[Thorentis]

Nobody is forcing Epic to use Apple's platform though. It never used to be the case, that every device you own must be able to play every game you want. You can already play Fortnite on your PC. Apple cannot stop you from owning a PC, so Apple cannot stop you from playing Fortnite. Yes, Apple is a gatekeeper for its platform. But we've known this forever. Sony is a gatekeeper for the playstation, and Microsoft is a gatekeeper for the Xbox. If developers want the lowest friction possible when releasing games, use a platform where you can release your own store (which Epic already has).

[mrich]

At some point the platform has to be considered common infrastructure, similar to power transmission lines, the railroad or the Windows OS. Just because you happened to build a successful platform should not imply that you can hold everyone hostage - that is why antitrust is a thing.

[unknown2374]

There are open platforms, and due to convenience of distribution developers have reluctantly chosen these platforms over open ones. Now while I am not defending Apple's position here, developers who have chosen to distribute only on such platforms for the past few decades are partly to blame too.

The success of Apple (etc.) are due to choices that developers have made, closing themselves in and then citing anti-trust when they themselves locked the doors and gave away the keys.

[ece]

While this is even more true for consoles, the difference is in a specific purpose vs a general purpose.

General purpose platforms that become overly closed have roundly been rejected or been forced to open up: Carterfone, AOL, Windows, carrier locked phones, etc.. even iOS itself didn't allow apps at first and now does.

Closed platforms for a specific purpose like consoles, kindles, rokus, etc.. do a bit better because they are 1) more likely to have competitors, and 2) have more limited impact from being specific purpose platforms, though are still capable of maintaining monopolies/duopolies.

The phone market is a iOS/Android duopoly, and both are being forced to open up more. Hardly surprising.

[Thorentis]

Exactly. Developers loved the gravy train while it lasted. 30% cut for being put into the hands of millions of people instantly was pocket change in the 2010s. Now that the market is saturated and developers have tougher competition, they're turning on Apple. Take your money, smile that it happened, and go work on open platforms from now on.

[notSupplied]

What if the phone is in the hands of millions of people in the first place because it is full of apps? Didn’t the Mac cede it’s place in PC history because Windows had more software?

[Thorentis]

I am on board with the internet being common infrastructure, since you cannot own your own fibre cable that goes to the ISP (at least not easily and cheaply).

With hardware it is different. Nobody forced you to buy an iPhone. Nobody forced you to buy an Android, Windows, Nokia, whatever phone. Same with laptops. If you want an open platform, buy one. If you want an open OS, install one. Don't buy an iPhone, complain about the platform not being open enough for you, and then demand that all platforms be made common infrastructure so that you're absolved of making decisions about the hardware you use.

[stale2002]

Would you make the same claim about Internet Explorer?

Imagine if Microsoft required a 30 percent cut for any transaction that is done on a windows PC.

The same exact arguments you are using could justify this. But, obviously, this is illegal, and similar behavior was proven as such, by the courts.

[Thorentis]

Internet Explorer was already ubiquitous at that point. The iPhone was not ubiquitous when the App Store was released. The iPhone become so widely used because of the popularity of the App Store. The 30% cut was there from the very start, and people were fine with it. It's only now that people are turning around and complaining that a platform that was never open to begin with, is not open enough.

[stale2002]

> The iPhone was not ubiquitous when the App Store was released.

But it is ubiquitous now. As of last month, the iphone now has 52.4% of the US market.

> The 30% cut was there from the very start, and people were fine with it.

Anticompetitive behavior become illegal when a company has enough market power.

> It's only now that people are turning around and complaining

Well yes, that is how anti-competitive laws work. If a company has enough market power, previously legal practices can become illegal.

[Thorentis]

Taking a 30% cut from app store sales isn't anti-competitive though. If anything, it allows other platforms to compete on price. Which is exactly what Android does. Developers can't whinge if people still buy iPhones despite the restrictions on what you can and can't do on it.

The Microsoft case is completely different, in that it favored IE over other browsers based on the APIs the software was allowed access to. Apple allows all apps to access the iOS APIs and uses those same APIs to develop its own apps. Taking a 30% cut of software that Apple distributes on your behalf might be steep, but is certainly not anti-competitive. If you think it costs too much, don't pay it! Nobody is forcing you to distribute software for the iPhone. If you're lamenting that people are stupid enough to buy hardware they don't have full control over, then that speaks more of human stupidity and the fact that convenience will always win.

[nick_kline]

The ability to buy other hardware devices to avoid one company's control is not a real solution. Besides that, all the major vendors are trying to push you to buy things in their controlled gardens/app stores. Instead of buying more devices (practical maybe for rich computer programmers) how about we just prevent vendor purchase lock-in. I should be able to run or buy or sell to end-users whatever software I want on my devices.

[ALittleLight]

Why doesn't Windows take 30% whenever you try to play a game there?

I don't know about legality, but philosophically it's offensive to me that Apple and Google get to be landlords leeching off app developers. I paid for my phone. It should run the software I want it to, and if I want to buy an app for it I shouldn't need to pay Apple for the privilege.

[swinglock]

I'm sure they take a cut if you use the Microsoft Store.

You know why Windows runs code not from the Microsoft Store. It's legacy. There wasn't always a Microsoft Store, running executable straight from floppy, CD-ROM or the Internet was the norm. Changing it now would be changing the product people already bought and break workflows.

iPhone never had that legacy. From day 0 it only ran Apple code. Then it ran 3rd party code via the App Store. There was no such legacy. But there are older products with such a legacy. Didn't your old Nintendo have precisely the same rules from day 0 and so do modern consoles?

[shados]

iOS + Android is at least as big of a deal as Windows was back in the IE vs Netscape days. The bar for antitrust isn't "you literally cannot live without the thing".

Even if you make a case that for Epic it doesn't matter that much, the Hey mail case was another big one: if you try to make a new email service and ignore Apple/Google, you're dead on arrival. That's a problem.

[WWLink]

I wish there was a law saying something like "If you sell a machine that claims to do X, it does X, no exceptions."

This "We'll let you develop software for OUR X out of the goodness of our heart as long as you promise not to do Y and pay us Z" BS really gets under my skin.

lol I have a feeling everyone here will hate me for saying that though.