Press F for Fortnite - Apple AND GOOGLE remove Fortnite from the App Store - Epic Sues Apple

[Blade of Grass]

28 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Who will be next? Steam? Nintendo? LOL. 

Apparently Samsung, lol... strange bedfellows

[Donut417]

4 minutes ago, Blade of Grass said:

Apparently Samsung, lol... strange bedfellows

Reminds me when Epic was in the ring with Steam because of how Devs were hyping games on steam and jumping ship to epic after the game launched. Epic seems to have a history of "Doing what they want". 

[harryk]

33 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Do people only have a choice to buy an iPhone? Last I checked there are eleventy billon companies selling Android devices. Do people have to only buy a Mac? No because Windows and Linux exist. People know what they are getting in to before making the purchase. If they are too dumb to do the research, that entirely is the person problem. People know Apple locks their stuff down. IF you dont like that policy then dont buy their products.

I'd also add that jailbreaking is an alternative to the App Store. It may be difficult and not always 'possible', but it's not illegal. There are no restrictions to what you can do with your own device and that includes hacking it. 

[mr moose]

44 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Do people only have a choice to buy an iPhone? Last I checked there are eleventy billon companies selling Android devices. Do people have to only buy a Mac? No because Windows and Linux exist. People know what they are getting in to before making the purchase. If they are too dumb to do the research, that entirely is the person problem. People know Apple locks their stuff down. IF you dont like that policy then dont buy their products. Obviously a lot of people dont care because Apple makes a killing every year. If people didn't like it then they would buy alternative products. Further more, Im sure if Microsoft could lock Windows 10 down to the Windows store they would. But the genie is out of the bottle and they have no way to put it back in. 

You are still missing the point,  A monopoly exist when a company has almost sole control over a product or service.  Apple have absolute control over what software you install on your iphone, that is a monopoly by all legal definitions.  What is being contested is the legality of that monopoly.  Just saying you can go and buy a new phone does not change the monopolistic characteristics.     And this is before we even consider the problem from the developer side,  Apple have absolute control over half the mobile market, so as a developer you have a choice, apples terms and conditions or limit yourself to basically half of the lucrative markets.  Places where android is in extreme dominance are all the the 3rd world countries. market share in those countries means very little if you want any money out of your apps.    With regard to MS, they did try and got sued for having IE preinstalled.  From the very onset they have been held to account,  but that is of little obstruction to the argument,  what apple are doing in the app store is akin to MS only allowing windows software through the windows store.  

 

So again, there is a very good reason apple are being taken to court by many people over this.  It is very indicative of a belief that they are indeed being anti consumer and monopolistic in their endeavors.

 

Quote

The Apple store is like any other store. I know for a fact there have been retailers over the years who have banned different products for different reasons. I know there have been games that we never sold on Steam because of policy. This is the same thing. Apple has a policy, and if Epic wants to sell their stuff they have to follow it. 

There is one crucial difference between the apple app store and google play or steam,  and that is you can make all your in app and service sales external to the stores.   This difference is the key problem being raised in this court case and in all other court cases.  You cannot ignore that difference as if it is of little consequence. EDIT: even if google kick you off, you can still side load, google play is not essential.

 

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Its only a monopoly if there is no alternative. Android exists, that's the Alternative. If that wasn't the case Microsoft would have been screwed long ago, due to its marketshare. Same with Intel and Nvidia. As long as an alternative exists, there is no monopoly. Last I saw Android holds the market share on mobile. So...... 

No alternative to the device you are using,  it's important to understand that having an alternative is not a causal part of a monopoly,  the legal constraints that companies get held to when involving a monopoly are how consumers/users are treated within the confines said companies control.   It is not illegal nor a monopoly to not have an alternative,  it is illegal to use that lack of alternative to your advantage only if it has a negative impact on consumers.    Apple not allowing 3rd parties to sell apps for their Iphone outside of their apps store (with a cost attached to using the store) is a monopolistic practice.    The problem here is also that people think the iphone is a single product on an island that is not part od a larger market.  It is a personal computational device, it is no different than a PC in this regard.  The nature of the product means that apps have to be written differently for it, but that doesn't mean they get to exercise control over who can and who can't.

 

Otherwise you could just argue.

Quote

So moral of the story. You dont like Apple go to Android. 

 

Just saw Google banned them as well. Who will be next? Steam? Nintendo? LOL. 

