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Comment by bluecalm | Hacker News Reader

You could still live in your walled garden if Epic wins. You would just get an additional option of using another garden if you prefer. This is unlike your examples where choices made (strip joints, what goes into the yard etc.) influence surroundings and life quality of others.

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I imagine people that want only the walled garden prefer their isn’t an alternative because chances are some publishers will just stop publishing within the walled garden.

Well exactly! And the people who would complain the loudest are the ones here saying they like Apple's curation, want the 30% Apple tax and if developers don't want to pay it can go elsewhere. Then the developers could say, if you want our content come and get it, otherwise stop your compaining, if there were enough of you without apple forcing it, we'd pay the tax to reach you.

Isn't that exactly what's going on already though? There is an alternative, it's called android. Epic has their software on many other platforms, but apparently there are enough people choosing to buy iOS that they felt it was worth paying the "tax" to reach them. Now they're complaining that they're paying the tax to reach the people they wanted to reach. After all, it's not like Apple is forcibly cramming iPhones into consumers hands and preventing them from going anywhere else. iPhones are as or more expensive than high end android devices, they come with well known limitations. Any price sensitive consumer should be (all else being equal) buying android devices where they could play all the fortnite they wanted and Epic could sell without paying any Apple "tax". And yet here we are. Apparently enough consumers prefer the Apple way that despite the abundance of lower cost options, they're still buying iPhones. So what is the fundamental difference between paying the tax because users have chosen iPhones and paying the tax because users have chosen the "Official iPhone Store" in some alternate reality?

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