Apple and Epic and you, the megathread

[spacegojira]

@LordLytonn

Yes, absolutely. But there are 2 major issues here:

1. Apple is controlling their platform in a monopolistic way. They want to ensure they’re the only middle man, and profit off that monopoly. This is anti-consumer and has to be regulated.
2. Apple went further then just banning Fortnite with essentially Unreal Engine ban. Clearly no longer about what Epic did with payment system, it’s directed at people using a specific set of tool, not because these tools became suddenly an issue, but because they want to attack the company that made those tools.

And lawsuits aside, for the developers community and consumers, we can’t allow this. And this isn’t only software, look at Amazon for example. It seems like big companies found a loophole to control and exploit the market by essentially owning the market, buying out any startup competition they might have, monopolizing the basic software that devices use etc.

Let’s say you want to sue a company you work for over something. They fire you, but it doesn’t stop there, because they monopolized electricity, housing, water etc, and you get all of those as a part of big “terms of service” and now they deny you all the basics you need, and they also deny them to your family and friends, guilt by association. This is what’s happening in Epic’s case but in the business, not individual aspect.

I agree with most of what you said, but Apple isn’t a monopoly. I see this argument thrown around so much these days, but it doesn’t mean what most people think it does.
This comment by David Haynie explains it quite well: https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-Apple…red-a-monopoly

And Epic didn’t just stage a public protest over Apples anti-consumer behaviour. They deliberately broke their signed agreement, encouraged users to do the same, sued them in court AND manipulated children into hate against Apple with their 1984 video being played in Fortnite.

Sure, Apple isn’t a better company (they guilty of plenty of human rights issues with their phone production), but if Epic wants to play dirty, why cry when Apple does the same? Epic brought this onto themselves AND all of us developers who build on iOS.

Is this a right move my Apple? Clearly not, it is anti-developer and anti-consumer, and I would love to see Apple losing power and being forced to be more open.
But let’s stay clear here and remember one thing, this is a fight between two multi-billion dollar companies who want to grow as much as possible. This whole fight is solely about profits, not about making the industry more “fair and open”, no matter what each side is telling the public.