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Comment by throwaway140820 | Hacker News Reader

Apologies for the extreme swearing that ensues.

Wow, I would have hoped for better support from the HN community. Instead there are apologists after apologists. So what if Epic is big. Really, seriously shouldn't we have had alternative app stores available form the official ones. Why is this even a point of debate? All the time we hear stories of people one of our own getting fucked by these app stores and their lordship and now that we have an opportunity to make some noise, this is the response? Fuck that. Maybe we deserve these lords.

Fuck your security and fuck your walled gardens. Fucking no alternative browser allowed. Fuck that, fuck you apple and fuck you google. Fuck your monopoly and chokehold on the devs.

View on HN

I'm right with you. This is much worse than what Microsoft got in trouble for many years ago. They know what they're doing in wrong and I sure hope Epic gets their day in court.

It's predatory and anti-consumer. Apple can eat shit.

Fortnite for Android just got axed from the Google Play Store too https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/13/fortnite-android-google-ki...

Oops! Apple Bad, Google Good? ;)

Google Bad, Apple Worse.

At least you can get other app stores on Android.

How about Epic WRONG?

I expect an elic store on android soon.. And they might have a chance! Fortnite will pull in a lot of people!

That's an interesting question. Couldn't they distribute a "Fortnite loader" through Play store? Since Fortnite is free-to-play, the loader wouldn't charge anything, so it wouldn't technically violate any policy. Seems like an interesting workaround to avoid giving Google the paycut.

Unfortunately, the Play Store has a policy that prevents publishers from distributing competing app stores via the Play Store.

But what if you distribute "Fortnite"? Free to play, no premium functionality, free "upgrade" - except that the upgrade is from outside the app store. And once you get it, you can start paying for stuff. I don't think this qualifies as "an app store", since it's not an app store/ you can't download other applications from it (just the premium version of this one).

Both bad. Android may allow side-loading a bit easier than Apple, but the Play store is still a large monopoly on Android. It comes pre-installed on basically every device and is the de-facto way of installing software there. Side loading requires the user to click past a bunch of scary messages that is not required for apps installed through the Play store.

It is much more difficult to distribute apps from outside the original store when compared with desktop platforms. Changing this would be a good thing for users and developers alike, for both Android and iOS.

Apple sort of ok, Google worse, Epic worst. You guys should don't seem to understand what kind of companies these three are.

On Android, you can download and install the apk directly from Epic Games: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android/get-... You just need to click through a few warning screens and it works fine.

But you can just download from the website directly. Android allows you to sideload apps.

> Fuck your security and fuck your walled gardens.

Sigh. I guess we're going to remove a product category (the relatively safe, very consistent, managed platform you can use when you just want to use a computer and not also manage a computer) and call that consumer choice, then? I'd prefer instead that more companies make something similarly-nice and compete with Apple. I have lots and lots of options I can use if I want to have to worry about a bunch of silly stuff like "will this .exe or 3rd-party repo pwn me?" or "is this payment prompt fake?" when I'm just trying to play the piano, make art, track recipes, balance my books, or whatever. I use them all the time, in fact. When I don't want to worry about that crap I use iOS. It's nice having any option in that category. I do not want to go back to having zero of them. I don't care that 3rd party browsers on it have to render with the WebKit engine. Not even a little.

I am sorry, I don't understand. Will you be suddenly forced to install all the shit from all the sources? Nobody is forcing you right? How does your position change with the new one? Are you arguing having firefox and ublock on iphone will suddenly make it more pleasant to browse the web and you don't like it? I am sure you are not.

> I am sorry, I don't understand. Will you be suddenly forced to install all the shit from all the sources? Nobody is forcing you right? How does your position change with the new one?

No, but it may mean some apps will use different payment prompts & systems, different cancellation systems for subscriptions, have different return policies, and so on, and it may mean that sometimes an app I want requires me to either go sign up on another app store or else not use the app, while right now 100% of apps on the platform are on one store, so that is never an issue. If I want to deal with that mental overhead and risk I can go use my PC. I have options if I want that experience. I don't on my phone and tablets.

> Are you arguing having firefox and ublock on iphone will suddenly make it more pleasant to browse the web and you don't like it? I am sure you are not.

Effectively every site works alright in Safari. It has to. It might not anymore if Google can banner-ad enough of the iOS ecosystem onto Chrome using their own renderer instead of Webkit.

My kindergartener's school iPad won't come with some cheaply-made app marketed to schools that contains an entire web engine (makes cross-platform easier, don't you know) that has a bug that lets it access the open web, bypassing the OS web controls. It can't, because if it uses a webview it has to use Webkit, which obeys the OS settings. That's a good thing.

For that matter half the apps on the app store aren't the mobile equivalent of Electron, shipping with an entire browser on board, for the same reason of developer convenience, wasting my disk space and killing my battery, because they're simply not allowed to do that. Again, good thing. I don't want to have to try to figure out the damn stack an app was built on before clicking "buy". It's bad enough they let React Native and Phonegap and such through the review process. I wish they didn't.

