In that case, you lose nothing even if Epic wins: the msot hey can do is set up their own store, and nobody's forcing you to use their store. If there's an app you want to get on a store you don't want to install, just don't download that app. "Free choice" works both ways: you can choose to remain within Apple's ecosystem, and others should have the choice to go out of it if they want.
Well that’s not strictly true because of the effects of fragmentation. A few years ago I could get practically anything I wanted to watch from Netflix; today I’d have to manage subscriptions and search and watch queues and UX across seven or eight different accounts just to get the same size catalog. I really hope that doesn’t happen with App stores too - but it seems to me that Epic is trying to do to gaming what Disney+ did to video content.
If you want that, it is in your best interest that Apple reduces their cut. Content creators shouldn't have to put up with Apple's obscene 30% cut. On the PC market, Epic has been indisputably a boon for game developers. Its cut is much lower and their exclusivity contracts pumped millions into development. Steam could've been in a much stronger position if they took a more reasonable cut.
To the end user who only uses Apple's app store, there is no functional difference between an app not being available in Apple's app store, and an app being available in a different App Store.
If Apple's app store was truly competitive, then Apple would have no problem keeping developers within their walled garden.
Try buying games on PC. I’d love to buy all my games on steam and keep them there. But no, every publisher now wants to run their own store with their own social network (usually one that doesn’t work well). There is truly a difference running one fairly good launcher/store vs 10 different slow start and resource hog stores.
Another example: would you rather listen music on Spotify, Apple Music or would you like to install Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music etc and always try to guess which artist is on which store.
I think it is called natural monopoly in economics. And it is one of the more generally accepted[1] economics findings that natural monopolies should not be in the hands of private corporations, but public.
(Obviously one can discuss whether it actually is a monopoly or not given android around.)
[1] One significant exception to this almost universal agreement is of course the private owners of said natural monopolies. Estimating the relevance of their opinion is left as an exercise to the reader...
Natural monopolies are ones where the barrier to entry to provide a service is high. Like a nuclear power company. This fragmentation isn't really in the same category, since clearly many companies have the ability to create a music streaming service or game store with some form of content.
Natural monopolies are ones where having multiple competing services doesn't make sense. Nuclear power isn't, to the extend NPPs make sense it makes sense to have multiple.
I'd genuinely rather have more options to choose from, and benefit from the competition, than to have only one choice from a company that bans things like GPL apps from their App Store, which is what Apple does.
However, that doesn't mean that that's how the market will pan out with healthy competition. For all we know an app store that really meets its users' needs will win out and have the majority of the market.
> from a company that bans things like GPL apps from their App Store, which is what Apple does.
AFAIR this is not exactly the case.
Software using GPLed code cannot be distributed via the apple App Store because of the GPL clause forbidding additional restrictions. The GPL is incompatible with the App Store license, just as it is for example with the old OpenSSL license. There’s nothing in the App Store rules that forbids GPL code, the restriction comes entirely from the GPL side. It’s a choice the developers of that code have made.
However, if you hold other rights (for example the full
Copyright or you entered a special license agreement with the creators of the GPL’ed code), you can distribute such an app via the App Store.
Apple could make exceptions for open-source software. The end result is that Apple will remove software from the App Store if they catch wind that it is GPL, and end users effectively can't use free software on their devices.
How exactly would such an exception look like? The GPL would require that the user can take the binary they downloaded and redistribute it. Or change and recompile it and then run the changed binary. That’s all fundamentally impossible with the iOS App Store.
The GPL is fundamentally at odds with a lot of things, for $reasons. For example, ruby could not be distributed with compiled-in OpenSSL support, until the developers adopted an OpenSSL linking exception.
The GPL or the developers of the GPL’ed software could make an exception for app stores. But the developers have deliberately chosen a license that is incompatible with certain uses, including all app stores - it’s not only the apple App Store that is affected, all consoles for example are affected, too.
> That’s all fundamentally impossible with the iOS App Store.
There's absolutely no reason that Apple wouldn't be able to allow GPL apps legally on their app store. It's just a matter of Apple changing their own terms.
> The GPL could make an exception for app stores
No, it couldn't unless you have a time machine or the ability to get consent from the author every line of GPL code ever written to agree to relicense their code under these new terms.
Apple doesn't even need to make exceptions for the GPL, it could just relax its policy or allow users to install whatever software they want.
