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?
2. Fortnite doesn't follow rule.
3. Apple kicks Fortnite out of the App store.
What were they expecting?
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.
There is side-loading, but there's a lot of friction there that I wouldn't expect normal users to withstand.
There are countries with 0% iOS market share, half of zero is still zero.
A single big company doing this just to cut down on some fees just reeks of greed.
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.
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.
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.
Not disagreeing your point though
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'.