forest_dweller

> But you agree that it would increase the developer split. Thats good enough for me. Glad you agree that it would increase the developer revenue split.

I never agreed. Please don't put words into my mouth. It is soo disingenous. I haven't done it to you so don't do it to me.

As for the rest of the points. You aren't accepting the reality of the situation. It will benefit nobody other than EPIC which have a money printer called fortnite. EPIC doesn't care about other developers it cares about itself,. Nobody will benefit from this in the long run other than EPIC and the other huge companies. But you keep on talking about the theorectical benefits, it is the same sort of mental masturbation that GPL zealots engage it. It is mostly pointless and doesn't address reality.

Also your concern trolling for the devs is cute. I imagine the vast number of developers are fine with the current revenue splits on storesm, unless you prove otherwise all you are doing is concern trolling to avoid the real issue.

As for future court rulings about "anti-competitive" practices. We will see. You and I don't know what will happen.

The 70/30 split which I was originally replying to is not anti-competitive or unfair. It is a normaly split and I will keep on re-iterating this because people on here because they are ignorant think it is unfair when it is perfectly normal.

As for app stores. More app stores won't benefit the consumer or the developers in the long run as I don't think the vast majority of Apple users will use anything other than the official App Store. You can claim theorectically it will be better but in practice that won't be the case. It will be a pyrrhic victory at best.

No I don't. How disingenous. The claim was that it would reduce the cost. There is no guarantee this will happen.

> So epic gives a larger revenue share to game devs. Great. And Apple's actions are preventing this revenue share increase to game developers, for that game store, at the very least.

At the moment they do. But they won't in the future. You need to actually see EPIC's stance on this. If you read some of the interviews of the guy that runs it (I can't remember his name now) you would come to the same conclusion as I have.

All you are doing is thinking short term. I am thinking long term. So in the long-term there it won't benefit anyone except for EPIC.

> Its representative of at least one example though! So that means that Apple is preventing at least 1 competing app store that would have a better revenue share, for game developers.

You keep on reframing (dishonestly) the subject. When I originally replied to this thread I was specifically debunking the 30/70 split as being unreasonable as it simply isn't true as it something that exists outside of the IT industry. It just a split that people over the course of time have decided is reasonable. Maybe it is vestigial remnant of the past, but it is still seen as reasonable in similar types of relationships. To say otherwise (despite your protests) is a nonsense.

Also EPIC are buying their way in. They won't be able to keep it up forever (sooner or later people will stop buying skins on fortnite). Which means they will have to up their take at some point. If you don't think this will happen you are simply foolish.

> That single example, is an example of harm done to game developers.

The way the term harm is used these days is disgraceful.

> So then your previous statement about who "deserves" the money could be invalid.

No. The operative word in there is if.

> Anti-competitive practices do not require a literal singular monopoly, for them to be illegal. Instead, all that is required is them having significant market power. Which Apple clearly has.

That hasn't been decided by anyone. So you cannot claim that.

>Ok, then your opinion, of Apple "deserving" anything is also not a fact, because the court case could prove that the actions are anti-competitive.

Because something can be decided in the future doesn't mean it can be considered anti-competitive. This is a nonsense.

> You cannot at all say that Apple "deserves" this money, if the courts prove their actions to be anti-competitive.

Yes I can. If you want to be on the App Store, the agreement until recently was that it is a 30/70 split. That was the agreement between them and the app publisher. They are owed that money because that was what was in the agreement.

> No, it is because philosophically I want game devs to get more of the revenue split. Why? Because they developed the game.

I doubt that is the case. You wouldn't be supporting EPIC if that was the case. EPIC want a sea of launchers and return us to the days of game publishers which Steam btw broke that bullshit (for PC at least).

> What? Thats basically what this is about. Allowing other competing app stores on the platform.

No it isn't. It is about one large company EPIC trying to force another large company's hand (Apple) and trying to convince you that it is for your benefit. Both companies are doing PR and you are stupid enough to fall for the BS.

If EPIC wins. Do you know what will happen? There will be two dominate app stores. One owned by EPIC where 99% of the money taken through it will be for fortnite skins the Apple one. There will be others and nobody will use them because most normies will just use whatever is already on the phone. Independent devs will still get most of their revenue from Apple's store and nothing will change for them.

The only people that is likely to get any benefit out of this if they win is EPIC and it won't be the indie dev hacker. You are foolish to think otherwise.

