I will disagree, you can see the entitlement of users that demand the game,movie or payment system must be exactly his preferred one. Though for Valve you can compete with them (but people hate it but I think they don't hate the actual competition but the shitty implementation of the stores and the fact this game launcher most of the time must be run in background ) BUT with Apple you can't compete, they have up to 50% market share in some countries and if you are a business half of your existing customers(that you earned fairly and were not gifted by Apple to you) will ask for an iOS app and now you either give a bad experience to your customer or you pay the tax.
About the argument that Apple,Valve gives you access to many users, sure that should be price correctly, developers could pay for getting promoted on the first page of the store, but Apple,Google should not get a cut for promoting my app if the user installed it starting from my own website.
It isn't entitlement for consumers to look at a company saying "you can buy this game, but only on our own launcher/storefront" and say "okay, then I won't buy it". Users don't like juggling Steam, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and whatever other launchers/storefronts. If publishers feel the additional sales are important, they can make it available through Steam.
I don't think there is any sane user that will say something as stupid like "I wish Cool Game 3 would be only on Origin(or only on Steam). So we should try to get most games on all stores not try to get them only on our facorite store.
The issue with the launchers is indeed a problem, the solution is to have the games run without the shitty launcher. So if you want to buy and play a game you can open your browser, find the best deal, buy the game and if you want do a direct download and play, or use a launcher, install the game then kill the launcher and play the game. This is the GOG model, you don't need the launcher.
So IMO the launcher issue should be addressed by fixing it, not by praying that there will be no competition in future so only my favorite launcher will exist.
I'm not sure what you're arguing because it sounds like you agree with the parent. The games should be available on Origin and Steam and people should be able to choose the one they want. That's the whole issue, though.
Case in point, I bought DooM Eternal's Collector's Edition. I could not use Steam and had to activate the game through the Bethesda launcher. I can add the game to my Steam library as an "external" game but I can't play with my list of Steam friends or use the matchmaking tools built into Steam. I had to use Bethesda's platform and we, essentially, had to re-do all the connections and friends lists to duplicate them in Bethesda. I would have preferred not to do that. You may even be able to do that now but it was not an option at launch.
Sorry If I was not clear, I see some people commenting that they like Steam so Epic, Origin and others are evil and should not exists. My point is that we should wish they exist and compete and that games would be available on all of them so you can chose and would also be great if the launchers would also be optional like GOG.
Also today there are many examples of PC players playing together with console players so there is no technical reason why someone that uses Steam should not be able to play multiplayer game with someone that bought on GOG or PlayStation Store.
>there is no technical reason why someone that uses Steam should not be able to play multiplayer game with someone that bought on GOG or PlayStation Store.
Exactly. Yet these limitations exist. That's why people should vote with their wallets and not support games that artificially limit this and why, if people want phones that don't have walled gardens, they shouldn't buy an Apple product.
But still countries or EU are in their right to demands Apple to do stuff even if free market fanboys don't like it, there are many examples where banks,telecom, fuel or tech giants were forced to do stuff they did not like.
I agree people should vote with their money but also not ignore the actual voting, and demand that we pass laws in favor of the people. Americans could keep their locked iPhones and EU could have a law where a user would have the freedom to get his device rooted.
>BUT with Apple you can't compete, they have up to 50% market share in some countries
That statement isn't true no matter how you slice it. Apple's largest competitor is Google so the idea that you can't compete with Apple is nonsense. And what countries does Apple have a 50% market share in?
US, mobile market , ask Apple fanbous about app sales and they will proudly tell you how Apple stores has more sales.
Ask same guys about monopoly and they will then count the entire world, count all computers and dumb-phones and pretend Apple is the little guy.
I fucking can't compete with Apple, say I am a bank/store/club and my customers(not Apple ones) want a mobile app, how can I give the 50% of my customer my app without having to pay Apple , if I try to sell something or put a link to a page of mine for buying subscriptions or stuff Apple will demand a cut(I know they were forced to be less greedy lately).
1. Sales != market share but that's not relevant. Even a >50% share isn't a monopoly if there are multiple other competitors in the remaining 50%. And I don't think anyone is misrepresenting Apple's position. The word "Monopoly" has a meaning. Apple does not fit that meaning.
2. You can't give your customers an app without paying Apple if your customers are demanding it work for Apple products. That doesn't mean you can't compete. You can still only sell to Android users and other phone users but you have to do so with the understanding of what that means. You're still competing. That's like saying you can't compete with Windows when you only release your app for Linux. That's your choice. You're still competing against Windows.
