I think we're pretty far off on our interpretations here, and you don't explain why you think the tactic isn't good. Epic is not asking for free money. And they wouldn't be asking for free help, either. This is clearly an issue that is impactful to other large companies in the app store, and they would simply be coming together to negotiate rather than stranded on their own. Hacker news is full of developers, that's part of the reason people care about this issue. Epic's problem could be our problem, too. Nobody wants to be exploited.
Well, I have suggested that Epic have no leverage, several times, and this appears to be true. They violated a contract, threw mud, and filed a lawsuit, all on their own, without any signs of getting developers on board to the cause or having anything of significant value (apparently) that might persuade Apple to back down.
Escalating to mom is not an adult way to behave.
This is a business fight about power, control and money. Positioning it as some moral crusade is disingenuous at best. I don’t love Apple’s policies, but Epic aren’t asking that Apple gives developers freedom, it’s asking that EPIC gets freedom to also run an App Store and take fees from developers. It’s literally writ large in Sweeney’s E-Mails to Apple in June:
“Please confirm within two weeks if Apple agrees in principle to allow Epic to provide a competing App Store”
I think we might be talking past each other. When I say that Epic and the founder have leverage, I do not mean against Apple in a lawsuit. I mean that they have leverage in the community because they make great products and have been making them for a long time, they are reputable and liked in their community and in the tech and business world.
When you say "escalating to mom," it isn't clear to me if you're criticizing Epic's lawsuit, in which case I am in agreement with you and criticizing the same thing - or if you're criticizing my suggestion to go on strike, which I think would be the opposite of "escalating to mom." It would instead be gathering your friends in unison against a bully and stating plainly, without appeal to law or to force, that there is no mutual agreement in your interactions and that you want new terms to your relationship.
I also disagree that there is no moral argument to be made here. The point is that it should not matter what Epic's particular motivations are, because they're borne from the same frustrations and feeling of unfairness that all other developers here are in a position to one day find themselves. If Epic is acting strictly selfishly, a win for them is still a win for everyone else. To interpret these events in good faith is to put yourself in their shoes - not to require them to fight for you for it to be just.
As far as I've heard, Epic is not asking to be able to charge developers, they want to sell their own things in their own game at their own prices. There aren't any third parties involved in that so I'm not sure where you got that part from.
It's one thing to say that you think a strike would fail, it's another to say that it shouldn't be attempted. For someone so rigorously defending Apple on ostensibly free-market grounds, you're stopping short of going all the way and accepting a free-market response to their high prices. Your defense is selective, and my interpretation of such selectivity is that you yourself do not have conviction when it comes to how markets should operate or what are just actions inside a free market, but simply an emotional defense of a trillion dollar corporation who makes nice products that you like.
Epic make excellent products, no argument, this is also a reason why this is a poor tactic - use your strengths to drive a bargain, right?
To confirm, I definitely think Epic are running to Mom here with the lawsuit, they were trying to get Apple sucked in deliberately by breaking the contract.
Regarding the moral argument, Tim Sweeney doesn't get to represent all other developers unless he at least checks with a few, and he might be surprised at the range of responses he would get. This is supposed to be a game where everyone knows the rules in advance and sticks to them. There is plenty of evidence to say that Apple has offered sweetheart deals or not applies the rules consistently - and that IS unfair, and I hope Apple gets a smackdown on that. But on the basis that you knew what the rules were in advance, should we continue to accept these events in good faith?
On the subject of money, Apple's prices are off-the-charts crazy right now, and speaking as a veteran of the prices of the early 1990s, I am staggered at how expensive everything is. My current iPhone is almost two years old and it had better last another three at least. I just bought a new MBP in January and the cost was eye-watering. That had better last ten years. And on these things, we have little choice, or at least I don't. I want to be in that ecosystem, because I've tried the others and they suck, so if it's a choice of spending the money or having my life suck, well, that's why money was invented.
I would rather not be seen as defending Apple, because they don't need my help, and I don't want to help them, but I also do not want to read emotive and partial cheap shots at them decrying their "tax" and espousing "freedom" - everything is a trade-off and people make those choices themselves. If Epic had decided to sue Apple, Google, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all at the same time, or done the diplomatic thing and gotten an alliance or coalition to stand up to Apple, that would be defensible, but it seems that the Sweeney Toddler approach won out - how are we supposed to support this even if we agree that Apple deserve a kicking?