I don't know how it's so hard to understand that the locking down is a feature to many users. I want more devices that do that. Everyone worries about some dark future of only locked-down devices but here I am annoyed that there's a monopoly on those, while I've got a ton of options for my other computing needs. If I want a safe, low-maintenance, but still highly-capable machine for some non-tech-nerd in my life, which they'll be able to use pretty well totally independently, I have one option. That sucks.

Why would a professional device for adults ship with the same locked down protections of a kindergarten computing device?

Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.

Most people want a secure device and are not tech savvy. Apple here is providing a service of a curated App store.

And yet iOS exploits are cheaper than Android exploits, because there are so many iOS vulnerabilities.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/09/04/why-zer...

> Why would a professional device for adults ship with the same locked down protections of a kindergarten computing device?

Windows 10 ships with a firewall, schools enforce firewall rules on their PCs, therefore Surface ships with the same locked-down protections of a kindergarten computing device? If that's not the reasoning here, I guess I'm just not following.

> Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.

No, but the only easy to use, highly safe, but still capable and low-maintenance computing option out there might get somewhat worse. I'd rather have more competition in that category, not in the category of "app stores on iPhones". One of those is all I want. I want someone to make an iOS killer & related ecosystem (yes, including an app store) so damn good that I gleefully and enthusiastically switch—or failing that, good enough that Apple feels the heat of competition and makes some major improvements. I don't love having just the one option in that product category.

I guess we're going to remove a product category (the relatively safe, very consistent, managed platform you can use when you just want to use a computer and not also manage a computer) and call that consumer choice, then?

Isn't the point here that Apple could still provide good security features in iOS and still provide their app store with whatever security or other vetting measures they consider appropriate and allow users to install software from other sources if they so wish?

Users who want Apple's version of safety and security can stick with the default configuration on their devices and install apps only from Apple's store, just like today. However, both they and Apple would pay a price if the Apple app store was then too restrictive in its policies and/or tried to charge excessively: developers who weren't prepared to provide their apps on those terms could sell them through other stores.

Then for those apps, Apple wouldn't get their cut, while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them. However, no other users or developers would have their hands tied by Apple's policies. I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.

> Users who want Apple's version of safety and security can stick with the default configuration on their devices and install apps only from Apple's store, just like today.

> while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them.

Exactly. From my perspective my i-devices get worse if that happens, for exactly that reason. I'm stuck choosing between availability of software and safety & consistency. Again. Like everywhere else.

> I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.

Clearly, the choice of being able to buy a phone or tablet where 100% of the apps available on it, and 100% of payments for digital services in apps, go through one app store and one payment system, would be gone. My choice to buy a device that works that way would be gone, and i-devices would join literally all the other choices I have which do not work that way.

I understand your point, but I think your argument is based on an implicit assumption that may not be valid: that the items you like, the apps in this case, will still be available at all if the restrictions continue. For example, apparently even if you were able to buy the Apple device you want with the restrictions you want, you still can't get Fortnite on it now. The difference between your position and mine is that in mine, you don't get to choose whether everyone else is limited in the same way, and neither does Apple.

Deliberately getting Fortnite kicked off is political. Either Epic will win and this will all be moot or they'll lose and, because they don't hate giant piles of money, go back to providing an app-store-compliant game. Barring a major shift in the landscape (granted, always possible) major vendors who ignore iOS are just saying "nah, I'd rather have less money". I expect vendors overwhelmingly to continue not doing that if Epic loses, and to continue providing software that abides by Apple's terms even if they'd rather not. Since, overall, I like Apple's terms they impose on developers more than I dislike them—do I want that everywhere? No. Do I want that on iOS? Yes, their stewardship of the iOS app ecosystem is surely among the top-3 reasons I prefer it to Android—that is the outcome I would prefer.

There's a chance Epic loses but Fortnite is so big, and no clone takes its place on iOS and ends up pwning it out of existence (a risk Epic is taking), that they decide to deny themselves piles of cash to keep sticking it to Apple, and that Fortnite's absence ends up eroding Apple's marketshare and so the App Store model becomes untenable that way. Or that that happens the next time a company does this. Of course that might happen. One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.

Deliberately getting Fortnite kicked off is political.

Well, yes. I'm fairly sure they're trying to prompt that "major shift in the landscape" you mentioned. And I suspect that if a few of the other big players who have been unhappy with Apple's policies join them, they might even succeed, regardless of the outcome of the current legal action. Apple can almost certainly stand to lose one big name game from its ecosystem. But a "high end" phone that can't access the major streaming services or play several of the most popular games starts to look more like a phone that "just doesn't work", particularly with the sub-par web browser it also imposes.

One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.

As I and others have pointed out many times, if you're relying on an app store for your platform's security and privacy restrictions, your model is already broken. The OS shouldn't be permitting inappropriate behaviour by apps, regardless of where they came from. Trying to thoroughly vet every new version of every app to ensure it will never do anything inappropriate that it otherwise could is a losing battle.

> The OS shouldn't be permitting inappropriate behaviour by apps, regardless of where they came from.

Sure, but they all do.