Anyway this deffo will be last reply to you are you seem to be disingenous.

Nope. Not at all. It isn't cheaper to the consumer. You keep on conflating revenue share between who owns the store and the dev, with the amount the customer pays at the checkout.

> Cheaper is cheaper. Thats all that I care about. I care about the end result of lower fees.

That won't be the end result as I have already explained.

> It is representative of Apple actions unfairly causing prices to be higher for this specific competitor is being kept out though!

No it isn't. Prices aren't higher. You keep on conflating the price to the end user with the revenue share. They are not the same thing.

Even on revenue split everyone except for EPIC (which are buying their way in) are about the same in their respective stores.

> All I need is a single example, to show that Apple's actions have prevented a lower priced option from competing.

You are the not the arbiter of what is a valid example. I've already explained why in a previous comment why one example isn't representative of a whole, you chose to ignore it. That is on you and not I.

> Nope! Because their actions are illegally anti-competitive, and Apple has significant market power.

If* it is proven so in court than I may agree with you. IIRC the case is still ongoing. Your opinion isn't a fact. Google have significant market power, Steam has it, Microsoft has it (to a lesser extent). You keep on pretending that there is only one phone manufacturer on the market. All of this is nonsense.

> Regardless if game devs agreed to the contract, the contract can still be illegally anti-competitive. And the law can be used against Apple on that.

We will see if that is the case in court.

> And even further more, I still want any and all actions to be taken, through whatever means possible, whether they be through the existing laws/court system, or that is through changing the law to retroactively target Apple and its employees, or if it through game devs working together to oppose apple, so as to make the game companies get more of the money, and for Apple to receive less of it, no matter how it happens.

You want the market to be legislated because you don't like Apple. How foolish.

If people argued from the fact that there should be able to sideload applications. Then I maybe inclined to agree with you.

I suspect the conversation from here on out will be a waste of time because you keep on selectively ignoring caveats to your arguments.

No it doesn't. The 30/70 split for revenue share is a standard thing across industries. This includes other industries that aren't related to IT at all.

> Except for epic! They charge 12%. So that is one specific example right there, that would reduce the fee below the current fee that Apple charges.

Epic are trying to buy their way into the market. They are flush with cash from fortnite and unreal engine. Once they wedge themselves in it will raise their take I would wager.

Every other player is at 30%. Nintendo have lowered it to 30% to be inline with others.

Every brainlet brings up EPIC as a gotcha, ignoring the fact that EPIC are buying their way into the market. Which is very important thing to consider.

> All I need is a singular example to prove my point. And we have that example. Epic's app store is being prevented, and they charge less money.

A singular example where a company is buying it way into the market is not representative of the whole. There were banks that had interest rates of 16% back in the 1970s. That doesn't mean that the other banks should have offered that or that it is fair (those banks with high interests rates would always collapse).

So no that isn't true.

> Even if you are willing to ignore basic economic theory completely by saying it would have no effect on price, giving more money to developers indirectly helps consumers even if prices stay exactly the same.

I am not ignoring basic economic theory. You are. If people buy a triple A game for £50 or £60 in the sufficient numbers then the prices won't be lowered.

As for developers getting more money helps consumer. Absolute nonsense. The company will pocket the cash. You are living in fantasy land if you think anything else.

> It helps them because more resources can be spent on the game to make it better.

That is good for developers by not necessarily for consumers. And no it won't be spent on making the game better.

> And to go even further, even if such benefits don't exist, it is still better to give the money to the people who made the game, who I think deserve that money more than Apple.

Apple deserve the money because the devs agreed to put their software on their store and the stipulation (until now) is that Apple got 30% of the purchase.

> That can make an enormous difference to their affordability, and should also inject a large pool of electric cars into the second hand market over the next few years.

Still too expensive. My current vehicle cost me £4000. It has been paid for (I got a bank loan, I didn't lease or hire purchase) for many years now. It cost me next to nothing to repair, run, tax and MOT. It has next to no fancy electronics and it just works. I can to take it to any garage in the UK and they can repair it, with Teslas, BMWs, Mercs etc you can't really do that.

There is no benefit to me in owning an electric vehicle.

And that has nothing to do with the revenue share.

> This actions prevents other app stores from undercutting apple's prices.

Sure. But it doesn't mean the revenue share they currently have is unfair.

Other companies have a similar revenue share on their platforms on open platforms. So that suggests to me that it is fair.

