[HDThoreaun]

Who cares what Epic wants? Their incentives align with mine so I supported them. Apples practices here clearly harm consumers by reducing competition on iOS. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS would be a better product, at least for me.

[nickthegreek]

Some would argue that Apples practices clearly protect the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams. It is obvious to me that if Epic won iOS could be a worse product, at least for me.

[amiga386]

Exhibit A: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-...

> Jobs said, “[i]t’s time for Amazon to decide to use our payment mechanism or bow out [of the App Store],”

> Jobs said: “I think this is all pretty simple — iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.”

Tell me how this clearly protects the consumer from malware, privacy issues and scams.

[nickthegreek]

Apple pay subscription cancellation ease and refunds protect the consumer. I’m not here to defend all of their practices. I am saying there are very obvious consumer friendly parts of the ecosystem starting with the fact that I don’t need to run tech support on my families tablets and phones.

I barely ever see consumers complain about the ecosystem, mostly companies and developers. And I just don’t feel like they are going to use a more an open system to the benefit of the consumer. I trust them _a lot_ less than Apple.

[lapcat]

> I barely ever see consumers complain about the ecosystem, mostly companies and developers.

Where have you looked? I see them complain all the time on Reddit, for example. And Apple actually denies a lot of refunds.

[nickthegreek]

I have never heard a person complain about this in real life. I hear other issues with Apple but never has anyone espoused the desire for another AppStore. Everyone loves the ability to mange subs in one location. They enjoy the ease of transactions from the AppStore as opposed to entering cc info or logging into other apps. My less tech savvy friends and family feel safe in the iOS ecosystem. They do think there are issues with low quality predatory subscription apps though. I certainly agree with that.

[lapcat]

> I have never heard a person complain about this in real life.

This is all real life. I'm real. What you appear to be saying is that you're judging entirely by the ancedotal experience of the small number of people who you happen to know personally. How many of them have actually requested an App Store refund?

What I can say, as an App Store developer, is that a lot of consumers are totally ignorant of how the App Store works. They email me about problems with transactions, despite the fact that I have no access to customer transactions. I can't even grant refunds. They email me about problems with App Store downloads, despite the fact that I no control whatsoever over downloads. They even email me to "cancel my subscription", despite the fact that my app doesn't even have a subscription.

[malshe]

Reddit is one of the most astroturfed websites out there. I wouldn't trust anything I read there.

[lapcat]

No worse than here. ;-)

But not trusting anything you read is a very convenient way of denying the existence of any complaints. How else would you tell?