If the organisation you're trusting can't secure a single OS reliably, why on earth would you have confidence that it could vet every single app on its store and detect all possible abuses reliably? The latter is likely to be a much harder problem.

When Google was forced by the EU to provide prominent search engine options during Android setup, did that mean that Google as a search engine went away? Did all of your search results became crap because DuckDuckGo was available on the device now?

Or were consumers free to keep using Google search the same way they always had, and was there literally no downside at all to the people who wanted to keep using Google?

Nobody is talking about forcing you to sideload apps. If you want to stay in your walled garden, stay there. But the rest of us should get a choice.

There are a bunch of people on HN arguing simultaneously that:

A) Consumers want Apple's walled garden and Apple is meeting their needs,

and

B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately cause consumers to jump ship from Apple's official store, and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.

Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.

If consumers do want what Apple is offering, if consumers do want a unified storefront with strict moderation for everything, then there'll still be plenty of market pressure for most commercial apps to release on the official store.

> A) Consumers want Apple's walled garden and Apple is meeting their needs,

> and

> B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately mean that consumers all jump ship from Apple's official store and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.

> Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.

The reason this looks like a contradiction is because it's not the actual position.

Mine, at least, is that 1) yes to A, and I'm not speculating, I personally feel that way as an iOS user, but then 2) no, on B: the concern isn't that users will jump ship from the App Store (I don't care, why would I?) but that developers will (and that I care about).

> the concern isn't that users will jump ship from the App Store [...] but that developers will

What is the practical difference to you, as a user, between:

A) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's only available on a third-party iOS storefront,

and

B) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's not available on iOS.

If apps jump ship from the official store, you personally as a security-conscious user won't be able to install them. But if apps jump ship from iOS, you also won't be able to install them. So who cares if developers move off the official iOS store? Aren't they already free to do so today?

----

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the difference is that (deep down) we all know that Epic is right, and Apple really is one half of a duopoly -- a half that controls over 50% of the entire mobile app store revenue in the US -- and that it would be insane for an app like Fortnite to drop iOS. I think the difference between the scenarios above is that (deep down) both you and I know that Fortnite isn't really free to abandon iOS as a platform, and that the stranglehold iOS has over the market is the only reason apps like Fortnite are on iOS in the first place.

We know that given the choice, consumers and developers would both choose a more open device. And we know that the only reason the closed ecosystem works at all is because many developers and users don't have a realistic choice about whether or not to accept Apple's terms.

The reason people see the two scenarios I list above as different is because, yeah, all of us on HN do actually know that Fortnite doesn't really have the option to walk away from Apple devices, and without a 3rd-party store Epic will be forced to agree to pretty much any terms that Apple requires -- they have no negotiating power. And once we admit that, then it becomes a lot more obvious why developers are asking for some kind of regulation around app store policies.

If dropping iOS and supporting only Android or PC was actually a realistic, sufficient option for most developers, then you wouldn't be worried that they'd all jump ship the moment they had a 3rd-party store as an option on iOS -- those developers would have already left the Apple app store (and iOS) behind.

I absolutely agree. Forcing developers to abide by their store & platform rules if they want to sell to iOS users, coupled with the fact that of course everyone does want to sell to iOS users, is definitely a big part of why I find iOS so nice.

I also think smaller-time developers are underestimating the degree to which Apple's iOS market is attractive precisely because of the equilibrium brought about by that situation, and the overall value it brings to the user, and their consequent willingness to spend money there, as they cheer Epic on. Maybe I'm wrong and none of the market-creating rules Apple's enforced have anything to do with it, but I suspect too many tweaks may not kill that golden goose, but might well reduce its rate of egg-laying.

As I've repeated many times here, now, though, I'd love to see more platforms compete with iOS. Not with the app store. With iOS and its overall ecosystem.

> As I've repeated many times here, now, though, I'd love to see more platforms compete with iOS. Not with the app store. With iOS and its overall ecosystem.

Isn't that a contradiction? App Store _IS_ "its overall ecosystem".

I mean another App Store with its own captured platform where you have to play by the rules if you want to distribute software on it. The whole package. Not another App Store on iOS. I do not want that.

Ah ok. Well then Android is the only thing that'll satisfy that criteria. It is going to be _impossible_ for anything else to compete with iOS/Android because of the app ecosystem catch-22. Apps area the primary criteria that consumers base their purchase on, anything else (including UX) doesn't matter.

Huh. I believe you about the app thing—I assume there’s been a study or something—but I’m surprised. All the non-tech people in my life seem to choose their devices on two criteria: 1) price, 2) UX/familiarity. Mostly the former. If there’s a 3rd one it’s fashion.

> devices on two criteria: 1) price, 2) UX/familiarity

Interesting. Won't you agree that before 1 and 2 there is an implied 0 - must be Android or iOS (so that it can run Uber, Amazon etc)?

EDIT: maybe you misunderstood when I said "anything else doesn't matter". What I mean by that is that if $device cannot run "common" apps then it is a no-go. However, if it can then people look at 1 and 2 for sure, you're right there.

