[paulmd]

It is really disgusting how Silicon Valley has embraced the tactic of holding other people's livelihoods hostage while they try to make a few percent more profit.

Epic is doing the same thing with the Unreal Engine code. They deliberately violated Apple TOS knowing it would get the account banned, and then they try to leverage all those other developers who are going to lose iOS support against the big bad Apple who is taking away your livelihood, all so they can establish their own store and make a higher percentage of the revenue from the sales other people's work (to be clear: they already make money from the sales of games based on Unreal, they just want to make more).

It's not just Uber, it's part of a broader trend tech companies adopting this tactic. It's seriously disgusting, this is the lowest thing to come out of the Silicon Valley techbros in a long time.

[jariel]

Epics concerns are of an utterly and completely different dimension - and to make the statement 'making money off of other's people's work' while the nature of the contention is Apple's 30% fee is rich.

The issue with Uber v. California is really an issue of materially new kinds of workforces requiring new and effective kinds of legislation.

We just need some responsible leaders to think a little bit, maybe the feds, other states, other countries, and make some simple legislation. There doesn't need to be a referendum, nor does the gov. need to 'negotiate' with anyone per se. Just find something that works for the new world and do it. Subject to change obviously.

[Arelius]

While I generally agree, I don't think Epic is an accurate comparison.

They obviously knew that Fortnight would get banned from the Appstore, and it was a business decision for them to make.

However, it would have been reasonable for them to assume that they would maintain their ability to still develop UnrealEngine, so they can publish source code for other developers to publish games from their own accounts. That overreach was Apple's doing.

It appears that the courts agreed as well, requiring Apple to allow Epic to continue UE4 development, while maintaining the Fortnight ban.

[paulmd]

That seems like an after-the-fact justification, I don't think they knew for sure that courts would force apple to allow downstream development. I think that may be courts saving people's bacon from an upstream that was willing to let them burn if that's what made the upstream profit, until the court case is decided.

[roflchoppa3]

im already no on 22, where did you get the 2% higher profit figure from?

[paulmd]

Not referring to Uber specifically, or a specific dollar figure, just the general tactic of "if you don't give in to our demands then we'll shut down and really screw all the people who rely on us!". Which is what Uber and Epic are doing.

They didn't go under when they had to start doing background checks in Austin. They don't go under when they have to pay benefits in Germany. This is a stunt to make another couple percent profit.

At the end of the day that's what this boils down to - they will make a little more money if they succeed, they will make a little less money if they don't, nobody is going under. They're using people's livelihoods as leverage so that they can make a couple percent more profit.

[SXX]

That's funny how you say here that Uber and Epic are equal while in your mind Apple totally deserve it's 30% cut.

Say what you want about Epic, but they totally forced Valve to publicly commit to decrease it's cut for every big publisher out there without directly profi ting from it.

But yeab ofc it's poor Apple being forced to screw developers a bit less. Unacceptable!

[nostrademons]

It's what happens when you become powerful. The world is mostly just a few powerful actors playing games with each other, using the not-so-powerful as pawns. The powerless occasionally get angry about that, but it's not like they can do anything about it, because that's what it means to be powerless. Understand that it's not personal, though - big companies and governments are not specifically targeting you when they do something that harms you, they just don't know (or care) that you exist. You're just collateral damage in the games between the big players.

Embrace that and you actually have a chance of real freedom. Being invisible is both a boon and a detriment; you occasionally get stomped on for no apparent reason, but it also means that the big players are unlikely to know (or care about) the moves that you do make.