With no skin in the game, I could just as easily counter with:

Supporting Apple in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform developers into giving them whatever terms they want. Don't do it.

Again I don't really have a concrete view but a lot of these discussions tend to boil down to preference against one party or the other and not objectively looking at the arguments from both sides. Replace Epic with one of your critical apps. Replace Apple with Google and the arguments are the same.

It’s a flawed argument, developers don’t come saying “we’ll give you 30% of our revenue if you let us build on your platform”.

If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.

>>If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.

Sure, but sometimes, as a society, we decide that this is simply not ok.

I know this is not a completely correct comparison, but the main counter against forcing businesses to accept non-white customers was "well, they can simply go somewhere else, what's the big deal". We as a society decided that no, actually, it is a big deal, and regardless of whether you can "simply" go somewhere else or not, you shouldn't have to.

I'm hoping that this will be the first victory in a string of rulings forcing platform holders to open them up, because we value that more than we value the platform holders ability to keep them closed. Apple just happened to be first.

And if Apple doesn't like US antitrust law, they can simply not make the App Store available in the US.

This is like saying if you don't like how your government is run, just move somewhere else. So basically never push for improvements.

Yes, because buying an Android phone instead of an iPhone is like moving to another country.

As a consumer, you can push for improvements by voting with your wallet and flat out not buying Apple products. As a developer, you can push for improvements by not supporting that platform. Given that you have alternatives to Apple both as a developer and as a consumer, I don't think there's any justification for the government to force Apple to accept Epic blatantly breaking the terms they agreed to comply with.

Or they can do what they're currently doing.

Epic is still the under dog here. They’re nothing compared to Apple.

Even if this is all in Epic’s selfish best interest, that doesn’t matter if their interest is more aligned with smaller app developers’ interests.

The balance of power is still shifted well towards Apple.

Weeeeell.....yes, except that Epic has Tencent behind their back, and while Apple is still bigger, Tencent isn't that far behind.

True, but how much is Tencent really willing to dump behind this fight? There's only so much upside for them even if Epic wins.

I guess that's what remains to be seen. But Epic seems to be throwing their most valuable property at it right now, so they must have some degree of confidence that a larger player will back them on this.

How much would the CCP be willing to dump behind a fight to make one of the most valuable US company/brands in the world look bad?

I'm betting.. a lot.

To gain what?

Absolutely disagree, this article made me really see both sides and how apple is in the wrong here:

https://stratechery.com/2020/rethinking-the-app-store/

Wait, Epic is the big player in this fight?

Apple seems to be the big player here, no?

And it seems like Apple has already given the big players whatever terms they want, and epic is too small to get the same treatment

big players already get special terms from apple

I assume that the Epic supporters rather are hoping to get Apple to reduce the 30% on all transactions (or on all transactions of some type), not just to get Epic to be a special case. I'm not sure they have a case, but I think you're misrepresenting them.

Is their way to cover them selves in court. Otherwise it makes no difference to them. To ask for themselves or everyone

Well, of course; if someone is supporting a company's position because of that company's "character", that would be absurd indeed. Both sides are doing it for profit. That doesn't mean we can't support one or the other on other grounds.

How do you reconcile this opinion with the glaringly obvious counter that Apple swings its weight around in exactly that fashion?

A company should have the right to enforce the terms for its own platform.

No, I think what they mean is that for instance, Apple Music is on Android, but Apple takes payments through its own platform, not through Google Play, therefore denying Google their 30% cut on apple music payments. Many smaller companies are not able to negotiate the same thing.

Massive off-topic aside: Would you mind stop referring to me as he, and more generally don't assume someones gender identity. Sorry about it, just shitting me off a bit lately.

Huge apologies, I normally just use "they" when I don't know the gender, honestly no idea why I didn't do that here. Sorry about that.

Oh I didn’t know. I guess supporting Epic means that kind of behavior will just continue if they win...

That's very unlikely, because the court can't force Apple to provide a special deal to Epic. Whatever decision they arrive at, it must be generally applicable.

Not if they're anti-competitive, like selectively using private APIs or forcing developers to use unrelated services (i.e. Apple payment processors).