 

 

 

 

You can still side load it.  Google should be held to account for that.  They have already been found guilty of usig the app store as a monopoly:

 

Because:

 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-did-the-european-commission-fine-google-five-billion-dollars

 

Remember just because you can argue there are alternatives doesn't mean it is not anti consumer and monopolistic.

 

 

[trag1c]

11 hours ago, mark_cameron said:

30% is extortion.

Steam is roughly the same rate unless you're a big swinging dick like Rockstar or Epic where you can negotiate lower royalties. But yes it is basically extortion. Especially since setting up a payment processor is trivial and then your only paying like 0.30USD + 1-3% compared to a flat 30%. Could you imagine opening an ecommerce store on something like shopify and then paying shopify 30% on every sale? You would be out of business before you even started lol. Even 2% can be rough depending on what you're selling.

[Donut417]

28 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Remember just because you can argue there are alternatives doesn't mean it is not anti consumer and monopolistic.

 

We can agree to disagree. 

 

Being that all 3 are American companies. Google and Apple have large wallets and politicians in their pockets. Considering that Anti Trust stuff rarely ever gets invoked in the US. There isn't much of a chance. If Sprint and T Mobile can merge, Apple can take its 30% cut. Because regulators dont care. 

 

[mr moose]

Just now, Donut417 said:

We can agree to disagree. 

 

Being that all 3 are American companies. Google and Apple have large wallets and politicians in their pockets. Considering that Anti Trust stuff rarely ever gets invoked in the US. There isn't much of a chance. If Sprint and T Mobile can merge, Apple can take its 30% cut. Because regulators dont care. 

 

I can agree with that. As sad as it is.  

[Commodus]

While I do think app stores should look at reducing their cut... this is not the way to go about protesting it. It looks childish, and it probably won't accomplish what Epic wants.

 

That and it's a bit rich for Epic to gripe about practices when it routinely pays for exclusives to keep games away from Steam. You can't talk about giving players choice (as Epic has in this case) while you routinely take it away from them.

[mr moose]

Just now, Commodus said:

While I do think app stores should look at reducing their cut... this is not the way to go about protesting it. It looks childish, and it probably won't accomplish what Epic wants.

 

That and it's a bit rich for Epic to gripe about practices when it routinely pays for exclusives to keep games away from Steam. You can't talk about giving players choice (as Epic has in this case) while you routinely take it away from them.

 

I don't think hypocrisy among corporates is a good reason to green light companies being anti consumer.  If no one sues apple then apple keep doing it and we consumers keep getting left with no options. 

 

There are literally only two things stopping me from buying apple,  The way they treat their customers and the way they treat their customers.

 

[Skipple]

Man there are a lot of people defending Apple here. Alright, I'll try and do my best to counter that.

 

I think the core of the issue here is a there are a few factors combined:

1. Apple controls >50% of the phone operating systems in most developed countries. 
2. Apple puts very strict regulations on what is allowed on their app store forcing all payments to go though them.
3. Apple does not allow any applications to be installed on their phones without going through the app store. 

None of these factors are an issue in of themselves, but when combined paint a very compelling story for monopolistic practices. I'm going to leave the first factor alone, I only included that because market control often comes up when defining a monopoly. 

 

I can see the argument for wanting a centralized payment processing for the sake of security and privacy. That really makes sense to me. 

 

But the problem arises that I don't have another option to download anything in another way for this device. I can't side-load another app store. I can't download an app directly from your website. That's all entirely blocked and that's a problem. It's an arbitrary restriction that gives Apple full control over what can and can't be installed on your device. 

 

I'm not saying that apple should be forced to allow applications that violate it's ToS onto it's app store. I do believe they should have sole discretion of what gets allowed and what doesn't. But to not allow another application outside of the app store to be installed into your tight little eco-system is ludicrous to me. 

 

Imagine if Windows did this. "Nope. Nothing outside of the Windows Store is allowed to be installed on Windows machines now in the name of safety." There would be riots in the streets. No one would accept that and rightfully so. Even Apple doesn't go that far with macOS. 

 

On top of that no one is living in such a tight of a bubble where they never leave the apple ecosystem. Everyone has payment methods stored all over the internet on various databases all over the work. To pretend that if apple allowed 3rd parties apps to be installed on their phones and they start processing payments that this would cause a rise in the amount of people getting scammed or having their personal data is ridiculous. We all are doing it anyway. You locking me down here in this one area is not going to make me any safer.

