[lotsofpulp]

> Apple is as reliant on their third party apps for their ecosystems as much as the inverse.

I would take the other side of this bet. Barrier to entry for software to make a new chat app, social network, streaming app, crypto app, etc is much lower than barrier to entry to make hardware.

Another company willing to play by Apple’s rules will swoop in in relatively little time, while an alternative to iPhone/Apple Watch/AirPods/iPads/M processor computers will not.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Someone will just make a Roblox or Fortnite competitor and everyone will switch to it overnight? I doubt it

[lotsofpulp]

> relatively little time

Meaning alternative Roblox or Fortnite is coming much sooner than alternative devices equivalent to Apple’s hardware products.

[actionablefiber]

Sure, why not? If the top ten games from my Steam library disappeared off the face of the earth I'd still have plenty of other games to play. Games rise and fall all the time; 10 years ago you could have written that about Minecraft and 15 years ago about Runescape. There are certainly still audiences for those games but they are smaller than before.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Say you have a game that you and all your friends play which you've purchased things for and logged thousands of hours on. You wouldn't be upset if it dumped from the App Store simply because Tim Cook woke up and chose violence?

[actionablefiber]

I would certainly be sad. And then I'd start playing something else. It happens all the time in video games. People paid money for Club Penguin memberships and logged untold amounts of time there, too!

[willcipriano]

If the reason you couldn't play Club Penguin is Dell wanted 30% of the action, you probably aren't buying a Dell next time around.

[actionablefiber]

Dell does not have ecosystem lock-in the way that Apple does. The question is not whether you will care or be sad that Apple blocked your game, but whether you will care enough or be sad enough to ditch Apple going forward.

Apple killed the 3.5mm headphone jack, it was and remains a really frustrating inconvenience, and yet here I am, still using a bunch of Apple products.