The day I get to dictate what price I pay to sell stuff on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Poshmark, Walmart, a flea market, etc. to the owners of those marketplaces is the day I side with these developers. Until then they can all take a flying leap.
But this is not something you are buying from amazon, eBay etc. this is an accessory to what you bought from them
Buying v-bucks in fortnite has absolutely nothing to do with apple doesn't go through their servers, doesn’t need to be checked by Apple like apps, requires zero effort from any Apple employee. So what am I paying Apple $3 for when I buy v-bucks? What service am I getting for that?
I believe this to be incorrect. As far as I understand, Apple actually takes care of the payment processing, also for in-app purchases.
The day I get to dictate what price I pay to sell stuff on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Poshmark, Walmart, a flea market, etc. to the owners of those marketplaces is the day I side with these developers. Until then they can all take a flying leap.
But this is not something you are buying from amazon, eBay etc. this is an accessory to what you bought from them
Buying v-bucks in fortnite has absolutely nothing to do with apple doesn't go through their servers, doesn’t need to be checked by Apple like apps, requires zero effort from any Apple employee. So what am I paying Apple $3 for when I buy v-bucks? What service am I getting for that?
I believe this to be incorrect. As far as I understand, Apple actually takes care of the payment processing, also for in-app purchases.
And it's also a question about where the line between "no work" and "all the work" goes… If I release an app that is free, and then to be useful everyone had to buy in-app-bucks, would you still say that Apple should get zero money because it required zero effort?
Side-loading iOS ain't gonna happen and I wouldn't want it to: It's just one more vector for malware.
I hope you’re right. Many seem to have a flawed idea of “choice” these days, where they consider two androids as more choice than android vs. iOS. Consumers will lose.
Kinda gutsy of them to intentionally getting themselves kicked out of the app stores.
Personally I think it's next level stupid and that they will take a huge hit from the fallout of it; but perhaps they know something I don't (maybe some politicians that's promised to support them?), or they simply think that they are too big to fail (ie that the people will rise up against Apple just to get to play Fortnite). Or perhaps their profit and number of players are in free fall and they're desperate for attention?
I’m glad to see they were immediately pulled from the App and Play stores. Good for them. They were provoking Apple and Google by using their market power, cynically. I hope they get whipped in court.
The problem is Apple calling out to Epic to negotiate.
Do small developers get this kind of treatment? They’re stuck with that 30% whereas the big boys might negotiate 15%. Not exactly a level playing field...
The problem is big apps knowing they’re powerful and abusing that power to acquire privileges over smaller developers all while playing the victim. Their goal? More profit.
>If anything happens, more than likely it will involve services that users can subscribe to...
Apple will be forced to allow developers to direct users to their websites where they can then subscribe without going through Apple's payment system. That will be the first step.
Why in the world would Apple agree to this? Would you want to advertise a product to a billion of customers and spend countless dollars on maintaining an app store, all without seeing a cent in return? Why should any company be expected to do this? Lunacy.
From an opinion piece on another Apple fan site there's four possible outcomes and Epic doesn't lose in any of them.
Apple offers a settlement before or during the trial
Epic wins its lawsuit
Epic loses the lawsuit, but antitrust regulators are influenced by it
Nothing changes
The worst that could happen as far as Epic is concerned is that nothing changes. They drop their attempt to bypass the Apple cut, and a few days later they're back in the AppStore. Apple (and Google) would be the ones at risk here.
How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps, as developers could reduce the price of the apps themselves or the price of In App Purchases, something good for the consumer. For the second we got proof that it would be better for the consumer, as the price of V-Bucks was cheaper with the option for directly purchasing the V-Bucks from Epic rather than through Apple's processor. For the third consumers wouldn't be beholden to the App Store. Stadia and Xcloud would be usable on iOS, Much more open source development could occur on iOS because developers wouldn't have to subscribe to a $100 fee to host their apps on the store. Hell, with sideloading we could get app stores that actually show off more than regurgitate the top apps of each category.
Sideloading isn’t a win for consumers, it introduces significant security risks.
How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps...
Sorry, I know it isn’t proper to respond without reading the full post. But I do have to ask: Born yesterday?
