Epic is just the new gang in town establishing themselves while trying to get some shops under their control, by playing being against the long time block owners.
You can just have no block owners at all. Having two competing kings fighting over the throne isn't "dynamic" democracy.
> Having two competing kings fighting over the throne isn't "dynamic" democracy.
That would be a more dynamic kingship than just having one king with full control over the kingdom. I'm not sure what you want to say here. Dynamism doesn't transform the kingdom in a democratic system. Nor is Apple or Epic part of a democratic battle. You seem to be conflating a bunch of things IMHO.
Apple basically collectively bargains for iPhone users via the App Store. Privacy features, sign-in with Apple, limiting tracking abuse, privacy “Nutrition Facts” and other items will go out the window. Apple will have those in their App Store, but users will make the trade off with privacy to play Fortnite or download a new social media app. Apple makes it so that trade off doesn’t have to happen.
It’s all around awful. I really hope Apple wins this court case.
Why would Apple be less incentivized than another company, like Epic, to protect your data? Apple sells the iPhone and markets it toward pro-privacy and security. Going against that is not in their own best interest. It's in Epic's interest to break through that, because then they can use dark patterns and break privacy restrictions (as other companies will and intend to do).
Again, it's no surprise that as Apple has been more user-focused and privacy-focused in their continued iPhone and iOS development that developers are feeling the squeeze when they want to use dark patterns, so naturally they'll try and break out of that so they can go back to their old bad habits again.
Probably because their store doesn't have to compete? I would say they really are not doing a good job at this considering their track record contains plenty of dark patterns, privacy violations, tracking, data mining, censorship, and so on. If you don't believe me I can provide plenty of examples. The situation might be marginally better than a low-end Android device that typically comes loaded with OEM malware, but that's not saying much.
If you don't want that, that's totally fine: Android is right over there.
> Apple makes it so that trade off doesn’t have to happen.
That's the core of the discussion here: you seem to think that's in the interest of the user to have Apple taking all those decisions for themselves. I firmly disagree, I'm a happy user of an iOS device and do release iOS apps, in both case I would prefer to have more choice of trade-off, and to be able to decide for myself instead of Apple taking a decision for all their user base and developers.
Considering the fact that you prefer Apple to block you from other options: it doesn't follow that they should do this to everyone, just that you would still pick that option if you had the choice.
I respectfully disagree with this statement. I think an analogous situation would be the launch of Disney+: it used to be possible to watch Disney series on Netflix, but after Disney decided to launch Disney+, these series were pulled from Netflix to push the adoption of Disney+. For a Netflix user, their situation would very much be affected by Disney+ existing.
Where the pedal really hits the metal is with the cost of buying zero day exploits. iOS exploits can be had for much cheaper than Android ones.
But who's to say that Apple has your interests in mind, and not their own, and makes a choice for you that is actually detrimental to you and beneficial to them? Let's say, by locking you in, and preventing any competition.
How would you feel if every other company you buy from did the same?
Vote with your wallets doesn't really work since people will put up with plenty of abuses for software that's useful enough to them. Vote with politics doesn't really work either because regulators are very hesitant to regulate tech and kill the cash cow.
People, like me, are so fiercely loyal to Apple because seemingly no other company has been able to strongarm developers into not being shitty to their users.
If they didn't have my interests in mind I wouldn't buy their products (which is why I don't buy any more Google products, their customers are the ad companies, not the people who buy/use their products). Companies make products for their customers with the customer's interest in mind in order to make a product that sells the best.
Mac apps do just fine with other install options while most still choose the App Store for ease and security.
For example, iPhone/iPad users being unable to install Adobe Flash accelerated its demise hugely, by motivating websites to remove Flash, not just add 'please install' links.
If you're the sort of person who releases iOS apps, you're far more technically inclined than the median user and perhaps more willing to engage in individual negotiation of terms of service and privacy (as you'll be plausibly good at it). The median user of an iPhone is in a hopeless bargaining position in the face of dark patterns, and for that user, perhaps the collective bargaining Apple engages in is more valuable.