> Epic's app store, for example, would take 12%, instead of 30%. This would help consumers if they were allowed to use it.

Would it? It will help developers but it wouldn't necessarily reduce the prices for the games because the market price for a AAA game is still what £50? The devs would make more money per unit sold I would suspect.

I listed like for like companies.

> In 2013 it was 10 billion.

> People made apps in 2013, even though 70% of 10 billion is less than 10% of 80 billion.

> They'd make apps for 10% of 80 billion and they'd definitely make apps for 25% of 80 billion.

I don't think you understand how percentages work. You are comparing the total amount of revenue available to the revenue share per purchase. That just isn't a valid way of comparing the two.

> Everyone standing up and refusing those billions of dollars in solidarity is more outlandish than anything I've said.

If they raised the rate soo high that it was unreasonable then yes the would be a mass exodus.

> It's much easier for a fee to be "worth it" than to be "reasonable".

Now you are just playing semantics. I think we will leave this here.

The way you frame the power imbalance is framed suggests that there is always something coercive and manipulative going on. A market rate suggests that a the hourly or daily rate for labour has settled naturally around a particular point through market forces in that particular area. Developers are more in demand in London so the day rate offered reflects that (typically £100-200 more).

You seem to be conflating two concepts into one.

> The amount of power that employer and employee have is based in large part on supply/demand.

What do you mean by power? I don't want to sound rude but the way you are talking about it is akin to how people talk about the force in star wars.

> However, power includes a little bit more: an employer who has a better knowledge of the market may be able to extract lower pay from an employee who doesn’t know their market rate, and an employee who is exceptionally well suited for a given job has more power to negotiate a better rate.

What you are arguing there is being informed about the market means that you won't get ripped off. Generally though there will be an approximate wage for a particular type of work based on how valuable the employee is and whether they can be replaced or not.

There are job boards these days online for almost anything you can work out what you are going to get paid for a particular type of role.

> Of course, this can also be reframed as a supply/demand scenario taking into account imperfect information for a given scenario, but that’s largely my point. They aren’t equivalent concepts, but they are closely related.

Again don't want to sound rude. This all read likes double speak to me. If you want to talk about a coercive power imbalance then talk about that. If you want to talk about market rates talk about market rates. Simply call things what they are.

Except if you look at the link that compares all similar stores. It is around about 30% except for EPIC. EPIC can afford such a low rate because they are flush with cash from Fortnite and Unreal Engine dominates the professional game engine market. EPIC are trying to buy their way into the market, if it works then steam and other game stores will have to lower their rates.

> It's not absurd. People still made apps when the market was a lot smaller. People make apps for android. If revenue is greater than cost, then apps will get made. And a cut like that would remove a lot of competition, so the actual drop in pay wouldn't be as extreme.

We weren't talking about market. We were talking about the revenue split.

It was never 90% rate. Apple has had the 30% rate since 2011. Npbody had a problem with the 30% rate back then. Why is it suddenly such an issue?

> But okay, what if I said 75% instead? If you get 3x the market share while getting paid 25% of gross revenue, you actually make more money than if you were paid 70% on 1x market share. So there would absolutely be viable apps for some developers. But at the same time, if Apple took a 75% cut that would be unreasonable.

If people were happy with the arrangement then it is fine. So yes. However nobody would release anything to the app store back in 2011 if it was that high (70% to apple).

> They wouldn't if Apple was really committed. The app already exists, removing it would mean less money.

If everyone did it all at the same time as a protest. Apple would have to respond and everyone certainly would.

> Even with a better rate, Android's app payment market is smaller. It wouldn't do enough to make the apps there significantly better, and the number of people willing to switch off iphone for the marginal difference wouldn't do anything.

So you are saying paying the 30% on the App store is worth it as you get a larger paying market. Which is what makes the 30% reasonable because it is worth it.

A cleaner gets paid less because it is unskilled work and almost any able bodied person can be a cleaner. Same someone that stacks shelves in a super market.

The same happens in our industry. VB.NET developers aren't in demand, the contract rates are sometimes £200-300 a day less than a React JS / C# .NET Core developer in Manchester which is in demand. Higher demand pushes up the price of labour.

What is and isn't affiliate behaviour isn't important. They are acting like an affiliate I said. It is close enough.

> Right. But that's just facilitating a transaction, which is usually not a 30% cut.

Yes it is a 30% cut. We have already established it is on other stores.

