Bennet

I see your point. I also thought about this. But while trying to build me the mental model for this, I run into a problem. When the market is smartphones, than this market seamed weirdly split. Where obviously users on the iOS side of things can not access Android App and users on the Android side of things are unable to access iOS apps. I don't want to say, that this is the thing or a thing that needs to change. So I was unsure whether in this split case it could still be considered a market. In retrospect, considering how complicated economics is, probably. But it was easier (for me) considering it as separate markets with a coherent set of customers/users buying apps for their devices. This is probably also how Epic sees the things and how they want other to see it. I don't know I'm neither a business administration guy nor I'm a lawyer, So I will relativize what I said about the market situation. If it is one single smartphone market than Epic is walking on very thin ice here and if not than they are right and Apple is in trouble. Time will tell. But I will stand by the things I said about security. Which I know is irrelevant in the current context, but just to summarize my opinion. Edit & PS: And I appreciate, you took the time formulating a proper explanation and not just yelling that it is nonsense.

... I think I said every thing I have to say. We will see how it will end up

They are creating dominance by forcing potential developers through their shop to potential customers inside this market. Again if Apple would be ordering the apps from the develops and the apps being created on apples behalf, than apple would be fine. But no they said, you are free to develop what ever app you want and you can sell it to the customers in this market. BUT only through our shop. It is different to the Microsoft thing, but still anti-competitive.

I Agree, comparing Apple with the Microsoft case is missing a point. Because what Apple does is different but probably also anti-competitive. And I also agree that what Google does is far more similar to what Microsoft did. But what the Microsoft case shows is, that regulators are not shy fighting anti-competitive behavior in the tech-industry. And the Microsoft and Apple things are at least remotely related to each other. Again I think this is the wrong analogy for the Apple case. It might be some what applicable for the Microsoft case, but as you said the cases are different. And I think the analogy is wrong for Apple because there is no market with coca cola six-packs. No one was ever able and will be ever able to sell beverages through coca cola six packs. The analogy would be a shop forcing the producer to sell extensions to a product with the payment system of set shop charging the customer a 30% higher price than necessary. And this analogy also misses the the point slightly. Again Microsoft case and Apple case different. And no one says Google and Apple should have defunct stubs for their stores on each others OSs. No Google has no intensive, to bring it's shop to iOS and Apple has no intensive to bring it's shop to Android. But Epic for example has the intensive to bring a shop to iOS and a shop to Android. And in fair markets they should be allowed to that. The preference of the customer is not really the point here. As I described many times before, I consider iOS Devices as a separate market. And as a customer you always have the option to enter a market or not. But just because you have this choice doesn't the market can't have a monopoly, if this would be the case than no monopolies would exist at all. But if you decide to enter the market, you should be able expect fair pricing and fair treatment. Which can happen in a monopoly, but does not here. And that Apple does not sell iOS on non Apple devices and does not offer it's App Store on non iOS devices has nothing to do with this. Because it is obviously in their right to do so. But the other way around should probably not be limited either. If another vendor would choose bring it's store to iOS, why should he be allowed to do it too (because the is a market here). But other OSs on iPhones also do not matter because this would be outside the boundaries of the market and there was never a market to begin with, because you never could (/were supposed to) develop OSs for iPhones.

And because it is vertically integrated it means it can be anti-competetive and law does not apply? Or what is the message? And if there are no others, where do the apps come from?

I don't think giving them a blank permit do anything they want because "it is theirs" is good reasoning. They got other involved and this always complicates things. Because as it currently is, developers are not creating App on behalf of Apple, with Apple than selling the App to it's customers. If would be like this than Apple would be perfectly fine in what they are doing, because the Apps would be created on Apples behalf according to a specification book by Apple. But is isn't like this, because this wouldn't probably work very well, No they let others develop what ever they want for these devices, giving them the ability to sell it for these devices. So all the sudden we have producers, sellers (a seller) and paying customers, which constitutes in my mind a market. And in a market, by law, not everyone can to want they want, probably even if it is based on their IP. But it is ok that you don't agree. At the end we will see how it plays out. Cheers.

Have you read the posts below?