 

Lastly, I see a lot of comparisons to Steam in this thread which is really confusing to me. No one is forcing you to go through stream to purchase a game. No one is forcing a publisher to go through Steam to purchase a game. You're allowed to set up a website and sell it yourself if you so choose. That's the entire problem here. You can't do that on iOS. 

[Commodus]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

I don't think hypocrisy among corporates is a good reason to green light companies being anti consumer.  If no one sues apple then apple keep doing it and we consumers keep getting left with no options. 

 

There are literally only two things stopping me from buying apple,  The way they treat their customers and the way they treat their customers.

 

There's currently an antitrust investigation in the US... if anything's going to lead to change, it's that. A lawsuit only works if Epic has legal standing, and it might not.

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, Commodus said:

There's currently an antitrust investigation in the US... if anything's going to lead to change, it's that. A lawsuit only works if Epic has legal standing, and it might not.

they think they do, many of us think they do.  Like all lawsuits, unfortunately at the end of the day it's more likely to be determined by how hungry the jury is and not the reality of the case.

[Quinnell]

Just now, mr moose said:

they think they do, many of us think they do.  Like all lawsuits, unfortunately at the end of the day it's more likely to be determined by how hungry the jury is and not the reality of the case.

"Take our side in the case.  We have sandwiches."

[Commodus]

2 minutes ago, Skipple said:

Apple controls >50% of the phone operating systems in most developed countries. 

This is explicitly untrue.

 

As a rule, Apple only tends to claim around 50% share in North America, and even then it's not necessarily above that mark. Not in Europe (including the UK), not in Japan, not in Russia, not in most developed countries.

 

7 minutes ago, Skipple said:

• Apple puts very strict regulations on what is allowed on their app store forcing all payments to go though them.
• Apple does not allow any applications to be installed on their phones without going through the app store. 

These are both not quite true.

 

Apple allows payments for physical goods that don't go through them, such as buying socks through Amazon or food from DoorDash. What it doesn't allow are digital purchases through other systems.

 

You can install apps from outside the store if they're part of beta programs, educational deployments or enterprise rollouts. I suspect you weren't counting exceptions like those, but it's important to make this clear.

 

This is what's frustrating about cases like this; people are basing their criticism of Apple on how they perceive the company, not how it actually is. And like it or not, it's not even close to being a monopolist; that doesn't negate concerns about App Store terms, but "it has dominant market share" simply isn't a valid complaint.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Commodus said:

This is explicitly untrue.

 

As a rule, Apple only tends to claim around 50% share in North America, and even then it's not necessarily above that mark. Not in Europe (including the UK), not in Japan, not in Russia, not in most developed countries.

 

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america/

55% according to these guys So while it can still be technically true, the reality is slightly different.  Suffice to say it is only slightly different Not hugely different.   For those interested, 50% is not a threshold for anything, it doesn't hav an intrinsic meaning.

 

2 minutes ago, Commodus said:

These are both not quite true.

 

Apple allows payments for physical goods that don't go through them, such as buying socks through Amazon or food from DoorDash. What it doesn't allow are digital purchases through other systems.

Which seems weird that you can do that but not for digital goods?  I there a difference between a digital good and a material good under consumer law?

2 minutes ago, Commodus said:

You can install apps from outside the store if they're part of beta programs, educational deployments or enterprise rollouts. I suspect you weren't counting exceptions like those, but it's important to make this clear.

I think once you get into that you are moving to edge cases like jailbreaking etc, they do not apply to the general consumer who is the target market and end user in this situation.  If Epic released their app as a corporate or beta app and started taking direct payments apple would shut them down as they have before.  So I think the original statement stands as appropriately accurate.

 

2 minutes ago, Commodus said:

This is what's frustrating about cases like this; people are basing their criticism of Apple on how they perceive the company, not how it actually is. And like it or not, it's not even close to being a monopolist; that doesn't negate concerns about App Store terms, but "it has dominant market share" simply isn't a valid complaint.

??  Abusing a dominant market position is absolutely  a cause for concern and a very valid complaint.  If I want to sell an app, in order to reach half of the US market I have to give apple 30% for it.  If that isn't abuse of a dominant position then I don't what is.