While I do think that the percentage number could be up to debate, I have no doubt that, except for limited time discounts, the developer will undoubtedly pocket the extra cash. No app purchase will be a single dime less!
Kinda gutsy of them to intentionally getting themselves kicked out of the app stores.
Personally I think it's next level stupid and that they will take a huge hit from the fallout of it; but perhaps they know something I don't (maybe some politicians that's promised to support them?), or they simply think that they are too big to fail (ie that the people will rise up against Apple just to get to play Fortnite). Or perhaps their profit and number of players are in free fall and they're desperate for attention?
They are not Spotify. Apple isn’t competing with them. That’s the grey area where genuine issues arise. Epic isn’t there. So yes, this is just plain stupid. It will blow up in their face.
>If anything happens, more than likely it will involve services that users can subscribe to...
Apple will be forced to allow developers to direct users to their websites where they can then subscribe without going through Apple's payment system. That will be the first step.
Why in the world would Apple agree to this? Would you want to advertise a product to a billion of customers and spend countless dollars on maintaining an app store, all without seeing a cent in return? Why should any company be expected to do this? Lunacy.
From an opinion piece on another Apple fan site there's four possible outcomes and Epic doesn't lose in any of them.
Apple offers a settlement before or during the trial
Epic wins its lawsuit
Epic loses the lawsuit, but antitrust regulators are influenced by it
Nothing changes
The worst that could happen as far as Epic is concerned is that nothing changes. They drop their attempt to bypass the Apple cut, and a few days later they're back in the AppStore. Apple (and Google) would be the ones at risk here.
Best comment so far IMO. A war is comprised of many battles (some won and some lost) that speak of strategy. As the article states, Epic may well be under no illusions about the outcome of a law suit for this specific battle but the strategy of influencing the court of public appeal may be priceless.
On August 13, Epic, developer of the wildly popular battle-royale game Fortnite, began baiting Apple and Google into legal battles. The game developer is playing a game, and it is a strategic one with all to play for.
It was a calculated move on Epic's part. The CEO, Todd Sweeney, has long been critical of these commission fees. In July, he went on record calling Apple's App Store an "absolute monopoly."
Its Tim Sweeney dammit. Sweeney Todd is Tim burton's movie starring Johnny depp
Found the CEO here folks! Getting mad finding out that they put his name wrong
How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps...
Sorry, I know it isn’t proper to respond without reading the full post. But I do have to ask: Born yesterday?
While I do think that the percentage number could be up to debate, I have no doubt that, except for limited time discounts, the developer will undoubtedly pocket the extra cash. No app purchase will be a single dime less!
Word. It's laughable that Epic is trying to portray themselves as fighting the good fight. They want better margins, end of story.
And it's also a question about where the line between "no work" and "all the work" goes… If I release an app that is free, and then to be useful everyone had to buy in-
app-bucks, would you still say that Apple should get zero money because it required zero effort?
They're hand-delivering the biggest and spendiest user base in the world that they've cultivated in over a three decades of building and seling quality hardware that everyone loves. It's quite the opposite of "zero effort".
>If anything happens, more than likely it will involve services that users can subscribe to...
Apple will be forced to allow developers to direct users to their websites where they can then subscribe without going through Apple's payment system. That will be the first step.
Why in the world would Apple agree to this? Would you want to advertise a product to a billion of customers and spend countless dollars on maintaining an app store, all without seeing a cent in return? Why should any company be expected to do this? Lunacy.
From an opinion piece on another Apple fan site there's four possible outcomes and Epic doesn't lose in any of them.
Apple offers a settlement before or during the trial
Epic wins its lawsuit
Epic loses the lawsuit, but antitrust regulators are influenced by it
Nothing changes
The worst that could happen as far as Epic is concerned is that nothing changes. They drop their attempt to bypass the Apple cut, and a few days later they're back in the AppStore. Apple (and Google) would be the ones at risk here.
3 is two separate things. Epic loses pays cost has damages awarded against them possibly gives Apple the option to cut them off the store.
