Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

"Take the power back" by not continuing to give them your money.

Google makes money off of advertising. Apple makes money, in part, off of taxing apps. If Apple can't tax apps, then suddenly their business model isn't nearly as appealing, and they start needing to make changes to keep things profitable -- things like maybe selling more of your data, or "encouraging" you to upgrade by not supporting older phones as well.

This whole discussion always makes me angry because right now I have a choice: I can choose to buy a product supported by app taxes, or I can choose to buy a product supported by spying on me. If Apple is forced to allow other app stores, and thus forced to look for other business models to remain profitable, I may not have that choice any more.

If Fortnite doesn't like it, why don't they just charge 50% more for the app on iOS? If people complain, just show them the math, so they know that it's the Apple Tax making things more expensive. I'm happy to pay 30% more for apps.

But I know too many people who are very vocal about how Apple is bad and how they should be stopped, and yet these people keep buying a new iThing every year.

It all holds well too, until you realise, however, that Apple is sitting on 200 billion dollars in cash.

Also: Epic did actually give an option to pay less for their microtransactions if you paid them directly, and were about to refund people for their transactions in the past month for the Apple tax itself. Their rebellion is the main reason Apple retaliated like this.

[1] https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

It shows three situations, two of which depict normal progress ("there is this useful thing that has flaws because nobody has cared enough to fix those flaws, let's try"; Mr. Gotcha's burn is out of line), and one depicts standard corporate behavior ("a brand is willfully behaving in several ways that the society knows is abusive, and fans of that brand are willfully blind towards that)"; Mr. Gotcha's burn is very much deserved).

In short, one of these things is not like the others.

But at the same time, do not pretend that there are not any alternatives. Yes, perhaps those alternatives are not as convenient, but choosing them over the "wrong" choice should be an equal part of the fight.

And "Live in a hut"? Please do not be overly maudlin. We are talking consumer electronics here - something that is still considered luxury - not fundamental philosophies of life or economic models of society.

I was merely trying to point out that people tend to put too much emphasis in being safely vocal (online, where you're sitting safely in your own home) against bad behavior, and not enough emphasis in actually not rewarding said bad behavior. For many, the latter option is not even present in their mind anymore.

Even if you go the route of sacrificing your social life for these principles nothing will change - you are just a single lost sale amongst billions. Having people talk about the problems might actually spark change. What does pointing out this alleged "hypocrisy" achieve, besides making yourself feel smarter/superior?

This was not unusual in the late 90s.

I disagree. A smartphone is a necessity in this current era. If for example your government requires you to install a Covid tracing app, what choice do you have besides Apple and Android (both of which removed Fortnite)?

You can't meaningfully participate in society without access to the Internet, especially during a pandemic.

Just a few weeks ago there were a bit of news where you could not sign up for a corona test unless you had the bank verififed identification smartphone app installed. When the local government in charge of testing was interviewed, they said that for people without the app they would help them install it. Problem solved.

Some luxury products are very different to other luxury products.

how does that negate the given points? These 200b is an indicator of a healthy business that can survive major downturns for a long period of time, which should be much more appealing that an open credit line and piles of debt in accounting tables, so much prevalent in the industry nowadays.

How about the money they make selling iPhones?

The linked comic talks about underpaid factory workers in China - every company that sells smartphones suffers from this to some extend because tracking down supply chains many links in becomes very difficult. It is not so easy to determine with 100% certainty where the guy that sold you the refined metal for the CPU chip got his unrefined metal from. Apple has actually made big efforts in attempting to eradicate slave/child labor [1] - so if you care about human rights of labourers in third world countries you should probably buy an iPhone.

None of this is black and white, both Google and Apple have tons of problems. If you say "don't buy Apple if you don't support walled gardens", then someone else will say "don't buy Google if you don't support extensive privacy invasion". There is no correct choice - you can only fight the specific problems.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/archive/apple-wins-global-award-effo...

The issue is that Apple would be still be comfortably profitable at a much lower and less predatory level of Apple-tax-rate. They are fundamentally not entitled to the profits of the companies who have to be on their market. The value they provide to the developers and customers collectively for simply hosting and reviewing these apps is not 30%. As other commenters have pointed out, they are willing to pay a portion of this extra 30% if and only if it goes to the people who build the applications. It's not a supply-demand mismatch issue, it's overreach and exploitation.

On the other hand, I don't quite get what your point is about Apple being a healthy business or them not accumulating debt (which is arguably wrong, Apple has ~91,807,000,000 USD in long-term debt (out of 142B USD in non-current liabilities)). I don't think that is relevant here, let alone discounts my point about the excessive profits they've accumulated.

that's not how markets work. Apple is absolutely entitled to charge whatever amount of money they wish, firstly because other companies engage into trade with Apple voluntarily and no one is forcing companies into App Store, they enter it because they know they are going to make money there, and secondly because if Apple is not entitled to this money by their right of ownership of the platform that millions of customers find outstanding, everyone else is even less entitled to own and dispose of these earnings.

It is also up to Apple shareholders to decide what is comfortably profitable.

As for the debt that you mention, accounting doesn't work that way either. Their total long-term and current operational debt as of 2020 can be paid in full, by the half of their immediately available disposable cash. This IS a prime example of a healthy business.