Fortnite's Return to iOS in the UK Uncertain as Epic Games Criticizes 'Weak' Apple Regulations

[31 Flavas]

I'm not saying this is true of you, but over the years a number of people and even the government seem enamored of 'breaking up' companies, mandating some division be split off , etc..., apparently assuming that being 'big' in a particular sector means your business model should be viable for longterm survival competing as a 'one trick pony' in the free market.

It maybe the business isn't viable longterm or even short term. But, I think that's the point. Internet Explorer in the 90's likely wouldn't taken hold of the market (to the extent that it did) if it had to fairly compete with other web browsers. For that matter, Windows. Or for that matter (Google) Chrome today. All of these are complex issues, of course. It isn't illegal for a business to charge high prices, or conversely, to reduce prices or charge no price, at all. Instead it is more, the means by which they are able to set their prices that matters.

So if a particular company can make a particular product "for free" so as to entrench themselves in a new market -- because they've got a lucrative other market (and would otherwise be unable to sustain not charging) then its likely illegal. Just as much as if a price is as high as it is because through contracts (or whatever) the company get away with the high price, when it otherwise couldn't.

i.e. Are console video games (either their retail prices and/or fees to developers) priced the way they are because of a special circumstance the hardware makes have setup for themselves? For that matter, are "free" web browsers or "free" games or social media apps priced the way they are to choke out competitors or because they fleece the customer in a different way then direct price?

I mean, Google's -other- anti-trust case is the U.S. DoJ vs Google (for Chrome Browser / Google Search / Google Ads / etc). Google giving away chrome wasn't just an act of benevolence. (Similar to Internet Explorer, of yore)

Oh, really? MySpace, Blackberry, Nokia, Yahoo, Atari, WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, how many more 'household names' from the past are now either extinct or afterthoughts?

Right the argument could made -- Did Blackberry phones fall from grace because Apple coerced / forced app developers into contracts to develop for their iPhone at RIM's expense? Or, was the iPhone just a legitimately better mobile phone? Was the fact that the iPhone was legitimately a better phone exploited so that they could jack prices (or fees) to unsustainable levels for consumers and developers?

Ostensibly, that's what Epic was suing Apple for -- aside from letting developers link to their own website -- Apple wasn't found guilty and the method(s) by which they were otherwise maintaining the iOS App Store monopoly where otherwise found reasonable. But, not so in Google's case.

The companies that appear best positioned to survive the long haul are those that have strong, deep presences in multiple markets. Remember when Amazon was an online bookstore, seemingly at a disadvantage to Barnes & Noble (which is both)? Amazon diversified mightily. And look what happened.

Right. What if a single large bookstore such as B&N prevented fledgeling Amazon at the time from competing with them by (insert reason here). If B&N is successful at doing so -- shouldn't B&N be broken apart in such a manner that they have to compete fairly? The "break(s)" shouldn't be just arbitrary and instead considered appropriately. But, if the broken apart sections are otherwise infeaseable, so beit.

Companies with deep pockets in one sector can finance developing and rolling out products and services in another. As much as some people resent big 'mega-corporations,' there are benefits to the products, services and stability brought by platforms from Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc...

Yea, Google has absolutely exploited that to such an extent that search and browsing and advertising and the mobile app market are deeply broken. Likely they'll have to be broken apart.

 

[drrich2]

True or False: Most people do their banking, store/purchase tickets for various events, make reservations and so on, on their iPads or iPhones rather than a laptop/desktop device?

Another concern; sitting at home on a computer, it's easier to type and research dubious vendors, such as Googling to see what Trust Pilot says about a vendor selling on FaceBook. The nature of little screens and 'hunt and peck' typing on smart phones isn't as supportive of researching on-the-fly.

It maybe the business isn't viable longterm or even short term. But, I think that's the point. Internet Explorer in the 90's likely wouldn't taken hold of the market (to the extent that it did) if it had to fairly compete with other web browsers. For that matter, Windows. Or for that matter (Google) Chrome today.

I remember (and used and liked) Netscape's Navigator browser, and that it basically went extinct after Microsoft put out Internet Explorer for free (with similar capability, people quit paying for Navigator).

So if a particular company can make a particular product "for free" so as to entrench themselves in a new market -- because they've got a lucrative other market (and would otherwise be unable to sustain not charging) then its likely illegal.

For that matter, are "free" web browsers or "free" games or social media apps priced the way they are to choke out competitors or because they fleece the customer in a different way then direct price?

You bring up an issue that was debated in the past; when a platform owner expands the features of that platform to include features previously found in for-profit stand alone 3rd party products.

