Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

I don't see the problem, Epic explicitly went around the app store's payment process and terms of service. It's within Apple's right to pull Fortnite. They are also suing Apple as well.

Why should Epic get a “special arrangement” from all other developers?

If you don't like the terms, then don't be on the Apple App store, but of course your missing a huge swath of the population thus the 30% fee. Being on the App store is essentially unlimited marketing and exposure for your app. Cost of doing business.

As a consumer, why can't there be an alternative App Store on IoS if I don't like the Apple terms? Apple shouldn't force consumers and developers to provide them with 30%.

If you don't like the service or product, don't buy it. There are Android, Sailfish, Postmarket, Mer.

It's extremely unethical in my opinion to force some service provider to adjust the service to your needs/preferences.

These proceedings are not about users having no choice (though, they really don't: Has anyone here except you even heard of "mer"?)

They're about developers not having any choice. Developers have to release on iOS. There's no other option, because that's where most users are. Apple has a captive audience, and they're using that captive audience to abuse developers, who have no recourse.

The issue with many armchair commentators on HackerNews is that we look at the philosophy of the situation, and not the reality. The philosophy is "its Apple's platform, it's their right to run it however they want." The reality is "a billion people use this thing." The rules change when you get that big; its not about philosophy, its about doing what's best for everyone. To some degree, Apple does have a right to run their platform how they want: Fuck Their Rights.

> They're about developers not having any choice. Developers have to release on iOS. There's no other option, because that's where most users are.

They do have a choice. You target Apple users and agree upon Apple's terms, or you don't, and publish your app in F-droid/Jolla store, hoping somebody would pay.

The reality is that apple has built an infrastructure which allow you to gain profits and deliver to a huge amount of customers.

> The reality is "a billion people use this thing.

Because Apple put quite a lot of resources to build it. It's their right to operate it as they do.

> Fuck Their Rights

Sure, but let's start with turning your home into a shelter for homeless people for the sake of the society, Fucking your Right, and then we'll fuck theirs. People are always quick to deprive others of their rights as I see.

I strongly believe in rights for People. I have less belief in rights for Corporations. And even less for mega-corporations worth two trillion dollars.

CORPORATIONS. ARE. NOT. PEOPLE.

If tomorrow the government fined Apple a hundred billion dollars, for literally no reason except for the fun of it, I could focus my entire being, every ounce of willpower I have, into attempting to expel one milliliter-sized tear, and would still have dry eyes.

When an indie developer spends her days and nights producing a work of passion, only to pay the US Government 25% and Apple 30% of the few thousand dollars she makes, and the next day Apple announces that they made a hundred billion dollars last quarter: I stand with the indie developer, not with the faceless mega-corporation.

I couldn't lose ten seconds of sleep over some perceived injustice that this developer used the piece of literal garbage Apple excretes every year and slaps an "xcode" label on to develop her passion project, and that somehow entitles them to the billions of dollars they make in taxes.

I won't curl up in the fetal position and cry when thinking about how much Apple DESERVES the billions of iPhone users out there, stuck in a duopoly between two mega-corporations who treat ethics the same way I treat toilet paper, people who spend thousands of dollars on that hardware, and thus Apple DESERVES to control what they can and cannot use their phones for, thus Apple DESERVES to control which developers they interact with and how they compensate them.

The gall I must have, to not log on to the internet and defend a trillion dollar corporation against this horrible, mean indie developer for coming after their 30%! Hank Rearden earned that 30%! By god, through the sheer force of paying other people to build a fence, and a little luck convincing customers to live inside of it, they earned it!