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Comment by Voliokis | Hacker News Reader

What in god's name is with all the bootlickers in this thread? I have no love for Apple or Epic. But if this lawsuit leads to better treatment of third-party developers on the platform and Apple not being able to arbitrarily control what apps consumers get to download, I don't see why Epic is being painted as the "bad guy" by so many people here. Apple has been behaving in crazy anti-competitive ways (just look at how they historically treated any developer that dared make an app that competed with their own) for years now. It's time for the hammer to fall.

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Please don't call names. Your comment would be fine without the first sentence.

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I'm with you. They're both billions of dollars worth companies arguing about who should get which percentage of additional millions of dollars of profit.

I'm not invested at all in this debate, but I do silently hope that Epic succeeds purely for the little guys who may benefit from that.

I’ve noticed in gaming circles that people are very anti-Epic Games and will take any opposing position no matter the facts.

Epic has been trying to position their own game store as a competitor to Steam. One of the things they have been doing is spending money paying for games to be exclusive to their platform. This is seen as the ultimate evil by gamers who want all of their games in one place (on Steam).

They built the platform.

They maintain the platform.

They promote the platform.

What's arbitrary about that?

It's disingenuous to claim Apple built and promoted the platform by themselves - third party developers are a huge reason behind iOS's success, and the iPhone wouldn't be what it is today if it only had first-party apps.

And? Those third party developers have already been compensated fully based on the terms they agreed to when they contributed to the platform. Apple owes them nothing at this point. Obviously it is probably in Apple's best interest to treat them fairly, but that is up to Apple to decide.

And to respond to GP. This has nothing to do with "bootlicking". The same thing should apply regardless of the company.

They're leveraging their control of a defacto standard platform to steer business.

Android existing doesn't invalidate this claim.

Exactly: a market duopoly doesn't mean they don't have disproportionate control over consumer choices especially when there are feature and ecosystem differences between the platforms.

Perhaps vindictive, heavy handed, preferential, and self serving are more accurate terms to their app store curation?

I paid for my phone.

I can do whatever I want with my phone.

I don't require someone to tell me I'm not allowed to install or provide app X because someone somewhere doesn't like the idea of two consenting parties making an app transaction.

I don't understand this line of reasoning. Just because you paid someone doesn't mean they are obligated to write software to allow you to do something with the thing you bought. If the thing you bought doesn't do what you want it to do, then buy a different thing that lets you do what you want. And in this case there are literally thousands of other phones you can buy.

> doesn't mean they are obligated to write software to allow you

Apple literally doesn't have to write any software! All we're asking is for Apple to remove the software they've written that intentionally blocks any other software from working!

Android has a checkbox to install apps from any source. Hardly anyone even knows about its existence, but it means that we don't have to have a black market for phones with a given app installed (context: iPhones with Fortnite already installed were being sold for 2k+ per pop on eBay when the app was blocked).

Yeah but you knew that's how it worked when you bought the phone. If you didn't like the app store model you could have bought an android right?

They control the distribution channels of a general computing platform at their whim.

They push their own services like Apple Music by having pre installed apps, free app store placement, not having to pay the 30% cut over other competitors like Spotify. In a low margin business that is live or die.

They force a browser like Firefox to not have its own engine as well.

Looks quite anti competitive to me.

No, apple but the platform in the literal sense.

The platform was built by every consumer, app devs, hardware vendors, and many others.

These players of the platform voluntarily cooperate with apple, and allow apple the oversized power, because the economic values of doing that is higher than other behaviors.

There isn't a moral high ground for apple, nor a particularly outsized contribution by apple considering their profit from the platform.

What you said is so superficial that it does not even refer to the right topic.

When you build a platform and it becomes so successful that it forms part of the foundation for an entire society's technological existence, you lose the privilege of arbitrarily controlling that platform. Electricity companies don't get to skim 30% off of the revenue of any factory that makes widgets using the electricity company's electricity. Cell phone carriers don't get to skim 30% off of any orders placed over their networks. Apple shouldn't be able to skim 30% off of every transaction that happens to be made on an iOS device. I don't give a damn about esoteric arguments about Apple being a "private company" or whatever: it's unacceptable for society to pay a 30% tax to Apple on a big chunk of the economic activity of an entire society. No taxation without representation, right?

Epic might be painted in a bad light because they’re 40% Tencent owned, and they happen to purposely get banned and sue Apple (in a PR campaign style) shortly after Trump sign an executive order targeting Tencent’s WeChat.

