The App Store is NOT just another business, Even Walmart and Costco have far more competitors than does the App Store. The app store is the ONLY choice for people with iPhones. The only quasi alternative here would be an Android App Store. Are those very similar choices ? Practically every Apple lover here would argue “no, the Apple experience is far superior”. This is much different than being able to buy the very same identical TV at a large number of different retailers, as some have suggested.
The ultimate goal of capitalism is to become so successful, as to destroy the free market by eliminating and preventing all competition. Let that sink in because most people can’t grasp that at first, Once again, the end goal of capitalism is to destroy free markets, and create an all powerful, monopoly or all powerful, duopoly. That destroys consumer choice, which is the very goal of a free market, People often assume capitalism and free markets go hand in hand, and generally they do.... until a business grows so big that it is no longer subject to competition because it can or has effectively destroyed it,
That’s the very point of anti-trust law. To prevent the destruction of free markets,
There is a price to be paid for total success and rightly so. Once a company becomes so successful that it has essentially destroyed competition, the checks and balances of a free market are destroyed. Either the company is forcibly broken up in a way that restores a level of free market control or it becomes subject to regulations as a substitute for the loss of free market checks and balances.
is the App Store a monopoly or even just a duopoly? The argument for the latter is strong, and for the latter is almost certain,
The real question here is do you support free markets, defined as markets that encourage healthy competition for the benefit of consumers ? If so, you can’t argue that Apple should be allowed to do whatever it wants, because Apple created the App Store. As you cheer on Apple becoming a 2 trillion dollar company, remember that you are also cheering the end of a truly functional free market for mobile apps.
The United States has become a poster child for massive inequality in developed countries and is getting worse. That “American Dream” that is all but gone, was strong after world war 2. The reason the American dream was reborn was the Sherman Act.... powerful anti trust law that broke up large corporate Robber Barons, like Rockefeller. Forcing the breakup of too large and powerful corporations after world war 2 is what brought back the American dream and decades of shared prosperity.
So the larger question here is do you want to worship the control of monopolistic corporations that have grown to destroy free markets, or do you want to see the American dream restored, where the free market ensures maximum productivity and a fair chance for everyone to share in that prosperity ?
"The app store is the ONLY choice for people with iPhones." . . . . . . You miss or ignore the point that using an iPhone is the user's choice to make. People are not compelled to use an iPhone. Go Android! I choose an iPhone because I want a walled in app store that preserves the security of my device. I have never, and likely will never "game" on my phone. To have a gamer company compromise my phone's security is not right.
Hopefully Apple will be hit with severe sanctions for filing this frivolous action. This may even qualify for California's SLAPP law because it's such an egregious and obvious attempt to silence Epic (and ultimately the rest of us).
This isn't really about Epic.
This is about MY right to install any software of MY choice on MY iPhone.
NOT Apple's iPhone. MY iPhone. Apple sold it to me, it's not Apple's any more. And Apple is illegally denying me the right to run software of my choice on MY iPhone.
You should not have gotten an iPhone in the first place. Go Android, be happy!
dpkroh said: Uninformed opinions? Well I realize that with just 6 years of top university business education I probably know less about capitalism and free markets than most people here like yourself. But I thought I would at least give it the old college try. Ya gotta admire my courage right?
If Epic wins, it will turn Apple's App Store into the wild-west, malware-ridden infestation that is Android. I can't believe that anyone, including the government can force any company to open their all-in-one product to allow other companies free reign.
This is not anything remotely similar to what Microsoft did with Windows. Microsoft owned the software, but not the hardware that vendors were loading the OS onto. Microsoft was forcing PC makers to submit to its will. The iPhone is owned and made by Apple, for Apple. It's a toaster. Critics can say whatever they will to suit their narrative, but when it comes down to it, this is Apple's exclusive product and it can do whatever it wants with it.
I'm embarrassed to be a developer, with these crybabies feeling entitled to barge into someone else's house and give orders.
The iPhone is owned by the person who buys it.
Yep. But the OS is owned by Apple.
It’s not the iPhone App Store. It’s the iOS App Store.
Hopefully Apple will be hit with severe sanctions for filing this frivolous action. This may even qualify for California's SLAPP law because it's such an egregious and obvious attempt to silence Epic (and ultimately the rest of us).
This isn't really about Epic.
This is about MY right to install any software of MY choice on MY iPhone.
NOT Apple's iPhone. MY iPhone. Apple sold it to me, it's not Apple's any more. And Apple is illegally denying me the right to run software of my choice on MY iPhone.
Sure. Your iPhone, but Apple’s OS - APPLE’s intellectual property (IP) that you do NOT own but are granted a license to use under certain conditions. Apple have every right to tell you what you can and can’t do with their IP.
And it goes further than that. Some of the hardware includes their IP and you are not sold that to own you are sold a license to use that, conditionally, as with the software.
If we strip out all of Apple’s IP that you don’t own from YOUR iPhone I’m not sure what can be done with what’s left. Probably not much more than a broken toaster can do.
If you can figure out how to install whatever you want on the parts of it that you do own, then have at it. But you need to get your head out of your ass and see reality instead of this fantasy that Apple’s intellectual property is yours.
Edit: spelling and grammar.
Edit 2: So I wrote the above before I read a bazillion replies from others saying similar things, including a couple saying things like “For the hundredth time...”. I’m very cautious about calling people names etc but clearly you’re either a complete idi... err... not the sharpest tool in the shed... or a troll. Seriously... what has to happen for you (and others) touting this “it’s my phone” BS to wake up to reality?
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It says more or less what we’d expect.
And it goes further than that. Some of the hardware includes their IP and you are not sold that to own you are sold a license to use that, conditionally, as with the software.
If you can figure out how to install whatever you want on the parts of it that you do own, then have at it. But you need to get your head out of your ass and see reality instead of this fantasy that Apple’s intellectual property is yours.