That's simply not what occurred, here. Nobody at Apple blithely decided randomly one day that they "didn't like" Epic.
Epic violated the terms of their agreement with Apple. It's as simple as that. Now yes, there has been a shitstorm of other conflict rising out of that, but on a fundamental level, Epic decided to blatantly violate a contract. That's what happened.
> That's simply not what occurred, here. Nobody at Apple blithely decided randomly one day that they "didn't like" Epic.
This was a response to an anecdote from a user working for a company that isn't Epic, a company that was punished by Apple for an arbitrary reason. As a result, they couldn't use their in-house apps on the hardware they purchased because of Apple's decision. According to that user, that decidedly did occur.
There is plenty of evidence from developers all over the internet, and even here on HN, of Apple arbitrarily removing apps from their iOS and Mac App Stores, and of Apple arbitrarily enforcing rules.
I think an aspect that is missing in our discussion is that not every company had to openly fight Apple. Netflix for instance got their deal without drama. From the court docs Epic and Apple were also negociating but it didn’t work well.
What I am saying is there is no “simple as that” way to look at it, and things could have gone way differently, even if Epic didn’t budge on getting rid of the 30%. In an alternative world Epic and Apple would have inked a deal at a lower revenue share and it would be over. Just like how Epic and Sony had a standoff regarding crossplay that got resolved without titanic lawsuits.
How are startups supposed to break into a market where they will always have to pay Apple 30% until they reach an incredible scale, and established players will have this huge advantage with Apple in addition to all their other advantages.
Every large company gets better deals on everything than small companies. Try manufacturing anything where you have small tub rates? Do you think startups get the same deals from the cloud providers as the big companies with multi million dollar spends?
Do you think no name artists get the same deals as Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?
Really? The world where you get discounts based on volume? That’s the world as it has existed forever. Do you want to now have a law passed where no company is allowed to offer bulk discounts?
I also can’t get the same component discounts if I opened up “Scarface’s PC Shop” to build and sell PCs that Dell gets.
Musicians - the stars that sell more songs get much better contracts than newly discovered singers.
Authors - Steven King gets a much better deal from publishers than a new author.
Game publishers - big game publishers get much better deals from console makers than indy developers. Even Epic got much better support from Apple than indy developers. Do you think I could get Sony to make a “Scarface Edition” of the PlayStation?
Software developers - almost every software company makes special deals with large enterprises.
Cloud Providers - I’m assuming Azure and GCP make special deals with large enterprises. I’m not going to say one way or the other about Amazon since I work at AWS (but nowhere near sales).
Every single one of your examples the creator could self publish. Apple apps you are forced to use their services, and you have to pay for the privilege
The problem with your assertion is that it postulates that the winner got to where they are based on a truly level playing field.
Thats not even close to the truth.
To cite high level examples, amazon got to where they are by exploiting loopholes in sales taxes that they dodged for decades and taking advantage of USPS subsidies. And later taking advantage of international rate subsisides.
Virgin got huge by literally selling records with no stamp tax.
Im not fully versed in apples track record, but im willing to bet apple likely exploited labor laws, political favors, corporate liability shield rules, pollution externalities etc that are not available to smaller players.
There are very few megacorps that can stay by claiming to have a superior product and not much else.
Since unfortunately we cannot make political contributions dissappear, not eliminate all regulations that distort a truly level field...then we created antitrust..which yes is unfair and also against freedom of association but as i explained is necessary for a free society to maintain some semblance of equal opportunity.
Everything big must by definition come crashing down.
This is what happens in nature. Regs are allowing dinosaurs to live.
If you are not coming back down the rules need to kick in to do so. Kill dinosaurs.
> We're talking about creative and innovative creations here. Not grocery products.
As if giving better prices with the expectations of higher volume wasn’t the standard in “creative” industries. Obviously it is.
How much have “small players” benefited in other “creative” industries? Do you really think the 30% cut is the only thing stopping indy developers from being successful in the iOS App Store? If that’s the case there should be plenty of Indy developers with successful products on Android. Where are they?
There is no money selling apps on the App Store anymore. Most of the money is coming indirectly from services (where Apple doesn’t get a cut) and play to win games with in app purchases. The other money is coming from ad supported apps and games where Apple doesn’t get a cut.
Apple carved out a special ‘reader apps’ category for Netflix and other providers to bypass the standard restrictions of needing to implement all digital payment in-app.
Where’s the part where Apple didn’t decide they don’t like Epic? Whether or not Epic’s actions were the catalyst for that decision (and I agree, they were) is irrelevant to GP’s point.
What does that even mean? Of course Epic's actions being the catalyst is relevant. It's the whole reason this is even happening. Are you trying to imply that Epic's actions are irrelevant, but "Apple just plain not liking Epic" is? When you make a claim that Apple is doing this just because they don't like Epic, you have the burden of proof for that claim, and you can't just flip that around with "where’s the part where Apple didn’t decide they don’t like Epic".
That's simply not what occurred, here. Nobody at Apple blithely decided randomly one day that they "didn't like" Epic.
Epic violated the terms of their agreement with Apple. It's as simple as that. Now yes, there has been a shitstorm of other conflict rising out of that, but on a fundamental level, Epic decided to blatantly violate a contract. That's what happened.