Or people might enjoy being able to use a device without having to worry about viruses and whatnot.. a problem plaguing Windows and slowly starting to affect many Android users as well. And while they might feel comfortable being able to avoid such viruses themselves, then they likely have friends and family that will suffer from it (you might think it’s easy not to install a different App Store, just like you might think it’s easy not to click on phishing links in your mailbox.. but it unfortunately isn’t easy for the average user).

Or people might worry about losing all sorts of privacy as a result of the Apple being forced to open up various parts of their system.

Honestly, what is the difference between the App Store and Target? Why should a third party (or court) have any control in what the retailer sells?

Because you don't have switching costs if you want to shop at another retailer than Target, at any time.

Were you not aware of this fact when you chose iPhone over Android?

Why would that even matter? People's opinions can change over time.

Of course they can. But he is -not- saying he is denied the right to change his opinion:

"Because you don't have switching costs if you want to shop at another retailer than Target, at any time."

But this should not be a surprise to an Apple customer. This is a 'feature' of Apple products.

Android isn't much better in this regard. There is realistic choice of two smartphone operating system vendors, both of which exercise total and random control over their stores. If you look at the frontpage of HN today, several fediverse apps were just thrown off the Google Play store, so it's a choice between pest and cholera

Being aware of it doesn't mean it was your preference. What if you want an iPhone for the hardware and bought it in spite of rather than because of Apple's restrictions on third party apps?

Moreover, the app you want may not have existed when you bought your first iPhone and became locked into the platform. Or it may have been on the iOS app store at that time and was subsequently removed.

I wasn’t aware that Apple would remove an extremely popular app from the app store without giving users any option to continue using it, no.

I’m not particularly invested in Fortnite, but if Apple removes one of my favorite apps I’m going to get really cranky at any friend that suggests that I should have planned ahead for what to do if the app dev and the phone maker got in fight years after I bought my phone.

You don't need Target to get your stuff. You can just buy somewhere else. Try that on iOS.

This would be like if there were one single store on the planet and if they don't want to sell your shit everyone just says, "That's their right, shouldn't have gotten into the business of selling things."

But there are 2 stores, and you make the choice of packaging for one or the other. You can also make your own store, if you want. (In this analogy, that is. You cannot make a store inside a store, that’d be silly.)

Basically, you can still sell on Android, or, make your own phone/mobile operating system?

> a store inside a store

Shopping malls owned by supermarket companies do exactly that. A hypermarket in the centre, owned by the supermarket company itself, and hundreds of smaller stores around, operated by others in the same building.

Target doesn't have exclusive rights to control the the way I accessorize products I buy from them.

What happens when Target is the only store that 13.5% of the population can access? What happens if it become 25%? 50%? 100%? At what threshold is it proper to put in restrictions on Target?

My understanding is that Walmart is effectively the only retailer in many rural areas of the US (Though I don't know about specific statistics).

This is true, and perhaps consumers in those areas should have more control over the choices that business provides. National corporations with local monopolies are often the least critiqued anti-consumer actor.

They shouldn't, but it's not about that. Apple can sell whatever they like or don't on the Apple Store, that's fine. The problem is that they sell consumers a "general computing" device, and then enforcing that every single transaction on said device goes through them. They are not only processing those transactions, not only taking a cut, but also deciding which ones are ok and which ones aren't. Meaning, that if you and me wanted to do business together selling iOS apps, we would need to get blessing from apple. The argument here is that maybe it shouldn't be like this. After all, we don't need to ask Microsoft for permission for the same thing, and on Android if I don't like the rules established by Google, I can put my app on the Amazon store, one of the many 3rd party ones, or just send my customers the .apk directly - Google cannot stop two parties from conducting business, they can merely offer a convenient alternative that involves google getting a cut. Of course apple will respond with argument that this tight control is beneficial to customers - and they are welcome to make such argument.

We tried that with Windows Mobile, xda-developers and cab files before. It didn’t work.

So there should be a law that says any computing device must be free to load any software? So PS4 must play XBox games? Printers must accept any ink cartridge? Apple Watch should allow any android app? What’s the distinction? (I’m not trying to be obtuse). I buy iPhone specifically for the walled garden. I don’t want to have to worry about malware etc like I do on my PCs/MacBook.

And again—-going back to the Walmart/Target analogy, if you wanted to enter into a business deal with a third party in a Walmart, Walmart would demand a cut too.