> When I don't want to worry about that crap I use iOS

This is a false dichotomy. You still need to worry about that. Exploits for iOS are cheaper than exploits for Android[1], because exploits for iOS are so abundant[2].

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/for-t...

[2] https://www.securityweek.com/zerodium-expects-ios-exploit-pr...

> Sigh. I guess we're going to remove a product category (the relatively safe, very consistent, managed platform you can use when you just want to use a computer and not also manage a computer) and call that consumer choice, then?

Here's a better suggestion:

Stop Apple abusing their platform to force their customers to use their own book store by making others impractical.

Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to force their customers to use one browser.

Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to gouge everyone that wants to be on their platform with a 30% fee on every transaction (10% would be more reasonable, 3% a bare minimum to cover costs).

I would be entirely thrilled to see another OS & platform with similarly-pro-user rules and restrictions and its own app store compete with Apple, tweaking those parts to fix the problems you call out (and others!), and either beat Apple or force them to improve a bunch.

Except the browser thing—that's already fine IMO, and I think keeping other browser engines off is very nice because it keeps the Electron-type riff-raff out of the store, among other reasons, and besides it's just the browser engine that's restricted. Again, what I'd rather see is another iOS-like OS & platform come on the market, also only one browser engine allowed, but for that browser engine to be better than Mobile WebKit, forcing Apple to improve or at least giving me another option in the same product category as i-devices, but with a browser engine I like better.

We don't need another platform, Apple just needs to be prevented from abusing their power over the platform to coerce customers and partners to give them a large cut of each transaction. It's easily done with a bit of legislation.

Apple don't keep other browsers off to keep electron out or make things safer, it is to ensure they have complete control of the web platform, which otherwise is a viable alternative to their app store, just the sort of alternative you're suggesting in fact.

Capitalism needs regulation to work well, if unregulated, it very quickly gives rise to robber barons and bullying of both consumers and smaller companies. Unfettered capitalism leads to monopolies, coercion and rent-seeking.

I still think competition with the product they offer would be a better way to make them improve their product, than removing some of the properties that define the product they’re offering.

FWIW I’m all for regulating the hell out of anything with a corporate charter. As far as I’m concerned the deal they made when they asked us to let them have the privileges of incorporation is that we can do whatever we like to them, should we decide it’s in our interest, and if they don’t like it no-one’s forcing them to keep those protections. Half the reason I’m so keen on iOS‘ particular model of software distribution to begin with is because we haven’t regulated massive-scale collection of personal data out of existence. Give me that and I’ll join you to burn the last iPhone on a bonfire, or whatever. That’d be wonderful.

No, we shouldn't have had an alternative app store on iphones. Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Nobody is forcing anybody to buy an iphone to get online and make calls.

If you start a company, and you have 50% market share [1], do you want to be treated like a monopoly?

In a free market, Apple should be allowed to operate however they see fit, as long as they don't have a monopoly. Of course it is annoying that they can demand that much, but that's how open markets work.

All those developers who want better conditions on an app store, nobody is preventing them from joining their forces and creating a better operating system that promotes their own store with more favourable conditions.

Android is a sitting duck. Take objective c, the bsd kernel and the openstep libraries and link them up to your own mobile operating system. As long as Oracle doesn't win against Google, it can even have the same api as ios and thus all the existing apps from the apple app store. At first, offer it as a ROM for android devices, then start making your own. Apple's devices are expensive. Customers will love to buy cheaper alternatives.

Judging by the upvotes of this story alone, there should be 1000 developers wanting to have their own app store. If half of them invest some time of their life to create a new objective c operating system, they should have something operational in a year or two. Most likely much faster than the legal proceedings that could create a second app store on ios, with the nice benefit of being in control of the process.

[1] Research into Android vs iOS market share in the US shows that the market leader remains Google Android, with a 51.1% market share in June 2019. https://leftronic.com/android-vs-ios-market-share/

Via the FTC[0]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

That's the law. That's how forcing a second app store could be possible. But first of all, I don't think that it should be used to force Apple's hands. If they want to operate the app store the way they do, they should be able to do so. Long-term, they will kill their position because being abusive creates an opportunity for another player.

Secondly, I don't believe that the law will be applied. There are plenty of big companies that are in that position. First of all google with their operating system, browser, search-engine, ad network combo and Microsoft with their office suit. If you look at the quality of MS Teams, you know that its popularity is not by free choice.

If a second app store is introduced by that law, there would be plenty of follow-ups. I doubt that killing those cash-cows will happen when there is an economic war against China. Opening up those markets would allow Chinese companies to take those positions.

This requirement for there to be a monopoly is a very U.S.-centric view. In the EU they tend to look more towards market distortion, and companies that distort a market tend to get fined. The EU also has some beef to settle with apple for getting away with dodging billions of euros in taxes through ireland.

So, because of the specifics of how antitrust legislation works in the U.S. Epic may very well fail in court, because they may fail to prove a monopoly. But I do expect the EU to take action. It is all but unavoidable at this point.

1. Apple establishes rules that EVERY app publisher follows for YEARS.

2. Fortnite doesn't follow rule.

3. Apple kicks Fortnite out of the App store.

What were they expecting?