[GeekPower0]

And they’re suing Google as well: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368363/epic-google-fortnite-lawsuit-antitrust-app-play-store-apple-removal

 

An interesting thing The Verge found in the suit:

Quote

What we didn’t expect: Epic claims that Google forced phone manufacturer OnePlus to break off a deal that would have seen a special Fortnite launcher preinstalled on OnePlus phones — and demanded that another Android phonemaker, LG, abandon any plans to do the same.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-games-oneplus-deal-google-play-store-lawsuit-lg

via: https://www.engadget.com/fortnite-google-play-lawsuit-035741548.html

[PocketNerd]

Meh, I have a really hard time seeing any of them as being the "victim" here. Just seems like greedy corps doing greedy things.

 

Better they do it to themselves than the consumer.

[Kisai]

47 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america/

55% according to these guys So while it can still be technically true, the reality is slightly different.  Suffice to say it is only slightly different Not hugely different.   For those interested, 50% is not a threshold for anything, it doesn't hav an intrinsic meaning.

 

 

 

Apple is not a Monopoly in any market. The fact that Android hasn't completely been rejected by the masses is the proof of that. You do not need an iPhone to live, you do not need an iPhone to go to work, you don't need an iPhone to take a taxi or a bus, you don't need an iPhone to pay for a sandwitch. By all accounts even in the pandemic, the food couriers can be accessed via any web browser, not just the app. Only the app requires you to pay with ApplePay, you can straight up go to the website on the same device and pay with your card if you want. The Subway app does that, you can't pay with Apple Pay with the Subway app, but you give Subway your card at some point so that they completely hide it from the app and the guy behind the counter goes "use the stored payment card?" and sometimes they don't even ask. Heck the first time this happened I didn't even realize they did it.

 

Anyway point being there's something different in play when it comes to mobile devices. If you order Uber (be it for taxi or food) you aren't required to use the app to place that order, only to deliver it/take passengers. If Uber actually employs people, then the "driver" app can be considered a kind of enterprise app and different rules apply about side-loading.

 

You can side load some software onto iPhones, but you need to explicitly be doing this as part of an enterprise setup, otherwise the only other option is by paying 100$/yr for developer access. You also need a Mac to do it. That barrier is sufficiently high enough to dissuade people from sideloading things that they aren't willing to publish, because they can lose their developer access in the process.

 

The way Apple polices things differs if it's a "web app" or a native app. A native app has access to API's that can rip the heart out of any privacy controls. A web app however is no different than bookmarking the website with a few native UI controls. The same webapps can run on Android devices and can also be run inside Chrome on desktops.

 

If certain software was exclusive to the iPad/iPhone and it was considered necessary (eg a universal payment platform, a universal video phone software) then you could make an argument that "owning an iPhone is required to do X", but I can't name anything that fills that criteria, and there is likewise absolutely nothing on the Android platform that I would consider necessary. Any developer who wants the largest potential audience will have their app on both devices, even if the Android version is inferior and slower due to more Android devices being rubbish tier than flagship devices. It's been pretty much a known thing that if you want to make money on phones, you develop the iOS version first, and then only develop the Android version of you can have IAP nonsense in it to push back against piracy of it. Games get away with this easier because you can download the app once, and then send content updates for years without ever updating the actual "app" downloaded. General purpose applications like Spotify can't do this, and rely on subscriptions to cripple the software more than the desktop version to incentivize paying for one.

 

Like nobody in their right mind would pay a subscription just to use any software if there wasn't something purposely crippled, even if pirated without it.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

 

Apple is not a Monopoly in any market. The fact that Android hasn't completely been rejected by the masses is the proof of that.

I'm just going to stop you right there.  Apple do indeed have a monopoly in the app market.  I've probably said it 3 times in this thread now, you don't need an absolute majority of customers nor an absence of choice in order to be guilty of monopolistic behavior. 

 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

 

Lets go through the charactersitics of a monopoly:

 

 

Quote

High or no barriers to entry: Competitors are not able to enter the market, and the monopoly can easily prevent competition from developing their foothold in an industry by acquiring the competition.

I think the fact that MS (who at the time was worth more than apple) cannot enter the market then the barriers are too high for other players.  PERIOD.

 

Quote

Single seller: There is only one seller in the market, meaning the company becomes the same as the industry it serves. 

