This is a pointless statement, does Epic have consumers back? LOL hardly. This lawsuit is about Epic cashing in on Apple's work. No one believes Apple the corp is the defender of the people. Apple is great on privacy compared to all the other options, not because they are good people (they may not be or they may be who knows?) but because it's in their best interest to be. This is about two corp's fighting over their right tomato more money off of you and I. People are casting Epic as for the consumer and it's ridiculous!
Epic of course doesn’t have customers back - it’s most likely more scummy than Apple.
Only thing that markets discovered so far, that has somehow customers back is free market and competition (and it’s far from being perfect of course), and they happen to push for it.
It’s just a case where customer interested happened to be aligned, even tho companies fight it for profit reasons (as with privacy and Apple - good for customers, but not being done because of it).
I totally understand that but from my POV, I don't see Apple losing the App Store's position as a positive for consumers. Let's compare Android's eco-system to iOS's. Android's app ecosystem is terrible IMO, piracy - viruses - cloned apps - and general very low quality apps. I'm a mobile developer (both iOS and Android) and I use both in my daily live. I know some people prefer Android but MANY don't. To me it's VERY far from obvious that Apple's walled garden is worse for consumers. In fact I'd say that Apple's App Store is the best example of a platform eco-system we have had in the history of computing. I could see the argument if iOS was the only real choice but it's not even the most popular by sheer numbers.
If Apple would open up to other apps stores I’d most likely stay with theirs, because I also like value they provide.
But that doesn’t mean I agree with them not allowing other people to make a choice. For me 30% for purchases and having heavily curated store is ok, but others it’s not, and they should be allowed to choose.
If Apple store is truly superior, they won’t have problems staying ahead of competition.
They do have a choice, use Android if they don't like it. All the major apps are available on Android. Good hardware is available. There is nothing besides time and money to stop them. I don't understand how anyone can ask for choice when it already exists.
There is no choice for good hardware, non-walled garden and no tracking. Choose two. If there is, please show me and I will be the first in line.
Android forks would be great but unfortunately phones come with plenty of firmware that gets wiped on flashing a new OS. And if the question is a possibly non-working camera than I personally will remain in the walled garden, but not happily.
No tracking is a security/sandbox feature (or at least the part that can be enforced. Like apple can’t tell facebook to stop analyzing your messages, but it can deny location readings/cross-app tracking, et,)
But as other’s said, a disabled by default way to sideload apps on the very hardware I paid for should be a given freedom of mine. They should not be able to sell a “way of life”, but only a hardware software platform layer on top of which I as a user should be able to decide for myself what I want.
(Also, I find the App Store’s recommendation engine pretty terrible unfortunately, discovery is pretty much impossible)
It doesn't matter what Epic's intentions are. Allowing creation of 3rd party stores is great and consumers and developers. I'll continue to support the organization whose incentives are aligned with mine.
I get why it's great for developers, but why for consumers? You'll almost have a situation exactly like the one that exists on Windows for gaming, where you have to install any number of stores to get the games that _only_ exist in those stores. You may think that it will give you or other consumers more choice, but it's a choice only for developers and it's at the expense of consumers.
Exactly, I'm a developer (mobile apps and games hopefully - if I can ever actually finish it) and I get why I might want multiple options but as a consumer? The REASON I choice Apple is the superior App Store. No where else can I find the average quality of software that is on the App Store, the freedom form viruses, and general quality of app.
Because I'm not limited by what the store decides they want to sell me. For example, there's no PornHub application on the Apple App Store. Similarly, Apple has been under fire recently for blocking streaming games, such as Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Streaming or Google Stadia even though it's functionally not different than Netflix's movie streaming, just with input. Or even blocking Steam's remote control Steam Link app from accessing the store: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/apple-reversal-allows...
Does them blocking those help me in any way? No, it is just to protect Apple's profits because they want to take a cut. You can't even pay for Netflix through the app, because Apple want their cut.
Well, as a consumer, if I could install Kindle through a third party app store, I'd be able to buy books directly in the app rather than having to go through a dance to get to a browser to buy a book.
This is because Apple would charge Amazon 15/30% to clear the transaction while Apple Books can be both more convenient and doesn't have to give up a large chunk of change to someone else.
Choice is a good thing. Games are far cheaper on windows than any other platform because choice has forced stores to compete on fee and provide sales to entice customers.
In principal, in a capitalist society, no firm is on the consumers side—all are trying to extract maximum value from the consumer and give back as little as possible in return. But, ideally, this is constrained by robust competition between firms.
