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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

(www.theverge.com)
1704 points ardit33 | 3 comments | 13 Aug 20 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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lordleft ◴[13 Aug 20 20:04 UTC] No.24147974[source]▶
Imagine if Microsoft did this on PCs. a) prohibiting the installation of non-windows store software (sideloading) and b) insisting that all purchases done via apps give them a 30% cut. I think this is a ridiculous practice on the behalf of Apple.
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inopinatus ◴[13 Aug 20 23:02 UTC] No.24150740[source]▶
This misrepresents and skips over Apple’s great offence, which is why a bunch of others who don’t know the half of it are piping up with their comparisons to the PlayStation store etc.

The most egregious part of Apple’s rules, and the reason that online service providers have a special loathing, is that apps are disallowed from linking to, advertising, or even mentioning that it is possible to sign up/subscribe/buy/rent outside of the app.

This is why you won’t see MMOs like FFXIV through the App Store, and is why you can’t sign up for Netflix, or even follow a link to their sign-up, from within the app.

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1. bob33212 ◴[14 Aug 20 00:25 UTC] No.24151688[source]▶
10 years from now people will think it was crazy that you couldn't publish a totally legit app just because you had a payment button on the app. It would be one thing for APPL to charge a low fee for listing an app to cover their costs of hosting and review, but this is 100% about squeezing everyone, because they can
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2. tommymachine ◴[14 Aug 20 01:31 UTC] No.24152152[source]▶
hosting & review are just the beginning. They also maintain substantial support around the App Store. So their costs will scale with number of downloads, usage, purchases, etc, which is why their fee scales with it too.
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3. krrrh ◴[14 Aug 20 10:57 UTC] No.24156335[source]▶
The paid apps also subsidize the support and distribution of free apps. This makes the App Store and platform more attractive and helps developers in the end OTOH, it is pretty wild that Facebook has never paid a dime to Apple for software distribution, aside from $99 a year.