Seeing as you cannot sell apps for IOS except through apple, there is only a single place you can sell your apps.  The existence of android does not help because you cannot sell android apps or use the android store to sell to ios customers.  If you have an IOS app you cannot sell digital goods unless it is through the app store.  These are very real examples of hte app store fitting the description of a monopoly.

 

 

Quote

Price maker: The company that operates the monopoly decides the price of the product that it will sell without any competition keeping their prices in check. As a result, monopolies can raise prices at will.

This is pretty self explanatory, but I will anyway,  Apple set the price for selling your ios apps (currently 30%). you cannot go somewhere else to sell them because they are the only way the developer can sell to ios devices.

 

 

So that's 3 out of 4 for that website.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-2

Quote

The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"⁽⁸⁾ and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition.

Apple have the power to control prices and they exclude competition in the ios app market ( a market that consists of half the of the most lucrative mobile app markets).  And I must remind people again, the existence of android does not change this fact.   People cannot always "just buy android" and the law does not stipulate buying new products to negate monopolies.   

 

Google playstore and play services are basically a monopoly, because with out the playstore the phone is essentially useless to most users.

https://www.theverge.com/google/2015/9/25/9397505/is-android-a-monopoly

 

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13584480/google-android-monopoly-eu-iphone

 

So There you have it.  Google tried pointing to the existence of Iphone as if that saved them from being fined for monopolistic behavior.  The reason that didn't work is because (as I have been saying) you don't need to be competition free to be a monopoly or use your market power to carry out a monopolistic activity.

 

 

 

[mr moose]

Now I know what a few people are going to say,  "But apple doesn't stop other companies from, making phones".  That is true they don't. They do however control half the market and by not allowing people to make compatible devices or allowing  cross platform sale of apps (i.e I buy my app from adobe and they give me either the ios or android version or the mac version etc), they prevent anyone from competing, no one can get a foothold in the industry.   The problem here is adobe aren't allowed to do that, because the apple store will not let them.  Ergo apple retain the control to prevent software companies from allowing their customers to buy once and have it on any platform. 

 

When the barrier to entry becomes controlled by one or two companies it is by all measures a monopoly.

 

So before someone claims it isn't a monopoly remind me again how many (proper) options we have for smart phones? how many companies can sell their software once and allow the customer to download the version for their system?  how many options do we have to choose where we get our software from?

 

 

[Kisai]

40 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I'm just going to stop you right there.  Apple do indeed have a monopoly in the app market.  I've probably said it 3 times in this thread now, you don't need an absolute majority of customers nor an absence of choice in order to be guilty of monopolistic behavior. 

 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

 

Lets go through the charactersitics of a monopoly:

No we're not playing that game.

 

Name one app that is exclusive to Apple that everyone depends on. Because there aren't any. Since there isn't any, there is no way to claim Apple has a Monopoly on anything.

 

High or no barriers to entry: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones.

Single seller: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones.

Price maker: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones. 

 

Let's reframe this:

 

I'm selling "Canadian Cheese", for $5.00 a pound. My Neighbor is selling "Neighbor Cheese" for $4.50 a pound. There is nobody else in Canada selling Cheese.

 

I can sell it at that price forever, you are not required to buy my cheese, you can buy my neighbor's cheese. However if I decide to buy my neighbor out, or buy all the cows in Canada, that would be seen as a Monopoly. Despite that situations like this actually exist and nothing happens because a "Duopoly" isn't a Monopoly. ConAgra foods owns just about every food brand sold here, yet nothing, because I don't need to buy their brands, but yes they own essentially ALL the brands of popcorn.

 

Look no further than your options for internet. As long as there are two choices available to everyone, there's no monopoly. Comcast, Verizon and so may be required to lease access to their last-miles into customer homes to their competitors, but that is a three-way business transaction and is no different from provisioning enterprise SDWAN's. Verizon and Comcast can maintain their Duopoly in a market as long as their competitors can use their last-miles because there is "competition" even if the competition is uncompetitive due to high wholesale costs (like it is here in Canada.)

 

At best, the only thing you will see happen with Google and Apple is a mutual agreement to allow purchases on each other platforms that will load the "same" app from the same developer on the device. So if you buy Angry Birbs on the iPhone, and then later switch to the Android phone, you don't have to buy Angry Birbs again. If you buy something on Steam "for mobile", it would tell Apple's store that the software is already owned. I do not see anything changing about allowing third party stores actually downloading anything because that would make the platform insecure and unsafe, like a typical PC. 

