Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

No, we shouldn't have had an alternative app store on iphones. Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Nobody is forcing anybody to buy an iphone to get online and make calls.

If you start a company, and you have 50% market share [1], do you want to be treated like a monopoly?

In a free market, Apple should be allowed to operate however they see fit, as long as they don't have a monopoly. Of course it is annoying that they can demand that much, but that's how open markets work.

All those developers who want better conditions on an app store, nobody is preventing them from joining their forces and creating a better operating system that promotes their own store with more favourable conditions.

Android is a sitting duck. Take objective c, the bsd kernel and the openstep libraries and link them up to your own mobile operating system. As long as Oracle doesn't win against Google, it can even have the same api as ios and thus all the existing apps from the apple app store. At first, offer it as a ROM for android devices, then start making your own. Apple's devices are expensive. Customers will love to buy cheaper alternatives.

Judging by the upvotes of this story alone, there should be 1000 developers wanting to have their own app store. If half of them invest some time of their life to create a new objective c operating system, they should have something operational in a year or two. Most likely much faster than the legal proceedings that could create a second app store on ios, with the nice benefit of being in control of the process.

[1] Research into Android vs iOS market share in the US shows that the market leader remains Google Android, with a 51.1% market share in June 2019. https://leftronic.com/android-vs-ios-market-share/

Via the FTC[0]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

This requirement for there to be a monopoly is a very U.S.-centric view. In the EU they tend to look more towards market distortion, and companies that distort a market tend to get fined. The EU also has some beef to settle with apple for getting away with dodging billions of euros in taxes through ireland.

So, because of the specifics of how antitrust legislation works in the U.S. Epic may very well fail in court, because they may fail to prove a monopoly. But I do expect the EU to take action. It is all but unavoidable at this point.

That's the law. That's how forcing a second app store could be possible. But first of all, I don't think that it should be used to force Apple's hands. If they want to operate the app store the way they do, they should be able to do so. Long-term, they will kill their position because being abusive creates an opportunity for another player.

Secondly, I don't believe that the law will be applied. There are plenty of big companies that are in that position. First of all google with their operating system, browser, search-engine, ad network combo and Microsoft with their office suit. If you look at the quality of MS Teams, you know that its popularity is not by free choice.

If a second app store is introduced by that law, there would be plenty of follow-ups. I doubt that killing those cash-cows will happen when there is an economic war against China. Opening up those markets would allow Chinese companies to take those positions.