The contents of the Play Store have nothing to do with Android's ability to sideload.

Look into who owns Epic .

Tim Sweeney is the controlling shareholder of Epic. If Tim Sweeney decides to do something there is literally nothing TenCent could do to stop him outside of a lawsuit.

> there is literally nothing TenCent could do to stop him outside of a lawsuit

Obviously false. TenCent controls Epic’s access to the Chinese market, which is much larger than the iOS market has ever been for Epic.

I'm not saying they have no influence, I just have a problem with you _insinuating_ falsehoods with a statement like "Look into who owns Epic" as if you've just dropped the truth bomb exposing evil China as the mastermind behind two corporations fighting for who gets to make more money.

I’m not insinuating a falsehood.

TenCent owns 40% of Epic’s stock, has a seat in the board, and controls access to much more of epic’s revenue than Apple does.

TenCent can absolutely dictate a policy in relation to Apple to Epic if they so choose.

China absolutely has interests in seeing a less powerful Apple, for numerous reasons.

Does this mean the Chinese government is driving this policy? Of course we don’t know.

But, we do know that they were ok with their share of the iOS revenue being lost.

It’s also completely unreasonable to discount to 0 the idea that this is at least in part driven by Chinese government priorities.

It’s not reasonable to say that the only incentives involved here are money.

> TenCent can absolutely dictate a policy

40% ownership does not dictate anything. They can make a stern request and threaten with some leverage. Ultimately it still won't be TenCent's decision.

You ignored this part:

> controls access to much more of epic’s revenue than Apple does.

They can dictate a policy.

That's making a giant assumption that Tim Sweeney cares if he has 10 billion or 20 billion. I've followed his career for decades, and I doubt he would sell out his control for so cheap.