Apple Asks Supreme Court to Pause Epic Games Case Ahead of App Store Fee Ruling

[CarAnalogy]

Apple trying to get the Supreme Court to help them out, in our current moment, is leaving me with very mixed feelings.

It's just lawyers lawyering. They're pursuing all legal options. I don't blame them anymore than that scorpion from the old tale about the river crossing. It's just what they do.

I blame Tim Cook for pursuing this strategy, or not intervening when Cue or Schiller or whomever chose to pursue it.

So yeah, hopefully Ternus decides this isn't worth it.

 

[surferfb]

However, the whole crux of this entire issue is whether Apple should be the sole and unquestioned arbitrator of all services, when there are others willing to provide those services.

On their platform, they should be! If you don’t like it buy/develop/process payments for Android.

This is what the third party app store (even that framing is successful marketing...) in Europe was about, and why it didn't go anywhere due to sabotage.

It didn’t go anywhere because customers don’t want it. We’ve already seen this with Android. The Play Store has over 90% share despite Android being open. The only people asking for this are big developers who want to freeload and a tiny subset of technology enthusiasts who are loud online.

There were parties willing to validate software supply chain, provide payment services, do everything Apple insists only it can do. But they aren't allowed.

It’s Apple’s platform. They should get to chose.

 

[I7guy]

Without a lot of things there's no sale. Should your ISP get a cut of every transaction you make on a website? Without your ISP, and their ISP for that matter, there's no sale.

Was that the original deal you made with your isp?

Should Microsoft get a cut of every sale made on Windows? Should they have for the last many decades? Was their mistake not taking a toll from every single software developer on their platform?

Was that the original deal Microsoft made?

If only they had been more of a toll-taker, maybe they wouldn't be so poor today...

Quick edit: and I further realize the irony that one reason that they are so rich today is because they did in fact go into the toll-taking business with Azure.

 

[CarAnalogy]

On their platform, they should be! If you don’t like it buy/develop/process payments for Android.


It didn’t go anywhere because customers don’t want it. We’ve already seen this with Android. The Play Store has over 90% share despite Android being open. The only people asking for this are big developers who want to freeload and a tiny subset of technology enthusiasts who are loud online.


It’s Apple’s platform. They should get to chose.

Alright, I get the point. I'm not going to change your mind.

It's just interesting to see this strong an adherence to the philosophy that a corporation should be able to set all the rules regardless of the public interest.

Not the usual sentiment on this forum....

 

[CarAnalogy]

Was that the original deal you made with your isp?

Was that the original deal Microsoft made?

I had to hit show ignored content to see this since you tend to just argue with me, but I'll take the bait this time.

No, that was not the agreement. And that's exactly my point.

Do you really think the world would be a better place, that the iPhone could even have existed, if right from the start ISPs and Microsoft had focused solely on capturing all value for themselves?

ISPs work on peering and many of the first ones were for profit but also for connecting people on principle. Honestly the more I think of it, it's a quirk of history that likely won't happen again with today's philosophies.

Even Microsoft famously said early on that the ecosystem should get most of the value. And for all their evil, they didn't enforce that through technology. They just wanted their software licenses, and let people run the software they wanted to create, and software flourished while Apple withered.

 

[germanbeer007]

Developers should be aware of the license agreements of the APIs they use. Not sure what specific example you're talking about.

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kupyl3/help_please_i_got_a_bill_close_to_10k_after

Urgent: Massive unexpected Google Maps API bill - What are my options?

I’m in a panic! I’ve been working on a small website feature using the Google Maps API for about a week. Today I checked my account and saw a bill for almost $10,000! This is way more than I can afford as a student. I’m shocked and scared. I never got any warnings by email. The only alert I got...

community.latenode.com

Client Success Story: How We Cut A $25,000 Google Maps API Bill To Near-Zero With Route-Based Tracking | 8allocate

8allocate.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1jzoi8v/ddos_attack_facing_100000_bill

https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1qkmno1/google_maps_api_billing_keeps_surprising_people

And it's great that you point out license agreements when Epic agreed to Apple's license agreement which Epic deliberately violated.

And your last sentence assumes a working free market economy. Do you believe that we exist in a working free market economy when it comes to mobile computing platforms?

Google has a larger, more dominant marketshare so, technically and objectively - yes.

 

[dominiongamma]

I love how people are saying Apple should just pay more but that costs end up just being passed on to you, the customer.

Nice shooting yourself in the foot.

You suffer as well as an Apple user by that logic

 

[germanbeer007]

You suffer as well as an Apple user by that logic

Which is why I take the stance that Apple should be able to do whatever they want with their own platform.

 

[surferfb]

Alright, I get the point. I'm not going to change your mind.

It's just interesting to see this strong an adherence to the philosophy that a corporation should be able to set all the rules regardless of the public interest.

Not the usual sentiment on this forum....

