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Comment by iamthirsty | Hacker News Reader

From DF a few days ago[0] :

> The termination of Epic Games Sweden AB’s Apple developer account was communicated in a letter from Mark Perry, a lawyer representing Apple, to Epic’s lawyers:

> Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. It boiled down to an unsupported “trust us.” History shows, however, that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy, hence the request for meaningful commitments. And the minimal assurances in Mr. Sweeney’s curt response were swiftly undercut by a litany of public attacks on Apple’s policies, compliance plan, and business model. As just one example: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1762243725533532587?s=20.

Maybe Tim sent more than a two sentence reply to Phil to get it straightened out. It's anyone's guess at this point.

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[0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/apple_epic_developer_acco...

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I don't really understand the notion that Sweeney's original response was terse or insufficient. He said exactly what needed to be said (good faith effort to follow the rules) succinctly and professionally. Should he have offered a pinky swear or a blood oath? Or an essay pledging his allegiance? I generally like Apple and their products but in this instance they came across as bitter and petty.

I agree, but this is missing the point. It was never about Sweeney’s response. Apple was never going to accept any response given, in the same way that an Alabama cop who pulls over a driver for being black is not going to leave without finding some “reason” for an arrest.

More likely that the request for more information on this case from the EU commission to Apple triggered the walk back. At least the EU Commissioner for the internal market is happy about the reverse: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1766167580497117464

Yikes I hate that Thierry is using "#freefortnite". You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority. Epic is not some oppressed minority that needs saving.

> You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority.

The Digital Markets Act is all about profit-motivated businesses. It regulates markets, not charities. It's not anti-profit at all, just pro-competition, and Apple was attempting to stifle competition.

Precisely! This all about market competition which may both spur new technologies and lower prices for consumers.

The entire point of DMA is to make sure platforms can’t use lock in to prevent others from joining the market for digital goods and services.

What terrifies Apple isn’t Fortnite, it’s that Epic will make a *better* AppStore.

I hope the folk at Valve have been busy working on this - Steam for iOS and Vision Pro could be great!

VisionOS is not consider a gatekeeper my the DMA, and despite the platform supporting it Valve has made no effort to expand their game store to Android. It is doubtful that they will work on an iOS game distribution platform.

Same AppStore, and it runs iPad apps.

"better"? You're giving Epic too much credit. Just see the Play Store competitors like Samsung or Huawei: Full of ads, and in general a terrible experience.

Not saying they can: saying that’s Tim Apples worst nightmare.

It's literally a Digital MARKETS Act. Markets are all about developing healthy profitable businesses. They certainly are not going to be bothered that Epic, a profitable business, wants a fair playing field to compete on.

Isn't that the functional purpose of hashtags? So that people interested in a topic can find information about it? Wouldn't this tweet be highly relevant to people searching with that tag?

It's not about Epic. It's about Apple wantonly violating EU laws. The target simply happened to be Epic.

That being said: it's probably a good thing it was Epic that Apple went after; Apple would probably have gotten away with going after a smaller company.

Every large company is, by nature, amoral. All the pro-social stances or whatever are generally just window dressing and PR. Individuals can be moral, but for-profit corporations past a certain size just are too abstract of an entity with too many people of competing interests to ascribe morality to. We shouldn't care about intentions, just whether they're doing something we agree with or not.

While the outcome as it stands might be okay, they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.

What's to prevent them from changing their mind and blocking Epic again? What if Tim Sweeney says something else to hurt Apple's feelings in the future? Apple has too much free rein over removing access to this market, and while it may be a market that Apple has made, the EU is clearly requiring Apple to open up the market for others with the only restrictions being those where the app store or the apps themselves are damaging to consumers in the marketplace.

> they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.

They almost certainly are, which is why the reasoning of EU’s predictable involvement was what triggered Apple’s reinstatement of Epic’s account seems dubious to me.

I would posit that Apple is the "untrustworthy" and unhinged party here.

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