> Again, standard and reasonable are different things. And again, the problem is you can't choose the type of relationship.

You can choose not to do business with Apple.

> People get pressured into unreasonable rates all the time...

These aren't unreasonable rates though. If they were unreasonable people would not publish there. End of. I don't understand how people can say something is unreasonable when there are lots of people using it and making money just fine. So for a lot of people they obviously think it is reasonable.

> Again, standard and reasonable are different things. And again, the problem is you can't choose the type of relationship.

You can. You can not deal with the app store.

> It's always going to be viable for someone to publish. Even with a 90% fee. But surely we can agree that 90% would not be reasonable, even if it was standard?

No we cannot agree. Firstly 90% is not viable to anyone, nobody would agree to that and people wouldn't publish on the app store. So to start your premise is completely absurd.

Pretend for a moment Apple did raise it tomorrow to 90% cut to them. The vast majority of would just pull their apps and Apple would have to lower the rate again. Every company chooses 30% because it is what everyone else does because it is more or less fair to both parties. Now if another player releases a new phone with a store and they have a better market rate and a decent market share then Apple will lower their rates (like Nintendo did).

The store provides you visibility through promotion on the store page, being listed in search and taking payment for the purchase.

This would be no different than if a boxed piece of software was in a brick and mortar retailer and you told your customers you could by it at those stores.

In a brick and mortar retailer they display your product in your store and people come in, take the box and go to the checkout.

Conceptually the process is exactly the same. The only difference is that it is happening over the internet.

> Or if the customer puts in the exact app name and buys it.

The user is still using the store to buy the app. It would be no different than a boxed piece of software being on display in brick and mortar retailer. The customer may only go in there to pick up the game and nothing else. They are still buying through apple.

> It's very relevant to whether 30% is reasonable. Apple acts as a legitimate affiliate some of the time, but they forcibly take that fee all of the time.

No it isn't. You are conflating the issues of them having absolute control over the app store and whether 30% is reasonable. 30% is reasonable because that is the standard rate in most of these relationships.

If it wasn't reasonable people wouldn't publish with Steam, Gog, Nintendo (nintendo lowered the rate if you look at the IGN link to 30% to match other stores).

Also if it wasn't financially viable with the 30% fee (which has been there since 2011) then people wouldn't publish apps there.

I should have clarified. They was saying it (the 30%) was a case for antitrust.

> The problem is that they charge that fee no matter where the customers come from, and you can't opt out either.

Can they come from anywhere other than the actual store?

In any event that is a different issue.

Not it isn't a case for anti-trust. 70/30 split whether people on here like it or not is a standard agreement for these types of business relationship.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...

The judge in the case agreed.

> Judge says the 30% rate is the industry rate— references Steam, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have the same rate.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/09/28/judge-so-far-not-...

Apple are effectively an affialite for your app i.e. they drive traffic to your app through their store.

Most affiliate style relationships the affiliate will receive 30% of whatever is made. It not only these companies it in almost every industry. e.g. Gambling Affiliate deals typically have 30% of whatever the customer loses on the site.

I really do not like Apple. I don't like the app store policies. But 30% is not a case for anything.

You protect communication by letting people communicate freely. As for "misinformation", well free speech has you covered. You can use your voice to correct that mis-information. As for "online bullying". You know how you stop online bullying? You log out of social media and it ends.

The others you have listed already have existing legislation that covers them. It doesn't need speech controls or controls over lines of communication.

> I'm not weighing in on the BBC reported case because all the relevant details are omitted. But in principle I support the notion those that do harm should be held to account; and without knowing the details, the 8 weeks of curfew don't sound necessarily implausible. Of course, laws can be excessive; that's for sure, but even if this one were (I don't have the details, and a sample size of 1 isn't something to draw conclusions from regardless) - that's merely an argument to be more reasonable, not to leave all harm entirely unpunished. Superficially: sure, it sounds unreasonable to give a teenager 8 weeks of curfew and a considerable 500 pound fine for something they said online. But I don't know the details; so I'm not sure what to make of that.

What you should make of it. Is that you can be fined, prosecuted and even put in prison for shitposting on facebook. That is ridiculous. Anything else is apologetics for laws that shouldn't exist.

People won these freedoms over hundreds of years of social progress. But lets throw it all away because might have upset somoene else online.

