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Comment by ado__dev | Hacker News Reader

But again, you have the choice of not using Epic. You can use Unity, or any other game engine, or even make your own if you're so inclined. With Apple, you don't have a choice if you want to be on iOS (which has close to 60% marketshare in the US).

And I'm not arguing that apple needs to reduce the fee. They can charge whatever they want for their IAP system. But, other companies that have software/services that are cross-platform, should be allowed to use their own payment processors without paying additional fees to apple imo. Apple should be able to put up the message that hey, you're leaving our ecosystem, you're on your own, blah blah. But I don't see a reason why they should also get a cut at that point.

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iOS is not a market segment. Smartphones is the segment and so you do have a choice. The courts have already ruled that Apple doesn't have a monopoly in their segment.

That's not what the courts have been saying lately. iOS app distribution and Android app distribution have both been called relevant markets in recent trails.

I think you're conflating their designation as "markets" because they are marketplaces of apps with the economic term "markets" which has a specific definition for a sector of industry.

no conflation at all. read up on some of the trials for Google and Apple over the last couple years. The anti-trust trials aren't talking about a "super market", they're talking about a relevant market in anti-trust context.

You’re discussing this in the context of a case that deemed that it wasn’t an anti-trust violation because it was determined Apple doesn’t have a monopoly, though. They’re not considered their own markets.

The first half of your claim is false, "iOS app distribution" was not accepted as a valid "relevant market" in the very court case being discussed. But I think you knew that already.

> With Apple, you don't have a choice if you want to be on iOS

And with Epic, you don't have a choice if you want to use the Unreal Engine. How can this argument go on and on and on? All your arguments can be used in reverse with the Apple competitors. Nobody is forced into anything, especially not developers.

releasing on Unity instead of Unreal is similar to releasing on Android instead of iOS

Not especially; if you release on Android but not iOS, the customers that you would have reached on iOS are not reachable. (Except for the people who simultaneously use an iPhone and an Android phone...)

Nothing similar is the case for Unity vs Unreal; the customer base is the same either way.

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