I don't give a fuck about Epic. Let's get alternative app stores be present in the default app stores on my device. What are you even complaining about? I am on your side, are you on your side?

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what this site is for. Plenty of commenters are expressing views similar to yours without breaking the site guidelines. If you'd please read them and stick to the rules, we'd be grateful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

They were expecting to get kicked out of the app store so that they could file a lawsuit and challenge the app store monopoly. How is that unclear?

app store "monopoly"? No one's forcing you to use the Apple ecosystem. it's called Android.

Where you're pretty much stuck google play store, which has also banned the app...

There is side-loading, but there's a lot of friction there that I wouldn't expect normal users to withstand.

Its a monopoly for developers. As a company you can not not use the app store because half of your customers are there and very few companies can afford to give up half of their customers.

Developers can chose to target other platforms.

There are countries with 0% iOS market share, half of zero is still zero.

I personally don't like Apple and will never buy an Apple product, but I fully agree. People who buy Apple products are perfectly fine with the way Apple restricts their platform. If you don't like this as a developer, then just leave and stop developing for iOS.

A single big company doing this just to cut down on some fees just reeks of greed.

It is not a single company, Google also kicked Fortnite, and it has been a thing in game consoles, car infotaiment systems, pre loaded apps on TV settop boxes and blue-ray players,....

The world is unfair, no one is expected to do charity for developers.

We are not a special snowflake job that isn't expected to give others the necessary payments to keep the whole chain working.

For most business that is not a choice. If you are making a utility or game then maybe, but can a company like uber decide that they will only be available to android users?

Gonna sue Nintendo if they don't let your game in the eshop?

I understand this question, but I believe an eshop is different from a major platform used by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis to run their lives.

It is possible that some of those people would list "only one app store & gateway for digital payments" as a feature for which they bought devices based on that platform. I'd list lots of the things devs complain about on iOS as reasons I favor it as an end user, in fact. (for the record, I've also done iOS and Android dev)

They're not perfect at all and I wish very much that they had competition, but for me to consider it real competition with the product they're providing it'd have to be similarly locked-down. The locking-down is part of the value. There are already far-less-locked-down phones and tablets available for people who want that.

Lock it down by default, but allow users to unlock it. Make it a bit hard, like the carrier-lock. You have your walled garden and I have my device.

I’m totally cool with that provided it’s not easy enough that another App Store is able to become a de facto necessity via that install method. The current official side-loading methods are almost good enough to suit the case of power users running a few custom apps from outside the store. If there’s a way to take off the time limits and not open up the possibility of the above scenario, that’d be wonderful. I have a couple non-App Store apps I’d put on mine, in fact.

Isn't Fortnite just some game?

Fortnite is a game, but the lawsuit only uses Fornite as a concrete example of what Apple is doing. Epic Games if fighting for everyone--all app developers and ios users.

Much harder, but it wouldn't surprise me if the do later, depending on how this goes.

Nintendo should be forced to allow homebrew games/sideloading. These locked down bits of hardware are a disservice to society.

The comment is expecting you to have an opinion or some kind of comment on the practices that determines accessibility to software.

I will start: Are software stores and locked down environments really a good idea, when conflicts like this determine what kind of software you can install on your devices? Without a comment on who is in the "right" here, I will just use a clear 'no'.

Epic feels the rules set by Apple is not fair. At the first point is where the issue is.

An exemption like the other big players got. The carefully crafted rules are re-written for the powerful.

1. Pharaoh says everybody who speaks against the royal family has their tongue cut out.

2. Seth says there should be less taxes as the pharaoh is too rich.

3. He gets his tongue cut out. What did he expect?

Unfair rules should not always be followed.

Unfair rules should not always be followed.

This is probably the most important question: what is fair in a world where there are technological platform providers that are essentially creating two-sided markets of vast size and value? If the platform provider is in a dominant position, their actions or inaction could significantly harm participants in the market. Should they then be permitted to impose their own terms and charges on one or both sides of that market arbitrarily, or should there be some form of regulatory intervention in the interests of the participants in the market (from either side)? And to what extent should competition in whatever form be a factor in this?

There are many examples of harm where a single platform has a kind of quasi-monopoly and/or quasi-monopsony status. Aside from the current topic, consider Google's dominance of web search, and the corresponding effects it can have on web developers, advertisers and searchers. Other online marketplace services might qualify as well if they have come to dominate their niche. Then we have the manufacturers of many other types of device, such as cars or smart home control systems, which are also relatively high value purchases and "sticky", but where clearly there will be an ecosystem building up around them. It may not be in the interests of either the purchaser or those who would provide related products or services to be locked into whatever arrangements the manufacturer wants to impose.

We already have precedent for overriding the wishes of manufacturers in some instances in order to protect more vulnerable parties to the arrangements. For example, various regulatory authorities have acted to prevent car manufacturers from restricting their vehicles in such a way that only approved dealers can repair or service them, and of course there is the wider "right to repair" movement that is based on a similar principle.

