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1704 points ardit33 | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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andreasley ◴[] No.24148645[source]
Epic Games has filed a lawsuit [1] and published a Fortnite-themed parody of Apple's "1984" [2] to get some publicity for it.

[1] https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/apple-complaint-734589783.pdf

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euiSHuaw6Q4

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js2 ◴[] No.24150052[source]
I like the parody, but it's not really equivalent.

The original Apple parody was to convince consumers to switch from one platform (PC) to a different platform (Mac).

Now, maybe you believe Apple, in the form of iOS, has become Big Brother. Fine, in that case, Epic should provide its own gaming platform.

But Epic isn't trying to destroy Big Brother here. It still wants to run on Big Brother's platform. It just doesn't want to give up any revenue to do so.

Shrug.

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dgrin91 ◴[] No.24150799[source]
Epic stated that they want to create their own separate app store outside of apple, but are unable to because apple does not allow sideloading.

So no, Epic doesn't want to run on Big Brother's platform.

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AdamJacobMuller ◴[] No.24152861[source]
The platform is not merely the App Store. The hardware, the OS, the APIs, they are all part of the platform.
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1. gpm ◴[] No.24153091[source]
The hardware is not Apple's, it belongs to the owner of the device.

Arguably I think there would be a reasonable anti-trust suit against the OS as well, it's not clear to me why it isn't illegal to utilize their monopoly on their hardware to create a monopoly on the OS running on the device.

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2. dodobirdlord ◴[] No.24155013[source]
> their monopoly on their hardware

This way of viewing things leads to some really silly conclusions. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the iPhone, the premise is intrinsically absurd. By this argument literally any non-commodity product is a "monopoly" of the company that distributes it.

Moreover, what Apple sells isn't hardware, it's hardware with software on it. That's the product. As far as I know there is no official way to buy either iOS or an iPhone that doesn't have iOS installed. Sometimes companies take an opinionated stance on how they distribute their products, like a firearm manufacturer that only manufactures firearms that have a safety. Framing that sort of thing as an antitrust issue is unreasonable.

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3. yvdriess ◴[] No.24155752[source]
Monopoly is indeed not technically the right term, but it's not necessarily a monopoly itself that causes antitrust issues, it's the business practices that are enabled by it. A large player in a market that uses business practices to capture and hold more of that market by erecting barriers of entry are definitely sailing into antitrust waters.

In essence, any practice that helps compete in the market by other ways than increasing value to the consumer is suspect. Incidentally, this is a double edges sword, as this is the interpretation of the antitrust laws that has enabled the rise of so many monopoly-like companies in the last few decades. (e.g. Amazon: we're increasing value to customers because we can offer lower prices if we're larger)

4. ◴[] No.24159364[source]