 

Microsoft let the horse out of the barn years ago when Steam became a thing. Literately "Steam" is the first successful app store implementation. 2003. Yet Microsoft will not be kicking it off Windows anytime soon, at least not the x86-64 platform. Epic is incredibly late to the game and is trying underhanded techniques to bring attention to YES WE HAVE AN APP STORE TOO. Heck if anything Epic has only made the argument that Steam is a monopoly weaker as well. Steam is not the only choice to buy games on , and in fact many gamers would rather only have one platform, not a dozen different developer-exclusive stores. Maybe someone can produce a much nicer store and everyone will want to use it, but without being able to transfer your licenses to that store, it becomes a pain in the ass, and people will just keep using Steam.

 

The same applies to iOS. Let's say one day I decide to pick up a Samsung flagship phone because, oh lets' say Apple thinks a 1 hour battery lasts 12 hours.  Will I be willing to re-buy everything I bought on iOS for the Android device? Nope. Forget that nonsense. The licenses are still on Apple's server, but anything that has been removed from the store is only on the device backup. Lots of good that does.

 

Let's also look at the PS3/4/5 store, the Xbox store and the Nintendo store. If you want to play PSx games you need a PSx, you can't buy games for the Xbox and play them on the PSx. This is the entire silly argument that happens when you say iOS has a monopoly. By that same logic Sony has a Monopoly on Playstation games and Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox games and Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo games.

[flashiling]

1 hour ago, Geek95 said:

And they’re suing Google as well: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368363/epic-google-fortnite-lawsuit-antitrust-app-play-store-apple-removal

 

An interesting thing The Verge found in the suit:

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-games-oneplus-deal-google-play-store-lawsuit-lg

via: https://www.engadget.com/fortnite-google-play-lawsuit-035741548.html

if i bought my oneplus 7T Pro McLaren edition and i found out it came with fortnite preinstalled,

i'd personally fly to their headquarters and throw it at them requesting a refund,

i find it stupid that it's possible to buy a brand new phone, that then already has apps preloaded on it.

[mr moose]

10 minutes ago, Kisai said:

No we're not playing that game.

 

Name one app that is exclusive to Apple that everyone depends on. Because there aren't any. Since there isn't any, there is no way to claim Apple has a Monopoly on anything.

 

High or no barriers to entry: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones.

Single seller: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones.

Price maker: You do not need an iPhone. You can buy Android phones. 

 

Let's reframe this:

 

I'm selling "Canadian Cheese", for $5.00 a pound. My Neighbor is selling "Neighbor Cheese" for $4.50 a pound. There is nobody else in Canada selling Cheese.

 

I can sell it at that price forever, you are not required to buy my cheese, you can buy my neighbor's cheese. However if I decide to buy my neighbor out, or buy all the cows in Canada, that would be seen as a Monopoly. Despite that situations like this actually exist and nothing happens because a "Duopoly" isn't a Monopoly. ConAgra foods owns just about every food brand sold here, yet nothing, because I don't need to buy their brands, but yes they own essentially ALL the brands of popcorn.

 

Look no further than your options for internet. As long as there are two choices available to everyone, there's no monopoly. Comcast, Verizon and so may be required to lease access to their last-miles into customer homes to their competitors, but that is a three-way business transaction and is no different from provisioning enterprise SDWAN's. Verizon and Comcast can maintain their Duopoly in a market as long as their competitors can use their last-miles because there is "competition" even if the competition is uncompetitive due to high wholesale costs (like it is here in Canada.)

 

At best, the only thing you will see happen with Google and Apple is a mutual agreement to allow purchases on each other platforms that will load the "same" app from the same developer on the device. So if you buy Angry Birbs on the iPhone, and then later switch to the Android phone, you don't have to buy Angry Birbs again. If you buy something on Steam "for mobile", it would tell Apple's store that the software is already owned. I do not see anything changing about allowing third party stores actually downloading anything because that would make the platform insecure and unsafe, like a typical PC. 