> Yeah, that's society deciding to draw the line. Your use of the passive voice is notable, but I don't think think it's wise to think of this as a passive choice - a democratically elected parliament chose to write that act, and subsequent parliaments left it in place, by choice. It may well be a bad law - and many such laws are terrible; as are many other laws. But they're fundamentally the people's responsibility, and failing to own up to that responsibility is essentially giving up on democracy.

I have no idea what a "passive voice" is. All you are doing it making a case against democracy in my eyes (Democracy is considered by some to be soft-communism, but that is on the extreme side of libertarism/anarcho-capitalist circles however this view isn't without some merit). If you rights can be simply be voted away by your representatives that doesn't preserve liberty.

I am soo sick of people like yourself that will just excuse away rights violations because represntatives voted for it. If everyone voted to kill all the Jews or Homosexuals in a country does it make it okay? Obviously not. What you are doing is more apologetics for laws that shouldn't exist.

Everyone should be allowed to say what they like. The only exceptions I might grant you are calls to violence.

> But I also want to re-emphasize that the choices are not binary, nor trivial, nor that we should be aiming for centralized control of speech. I don't want to live in a police state, any more than you! But just because some laws aiming to prevent harmful speech miss their mark does not mean laws aiming to protect it cannot also miss their mark. Ideally, we'd acknowledge that we have a problem, and look for solutions that mitigate the doublespeak and disinformation while being difficult to centrally control, and avoiding draconian punishments too. We should be looking for self-reinforcing positive feedback loops, not direct control - that prevents most of the risks of direct punishment of speech, while hopefully still achieving some of the aims. And the first step along that process is having a frank discussion about this problem in the first place, and that's what we're struggling with as a society now.

There is no such thing as harmful speech. It is a made up thing with no proper defintion that is used to suppress dissisent of the populace against the state (which normally collude with the rich). Speech is not violence and never will be.

No. Note the words "often" and "usually" appear. Therefore not always.

> This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock.

I never claimed that applied for anyone that is advocating for change.

In this case the nuclear power solution could be a viable solution (I don't care for your expertise on the subject). They have rejected a viable solution that could get us X% of the way there. Therefore that tells me they aren't interested in an actual solution. That in tells me they wish to be advocates rather than solving an issue. Therefore anything they tell me is suspect.

There are plenty of criticisms of greenpeace in the same vain. Being skeptical of any of their claims is healthy.

It is as if they don't really believe it.

Thus it brings into question anything they claim and all claims should be treated with skepticism.

> For the obvious reason that if you go read voat and gab that's, um, literally what those dudes are saying. Like, I didn't make up the shit about pizzas, man. Sometimes some things are just fact.

I've been on Gab in the past and while there were some that said that stuff like that, most weren't.

> Like, I didn't make up the shit about pizzas, man.

Again keep on bringing up the crazy stuff while ignoring the stuff that is plausible. That is very disingenous.

> I'm sure it must be very convincing that I am in cahoots with CNN weather because we both think it's a sunny day in San Francisco today. Or maybe Big Calendar and I are conspiring to decide that today is Nov 15, a Saturday. After all, we're saying the same thing. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

I never that you were in cahoots with a news media. I said that you were repeating the same lines in the same manner. It is obvious that you are just repeating what they've said and then pretending on here that you are not.

> Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go attend to my master. His nictitating membrane is giving him some trouble this morning. And I've got to learn from him what day we're going to decide tomorrow is.

Can't engage in an honest manner at all can you. It is all very tiresome.

Yet you are repeating exactly the same things as they do in the same manner by focusing on the crazy people.

I have said many times in this thread that are always those that are on the fridge and they do not represent the whole.

Dismissing all dissent (which is what you are doing) as crazy people is wholly disingenous.

> Like I don't actually need someone to tell me Qanon dudes are crazy. I just have to listen to the Qanon dudes themselves. Of course they are convinced they are dissenters exposing the corruption in Big Pizza. Heroes, I'm sure.

Again you keep on strawmanning by saying that everyone is a crazy and ignoring the very prescient point about dissent. It is very tiresome when people engage like you do.

> That's the funny part. You keep bringing up this Big Media Telling You Who Is Real thing like Big Brother is in charge when I kinda don't really need Big Brother.

Then why are you repeating what they say point for point? Odd that.

> When this guy comes walking up to me saying that Joe Biden has a secret sex dungeon where he keeps children he abuses that he farms using mutant tadpoles

I am 100% certain this event didn't happen. So you are basing your stance on a falsehood. That must be fallacious.