That’s not a policy that can easily be changed. It’s a fundamental restriction of the entire system. There is no side loading on iOS devices unless you use a developer account. And that’s not going to change.
The issue with the GPL is not the limitations Apple put in place on their platform, but the additional terms required for distribution in the App Store. This is the reason cited by Adium[1] and VLC[2] developers when their projects were removed for GPL violations.
You can read more about those terms here[2], but they have nothing to do with the iOS security model.
I don’t see how the “mike gives a copy to Steve who can then run it on his iOS device” can be made to work without side loading (steve can already download his own free copy from the App Store). The FSF seems to argue that this must be possible to be compliant, so yeah, that’s my point.
Online game stores are convenient, but I don’t understand why I need to open them and have ads shovelled at me just to use the software I already bought. The app stores integrated into most OSes do not do this. I’d prefer having everything on Steam to running five different bloated game stores, but it seems like a false choice. Why didn’t the old gatekeeper-free business model survive the transition to online distribution?
This is a pretty great analogy and shows why some Apple customers are honestly happy with the current model. Besides, if you allowed more stores, nothing’s going to get cheaper for the customer, Epic will just make slightly more money and charge the same amount and customers will be left with the worse experience. The only advantage of loading apps from anywhere would be to load apps that are banned. Emulators or torrent apps.
> Besides, if you allowed more stores, nothing’s going to get cheaper for the customer
If you allowed more stores, they would have to actually compete to attract customers and prices are a fairly common way to do that. It's exactly what's happening on the PC video game markets with the Epic Store having giveaway and promotions.
So yes, it's pretty much a given that if you allowed more stores it would result in lower prices for customers.
Some functional differences may include likely an additional required app for each (more app clutter), more clone products, shoddy knock offs, selling your product far above or below cost, stores without the infrastructure to keep your data private, no UI enforcement (lots of ugly Java), no subscription enforcement (call us and wait to cancel), no app stability requirements (constant restarts and sluggishness)...
An app that does that and is in another app store has no way of affecting users who choose to only use Apple's App Store. No one is forcing you to use another app store.
But having competitors/alternatives does typically help to bring the price down and improve the customer experience. Another store may take only a 5% cut, so apps can be offered cheaper.
You can argue that for subscription based services of IP content like netflix this doesn't really apply since you'll now need multiple subscriptions. But a big reason these subscriptions have to keep their prices low is because of the free competitor called pirate bay. If it wasn't for the alternative of pirating, we might not ever have gotten Netflix.
Putting to one side the issue of how content producers might feel about a world in which Netflix was the only game in town, I think fragmentation is a much smaller problem for app stores. Consumers need to launch a streaming app whenever they want to watch TV, but they only need to launch the app store infrequently to install new apps. I don’t mind having to think about which app store to use a few times a year.
> In that case, you lose nothing even if Epic wins:
Another commenter put it really well [1]:
A sufficiently powerful company or group could promote a third party app store by negotiating exclusive deals. Imagine a "EpicTwitBook" store being the only way to get Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Fortnite.
Previously those apps were forced to make concessions to be on the iOS store, and I could download "Instagram, the version that makes Apple happy" app.
But now, that version of the app is gone! I google "Why is my Instagram gone" and get an article that says I have to sign up to the "EpicTwitBook" store, and download the "Instagram, the version that makes Advertisers happy" app.
I would prefer the first version but I don't get a choice.
> B) If this does happen, then just make the choice of not installing the app.
Why is "If you don't like the app spying on you, don't install the app" OK, but "If you don't like paying the 30% tax for having your app on iOS, don't make an iOS app" not OK?
Because it affects a third party, the consumers who gets less choice. I admit that the tax is not a legal problem by itself, companies are allowed to act selfishly.
It is a legal problem only when the Apple tax becomes anti-competitive behaviour by giving Apple products an unfair advantage (e.g. Apple Music vs Spotify). Apple driving away from the market competitors to its products is bad for everyone but Apple.
How to solve that? 3rd party app stores are workable and theoretically desirable, but that's a solution both Apple and the 3rd party stores will end up hating without fixing the problems (95% of users will still only use the official store; Apple will still hate it because they lose 5% control).
It's better to fix the current store. Perhaps banning use of private APIs by non-system Apple apps and allowing payment system choice would be enough. A more transparent app review system would also help.