3b the news story bring political pressure to bear. Which could play badly for Apple ie Antitrust. Equally could bring negative attention to Epic’s business model selling the Emperor's new cloths. 3rd option it plays badly for both when lots of underage kids start whinging and it becomes ever clearer both overlooked age restrictions for profit.
How would consumers not win? Say Epic wins and they get the fee reduced, the ability for direct payments, or more hopefully, we get full sideloading on iOS. For the first situation we could get cheaper apps, as developers could reduce the price of the apps themselves or the price of In App Purchases, something good for the consumer. For the second we got proof that it would be better for the consumer, as the price of V-Bucks was cheaper with the option for directly purchasing the V-Bucks from Epic rather than through Apple's processor. For the third consumers wouldn't be beholden to the App Store. Stadia and Xcloud would be usable on iOS, Much more open source development could occur on iOS because developers wouldn't have to subscribe to a $100 fee to host their apps on the store. Hell, with sideloading we could get app stores that actually show off more than regurgitate the top apps of each category.
Sideloading isn’t a win for consumers, it introduces significant security risks.
I suppose macOS is a security risk then?
iOS and macOS are significantly different. On macOS you can build a whole application without using a single line of code from Apple, this is a full featured standardized UNIX operating system. You cannot do that on iOS, more than half of the code of an app belongs to Apple. Sometimes some curious developers dare to temper with those underlying undocumented and unpublished APIs and learn their lesson from Apple ! So this is not the phone Java of Y2K that makes an iOS app. To sideload an app into iOS you must first get a license from Apple to use that underlying code that you necessarily integrated into your app, and no law or government in the world can force Apple to give that license !
For those who don't want to use any line of code from iOS then there are web applications. Apple obviously do not charge anything for the sites the user browses. Steve Jobs' first insight was web applications and maybe he was right ?! Maybe the AppStore was a mistake and Apple must shut it down and replace the mainstream utility, productivity and entertainment apps with its own branded (or licensed) ones !
It seems all the big guys somehow respect this 30% cut, so they are keeping space for potential competition to enter the market. Apple surely can be price aggressive now when that big, can go to 10% or less cut, yet staying profitable. But competition would be left with no chance to compete with such cut, covering their expenses in the beggining. I’m all for keeping the cut rates as it is. It is okay for me, okay for devs.
You can say like this. Yes, macOS gives you *freedom* to download an app from anywhere, may be injected with malicious programs. Please, don’t say like this, to make us loose this freedom platform. Rather act safe with your Mac.
And it's also a question about where the line between "no work" and "all the work" goes… If I release an app that is free, and then to be useful everyone had to buy in-
app-bucks, would you still say that Apple should get zero money because it required zero effort?
They're hand-delivering the biggest and spendiest user base in the world that they've cultivated in over a three decades of building and seling quality hardware that everyone loves. It's quite the opposite of "zero effort".
Remember when developers used to give Jobs/Cook raucous ovations when they announced at developers conferences the number of iPhone users with registered credit cards that the developers had access too - all ready to spend money, just one click away? Apple made the market and gave developers an avenue to make millions and millions of dollars...
Are people not going to buy an iPhone because of a game? Nope. Parents may buy it specifically because it doesn’t have this stupid game. Short term, it’s messy PR. Med to long term, business as usual.
Comments
- Apple offers a settlement before or during the trial
- Epic wins its lawsuit
- Epic loses the lawsuit, but antitrust regulators are influenced by it
- Nothing changes
The worst that could happen as far as Epic is concerned is that nothing changes. They drop their attempt to bypass the Apple cut, and a few days later they're back in the AppStore. Apple (and Google) would be the ones at risk here.While I do think that the percentage number could be up to debate, I have no doubt that, except for limited time discounts, the developer will undoubtedly pocket the extra cash. No app purchase will be a single dime less!
I’m reminded of Wile E. Coyote.
For those who don't want to use any line of code from iOS then there are web applications. Apple obviously do not charge anything for the sites the user browses. Steve Jobs' first insight was web applications and maybe he was right ?! Maybe the AppStore was a mistake and Apple must shut it down and replace the mainstream utility, productivity and entertainment apps with its own branded (or licensed) ones !