But as ever, the law has not necessarily kept pace with the rapid evolution of technologies, and even if certain actions may be legal today as a result, that doesn't necessarily mean they should remain so.

Well, Pharaoh is Pharaoh because they born to be Apple is Apple because Apple earned it.

Not disagreeing your point though

Well, Apple were at the right place at the right time. There is quite a bit of input from their side, but don't underplay the huge role of luck. And there is also network effect, once they had healthy numbers, people flock to them, so it is also due to network effects they are huge.

You can choose a different royal family. If you don't like your current royal family then don't let your tongue be cut out voluntarily and then complain about it while still wanting to support the royal family that cut your tongue out.

Correct. For me there are valid arguments for a walled garden (providing users can opt out) but this isn’t about any of that. This is about Apple not getting paid, the users are not ‘winning’ in this standoff.

Apple are prepared to fuck over their users for them not getting paid, and I can’t see a good argument for anyone thinking that this is okay.

Epic being big is possibly the only reason why they had the balls to pull the trigger on this whole thing. Can't imagine indies doing it, not enough money and power. Gotta take fights you can handle.

Agreed. I applaud Epic for taking this stance. Of course, they are likely doing it for their own interests. However, this fight can help all the indie developers who don't have the lawyers or the money to stand up, and hopefully lower the amount that Google Play and Apple take from hard-working devs that upload apps to their platform.

> Wow, I would have hoped for better support from the HN community. Instead there are apologists after apologists.

I am wondering if Apple pays a battery of social media / marketing guys to influence the discussions in their favor.

Now let the downvotes begin.

Epic is no better. Trading one owner for another makes no difference in the best case. It's either free and open source and user-focused or nothing.

So if Epic wins, will Epic be able to stop other stores from coming up? In what scenario do you see US (you, me, we) winning? The one where Epic loses or one where it wins?

There's no win for us here. Just corporate bullshit.

Well, Epic pulls games from other stores and they make exclusive deals, so yes, they actually can stop other stores from coming up through indirect means.

It's like with politics - you vote for the polarizing person that would eat the other ones so that there can't be a lasting consensus disadvantaging some group permanently. Politicians need to be at each other's throats and never sure about anything to minimize the damage they would do otherwise.

Why does epic single out two platforms and not also sue Microsoft (Xbox), Sony and Nintendo. Seems like double standards to me.

Much harder to win against them. Depending on how this goes, they're probably next.

Can we please have a precedent set, once that starts I am confident other walled gardens will come down too. Also gaming consoles are not an essential part of life, at least not in my country where people usually can't afford to indulge in those luxuries.

Android sort of proves that walled gardens won't come down.

And Epic's lawsuit(s!) aren't about brining those gardens down.

They're about Epic, and other developers, getting absolute control over their place in that garden.

They don't care that the walled garden exists.

They're just angry about the cost of the manure.

Why is an iPhone an essential part of life? Gaming consoles are cheaper than iPhones and you can often order previous gen Consoles like the 3DS directly from Nintendo's online store for an even lower price.

Because those are the platforms they have standing on I assume. Did Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo perform similar anti-competitive actions against Epic Games? They can't sue just because they have an illegal policy, they also need to have been "personally" (as a company) affected by it.

They also have limited amounts of money, and lawsuits are expensive. Better to get precedent established first before suing everyone else (I'm actually surprised that they picked two fights because of this).

Because Epic has so much sway in the video game console arena that the console makers (except perhaps Nintendo which relies more on 1st party content) would never dare take anticompetitive action against Epic, or at least do while granting Epic-specific concessions which make it hard for them to have standing for a anti-monopoly lawsuit.

Epic wants an antitrust decision from the courts and/or regulators, and that requires them to get a clear, unequivocal rejection from the platform owner to have unchallengeable standing. A game console maker would have met Epic halfway, but Google and Apple did not.

The timing is probably also critical: Google and Apple just testified to Congress that they're not engaging in monopolist behavior because they treat every applicant equally. To back down from that right now would mean they perjured themselves before Congress. That's something no one in their right mind would want to do.

I truly believe apple pays people to comb through HN and down vote any comment critical of apple. The simple fact is that apple has done more than any other company in the history of computing to quash the freedom to control your own computing devices.

It is impossible to fight apple in the way we fought microsoft years ago - by building out a good opensource ecosystem. The entire reason for the app store is to stop that from happening.

HN's great flaw is that it has been allowed to be overrun by huge numbers of people from large organizations.

There are tens of thousands of people from FAANG/YC acting as self-interested agents of their organizations without any kind of disclosure or counter-measures. These are, in effect, massive voting rings and propaganda efforts which are supposedly not allowed on HN.

It's obvious how this results in the total dominance of FAANG/YC content, and how it skews the public conversation in Silicon Valley in their favor.

HN could take a variety of counter-measures but they don't. Maybe because users would quickly point out the hypocrisy of ending FAANG voting rings/propaganda while permitting the YC voting rings/propaganda.

HN is now the premier mouthpiece for tech corporate interests.

It would be great for the world if someone were to create a replacement that was designed to prevent this problem, while preserving what is good about HN. Or if HN took action even if it was 5+ years late.