Mh I don't know, I think they do care. At least a little. Warnings about "installing apps from untrusted sources" got more and more over the years, were you need to take more and more steps to install it anyway. But I think sideloading is such an integral part of Android that they can't just shut it off, because the outrage would be massive. But pre-installing another store alongside the usual google services, seamed to be one step to far for them.

Of cause Google has a monopoly with the PlayStore too. Which with the whole OnePlus EpicStore thing could be considered even more monopolistic. And it is not like they aren't sued too. But media concentrates more on Apple because they tent to leverage more strict and publicly effective actions. And yes they breached the terms of service. But they are not exactly negotiable and what better to raise awareness like this... And again as described in my privious post, it's there own devices but a market emerged there, so they can't just do what they want... Apple the OS maker and Apple the service provider should be as separate as Epic the creator of fortnite and Epic the creator of UE or as Microsoft the OS maker and Microsoft the Browser maker...

Of cause Epic has it's own plans and is not the Messiah that came down to save us all. But they still have a point to make here. Because, if I (with my limited knowledge, I have to admit) understand it correctly these platforms can be considered as markets, where the users are the buyes, developers are producers, apps are the goods and Apple (/the platform owner) is the seller. So even tho the platform is their intellectual property, a market emerged from it and rules for markets should apply. But of cause because it is their IP, they are in control over this market, making it a monopoly with the help their TOS and power to enforce it. So now that we have established that they have a monopoly and should allow other sellers to enter the market, we can move on to the security part. Neighter trust nor dependency in Apple gives (Information) security or privacy. The opposite is the case even. On it's very basic level information security (p. 22 f.) has 3 parts: confidentiality, integrity and availability (commonly known as CIA). There is absolutely no reason why no one other than Apple should be able to provide to provide confidentiality, integrity of data (which has nothing to with privacy yet!). And for the availability part; again why shouldn't anyone else be able to provide it, going even further if there is more than one player, than availability is even higher. And all this has nothing to with trust, only the shear ability to fulfill these 3 goals. And now for good measure looking at the privacy part of things. There is no cut and dry definition for privacy but on a very abstract level it is always protecting someone (individual or group) from data (here and here), which boils down to someone is able to choose whom to give which information, at which point in time, about themselves (based on my German sense of privacy with Informational self-determination at it's core). Which could be considered is violated by Apple here. Because besides choosing to not sharing anything at all, there is no option to choose whom to give the data, it is always Apple. Of cause trust has a more important role here. And I will definitely not say that Epic is trustworthy. But if Epic wins this case not only an Epic Store would that be possible on iOS but other Stores from other vendors too. And this would constitute privacy, you would have the option to choose. If you trust Apple, this is fine. Buy from them. You don't trust them, this is fine too, buy somewhere else. And for the people now complaining that this would make to holy platform insecure and prone to hackers and bad actors. Not necessarily. I don't say the be all and end all solution would just allowing willy-nilly sideloading every thing which is not up the tree at 3. No there are certainly other solutions. And some like Apple - as the owner of the platform - certain has the man-power and knowledge to implement something acceptable, without locking to down just allowing services from Apple - as the service provider. I think at this point we really need to distinguish between the platforms and the services. Again Epic is clearly doing this for their own benefit. But whether they intended it or not there is something good in it for all of us. So for them is probably the necessary evil to get this all started