- Even if other app stores are available (or sideloading, or other potential outcomes that would be more open than the current situation) Apple still control the platform, thus can still impose A LOT of what is possible or not on iOS. If they want to "protect" their users they can continue to do it at that level (there would then be a debate on what is or not considered "anti-competition" at this level)
- Regarding the difference of technical level, yes, I'm more technically inclined. On other systems (such as Android, Windows, and macOS) being more technically knowledgeable means that I can gain more control over my system and take my own decisions. In the world of iOS (potentially also in the future world of macOS), that's not even close to being a possibility.
For example, if I purchase a subscription to a language learning app on an iOS device, my ability to seamlessly cancel that subscription has been collectively bargained by Apple (via the terms of service of their payment processing system). That's valuable to me, particularly given the absurd difficulty of canceling subscriptions that are not collectively bargained like gym memberships.
How would Apple impose that same term of use, that subscriptions can be cancelled on device with one click, for a sideloaded app? If they can't do that, developers would offer their app only via sideloading so as to be able to take advantage of that stream of revenue, like gyms. Now there's less competition for language learning apps in the first party app store, and I, a user of that store, suffer.
That's not to say there aren't tradeoffs for that collective bargaining; there are. As you say, we have much less control over iOS devices than we've historically had over our computing devices. Similarly, workers who collectively bargain have much less control over their terms of employment than workers who individually negotiate. But for many workers (and many users), that tradeoff is a good one. Apple is currently the only organization offering it.
And who do we have to thank for that turn? Apple's culture that "we know better" is a good part of that problem. Developers want to be Apple, and Apple is pretty abusive towards their users. They take the occasional pro-user stance where it suits them, but overall it's pretty clear that the only institutional interest for Apple is Apple's own bottom line.
Here you're effectively defending an absolutist monarch: he can take a good decision here and there, maybe even give you a decade or two of peace and prosperity, but in the long run his family will inevitably do what is good for them, not for the country. Democracy is messy, unstable, often dangerous, but in the long run is more sustainable for the ecosystem at large.
For example, if Apple conducted plebiscites of its users and used those plebiscites in informing its collective bargaining with developers, I think that'd be fine. That would force Apple to articulate the value proposition of the positions it takes.
And it is hardly any different from any other platform.
Classical PCs are the exception here due to IBM's failure to secure their golden eggs, had they succeed and PCs would have been just as like.
It is no surprise that with the rise of laptop and tablets, the classical desktop PC is an species facing extinction, with pizza boxes for server room being the only ones left.
As for how it would be like, just like Acorn, Atari, Amiga and Apple were at the time.
This culture did not start at Apple. It has been predominant tech culture since at least the early 2000s and is absolutely pervasive in the Linux Desktop community.
When I was young I could create small apps and games and share with my friends. But the future seems to be "think at the idiots that might side load malware" so our children will need to create developers accounts, provide IDs , buy certificates just to develop and share some games.
I too used to create small apps and games and share them with my friends. I still do that on a headless raspberry pi, which is a vastly superior environment than the one I had access to as a child. As the economic value of data on computers rises, I think we'll see a split between the device you use to conduct modern digital life and the device you do "old fashioned" computer stuff on. For people inclined to tinker, there will be platforms that enable that. But you won't do your banking on that platform because, as you say, idiots will side load malware. I've certainly made that split in my life (and in my classroom where we use the raspi as a teaching computer and every student has root on their own box), and it works out really well.
Anyway do you have any examples (more then 1) of companies that ONLY offer side loading because they are evil and want to trick the customer (with subscriptions or to steal data).
One example jumps to mind - wasn’t Facebook running a side loaded VPN that was doing some unsavory things until Apple banned it? I think the place to look for that sort of thing right now would be companies abusing the enterprise development system.
The possible bad future I can see is this
- judge decides Apple can do whatever they want
- Google says "Great, then we can do the same" and all Android phones get locked
- Microsoft then also says thinks "Fuck, we are suckers, so they force the PC makers to DRM the computers to run only Windows and say something like "if you don't like it buy Linux"
So we will have tons of hardware that is DRMed and locked, you can run only what american companies approved and only if you have a valid user or developer accounts and maybe you need internet connection so the files are checked before you are allowed to open them.