 

Microsoft let the horse out of the barn years ago when Steam became a thing. Literately "Steam" is the first successful app store implementation. 2003. Yet Microsoft will not be kicking it off Windows anytime soon, at least not the x86-64 platform. Epic is incredibly late to the game and is trying underhanded techniques to bring attention to YES WE HAVE AN APP STORE TOO. Heck if anything Epic has only made the argument that Steam is a monopoly weaker as well. Steam is not the only choice to buy games on , and in fact many gamers would rather only have one platform, not a dozen different developer-exclusive stores. Maybe someone can produce a much nicer store and everyone will want to use it, but without being able to transfer your licenses to that store, it becomes a pain in the ass, and people will just keep using Steam.

 

The same applies to iOS. Let's say one day I decide to pick up a Samsung flagship phone because, oh lets' say Apple thinks a 1 hour battery lasts 12 hours.  Will I be willing to re-buy everything I bought on iOS for the Android device? Nope. Forget that nonsense. The licenses are still on Apple's server, but anything that has been removed from the store is only on the device backup. Lots of good that does.

 

Let's also look at the PS3/4/5 store, the Xbox store and the Nintendo store. If you want to play PSx games you need a PSx, you can't buy games for the Xbox and play them on the PSx. This is the entire silly argument that happens when you say iOS has a monopoly. By that same logic Sony has a Monopoly on Playstation games and Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox games and Nintendo has a monopoly on Nintendo games.

 

Apart form the fact your analogy doesn't work, you are ignoring some of the most prominent information.  All your arguments rest on having an alternative product as being sufficient to not be a monopoly. I pointed you to several articles illustrating that that is not the case both in precedent and in definitional law. 

 

 

[Kisai]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

Apart form the fact your analogy doesn't work, you are ignoring some of the most prominent information.  All your arguments rest on having an alternative product as being sufficient to not be a monopoly. I pointed you to several articles illustrating that that is not the case both in precedent and in definitional law. 

 

 

Google requiring Google services for it to be called "Android" on third party devices is not the same as Apple requiring iOS to use iPhones, and the iOS app store to load software on the iOS OS on the iPhone.

 

https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/13/chinese-iphone-owners/

Quote

A huge Chinese survey with more than 1.2 million responses shows that 95% of Chinese iPhone owners would switch from Apple to another smartphone brand, rather than give up WeChat. The survey follows an executive order by Donald Trump banning US companies from transactions with WeChat owner Tencent.

Clearly the iPhone is not the only phone WeChat runs on. If the app is banned, that means it disappears from EVERYTHING. 

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/columnist-says-apples-ipod-and-iphone-monopolies-must-go-2009-7

Quote

Looks like reports of Apple's 1.5 billions app store downloads angered David Coursey, who says it's in the best interest of the customer that Apple's monopoly over iPhone and iPod apps be crushed.

 

Coursey basically argues that there should be more ways to get apps on iPhones instead of Apple's App Store. He also argues that Apple should open up iTunes to other devices.

This is from 2009. Clearly the status quo isn't harming anything, even if some companies don't like it. They are free to build their own phones if they don't like it and build their own OS. I don't know anyone who wants a Linux phone, and every Linux phone has been a colossal failure. Steam built their own console, total failure. Competition exists all the time but makes no inroads because that's not what people want. Who really gives a crap if two companies, waste each others money in stupid PR lawsuits.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

10 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

People here don't seem to understand why Apple takes a cut in the first place.

 

Apple's logic here is that they don't want every app tp have their own payment processing, and potentially routing their customers to unsecure databases where your credit or debit card details might get saved. This is a very valid point, as we've seen countless data breaches. Hence Apple prefers that the app makes use of the API where Apple will take care of all of this.

 

Also the app store does support multiple currencies, so even currency and region issue is also taken care by Apple.

 

That's a very weird paternalistic argument. So, can Apple also decide that in order to use your phone you should limit your red meat ingest, because it's bad for your health? 
Whether a payment processor is trustworthy or not sounds like a user-side decision to me. I mean, who even decided Apple is a trustworthy app curator and payment processor to being with, much less an adequate (not to mention impartial) judge of others' trustworthiness?

"Apple prefers" is extremely telling in this context - it should be "I prefer to..." since in the end it's your data and your money, not theirs.

Not to mention, you start saying this is why they take 30%, when in fact it's not - you are just providing arguments, which I contest, for why they ban alternatives, which is not a service in itself. Then they solve the problem they created by offering you the single alternative of using their service, at whatever fee they may decide. I would make a joke about Apple selling "protection services", but you beat me to it, as that's the core of your big-brother argument