>>So there should be a law that says any computing device must be free to load any software?

No, that's not what I said. I said general computing device. For a lot of people nowadays, their phone or tablet is the only computing device they have. The argument here is that Apple is stopping two sides from engaging in a fully legal business transaction. Epic wants to sell you their game, you want to buy that game. The fact that it's running on a device manufactured by Apple is only tangential here - Apple should have the freedom to run their app store however they see fit, but Epic's argument is that they shouldn't be a gatekeeper to allowing and purchasing applications on their devices, because that stifles competition and innovation on the market(which the government is trying to protect). I think it's really well explained here[0]

It's as if Nescafe tried to forbid anyone from making capsules that work in their machines - their argument could be the same, we made the machine, our capsules guarantee correct operation and quality standard, therefore our machines shouldn't work with anything else. And yet....it would be illegal for them to do so, just like it is illegal for a car manufacturer to forbid you from using 3rd party replacement parts. They can void your warranty, sure, but they legally cannot forbid you from fitting 3rd party replacements. But it's about freedom of choice - if you want to buy original Mercedes parts, you can. If you only want to buy apps vetted and approved by apple - you can.

>> I buy iPhone specifically for the walled garden. I don’t want to have to worry about malware etc like I do on my PCs/MacBook.

Literally no one wants to take this away from you. If you want to only install apps from the App Store that have gone through apple's approval process - please continue to do so.

>>So PS4 must play XBox games? Printers must accept any ink cartridge? Apple Watch should allow any android app? What’s the distinction?

The distinction isn't that everything should be compatible with everything. Just that anyone should be allowed to make software for anything, which the platform holders are trying to forbid. Apple is just the first one - but I'd hope that eventually the same argument will be made against Microsoft and Sony and yes, you will be allowed to make a game for PS4/Xbox without having to explicitly ask those companies for approval. The example with the printer is an interesting one, because like I mentioned earlier - manufacturers cannot forbid you from neither making replacement cartridges for their printers, nor from you using them. The ability to do so for hardware has been enshrined in law for a long time. Why not for software?

[0] https://stratechery.com/2020/rethinking-the-app-store/

For your analogy to make sense we would have to have alternative stores to buy iOS apps from.

If target was the only store in the world it should not be able to set itself whatever profit margin it wants..

Target might exist alongside several other competing retailers on the same block. The friction for a customer to leave and shop at a competing retailer is low. To extend this analogy, The Apple store exists in a company town, and the friction for a customer to leave 'Appletown' shop at competing retailers in 'AndroidLand' is intentionally as high as possible [1].

This is not an argument as for what (if any) kind of control third parties should have over the App Store as retailer, it's an argument for why this current arrangement is exploitative, and not analogous to conventional retail platforms like Target.

[1] - https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/30/internal-emails-show-how-an-a...

iPhones exist right next Android phones in every carrier store. The only place you will see that exclusively sells iPhones are Apple stores.

That doesn't have much bearing on the cost of switching considering most of that friction is borne of investment into a particular platform and the intentional difficulty in migrating to another platform. This is the central caveat of walled gardens, the walls do not only serve to keep unwanted things outside, they also serve to keep you inside.

The analogy to a company town is apt. When you embarked for a town, both AndroidLand and Appletown were the same distance away, but now that you have settled down the prospect of migrating outside is considerably more difficult.

What high cost of switching? There are hardly any popular iOS only apps or popular apps that people paid for instead of buying a subscription that works cross platform.

As far as media that you bought, music that you bought on iTunes has been DRM free for almost a decade.

Even with movies, you can blame the lock in on the studios that don’t participate in “Movies Anywhere”. Any movie from the participating studios that you buy on Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, or iTunes is automatically considered purchased on the other platforms.

Most of the money being spent on the App Store are from in app consumables.

You lost me. I just switched carriers from T-Mobile to ATT last week. I had an easy chance to switch to Android (I didn’t) but the cost to me would have been close to nil—other than time. All my apps are agnostic to iOS/Android (same for the 3 other people on my family plan). So just like I’d have to spend time learning the Layout of a Walmart if I left target, I’d have time costs to switch to Android.

And the example you gave of the Kindle still doesn’t make me question the App Store market: if kindle had a kiosk in a target to sell ebooks, I bet target would demand a cut too.

If what you’re after is data portability then solve for that. I’d rather have a law that covers all digital companies rather than devolve the App Store into some unregulated flee market.

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