While Internet Explorer is the (wanted) poster child for this, what about Apple Mail? And whatever free version of Microsoft Outlook may be on offer? I think there was a time when hard drive defragmentation was added to Windows and there was concern about that. Should Windows Defender exist when it might threaten 3rd party antivirus software? Or is it okay if it doesn't get 'too good?'

The impression I got from the news analysis of the time was that Microsoft had desktop computing dominance in Windows, viewed Internet browsers as an emerging platform that threatened to marginalized Windows and create a computing world where Microsoft wasn't necessarily dominant, and so they acted to prevent getting marginalized.

Some people might argue against that, but then again, they were late to the smart phone market and now it's an iOS and Android world on smart phones! Windows Phone, anyone? Remember the Zune as an iPod alternative?

Right the argument could made -- Did Blackberry phones fall from grace because Apple coerced / forced app developers into contracts to develop for their iPhone at RIM's expense? Or, was the iPhone just a legitimately better mobile phone? Was the fact that the iPhone was legitimately a better phone exploited so that they could jack prices (or fees) to unsustainable levels for consumers and developers?

Blackberry was such a huge brand name before the iPhone, and Apple prior to the iPhone was the maker of 'that other type of computer' (Macs), so if anything, I think the iPhone beat the Blackberry by offering a more compelling product to more people.

Given how many iPhones and iOS app.s still sell after all these years, seems pretty sustainable.

 

[31 Flavas]

You bring up an issue that was debated in the past; when a platform owner expands the features of that platform to include features previously found in for-profit stand alone 3rd party products.

While Internet Explorer is the (wanted) poster child for this, what about Apple Mail? And whatever free version of Microsoft Outlook may be on offer? I think there was a time when hard drive defragmentation was added to Windows and there was concern about that. Should Windows Defender exist when it might threaten 3rd party antivirus software? Or is it okay if it doesn't get 'too good?'

It's not a bad question: Does that mean that all software should have to be paid? That no software can be preinstalled or built-in to an operating system ever? You can get real nit-picky on this if you want. What is or isn't competition, etc "Where do you draw the line" type of stuff. What counts as "legitimate" consumer benefit? And what do you do with "default search engines" when you arrive at how you are going maintain web browser competition and distribution? I'm not going to be able to answer those questions. I'm not saying this to be dismissive, or sarcastic, or demeaning in tone, but I think that is missing the forest for the trees.

The impression I got from the news analysis of the time was that Microsoft had desktop computing dominance in Windows, viewed Internet browsers as an emerging platform that threatened to marginalized Windows and create a computing world where Microsoft wasn't necessarily dominant, and so they acted to prevent getting marginalized.

That's the version that's giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. It's not unnatural for a company to feel threatened or pressure from a competitor or maybe from a new product category or an innovation that obsoletes core business. That should mean the company wants to improve by, building into the market or buying into the market. Improving their existing product or reducing its price.

That not what Microsoft chose to do to "prevent getting marginalized".

Some people might argue against that, but then again, they were late to the smart phone market and now it's an iOS and Android world on smart phones! Windows Phone, anyone? Remember the Zune as an iPod alternative?

Blackberry was such a huge brand name before the iPhone, and Apple prior to the iPhone was the maker of 'that other type of computer' (Macs), so if anything, I think the iPhone beat the Blackberry by offering a more compelling product to more people.

Given how many iPhones and iOS app.s still sell after all these years, seems pretty sustainable.

Right, RIM's dismissiveness of the iPhone wasn't based really based in the mockery that Steve Ballmer or journalists and tech heads were slinging. RIM / the CEO (and by extension, probably the bord of directors too) knew that the graphical nature that Apple was forwarding wasn't really sustainable on celluar tech at the time. Also, high end cell phones were business tools at that time. Apple's phone was decided consumer oriented. But, then everyone, absolutely everyone was wrong about the iPhone.

Anyway, what I was mentioning was hypoteticals. The reality of the situation was that RIM's response was to ignore the iPhone -- it was either going to fail or only going to be a niche product, seemingly in their opinion. But, what if RIM had decided that they'd either somehow apply pressure or offer a sweetheart deal to carriers to make sure iPhone didn't take off. What if they made a call to some manufacturer and told them not to sell some particular chip that was necessary for the iPhone to function. Or they made developers sign contracts that prohibited them from developing for the iPhone? (again, hypothetically, I don't know if Blackberries even had an "App Store")

Clearly the iPhone was the better device because of it's graphical nature. That celluar technology would rapid improve to support that graphical nature, the future app-based nature, and multimedia functionality of the iPhone. And because the physical key keyboards were obsolete compared to the virtual keyboard of the iPhone.

