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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: 0.01s | source
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fastball ◴[14 Aug 20 08:57 UTC] No.24155525[source]▶
To everyone that is supporting Apple's position, let me run this hypothetical by you:

You buy a Nespresso machine on Amazon. Some amount of the purchase price goes to Amazon for facilitating the transaction and delivering it to you, some goes to Nespresso for actually making the device. Cool. Then you get a pod subscription from Nespresso – let's say there is a touch screen on the coffee machine itself where you enter your details to subscribe. Now, Nespresso ships pods to your house every month. Amazon then says that because the machine was originally bought on Amazon, they are entitled to a 30% cut of that ongoing subscription price, even though the subscription is neither facilitated nor fulfilled by Amazon.

I think we can all agree that would be ridiculous.

That is what Apple is doing.

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BillinghamJ ◴[14 Aug 20 09:08 UTC] No.24155586[source]▶
That is inaccurate. Your comparison would be closer if the purchase of pods was handled by Amazon

Any comparison with physically shipped goods isn't going to be particularly relevant here

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krrrh ◴[14 Aug 20 09:28 UTC] No.24155717[source]▶
It would be even more accurate if Nespresso gave away free machines on amazon that could only heat water, expected Amazon to advertise them, ship them free to prime customers and handle returns and customer support, and also insisted that pods required to do anything with the machine were exclusively available direct from Nespresso.

Though, in the real world of physical goods Amazon also sells generic pods from all sorts of manufacturers, which Nespresso can’t prevent. Yet Epic demands that they are the only company that can sell hats on Fortnite.

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1. fastball ◴[14 Aug 20 10:05 UTC] No.24155964[source]▶
Epic isn't demanding anything. Apple's involvement has nothing to do with who can sell hats on Fortnite.

Epic also isn't "expecting" Apple to do all that. Apple does all that as part of paying for an Apple Developer License. If their costs are not being recouped by that, they should charge what it's actually costing them to deliver those services.

They should not be charging 30% on transactions they don't need to have any hand in, and the only reason they can is because they are using their monopoly position to force participants to use them as the payment processor.

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2. krrrh ◴[14 Aug 20 11:08 UTC] No.24156403[source]▶
The point about hats is where do you draw the line on restricting access to a market? When does Fortnite become a platform that locks out hat designers or is perceived as taking too large of a cut from the hat store?

If Apple did enforce fee-for-service on developer accounts you’d see HN light up in a way that would make this thread look tame in comparison. Consumers benefit massively from free and open source apps getting access to App Store, APNS, Game Center, etc. This makes the platform more valuable for giant companies like Epic.

Perhaps you think sidewalks should be reserved for those who pay property taxes? Or that people should make per-step micropayments? Or tourists and children should require credits to access parks?

> … the only reason …

A statement like this is bound to be false. Ecosystems are complex.

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3. fastball ◴[14 Aug 20 11:16 UTC] No.24156454[source]▶
Apps are different from hats. Apps for iOS would exist without the iOS App Store, as evidenced by the fact that people were literally creating apps for iOS before the App Store existed. Hats cannot exist without coordination from Epic.

Sidewalks and parks are a public good... the App Store is not.