Happily, there's already a thriving ecosystem of alternate linux-based platforms that allow the sort of freedom that we both want and enjoy.
Here Apple isn’t a benevolent user collective, they have complete control over the entire pipeline, use it to force their rules on both users and developers. Epic, Spotify and others DO WANT to negotiate with their users instead of being forced by Apple. If someone is trying to negotiate, it is Epic & Co. Apple refuses any negotiation, told them repeatedly to follow their own rules. Epic thinks that there is a case to make that Apple has too much power and control and the balance should tip a bit more to developers. And that’s where we are now.
I don’t think that the collective bargaining is a good analogy, but if you want to go with this, Epic and others ARE the bargaining collective, while Apple is the mighty entity that tries to shutdown anything remotely threatening to their current business model.
i.e. the power dynamic should be flipped so that developers have more leverage. This is the core issue. Users have little power on their own and are largely unorganized. So software that's useful to users enables developers to get away with many many abuses before large swaths of users abandon the product. Right now Apple has an extreme amount of leverage over developers and is rich enough to not even notice if they lose even large companies as publishers.
So yes, Apple has been protecting their business model, but the secondary effect is that user's have been benefiting hugely from this since Apple makes more money when users are happy.
Bargained for Apple's benefit, not yours.
The end result is that if you ever for any reason want to manage the subscription without an Apple device, you can't. Which directly feeds into the premium they charge you for their devices. It also means that the vendor is forced to implement Apple Payments, and the surcharge is ultimately paid by you.
You may have lost money due to subscriptions* , but you are definitely losing money to Apple.
* It's easy where I live to call the credit company and block the charge, and the credit company doesn't take 30%.
Payments also come to mind: Apple has strict standards for what you have to explain to users before you take their money. (Granted they're not always perfectly enforced.) And some of the terms (like easy, clear cancellation) are enforced simply by the fact that you must use Apple's payment system. With another App Store, that goes out the window.
On the privacy/data aspect, if Apple forced data to be uploaded to the cloud, I would care. If it was "privacy" where the "privacy" is protected by apple keys I wouldn't really call that privacy. However that's not what Apple does in general where it can avoid it.
For example, in the new iOS version they're adding offline language translation functionality rather than uploading your voice snipets to the cloud to translate them. This is substantially harder engineering problem than doing it in the cloud as it requires significantly more turning to run on a constrained platform like a phone. If Apple actually didn't care about privacy they'd do what basically everyone else does.
> I'm not sure what you want to say here
That the Apple platform with the store model has significant disadvantages.
But if the topic is "dynamism", I can easily manage my expectations.
It just feels like someone is shitting on your plate and tells you, that it at least already looks like chocolate pudding.
The effective solution is stopping dominance in one area from spilling over into another. Can't use iOS control to gain control of app sales and you can't use control of app sales to gain control of payments.
Using that reasoning, they are in the best position to actually open to competition.
To the point that Linux fans that keep pointing to Android as "Desktop Linux" miss the point that no Linux APIs are part of official Android APIs and depending on the Android version, apps get killed when trying to be smart reaching for private APIs.
I think Epic getting what they want will slowly hollow out the available market for smaller indie developers who can't compete with with the scale of the big boys. Insofar as Apple's app store falls short, it's often in the various ways it fails at providing a truly even playing field between Joe Random and the Amazons and Epics of the world. Take the Apple intermediation out of it and the big stores can bring the strength of their reputations and the scale of their logistical capabilities to bear in ways that will make it much more difficult for small, independent developers to thrive.
You can see it in comparing the iOS app economy to the Android one. Even though the vast majority of app installs in Android come through the Play store, the more lax standards and availability of sideloading seems to make people much less trustful of anything they get and, consequently, much less likely to spend any money.
If alternatives were allowed to exist, those stores could be built with better discovery mechanisms or allow a smaller pond where you might be able to be the big fish.