So I think you are mixing some things up here. At First, at least I would argue that by opening up the ability for other to create and sell for and on iOS at all, they essentially created a market here. The iPhone/iOS Market. (So this is pure intuition at this point. I'm not exactly sure about the law). Sure in the grant scheme of things this market this market might not be that large but certainly not insignificant. And by being the gatekeeper to this market, they have a monopoly here. So I think iOS and App Store should be seen as part of one single coherent thing, but rather a shop (in this case the only shop, because monopoly you know...) giving access to the iOS market. Than comparing it with McDonalds would have to sell Burger King Burgers is the wrong analogy, I think. So I think a better real world example would be if you consider your average computer store, e.g. cyberport (this is a electronics shop here in Germany, but replace the name with what ever you can relate) giving a notebook manufacturer, e.g. Lenovo, access to the consumer electronic market (they are certainly not the only one, because there is no monopoly here, but the example will still work). So if cyberport would now act like Apple with the App Store, than there would be a policy like... okay Lenovo you want to sell laptops through us, than every additional purchase by this device for this device, like extended warrenty, would need to be processed through "cyberport pay" (this does not really exsist but yeah it is for the example) were we btw get our 30% cut. And in addition to that you are not allowed to say any where that one could make that purchase any were else for cheaper. Of cause if such policy from cyberport would exist, that manufactures would say f*** you cyberport, than we rather sell through MediaMark (another german consumer electronics store), they also give us access to this consumer electronics market and we are perfectly happy with what MediaMarkt has to offer. But again with the App Store this could never happen because Apple has the monopoly for the iOS market and with out them nobody has access to it. And to come back to the beginning, of cause it's a market they created and it is their OS. But if they had kept it close so no one could had ever developed for it and would never had been insensitivised making money on it, than Apple would be perfectly find and would be allowed to do what they want. That's why McDonald has no Monopoly on Happy Meals because there was never ever the option to buy and sell an King Meal or a KFC Chicken Box at a McDonalds Store. Edit: Btw I also think that same would apply to Sony with the PlayStation Store and Microsoft with the XBox Store and so on. But noboy is complaining about it yet. But in my opinion the same principal would apply.

Yeah, I might had phrased that poorly. In fact I think the industry standard here is kinda questionable. Especially regarding in-app-purchases where the store than only is a glorified payment processor. I don't know weather Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Seam and co. do the same thing here. But it seams like Apple is doing worst here, closely followed by Google which are at least a bit more open about bypassing this. To specify it further I think in the case of the large Game-store platforms for PC and Console, where they have to serve hundreds of gigabytes on behalf of the developer/publisher, I kinda get that they take such a significant cut of the initial purchase. I mean bandwidth and data-storage on this dimension is not exactly cheap. But that Apple and Google do the same for mobile, were the required storage and bandwidth are multiple orders of magnitude smaller is kinda rough... But if it would only effect the initial purchase (or by extent a purchase which unlocks the app later down the line [would need to be better specified], that no one would try to bypass it) and not things which would be value added features beyond the app usage, so where Apple and Google only become the payment processor, than I guess we could be ok with that. And I don't want to imply that they should not take a cut on payment processing, but I think taking "only" a couple percent like PayPal or other payment processors would be way more fair here. But I think as long as they can get through with their current practice, they are far from willing to change it... (Again I don't know how PC and console platform are doing with in-game purchases. But the same opinion would apply) And yeah I guess aggressively forbidding "bad advertisement" about them, is such a dick-move but probably something which they are allowed to do. Dishonest and arrogant but perfectly legal, I guess...

And what about the reduced cut for Amazon with Prime Video? https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348108/apple-amazon-prime-video-app-store-special-treatment-fee-subscriptions

Summary In Facebook's new feature of paid online events (for small and medium sized businesses) they added information about Apple taking a 30% cut for in-app purchases. Apple considered this information irrelevant and blocked the update. Quotes Source: https://www.golem.de/news/facebook-apple-verbietet-hinweis-auf-app-store-gebuehr-2008-150530.html My thoughts So by now it is well know that Apple employs questionable practices, enforcing any purchases going through their in-app-purchases API giving them their 30% cut. So I'm not sure about Facebooks wording, but for me it seam like they only said there is a 30% cut and not necessarily how to bypass it, only being transparent were the money goes. But for Apple first claiming this is irrelevant and than saying irrelevant information are forbidden, sounds for me like they will happily take their cut, not wanting to amid this to their users. Pretending every thing is fine and there is noting to worry about... like it is embarrassing for them against the users?? If they could be at least open and transparent about their god damn practice regarding this... Wouldn't make every thing fine and ok but at least... honest... I guess. But I know this is not something such company like to do... The icing on the cake is, Google would normally also take their 30% cut. But Facebook asked both to do with out the cut for this feature and Google agreed in this case... Sources https://www.golem.de/news/facebook-apple-verbietet-hinweis-auf-app-store-gebuehr-2008-150530.html (also: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-apple-exclusive/exclusive-facebook-says-apple-rejected-its-attempt-to-tell-users-about-app-store-fees-idUSKBN25O042?il=0)

Yeah this is also a problem... But I guess in this department the government is partly to blame too... But at least they try for the most part... I guess... But still far behind where we should be