
Apple: We Won’t Make an Exception (Fortnite) - maydemir
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/17/21373108/apple-response-epic-app-store-fortnite-lawsuit
======
geoelectric
So now Apple has tied together access to iOS, MacOS, TVOS, WatchOS, and Safari
extensions (think those are all covered under the same dev agreement) in a
decision over App Store commission on iOS. I suspect terminating the dev
agreement might terminate the "publisher account," too--it's possible Epic
apps won't even be findable in Purchases.

I realize Epic is hardly a sympathetic company in this to many gamers, and
their motives are pure profit and control of their own cash cow platform. That
said, Apple is demonstrating about as much bundled-product market control as a
company possibly can. They're preventing access to a whole ecosystem over a
single product, and they can't even argue their ecosystem is vertical since
individual TVOS and iPad devices can run without phones. Sure, Epic isn't _on_
TVOS yet, but they could be...but only if Apple likes what they do on iPhone.

 _IF_ Apple is dominant enough to be subject to Clayton Act controls, this
sort of cross-product behavior will most certainly prompt that scrutiny. The
fact that the developer program is a "single product" backing them is
irrelevant when the consumer products are separate. Epic is making a bold
move, but I think it's a very well-timed one.

~~~
catmistake
> Apple is demonstrating about as much bundled-product market control

I see this sort of sentiment everywhere. There seems to be a mass delusion
occurring. The AppStore is not it's own economic market. It is just one member
of many in the actual economic market.

The WalMart down the road from you is not an economic market. It is just a
store, one implementation of the entity that is Walmart. But even taking every
WalMart together, you do not have an economic market. It is just a store. One
store. What economic market is WalMart in? This one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_hypermark...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_hypermarkets&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop)

AppStore is just a store, one of many many implementations of a package
management system, with retail sales and free apps. The economic market
includes AppStore, Google Play Store, LG SmartWorld, Huawei App Store, Sony
Apps, Amazon AppStore, Aptoide, F-Droid, GetJar, AC Market, SlideME, Uptodown
Market, Itch.io, Cydia, neXva, Bemodi, AppBrain, 1Mobile, Appolicious,
Kongregate, and AppLand collectively all together. And far more than that is
included in the actual economic market:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_package_manag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_package_management_systems)

Apple has many many competitors in both hardware and software. There is no
such thing as "the Apple economic market," or "the AppStore economic market."

~~~
jamesboehmer
> The AppStore is not it's own economic market. It is just one member of many
> in the actual economic market.

Let's be realistic here. Iphone users don't have a choice of app stores, and
the useful android options have a high technical barrier to entry. That's not
a market, that's an oligopoly.

It's like ISPs that gouge content providers for carriage costs, and then
customers for throughput and limits. You can't snap your fingers and make
competition appear, so you regulate the players to prevent abuse and protect
the consumer.

~~~
catmistake
> Let's be realistic here. Iphone users don't have a choice of app stores, and
> the useful android options have a high technical barrier to entry. That's
> not a market, that's an oligopoly.

Let's be realistic here. FreeBSD users don't have a choice of package
managers. It's pretty much PKG or nothing.

So what? Choice does not define an economic market. Competition does. Can't
use Apple's AppStore on Android! Google is a monopoly!

These details do not matter. You have a choice. You want iPhone, you're stuck
with AppStore. You want Android? You're stuck with PlayStore. You want
FreeBSD? You're stuck with PKG. It has always been this way. Linux proper
gives a few choices, probably dozens. macOS has the Mac AppStore, but also can
use MacPorts, Brew, you can even use pkgsrc if you want. iOS is maintained as
a walled garden for security. And, you can still jailbreak it and use Cydia.

Apple is doing nothing wrong, protecting their IP and their walled garden.
Don't like it? Go elsewhere. Epic is acting like an infant, and chewing off
their own foot while they do it. It is all absolutely absurd. What a waste of
resources. At least the lawyers are happy.

~~~
nix23
>FreeBSD users don't have a choice of package managers.

A package manager is NOT the same as a company controlled Marketplace, i can
intergrate my own apps, build my own ports, use python-virtenv with pip, Rust
with cargo and so on...and the best thing, FreeBSD has no controll over what i
have on my computer...and that's good.

~~~
catmistake
AppStore is not a speadsheet or a word processor. It is not a graphics editor
or text editor. It is a package manager. That is the kind of software it is.
AppStore "automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and
removing computer programs for a computer's operating system in a consistent
manner." That is its type. That it sells things does not change the fact that
it is a package manager.

Many are hedging words, confusing a market, where you might purchase bananas
and soda, with an economic market, AppStore is strictly not an economic
market, i.e. not distinctly "a composition of systems, institutions,
procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in
exchange." AppStore is in an economic market, the market of package managers
for handheld devices.

You can't force MacPorts to accept your software. The maintainers and regents
of MacPorts are pretty reasonable, but if you develop software that locates
children for sexual abuse, you're probably not going to be allowed to
distribute your software with MacPorts.

In kind, if you violate the terms of Apple's developer agreement, which you
must agree to before you can even download their developer tools, Apple has
the absolute right to ban you from distributing software in Apple's (it
belongs to no one else) AppStore. It is not anti-trust behavior. It is written
policy.

~~~
nix23
>AppStore is not a speadsheet or a word processor.

True, it's a marketplace.

>where you might purchase bananas and soda

No, you buy apps (maybe buy banans over the app)

>You can't force MacPorts to accept your software

Thats their projekt and they can accept whatever they want.

>if you violate the terms of Apple's developer agreement

The marketplace owner to be correct ;)

------
JMTQp8lwXL
The more big players Apple pushes off its platform, the weaker the network
effects are.

The 30% rule only applying to digital products is arbitrary and capricious.