The difference is I think Apple’s rules are strongly in the public’s interest. A competitor exists that is open and allows what Apple doesn’t. It’s also significantly more exposed to scams, fraud and malware because of its open nature. You force Apple open and its users suffer, many of whom chose Apple BECAUSE of the restrictions, not in spite of them.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'll just always struggle with defending multi-trillion dollar companies to this degree.

I just don't think the world will stop spinning if they are asked to not take as much.

All the "rules" of business are made up constructs. Same with "markets" (which are mostly anything but these days)
There are no gravitational physics at work here. No laws of nature.

Societies and jurisdictions can decide to craft things however they want, and I just feel the balance is out of whack with mega corps, at least in the US.

Call me a socialist if one cares to. Happy to be painted that way.
It's just how I feel, particularly more as time and my age have gone on.

 

[CarAnalogy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kupyl3/help_please_i_got_a_bill_close_to_10k_after

Urgent: Massive unexpected Google Maps API bill - What are my options?

I’m in a panic! I’ve been working on a small website feature using the Google Maps API for about a week. Today I checked my account and saw a bill for almost $10,000! This is way more than I can afford as a student. I’m shocked and scared. I never got any warnings by email. The only alert I got...

community.latenode.com

Client Success Story: How We Cut A $25,000 Google Maps API Bill To Near-Zero With Route-Based Tracking | 8allocate

8allocate.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1jzoi8v/ddos_attack_facing_100000_bill

https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1qkmno1/google_maps_api_billing_keeps_surprising_people

And it's great that you point out license agreements when Epic agreed to Apple's license agreement which Epic deliberately violated.




Google has a larger, more dominant marketshare so, technically and objectively - yes.

Last point first: you consider a duopoly a functioning free market?

And as to the first, maybe I'm just dense here, but I just don't get your point. Someone used a Google Maps API and got a bill for it, and this is a problem with Apple's commissions and distribution policies regarding the App Store?

 

[iPop63]

I love how people are saying Apple should just pay more but that costs end up just being passed on to you, the customer.

Nice shooting yourself in the foot.

Ironically, that IS more or less true of monopolies (which Apple claims it's not) but would not be true in competitive markets (the players in which would need to eat the penalties). However, a key point of law suits like this is to try and wrest some power away from large oligopolistic or monopolistic corporations.

 

[germanbeer007]

Last point first: you consider a duopoly a functioning free market?

free market means basically an unrestricted economic system. duopoly exists in a free market and technically a monopoly can exist in a free market. maybe you have a different definition of free market but that's what I've learned in my college days.

"functional free market" has subjective thresholds. innovation can absolutely crush Apple/Google. we already see rumors of OpenAI developing a phone where it makes apps practically useless as AI can ultimately take over the use case for apps. Google is already taking away the lower end marketshare from Apple. And Apple is struggling to catch up with AI so it's not like they can just triple the price of the iPhone and expect to move similar volumes of product.

And as to the first, maybe I'm just dense here, but I just don't get your point. Someone used a Google Maps API and got a bill for it, and this is a problem with Apple's commissions and distribution policies regarding the App Store?

you asked for examples?

 

[germanbeer007]

Ironically, that IS more or less true of monopolies (which Apple claims it's not) but would not be true in competitive markets (the players in which would need to eat the penalties). However, a key point of law suits like this is to try and wrest some power away from large oligopolistic or monopolistic corporations.

Not entirely. I'd still be on Apple's platform but with less value and/or paying more. The threshold for me to switch to a competitor phone would have to be slightly more than losing access to apps and/or paying 10-15% more for my apps. That's not a monopoly as long as that is true. If I cannot switch even after reaching reasonable thresholds, then that would be a monopoly.

 

[germanbeer007]

I'll just always struggle with defending multi-trillion dollar companies to this degree.

The best way to tell if someone is being objective, or at least, unbiased, is if they defend a stance regardless if their enemy is having the same stance.

Whether it's a $1 company or a $100 trillion company, as long as they are doing what I think is right, I'll defend. I hate Samsung but if they do something I think is in the right, I'll 100% defend them. That is IMO the best way to live.

I am unsure why you are struggling to understand this. Someone who does something is only right if they're not worth multi-trillion dollars? That is ridiculous.

 

[ricketysquire]

No heroes, no villains, just different angles of exploitation.

Sometimes I wish there was no app stores to begin with and we all just were running PowerPc Macs and computing was for nerds, businesses, designers and enthusiasts. Life was so much simpler then

 

[Sp1281]

unpopular opinion, Apple can charge whatever they want and the government shouldn’t be involved. They built the hardware and software.

 

[Plutonius]

I always consider the alternate universe where Apple, at some point in the last 10 years, reduced their cut to something in the 7-12% range across the board and none of this would be happening.

Unless Apple cut it to 0%, they would still have this problem (maybe not as bad).

 

[turbineseaplane]

unpopular opinion, Apple can charge whatever they want and the government shouldn’t be involved. They built the hardware and software.

I’m not sure what makes you think that’s an unpopular opinion around here.

 

[DocMultimedia]

Compared to other things going to the Supreme Court, this is pointless.