To the extent Apple exercises a practical monopoly, Epic fighting against their ability to leverage that monopoly to dictate terms is fighting in the interest of consumers even if it does not come from a pro-consumer motivation, because it means that competition which benefits consumers will continue for other services dependent on the space monopolized by Apple.
Why is that in consumer's interest? This isn't Windows and IE, there are choices available to every consumer. If you compare Android's eco-system vs Apple's, it's clear that Apple is better for consumer's to me. Better quality apps, far less piracy, far less viruses, and safer better payment options. If iOS was the only game in town, I'd 100 percent agree but it's not. There is very little proof that proof that it's going to make the situation better for consumers and quite a bit of evidence that it will make it worse for users that prefer iOS.
This completely misses the point of capitalism and successful business.
The whole purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer. The two ways it does that are innovation and marketing. Yes, there can be cases where customers are cheated, but they won't be customers for long.
It's not about "extracting maximum value and giving as little back in return". That's an extremely simplistic argument that bares no relationship to how companies are actually managed, or how products/services are designed and built.
Yes, in a business, there must be profit, as it covers today's risks and tomorrow's costs. "Profit maximization" is nonsense, it's like saying a sports team does "scoring maximization".
Finally, what is a 'practical monopoly', besides "it's not actually a monopoly but I want a cut of it and therefore I feel it is"? This seems to be the argument Epic is making.
> The whole purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer
No, the whole point of a capitalist business is to produce returns for the business’s owners.
Acquiring and retaining customers is valuable insofar as there is more value to be profitably extracted from the customer; it is instrumental, not an independent goal.
> The two ways it does that are innovation and marketing.
Well, no, monopolization is itself neither innovation nor marketing (though either or both may be involved in getting to the position where it is possible), but it is definitely a way or acquire and retain customers.
> Yes, there can be cases where customers are cheated, but they won't be customers for long.
That depends what you mean by cheated. If you mean losing net utility through trade, that's true in a simplistic rational-choice analysis, but given the known deviations from rationality in real-world decisionmaking, not always in practice. If you mean “receive less net value than they would in a competitive marketplace through monopoly rents, but still net positive value”, then it's not even true from a simplistic rational-choice analysis.
> It's not about "extracting maximum value and giving as little back in return".
Yes, it absolutely is.
> That's an extremely simplistic argument that bares no relationship to how companies are actually managed, or how products/services are designed and built.
It really isn't. The entire concept of establishing a “moat” is a euphemism for (legal) monopolization so as to enable extraction of monopoly rents, and avoid the reduction of price to marginal cost economics says is the fate of freely competitive markets.
Extracting maximum value at minimum cost (maximizing return on investment) is what business is about. Everything else is about techniques to achieve that goal.
You've apparently been distracted by the techniques to acheive the goal and missed the actual goal.
> "Profit maximization" is nonsense, it's like saying a sports team does "scoring maximization".
Sports teams usually strategically aim for win maximization, which isn't the same thing as score maximization, but, no, the error that exists with describing sports team as doing score maximization instead does not exist when describing business as being about profit maximization.
> Finally, what is a 'practical monopoly'
One whose existence is evidenced empirically through behavior in 5he market and absence of competitive substitution rather than by arbitrary, non-empirically grounded description of market categories.
> No, the whole point of a capitalist business is to produce returns for the business’s owners.
Acquiring and retaining customers is valuable insofar as there is more value to be profitably extracted from the customer; it is instrumental, not an independent goal.
This is completely wrong. You can’t have returns without customers.
> Extracting maximum value at minimum cost (maximizing return on investment) is what business is about. Everything else is about techniques to achieve that goal.
You've apparently been distracted by the techniques to acheive the goal and missed the actual goal.
Creating customers is not a “technique”. It is the essential act. You can have a business that’s not profitable. You can have a business that doesn’t attract much investment. You can have a business that doesn’t maximize profit.
But you can’t have a business if you have no customers.
You’re so distracted by profit and investment that you’ve convinced yourself it’s possible to have a successful or profitable business with no customers.
> “practical monopoly” is One whose existence is evidenced empirically through behavior in 5he market and absence of competitive substitution rather than by arbitrary, non-empirically grounded description of market categories.
Epic's move (if it succeeds) would have a direct positive effect on the consumer. Across the board. It's not a gamer issue anymore. It is now bigger than them.
I keep seeing people say this but where is the evidence this is true? Because from my POV this isn't the case AT ALL. Pc gaming and Android both are "open" platforms and both are far worse for consumers that the App Store. This is another case of "common" knowledge that doesn't seem to be supported by evidence.