I know Apple is very dear for many people but let's think different , say 49% of the radios in people homes and cars are made by Huawei and if I want my radio station to work on this radios I need to pay Huawei 30% of my profits and I can only have content approved by Huawei just in case is not respecting the correct values. It is ridiculous right to have a radio or TV device put artificial limits,
Your second point is again invalid, say Apple is blocking my website because I said that they are greedy, this is fine in your opinion because I can still show my site to PC and Android users and you can't even see yet the abuse that is happening, Apple should not decide that they don't like the politics on an app or book and not allow the user the freedom to install it, they can block it from the store sure but the user should have the freedom to use his brain and install what he wants, The same for say a group of developers or musicians that want to compete with Apple products , like the Apple Store, or Apple Music or whatever games they have, it is actually ilegal for Apple to abuse their market share in smartphones to give it's own products an advantage. (yeah actually the law does not say you must have 50% +1 market share)
1. Huawei, in your example, didn't create the radio station platform. We're not talking about publicly accessible platforms, we're talking about a app platform that Apple created, cultivated, and maintains 100%.
2. Again, this analogy has the same issue. Apple doesn't own the entire internet. If Apple started blocking websites, that would be wrong because those websites existed and continue to exist without Apple. The App Store does not have that same providence and was 100% created by Apple.
No one ever said that you have to have 50% + 1 market share so I don't know where you're getting that from. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Amazon, Google... all these companies own the marketplaces for their devices. This is not illegal and there is precedent protecting it.
No, you are trying to make it appear that it is physically impossible to run an application on Apple devices without using the store, This is FALSE, see the laptops , you can run applications without using the Apple store or their dev tools. So users should be allowed same fucking freedom on the phones as on the laptops, the only excuses I see are "most iOS users are retards and they will get scammed" or "Apple should have the right to be assholes and abuse their customers if the market allows it and don't dare try to question Apple, even when they make mistakes they are perfect"
>If users want the freedom to install whatever they want on their devices, they can go with Android.
Why should be this true? Why a law that forbids radio and TV makers to lock their device is good for society but a similar law for phones is less good? What is the benefit? The only benefit is more money for Apple so maybe you love Apple more then people but it makes no sense, sorry.
Again, radio and TV are public utilities. The public paid to create that infrastructure and the technology and resources necessary to support it. It should have a law that forbids people from any kind of limitation since citizens paid for all of that.
Apple is a private company whose shareholders decide what's best based on the fact that they created the infrastructure and technology of their platform and they are the ones spending money and resources to ensure its quality and reliability.
If you want to pass laws to solve this problem, create a National App Store platform and then require companies to allow access to it. Forcing Apple to change their own App Store, though, is wrong. How much I love Apple or how much I love people has nothing to do with it.
And not to put to fine a point on it but you can do whatever you want with your iPhone after you've bought it. You can take it apart, swap out components, repair it yourself, jailbreak it, or whatever you want and Apple can't do anything about it (and won't). You're talking about forcing a company to change its own operations for their platform just because you don't like it or agree with the restrictions they've chosen to place on it. I would be really curious to see if you'd be willing to have a private company force you to do something you don't want to do with your own property or self.
This is frankly a stupid comparison, I did not ask that Apple put my game, music or books in their store and promote it. I ask that the device can be used without limitations. There were laws that forbid radio devices to be "locked" and there were also laws for phones to also not allow locking them to a specific carrier (the exception was that if you were getting the phone with a discount with a 2 year contract after the 2 years you had the right to unlock your phone for free).
I would appreciate if you try a bit more to make the distinction between Apple Store market and just he hardware(the laptop or phone).
You're the one muddying the waters, here. You keep comparing device restrictions between iPhones and radios when they're completely different. One accesses a public good and the other a private platform.
Let me give you a different examples, bank ATM machines, guess what it is a private object, connected to a private bank, on private property and still that laws (in EU) forced this banks to make the ATMs interoperable and to stop the giant extra taxes when you used a card from bank A on an ATM from bank B.
So probably in your view this is evil, the people forced a private entity to not be a jerk and apply a big tax. Evil or not this is possible, a law can be made to limit the Google/Apple tax and the same law can be made to force side loading or block loot-boxes.
That's completely fine. The current situation already has precedent in courts considering that Sony, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and many others have exclusive control of their App Stores. Claiming Apple is anti-competitive because of its platform would upend all of these platforms.
About the argument that Apple,Valve gives you access to many users, sure that should be price correctly, developers could pay for getting promoted on the first page of the store, but Apple,Google should not get a cut for promoting my app if the user installed it starting from my own website.