As opposed to a vast ocean (App Store) where you've got to be damn lucky or have major connections to be anything more than a minnow as an independent.
The plain fact is that isn't what the vast majority of customers want. They have time and again showed that what they want is one place where they can all get their apps, and that will also be on their next phone. Google didn't decide that for them, nor did Samsung which has it's own store on it's phones. It's what customers want and have chosen, whether you like that or not.
Yes Google used unsavoury practices, they ran afoul of the EU and were fined Billions, but that's a footnote. We'd be where we are anyway, and stoping those anticompetitive practices hasn't slowed down the consolidation because this is driven by user preference.
a) it is more dynamic than a situation with one king just sitting on his laurels
b) this is not about democracy, this is about competition on markets
Steam on Linux is mostly compatibility hacks so people can play the games they bought. Some games have decent Linux support, but the real value I see in Steam on Linux is all the proton/wine magic/hacks to make games work relatively well without any changes, and frankly it's great.
The rate at which Wine/Proton et al., and Linux gaming in general, has improved in the last few years is staggering.
> GPL software can't even communicate with friends on Steam, isolating the open source community and ultimately turning their devs, if they want to be part of Steam's extensive gaming social network, into serfs for the store.
I have no idea what you mean by this, but I also don't see what the GPL has to do with it. You can easily write GPL software that you sell on Steam which uses all of Valve's features.
Steamworks.
> I have no idea what you mean by this, but I also don't see what the GPL has to do with it. You can easily write GPL software that you sell on Steam which uses all of Valve's features.
Steamworks is needed for that and isn't GPL compatible. You can sell GPL software on Steam, but can't use many features and are isolated from most social/friend stuff.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/uploading/distributin...
> Which Open Source licenses are compatible with the Steamworks SDK? In general, permissive licenses that do not put any requirements on you to redistribute your modifications under an open source license work fine.
This seems fine, GPL is probably not suitable here. I don't think Valve is going out of their way to harm anyone's freedoms.
If you really want to release your game as GPL, then do the usual workarounds: use a shim which RPC's to the proprietary bit.
Sounds like the non-solution to GPL software on Apple's App Store, which restricts GPL (or has in the past): run it on a remote server.
apple's market position is causing higher prices for consumers. therefore it should be busted.
we just need to keep the same standard (or better: make it more strict; apple has been abusive for a long time) for when epic becomes the monopoly.
In the US, yes. Defacto monopoly.
What do you support?
Apparently voting with the wallet means buying status and then complaining about what one has bought.
90% of the youth market uses an iPhone and that's the same market Epic is in. Outside of youths, 50% of the US population uses an iPhone.
I'd rather vote in legislators that will maintain the existing laws of the land, which state that you can't use your Apple-sized market power to keep competitors from doing business.
There are countries with 0% market share for iOS.
Also as a developer whose employer targets Apple devices, I am more than at home with Apple's decisions.
Don't like them? Target Android, Web,..
Check how open are games consoles for a change.
Also, the nation of Apple is larger and much more politically connected to true nation states.
But either way that's not my point. Epic establishing a precedent that restricts the degree to which companies can dominate a supply line and then use that position to skim isn't going to make it easier for Epic to dominate you, the consumer. That's not their objective. That is Apple's objective.
https://twitter.com/EskilSteenberg/status/129752027579013939...
And also, it’s up to the DOJ to litigate this, not competitors. They don’t have the standing.
If courts determine that Apples behavior violates anti-trust laws, it is unlikely that they would find that Epic was not an injured party.
It will likely require a new legislation to force the regulation of App Stores as public utilities.
Violating the Sherman act requires demonstration of monopoly or restraint of trade. Any ISV has many channels and platforms with which to sell its wares, so this will be hard to prove. Asking for a retail cut % isn’t restraint of trade.
The ISVs like Epic want more profit for themselves by forcing the regulation of app stores as public utilities, so that like a power generation company, they can compete separately from the distribution system. That is a tall order to prove that it’s more in the public interest than in the ISV’s interest.