The top comment is violently decrying Apple. I’m sure what you say happens does, but not to the extent that it completely changes the conversation. It’s always worth checking back as early negative or positive feedback doesn’t always remain.

Many have tried. There's a simple reason that you glance at but don't directly confront in your post. The "voting rings" you outline are actually a huge constituency, thanks to the outlandish concentration of wealth and resources in the hands of these few companies (I mean FAANG - YC has a huge and unique network but I don't suspsect it's anywhere close to the same scale in dollars or current employees). No site can keep out so many skilled and knowledgeable techies and expect to keep up the level of quality that HN provides. This is one of those cases where culture flows pretty clearly from material reality - you can't have a better site until the titans are dethroned and dismembered. So, if you want a better HN, don't build an HN clone! Build political power that will target monopolies, monopsonies, and anything "too big to fail" for levelling and redistribution.

It is simply not true that many have tried. HN has certainly not tried to solve this problem. They seem to be focused on much smaller problems, like preventing handfuls of friends from upvoting a GitHub project at the same time or Viagra spam.

As an example, HN could start requiring users to link their LinkedIn accounts. Every comment could show the user's current employer (if it's a major one) without revealing the user's real name. HN cold also disregard votes for google.com submissions for Google employees, etc. These steps alone would reduce the problem drastically.

No one would like to link their LinkedIn account, of course, but most people in tech have one and could do so in seconds.

That's an obvious solution but there are many other possibilities as well. And it would still be possible to maintain the ability for anonymous throwaway accounts to be used.

> As an example, HN could start requiring users to link their LinkedIn accounts. Every comment could show the user's current employer (if it's a major one) without revealing the user's real name.

I downvoted you. If it makes you happy, know that this downvote is completely organic.

I'm just annoyed by someone suggesting that we remove one of the real advantages of HN: availability of real pseudonymity.

Edit: I also sometimes vote in the same direction as supposed voting rings and I am starting to see Dans frustration with all these accusations.

I have been here for more than 10 years and I have started to get a feeling for some of the weird voting patterns here now. It has even gone so far that I am joking that I want do go to university to hopefully do a study of group dynamics in online communities :-)

I get the impulse. But think it through. There is no real possibility that the claim I made is actually false. Of course not every Google employee upvotes Google submissions and not every upvote is from a Google employee. But the influence is clearly large enough to have a huge amount of undue influence.

And how is:

1 point by starfox9833 (Google) 22 minutes ago

not pseudoanonymous? Google has 100k employees.

HN already has email addresses for many (most?) users and could easily map most of those to LinkedIn accounts one way or another. It also knows the IP addresses of users, which are often coming from FAANG corporate networks (at least pre-Covid).

It might cost some amount of theoretical privacy but gain us a huge amount freedom from the dominance of a few major organizations.

Yo but what about privacy and freedom of expression bruh.

You are right that it would still be pseudonymous. Some problems:

1. LinkedIn is probably easy to game to create fake accounts.

2. HN already has email addresses for many (most?) users and could easily map most of those to LinkedIn accounts one way or another.

One of the really great things about HN is that they've been trustworthy (AFAIK). Unlike a good number of other sites they haven't done all the things they could do.

3. The more you do to identify users the lower concentration of really high quality users one get it seems. As newspapers decided on Facebook comments the only one that would show up to comment were:

- those who didn't realize or didn't care about the privacy implications

- those who just had to anyway because they felt so strongly about the topic

- trolls with faked Facebook accounts

I don't think it's that easy to game LinkedIn accounts. Faking the account age and number of connections is non-trivial, for example.

I don't think it would limit the high quality participation, at least not by very much, and that could be mitigated. Maybe users that do not link their accounts could still comment but not vote?

There would definitely be some trade-offs but the current wholesale domination of corporations on HN is a huge trade-off in one direction as well. It seems a very high price to pay IMHO.

> As an example, HN could start requiring users to link their LinkedIn accounts.

What about those of us without a LinkedIn account?

how do you keep FANG employees from commenting?

How would you determine these actors? Any ideas?

Tech used to be unified in support of open and free information, and against monopolies and closed platforms. During the era of Slashdot, everyone in tech came through and saw the downside of Windows and Office and Internet Explorer dominance. They supported Linux and Firefox and filesharing, mocked Micro$oft. But now tech people are split because half of them are employed by big tech, partly because more people have gotten into tech for the money so they were bought out from the very beginning.

And not only these pro-platform votes, look at all the negative discussion that happens here around university. In every single academic thread, where academic principles oppose big tech, the most upvoted threads are those that dismiss CS education, the university research system, the professors and humanities, while upvoting the "I dropped out of college" stories.

Big tech has done a lot of good, in elevating programmer salaries, and some companies contributing to a lot of open source. But walled gardens and subscriptions and censorship are money makers prized by capitalism. So they are always trying to "kill" the web, "boring" standards like email and XMPP, open research, and self-distributed software.

> I truly believe apple pays people to comb through HN and down vote any comment critical of apple.

