My cynical opinion is that it feels Tim Sweeney is purchasing companies in hopes he finds the “right” one that that causes enough public outrage to get his way in regards to App Store cuts.
So far he has lost a ton of cash on lawyer fees, M&A costs, etc. And EPIC now has to individually manage the acquired companies, make sure they're not competing against each other in the same market, etc, etc. I don't think this type of "spending current money to save future money" works. I don't care which company is doing it, but someone needs to break the App Store toll-booth.
Apple/Google/Anyone else trying to limit general purpose computing on mobile/PC platforms is a terrible thing for computing, but thats just my view. The ideal situation is we have a default app store - where the system integrator enforces all their policies, but then a user can voluntarily choose to download a separate app store where that store is run by different less exploitative policies. To make it easy for users, you can have an central store-front which then re-directs users to the different store pages. No different than a "Nike store" on Amazon.
> And EPIC now has to individually manage the acquired companies, make sure they're not competing against each other
Tim Sweeney is buying creator marketplaces. The Github in each market: 3D (sketchup/artstation), 2D (artstation), music (bandcamp), etc. It's the Microsoft play, but for creatives.
He's trying to leapfrog the gaming industry and build a content creation engine that encompasses Hollywood, marketing, architecture, automotive, you name it. He's actively cultivating skilled creator mindshare and winning.
He's also trying to set legal precedent that siloed distribution marketplaces can't charge an arm and a leg and enforce draconian rules, because his play is a two sided multi-channel marketplace where he wins regardless of where you buy or sell.
The thing that sucks for me is that while I fundamentally agree with everything Tim is doing, he has got to get some better PR because I am so tired of this. I am tired of Tim Sweeney and Epic this multi billion dollar company going “boohoo I’m so bullied,” like, shut up and just do the thing without trying to smear anyone and everyone who isn’t yourself.
At least in Android it is already the case, I have installed both F-Droid and Huawei's AppGallery in an otherwise stock android. (And prefer to get as much as possible from F-Droid)
Apple on the other hand has a war against "evil" sideloading. :P
There are roadblocks and deficiencies though, a major one being that sideloaded app stores cannot automatically update their applications, making them permanently inferior and crippled compared to Google's offering.
Also, some apps from F-Droid are crippled compared to what they can do when downloading from Play Store, eg. the K9 mail app from F-Droid doesn't have support for push email, it can only check at intervals.
I don't know what the reason for this is, but the result is that Android is not a truly "open" platform.
I think it is pretty outrageous to spend a grand on a phone and then be told that I’m not allowed to put what I want on it or spend money supporting artists or publishers without a middle man. It’s absolutely insane and I’m not sure why it isn’t subject to a huge antitrust investigation. And this is coming from someone that likes Apple!
Except this is about Google, and about Android, where you can put what you want and spend money without that middle man. You just need to side load, or install some other app store.
The only outrage I feel is that Tim Sweeney is using the compensation of starving artists, the main demographic on Bandcamp as I understand it, to try and make himself and EPIC richer or more relatively powerful. I don't give two hoots about "breaking up the App Store Model" and I doubt many/most musicians do either. I personally feel that 30% isn't even outrageous considering the value proposition.
Relatively rich/privileged software developers making their problem (App Stores wanting a 30% cut) the musicians' problem isn't noble, it's evil.
Edit: The way I see it, Tim Sweeney/EPIC is responsible for breaking the status quo that allowed bandcamp’s niche to operate the way they did, which seems a reasonable assumption. That acquisition turned the userbase into a pawn in the App store battle.
The thing is… 30% is a lot for the artists on Bandcamp.
Say I sell my album for $10 for easy math.
I think Bandcamp takes something like 10-15%, there’s a small PayPal fee (~1%) and the rest goes to me.
That’s ~$8.41 in my pocket.
If Google takes their cut at the beginning for providing…the App Store where the buyer downloaded the app… the artist’s cut becomes ~$5.89. For a $10 album.
It just doesn’t line up with the whole point of Bandcamp.
> I don't give two hoots about "breaking up the App Store Model" and I doubt many/most musicians do either
Well you should. Because regardless of if Epic bought bandcamp or not, the fee that google charges would come directly out of musicians pockets.
Regardless of who is running bandcamp, that feel would directly cause artists to not make as much money.
> I personally feel that 30% isn't even outrageous
Ok, and now the end result is that fee is coming out of artists pockets.
If you don't care about artist compensation, and want them to make less money, well fine. But don't pretend like you are on the side of artist compensation.
Yes, 100%. Epic or no, google announced that they were going to start taking an additional (and rather large) cut of payments for music sales which they have no part in. Bandcamp built a payment system that facilitates artists making money at zero cost to google, and now google wants to prevent that unless they get a cut.
You can argue that google provides the foothold that gets the app on the device, so maybe a small fee could be justified, but taking place in all transactions that enables in perpetuity despite providing no technical contribution to them is ridiculous.
Bandcamp could do a billion dollars a week in sales and it wouldn’t cost google a dime.
Sweeney / Epic donated $144 million to Ukraine. As far as virtue signaling goes, I think they've shown they do in fact have a fair amount of principles. Platform monopolies are real problems.
Apple/Google/Anyone else trying to limit general purpose computing on mobile/PC platforms is a terrible thing for computing, but thats just my view. The ideal situation is we have a default app store - where the system integrator enforces all their policies, but then a user can voluntarily choose to download a separate app store where that store is run by different less exploitative policies. To make it easy for users, you can have an central store-front which then re-directs users to the different store pages. No different than a "Nike store" on Amazon.