Apple vs the Law

Tim Sweeney is the only billionaire and computer scientist who's actually fighting against inequality. The big difference between him and folks like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Marc Benioff, is that while those billionaires talk about universal basic income to make up for the mass layoffs their tech is going to cause, Tim's out there fighting monopolies, hiring people, building tools for developers, and making games. That's why his HQ isn't in San Francisco. He's the only one who hasn't been brainwashed by VCs or sold out to greed.

He speaks for millions of computer scientists who don't live in the Valley and are using their knowledge of maths and physics to build things that help people, not hurt them. Because let's be honest, a future where billionaires keep getting richer and computer scientists are out of work, scraping by on UBI, begging billionaires for $10 more bucks a month, is a feature no one wants. And when I say "we" I mean myself, my colleagues, and all my students.

Tim, thank you. You inspired a whole generation. Keep fighting against Apple, Google and corporate greed!

Inequality matters.

Not just computer scientists right ?

Because they don't expect that UBI money to come from their profits, but from the taxes paid by the working class.

They're just cosplaying socialists to score brownie points like they did with rainbow flags in the past, knowing it will be on other people's money, and it's all performative.

Edit: @pyman

>My biggest fear is that UBI can turn into a tool for control,

CAN?! It WILL be. The same way state pensions in Europe are used by the government for control of the population. "Vote for me and I increase your pensions. Step out of line and I cut off your pension and make you homeless like we did to that German woman protesting against the government."

EU isn't regulating AI for the good of the people, it's regulating it for control since they don't want to leave the freedom of speech and the freedom of opinion to entities they can't control that can tell people opinions that are not state approved.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-22/ubi-study...

This is the same person who told OpenAI he'd invest between 1 and 10 billion of his company's money if they focused on ChatGPT and speeding up the development of autonomous AI workers.

Governments are supposed to protect workers, regulate industries, and make sure technology benefits everyone. Looks like billionaires and VCs who love monopolies are building the future on their terms.

It seems the other way around that governments need to bend backwards to the will of pensioners to get elected.

- He sued Apple and Google for monopolistic behaviour. He's been fighting for fair access and better deals for all developers, not just Epic Games Store.

- His fight's not about open source or open platforms, it's about fair access, lower fees, and giving developers more control.

- He speaks for millions of independent computer scientists who build games.

- He purchased 7,000-acre Box Creek Wilderness (about US$15 million), fought off a power company's attempt to run lines through it, and donated a conservation easement in 2016 so the land stays wild.

- He's actually walking the talk. While other billionaires post about saving the planet, he's out there buying forests to protect them.

Meanwhile he doesn't substantially support the one option for computing that doesn't result in vertical control. He uses the tools that enable that control, rather than criticize their existence.

> He speaks for millions of independent computer scientists who build games.

Epic's apparent support for indie developers is marketing to grow his business. This isn't intrinsically a bad thing, but he isn't some golden saint. It also comes at the cost of catering to consumers, which is in large part why EGS has failed to gain traction beyond throwing free games at people in order to try to entice customers to their store. Key word: try. It hasn't worked.

> He purchased 7,000-acre Box Creek Wilderness (about US$15 million), fought off a power company's attempt to run lines through it, and donated a conservation easement in 2016 so the land stays wild.

Whatever. This is just billionaire philanthropy and $15m is a drop in the bucket to these people.

That's why billionaires are talking about basic income before politicians do. They know the window for their survival is closing fast.

And yet he did not sue Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft. Each of whom represent a much larger share Epic's revenue than Apple or Google.

And he admitted in court that he was willing to throw all other developers under the bus if Apple had given him the discount he wanted for Epic.