 

[drrich2]

But, what if RIM had decided that they'd either somehow apply pressure or offer a sweetheart deal to carriers to make sure iPhone didn't take off. What if they made a call to some manufacturer and told them not to sell some particular chip that was necessary for the iPhone to function. Or they made developers sign contracts that prohibited them from developing for the iPhone? (again, hypothetically, I don't know if Blackberries even had an "App Store")

I doubt any of us would support most of that. But there are 'gray areas' here, too.

1.) What sweetheart deal could RIM have offered to carriers? It's one thing to bribe them not to do business with Apple, or engage the classic monopolist maneuver of temporarily selling to cheap your competition can't make money and dies. But what about Google paying Apple to be the default search engine, which can easy to changed should the end user desire? That doesn't seem 'wrong,' even though it puts competitors are a disadvantage.

2.) It's worth noting there is a broader cultural context in the U.S.; vendors often have brand exclusive contracts. Go to a restaurant and they likely have either Coke or Pepsi products on offer, but not both. There are enough different restaurants so those 2 options co-exist in the marketplace, but how easy is it for Royal Crown (RC) Cola or Bubba Cola (I've seen it, albeit many years ago) to break into the restaurant marketplace?

Many 'small time' physical product vendors (who in a practical sense can't get access to Walmart shelf space or an O'Charley's menu) would dearly love the degree of access the Apple App. Store and Google Play Store offer to 'no name' vendors. How many small time physical product vendors would be over-joyed to get the kind of access to the broader public Epic Games laments the terms of?

Nuance matters. People who favor Google's position relative to Epic Games' don't necessary approve of everything Google's allegedly done, and people who disagree with court ordered 'remedy' specifics may not either.

 

[31 Flavas]

I doubt any of us would support most of that. But there are 'gray areas' here, too.

1.) What sweetheart deal could RIM have offered to carriers? It's one thing to bribe them not to do business with Apple, or engage the classic monopolist maneuver of temporarily selling to cheap your competition can't make money and dies. But what about Google paying Apple to be the default search engine, which can easy to changed should the end user desire? That doesn't seem 'wrong,' even though it puts competitors are a disadvantage.

You and I can change our default search engine - but reality has been that no one else does. Proven that when Firefox accepted an offer from Yahoo! years ago - those who were using it (that weren't you and I) abandon it most likely for chrome. I think it wasn't more than a month before Firefox abandoned it to go back to Google. What google has done with web browsing and search and advertisement and mobile is on a scale unlike Microsoft and IE.

And we should be seeing something on MacRumors soon -- I just saw that the 9th Circuit / Appeals court just upheld the Epic vs Google case. Which again, is going to confuse people. Because they're gonna say Google isn't the bad guy, they do offer 3rd party app stores, and sideloading. Apple is the one that should be broken open / broken apart!

2.) It's worth noting there is a broader cultural context in the U.S.; vendors often have brand exclusive contracts. Go to a restaurant and they likely have either Coke or Pepsi products on offer, but not both. There are enough different restaurants so those 2 options co-exist in the marketplace, but how easy is it for Royal Crown (RC) Cola or Bubba Cola (I've seen it, albeit many years ago) to break into the restaurant marketplace?

I get it - it's Canada vs US. It's not the best analogy, but these were again just hypotheticals. Coke vs Pepsi is a thing. Just as internet provider will strike deals with apartment homes or condo associations. I'm not exactly sure why the Pepsi vs Coke thing is legal. Might be that Coke / Pepsi are free to make a better offer at any time to swing the exclusivity. I just saw that CostCo recently switched themselves from Pepsi to Coke. And years ago, they dumped exclusivity only using AMEx for credit card purchases after Visa made a better deal.

But, if anything it's like the internet providers -- they're exploiting some technicality. Explicit internet exclusivity offers are illegal. But, ISPs will work around that by paying themselves to wire the apartment homes or condos or such, i.e. no expense the management agency. Then hand the deed for the wiring over to the HOA, Apartment, Condo / rental community or whatever. So that they can say, "Hey, we're not forcing any apartment homes or condos or such to do exclusive deals with us. They just voluntarily choose to only work with us." Then they'll also provide a kickback or rebate for the service that those captive tenants or residents purchase from the ISP to the management of the apartment / condo / HOA etc to continue to make staying with them economical. Meaning the ISP can just charge whatever they want and the residents can't do anything about it.

