<story><title>Coming to Grips with Apple&apos;s Seemingly Unshakable Sense of Entitlement</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/coming_to_grips_with_apples_seemingly_unshakable_sense_of_app_store_entitlement</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bitvoid</author><text>I get the argument, but it falls flat for me. Consoles are basically appliances with a primarily singular purpose: video games. Smart phones, in my opinion, are general purpose computers that should be treated differently. Games are a small subset of what people use smart phones for.</text></item><item><author>lolinder</author><text>The comparison Apple made in the court case was not primarily to Steam or Google, it was to the consoles. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all take a 30% cut of all of Epic&amp;#x27;s transactions across their respective platforms. Apple argued, and persuaded the judge, that Epic&amp;#x27;s targeting of &lt;i&gt;Apple specifically&lt;/i&gt; for &lt;i&gt;it&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; 30% share was unreasonable given that Epic was happily paying the fee to all the other platforms:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Indeed, for example, Epic Games has agreed to such a rate on all Fortnite transactions via the Microsoft (Xbox) Store, the PlayStation Store, the Nintendo eShop, and Google Play. Epic Games has also agreed to extra payments for certain platform holders above and beyond the standard 30% commission rate. For example, for all Fortnite transactions via the PlayStation Store, Epic Games agreed to make additional payments to Sony above this commission rate based on the amount of time that PlayStation users play Fortnite cross-platform.&lt;p&gt;The judge forced Apple to allow transactions to take place off of the platform, but she &lt;i&gt;explicitly&lt;/i&gt; noted that Apple would still be entitled to a commission on said sales.&lt;p&gt;Apple sees their App Store arrangement as similar to Upwork, Rover, or any number of other marketplaces, which &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; have policies preventing users from meeting through the system but transacting outside of it. From their perspective, if they hooked you up with the sale, then they&amp;#x27;re entitled to a commission. If you think you can do better without their sales, you&amp;#x27;re welcome to pull out of their marketplace, and if they find that you&amp;#x27;re abusing their marketplace they&amp;#x27;ll hasten you to the door.&lt;p&gt;That is, as far as the judge was concerned, perfectly legal, and I&amp;#x27;m having a hard time not seeing it as a reasonable position to take.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;casetext.com&amp;#x2F;case&amp;#x2F;epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;casetext.com&amp;#x2F;case&amp;#x2F;epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rpmisms</author><text>There is simply no way around the fact that Apple demanding a cut of sales on an external platform is ridiculous. Steam does not do this. Google does not do this. This would be absolutely absurd for anyone else in any market to do, and this will likely be exhibit C at Apple&amp;#x27;s inevitable antitrust trial.&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;p&gt;Re-reading, and I wish that the article was longer. Of course Apple doesn&amp;#x27;t want to allow side-loading, but they&amp;#x27;re going to have to eventually, so why not do it proactively and in a way that allows third-party apps to be extra-sandboxed or reviewed? Oh right, because they&amp;#x27;re Apple. I appreciate the methodology, but a touch of openness will not kill their profits or trust level.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>askonomm</author><text>I, and a lot of other people, buy iPhones specifically because they are not Androids - it&amp;#x27;s hard to break them, install something horrible, etc. It&amp;#x27;s also why I recommend iPhones to older folk, like my mom, and from what I can tell, the need for me to help them out has decreased a ton since they stopped using Androids.&lt;p&gt;So why are you pushing for everything to have to be a general purpose computer? Why can&amp;#x27;t there be one phone maker that caters to those who don&amp;#x27;t want something like that? Why can&amp;#x27;t you just use Android, which is that? I just find it incredibly unfair that everything has to be the same for some odd reason for people who keep pushing for these things.</text></comment>
<story><title>Coming to Grips with Apple&apos;s Seemingly Unshakable Sense of Entitlement</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/coming_to_grips_with_apples_seemingly_unshakable_sense_of_app_store_entitlement</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bitvoid</author><text>I get the argument, but it falls flat for me. Consoles are basically appliances with a primarily singular purpose: video games. Smart phones, in my opinion, are general purpose computers that should be treated differently. Games are a small subset of what people use smart phones for.</text></item><item><author>lolinder</author><text>The comparison Apple made in the court case was not primarily to Steam or Google, it was to the consoles. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all take a 30% cut of all of Epic&amp;#x27;s transactions across their respective platforms. Apple argued, and persuaded the judge, that Epic&amp;#x27;s targeting of &lt;i&gt;Apple specifically&lt;/i&gt; for &lt;i&gt;it&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; 30% share was unreasonable given that Epic was happily paying the fee to all the other platforms:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Indeed, for example, Epic Games has agreed to such a rate on all Fortnite transactions via the Microsoft (Xbox) Store, the PlayStation Store, the Nintendo eShop, and Google Play. Epic Games has also agreed to extra payments for certain platform holders above and beyond the standard 30% commission rate. For example, for all Fortnite transactions via the PlayStation Store, Epic Games agreed to make additional payments to Sony above this commission rate based on the amount of time that PlayStation users play Fortnite cross-platform.&lt;p&gt;The judge forced Apple to allow transactions to take place off of the platform, but she &lt;i&gt;explicitly&lt;/i&gt; noted that Apple would still be entitled to a commission on said sales.&lt;p&gt;Apple sees their App Store arrangement as similar to Upwork, Rover, or any number of other marketplaces, which &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; have policies preventing users from meeting through the system but transacting outside of it. From their perspective, if they hooked you up with the sale, then they&amp;#x27;re entitled to a commission. If you think you can do better without their sales, you&amp;#x27;re welcome to pull out of their marketplace, and if they find that you&amp;#x27;re abusing their marketplace they&amp;#x27;ll hasten you to the door.&lt;p&gt;That is, as far as the judge was concerned, perfectly legal, and I&amp;#x27;m having a hard time not seeing it as a reasonable position to take.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;casetext.com&amp;#x2F;case&amp;#x2F;epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;casetext.com&amp;#x2F;case&amp;#x2F;epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>rpmisms</author><text>There is simply no way around the fact that Apple demanding a cut of sales on an external platform is ridiculous. Steam does not do this. Google does not do this. This would be absolutely absurd for anyone else in any market to do, and this will likely be exhibit C at Apple&amp;#x27;s inevitable antitrust trial.&lt;p&gt;Edit:&lt;p&gt;Re-reading, and I wish that the article was longer. Of course Apple doesn&amp;#x27;t want to allow side-loading, but they&amp;#x27;re going to have to eventually, so why not do it proactively and in a way that allows third-party apps to be extra-sandboxed or reviewed? Oh right, because they&amp;#x27;re Apple. I appreciate the methodology, but a touch of openness will not kill their profits or trust level.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lolinder</author><text>I agree that smart phones &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be general purpose computers, but that&amp;#x27;s why I use Android. iPhones are explicitly designed to &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; be general purpose computers, and that&amp;#x27;s part of the appeal for a lot of people.</text></comment>