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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

So let’s talk about “innovative creations”.

Musicians - the stars that sell more songs get much better contracts than newly discovered singers.

Authors - Steven King gets a much better deal from publishers than a new author.

Game publishers - big game publishers get much better deals from console makers than indy developers. Even Epic got much better support from Apple than indy developers. Do you think I could get Sony to make a “Scarface Edition” of the PlayStation?

https://bgr.com/2020/09/17/fortnite-lawsuit-apple-epic-games...

Software developers - almost every software company makes special deals with large enterprises.

Cloud Providers - I’m assuming Azure and GCP make special deals with large enterprises. I’m not going to say one way or the other about Amazon since I work at AWS (but nowhere near sales).

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Every single one of your examples the creator could self publish. Apple apps you are forced to use their services, and you have to pay for the privilege

Epic tried “self publishing” on Android. How well did that work out?

Why are you defending the status quo?

What are you proposing? That non proven talent should get the same terms as people with a track record?

Is it also unfair that junior developers without a track record should get paid the same amount as someone with experience?

Should I get the same contract if I start a podcast as Joe Rogan got from Spotify?

Would you like the government to step in and force companies to offer everyone the same terms regardless of the size of the deal?

While we are at, should the government itself not be allowed to negotiate?

Should WordPress (the open source foundation) not be allowed to make a special deal with Automatticc?

Strawman.

We're discussing Epic vs Apple and an Epic victory has potential to benefit a huge portion of small players of the segment.

Your statement was

> We're talking about creative and innovative creations here. Not grocery products.

As if giving better prices with the expectations of higher volume wasn’t the standard in “creative” industries. Obviously it is.

How much have “small players” benefited in other “creative” industries? Do you really think the 30% cut is the only thing stopping indy developers from being successful in the iOS App Store? If that’s the case there should be plenty of Indy developers with successful products on Android. Where are they?

There is no money selling apps on the App Store anymore. Most of the money is coming indirectly from services (where Apple doesn’t get a cut) and play to win games with in app purchases. The other money is coming from ad supported apps and games where Apple doesn’t get a cut.

The problem with your assertion is that it postulates that the winner got to where they are based on a truly level playing field.

Thats not even close to the truth.

To cite high level examples, amazon got to where they are by exploiting loopholes in sales taxes that they dodged for decades and taking advantage of USPS subsidies. And later taking advantage of international rate subsisides. Virgin got huge by literally selling records with no stamp tax.

Im not fully versed in apples track record, but im willing to bet apple likely exploited labor laws, political favors, corporate liability shield rules, pollution externalities etc that are not available to smaller players.

There are very few megacorps that can stay by claiming to have a superior product and not much else.

Since unfortunately we cannot make political contributions dissappear, not eliminate all regulations that distort a truly level field...then we created antitrust..which yes is unfair and also against freedom of association but as i explained is necessary for a free society to maintain some semblance of equal opportunity.

Everything big must by definition come crashing down.

This is what happens in nature. Regs are allowing dinosaurs to live.

If you are not coming back down the rules need to kick in to do so. Kill dinosaurs.

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