and pass the savings off in order to compete with rival app stores that take 30%.

itch.io allows developers to set the take, down to 0% if they want. Patreon allows users to adjust the take in exchange for less / more features. There's lots of alternative models that aren't a flat 30% fee.

Why not? Your argument is that companies can just charge their customers 30% more. They can do that right now just by making their prices 30% higher.

That's exactly what Epic just tried to do and what got them kicked off of the app store.

You're falling in their marketing trap. They are passing it now because it helps their case, but had they a lower percentage to begin with, they'd keep the price as it was. You think Epic is a benevolent corporation? No, they're a money-making machine selling pixel clothes and dances for their hit game. (I'm a gamer and I find Epic revolting.)

Have you read any of the news surrounding the Epic Games Store? Like this: https://www.techradar.com/au/news/epic-games-store-would-dro...

"Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney has effectively thrown down the gauntlet to Valve, saying that if Steam matched the Epic Games Store in terms of dropping the cut it takes from developers to 12%, Epic would stop pursuing the policy of securing big-name exclusives."

The entire point of the EGS is to get the industry to lower their skimming. And you don't even have to invoke altruism: if Epic continues to take 12% of every transaction and grows the market ten-fold, that's still more than a 30% cut of the market today.

It is a sad testament to our time that it is inconceivable that a person just wants to better the situation for all involved.

I'm a game developer and the EGS is the best thing that's happened to us as developers AND to us as gamers. And our games aren't even on the EGS.

Yeah that is fair. That assumes that the developer passes the cost on to the user and the alternative app stores take 0-10%.

Here is my fear. I like most, not all, of the restrictions the App Store puts on apps. If there were alternative app stores developers might only provide their apps on those stores that don't provide the same user protections I value. This is why I would prefer Apple to resolve this without allowing other app stores. I think this could be done by adjusting their rules and reducing the amount they take.

Then don't use the alternative app stores.

You're getting downvoted but this is a legitimate response. Epic tried pulling out of Google Play, but due to the number of gates a user has to go through to install an app from outside Play, they ultimately had to add it back.

There are lots of private apis in iOS which developers are not allowed to use but would allow for a richer, wider variety of apps.

For example f.lux has a large feature set which isn’t built into Apple’s night shift. F.lux relies on a private api so the only way to get it on iOS is through Cydia or some other jailbreak App Store.

Also I can imagine there would be lots of possibilities for third party watches if apps could have properly backgrounded processes. Android watches are generally crippled on iOS when compared to the Apple Watch.

I didn't consider that angle. Although to me that is almost a separate issue. Even If Apple allowed separate App Stores I suspect they would still find a way to prevent access to private APIs.

20 years ago Microsoft used APIs that competition didn’t know about. Seems like history is repeating itself.

>It's hard to understand why as a user you want alternative app stores?

I, for example, want to be able to install things like the HK protest apps if I want

Or better yet, just to have the choice beyond Apple's overly Christian/American censorship of apps that _might_ have porn on it.

How is it hard to understand why a consumer would want a third party store? Is it hard to understand why people want choices when selecting an internet provider as well?

On Android I always have one or two apps that are sideloaded because they do something Google or Samsung doesn't like. For example, I have an app that requires a lot of effort to install that lets me remap the Bixby button on my phone to whatever I want.

In addition, some open source software is only available this way. iOS, as it stands now, is actually incompatible with most open source licenses.

Because the primary one might not have everything? Apple has fairly strict rules, which they themselves ignore most of the time.

For example, no software development tools (which generate and run code) are allowed, in the name of security.

Surely, you can think of at least one category of users who need such software?

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