Incidentally, Samsung has actually been caught and taken to court for manipulating social media:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Samsung+paid+students+for+re...

People can defend a company on their own, because they love their products and agree with their policies.

> in the way we fought microsoft years ago

Because Apple helped us fight Microsoft.

People loved Apple almost unanimously on the internet. They were the underdog, the messiah to save us from the bullshit of Big Corp. You won't find much Apple-negging from the era before Samsung started their smear campaign to make themselves relevant by going up against the tall poppy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

Which of course is a chain. It used to be IBM, then Microsoft, now it's Apple (after a long campaign [0] starting with 1984 and continuing with the famous "I'm a Mac"), and so other companies are trying to poise themselves as the underdog to win fans.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/9RmlhJK.jpg

Parent's comment may soon be flagged by N such payed individuals and it will automagically disappear from this discussion...

I was asked today, something with the lines: "Why don't you organize and fight? Why don't you build an open ecosystem, which you will use to replace stores."

I was thinking after that a) we could make a store (that's the simple part) b) when enough of us were behind we could pressure for it to be accepted

Because even if Epic wins and we can have some improvements, it wont fix the issues

I would donate and work for the cause, what about the rest of you? How to get started, Apache Foundation?

EDIT: I have to add, I would not work for this 'because it is the right thing to do', but to ensure that I can do business in the future without fear of A+G

Basically we have to lobby the government to undo decades of case law going back to the late 90s and make it illegal for companies to run vertically integrated monopolies. That's the work. You ready for that?

No. We cant just slink off into IRC and build our own store. We cant just do The Right Thing, we also have to make the Wrong Thing prohibitively expensive for the general population.

Update policies on Android (I want to use my phone until it is completely broken) made me start to look at Apple. But then I realized it is not an alternative.

In another thread someone compared Apple with a dictatorship and this is right. Maybe you will feel safe but there is no freedom. And when you don't do as the dictator pleases you are in trouble.

Companies get too big and too powerful. Some say this is the beginning of a new world order, like the industrial revolution changed how the world was ordered.

I was very depressed over the last few months because I thought there is no one left who will stand against these big companies. Reading hackernews comments was very depressing since everyone was defending Apple. That changed today, after reading this thread. Looks like there is some hope left. Thanks for voicing your opinion, it makes me feel better for the future.

Fine: fuck you all you greedy devs who can't understand that the platform exists only because of Apple investment in security and usability and fuck all you scummy devs who want to collect all my contacts and location info and sell it to spammers, and probably my microphone and camera and sell it to blackmailers. Yeah, fuck them too.

Thank you, that was cathartic.

I'm sure the mods won't take kindly to your swearing but I agree with both you and your sentiment 100%

Don’t force shit onto every Apple user. One app store is for security and privacy. Apple curates and that costs money. I don’t want my and my families and friend’s ios devices turning into the pile of hot garbage android devices. If you don’t like it, leave! Or make your own device to sell!

> or make your own device to sell

Bordering on bad faith.

When you buy an Apple device you are supporting Apple and their restrictive platform. Why on earth would you buy an Apple device if you disagree with that?

Couldn’t agree more. Also fuck you for writing it from a throwaway account.

For some reason this is no longer the top post in the submission.

We moderate top posts when they break the site guidelines, such as by being unsubstantive rants. Please don't fulminate on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(No, we don't care one way or another about Apple. We just care about HN.)

I think the timing is very unfortunate. Shortly after Trump’s executive order targeting Tencent and ByteDance (hopefully with more to come) then Epic (heavily backed by Tencent) launch an attack against Apple.

Tinfoil hat on: Apple is probably worried that if Trump gets re-elected then they would be forced out of the Chinese market unless they allow third-party app stores where people can download the Chinese apps that Trump would force them to remove. Apple will therefore opt to allow third-party app installations (which would hurt them a lot if we ignored the Chinese market) rather than lowering their fees or allowing third-party payment providers.

Preach.

fuck yeah brother.

These people must also have no idea what Tim Sweeney (Epic founder) is like as a person. This guy is a genius programmer that never sought great wealth for its own sake but happened upon it through creating huge amounts of value and happiness in the world. He's someone who has been preserving wilderness by buying up large swaths of land to keep it safe. He's a good and principled person.

He's NOT a money-grubbing two-faced CEO. He's the real deal and he clearly believes that what Apple and Google are doing is wrong. He's also willing to put his money where his mouth is, unlike anyone else.

He deserves to be lauded and respected for what he's doing here. Someone has to stand up to Apple and Google and he's the only one putting in the time, effort, and money to do it.

Tim Sweeney is the hero of this story and everyone should be backing him up.

And in the grand scheme of things, users would be much better off without being restricted to app stores. The era of closed devices ought to be ended by laws. Running arbitrary software on personal computing devices should be protected by Right to Repair or Fair Use laws.

I would like to learn more about Tim. Any suggestions?

Good that you mentioned Tim Sweeney. He is someone I look upto because his work does a lot of talking. Fantastic programmer.

I really wish the old world game engine programmers unite and support him such as Carmack, Romero etc.

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