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Comment by throwaway13337 | Hacker News Reader

Epic isn't the hero we need but the hero we deserve.

I can certainly imagine a lot of companies are tight-lipped about it.

My livelihood depends on an app store and so I'm super cautious about what I say publicly about the company that controls it.

This sort of chilling effect is scary and should rightly be contested.

Epic is criticized for being a huge company themselves and using that as leverage in their legal battle. However, small companies stand absolutely no chance so Epic is the only one that can take this fight.

Epic is the champion of all the smaller businesses with apps on phones. Not because Epic wants them to do well but because Epic wants Epic to do well. They'll just happen to help all of us - consumer and developer - with them.

I'm rooting for them.

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Me too. I think, Epic is uniquely positioned also because it is privately held. As such, its actions are more representative of what Tim Sweeney thinks is right instead of the investor mob. And to me as a developer Tim Sweeney seems like a pretty good guy similar to Carmack in many ways.

Tim Sweeney's position on Linux is pretty indicative of his character. He'll bitch and moan about Microsoft and Apple locking things down, but refuses to support a true open platform. He's in this for money, pure and simple.

Carmack, by comparison, is a saint.

Sweeney has principles, but one of them isn't supporting a platform with no chance of it paying off the investment needed to support it.

I'll root for them once they stop pushing exclusives (paid for monopoly on distribution rights) vs steam/etc. It isn't the same issue but it's close enough that I find it ironic they are complaining about a monopoly store while trying to compete against Steam/etc by buying a monopoly on a game at least during the first 6 months of release.

It’s not even close. Apple is forcing developers how they can reach their customer. Epic deals are made by developers with regards to how they want to reach their customers. They are both uncomfortable for some customers, but that is not the issue. Let’s say you utterly dislike Wal Mart and your favorite ice cream is exclusively available there because Wal Mart struck a deal with the maker (e.g. they’ll fund them). That’s not the same as Wal Mart forcing the ice cream vendor to sell exclusively to Wal Mart because otherwise the item will be banned from the shelves, which results in a huge loss in customer reach, thus abusing their market position.

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