That said, businesses are just getting more and more brazen though with their schemes. Visa / Mastercard now want to substitute / impose their morality and judgement over your purchases. The excuse being they don't want to be associated with controversial material. They claiming, "Hey, we're not directly telling any merchant what they can or can't sell." But, news is coming out that Mastercard, in particular, communicated a rule change to the issuing banks / payment processors who then tell their merchants what they won't accept charges for.

Many 'small time' physical product vendors (who in a practical sense can't get access to Walmart shelf space or an O'Charley's menu) would dearly love the degree of access the Apple App. Store and Google Play Store offer to 'no name' vendors. How many small time physical product vendors would be over-joyed to get the kind of access to the broader public Epic Games laments the terms of?

Nuance matters. People who favor Google's position relative to Epic Games' don't necessary approve of everything Google's allegedly done, and people who disagree with court ordered 'remedy' specifics may not either.

Well good news for those physical product vendors - they get to use the App Store for free. If you are offering a physical service like say Uber / Lyft / Grub Hub / Door Dash (whatever) or are selling physical items though your iOS app you're entirely free to integrate acceptance of credit cards or PayPal, Venmo, or use ApplePay for free.

As far as Google and whatever the agreed upon "remedy" turns out to be -- it's going to be disastrous not just to google, but to competing businesses, and likely the general consumer themselves because Google entrenched itself to such a great extent that everything else sucks. Who wants to use Bing or Yahoo or any other search engine? Unless you're using a mobile phone - you're statistically unlikely to be typing your response on anything but Google's chrome. Do you want to give up chrome, no. But, even if you want to are there any good alternatives that aren't based on Chromium? Safari, but that's Mac exclusive. Firefox, but it's been choked out and they depend on the money they get from Google for being the default search engine. If that payment is illegal - the company collapses. It'll take a long while and a lot of pain to fix the damage Google has done.

 

[drrich2]

As far as Google and whatever the agreed upon "remedy" turns out to be -- it's going to be disastrous not just to google, but to competing businesses, and likely the general consumer themselves because Google entrenched itself to such a great extent that everything else sucks.

But, even if you want to are there any good alternatives that aren't based on Chromium? Safari, but that's Mac exclusive.

Some of this may be the nature of computing platforms, where market pressures push toward a measure of industry consolidation. I use Safari with Chrome as my backup browser, but that's mainly because I got used to it on the Mac (and I've got it generating and remembering strong passwords and payment info.)...some articles at PCMag.com messed up when loading them with Safari but not Chrome. It's helpful to end users and 3rd party app. developers if the developers can make their webpages display correctly with one dominant browser technology, and the other browser makers know they'd better imitate that capability.

If I wanted maximum web browser compatibility, I could make Chrome my default, easy-peasy.

You mentioned FireFox and that's another good example. Well-known brand name with a long history, and yet...erratic in the market. And how many people use the Thunderbird e-mail client? Yahoo! was very much a household name, yet hardly anybody now 'Yahoos.' Even with Microsoft in a market it doesn't dominate - Microsoft Is Killing Its ChromeOS Rival

It's nice to know there are platforms so strong that I can go with them with a very low probability I'll need to switch platforms several years down the road. And if it weren't for Google, what would we have?

Microsoft Edge would likely be the dominant browser. I don't hate Microsoft, but I'm old enough to remember a time it felt like they dominated every major personal computing segment outside the Mac (and Microsoft Office on it!); even Quicken wasn't safe (Microsoft Money!). No ill will to Microsoft, but part of the reason I 'Google' instead of 'Bing' (awful name; who wants to 'bing?' something?) is because I don't Microsoft everything. It's also why I use Apple Mail and Calendar instead of Outlook.

I get your point that (assuming the varied allegations are true; I haven't followed the case closely) had Google not engaged in allegedly unlawful anti-competitive 'overreach' practices then competitor products might be better developed and more viable alternatives. No argument here.

But for the end user, I wonder how much would really be different? If I Yahoo'd instead of Googled, etc..., would my life be that different? If FireFox rather than Chrome were my backup browser, would it matter to me?

And if Google didn't engage in varied product leveraging maneuvers to make money in various ways, would my kid have free access to Google Docs for classwork and her school Google Classrooms?

And a question I ask since Epic Games went on the attack and got the ball rolling...does anyone think our schools will ever be using free Epic Classrooms? Doing assignments in Epic Docs? Other than Fortnite for recreation, is Epic making the world a 'better place' with compelling productivity offerings at no cost? Epic Photos maybe? Epic Browser?

I don't deny it sounds like Google has done things many of us wouldn't agree with, but I'm not ready to make the jump to think the world (computing and otherwise) would be a better place without them.