I don't see how that's relevant. Epic isn't suing Apple so that they can have exclusive rights to open a second app store, they're suing to allow third-party app stores in general. If Epic wins, they aren't going to be part of a small group of store owners; anyone would be able to open their own competing store.

Almost no stores will be able to compete with Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, who already have giant reach and network effects,

Consumers will have to deal with them all, as will developers.

There will be a small group of store owners.

> Almost no stores will be able to compete with Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, who already have giant reach and network effects,

First of all, that is not true at all.

And second, even if it were true, it'd be a far better situation for developers than the current status quo.

We have already been through the multiple "app stores" model and it was fucking awful. Back before the iPhone and Android there were dozens of different stores for PalmOS, Symbian, and PocketPC/Windows Mobile, even boxed software sold on CDs.

There were no guarantees with any of the stores. Many didn't even host stuff they sold. So you'd buy from the "App Store", download from the developer's site, and then deal with whatever license system the developer used. Since there was no standard way to work with the store there was no standard mechanism of distributing licenses. Signing was also a joke as there was no good way to let end users validate, in a usable way, the signatures of apps or even that the signing entity was who they claimed to be.

Piracy was rampant because stores sucked, prices were onerous, and cracking the software or just sharing licenses was too easy. The current App Store model developed as a response to a broken market for mobile apps.

Hate on the App Store model all you want but it solved significant problems that plagued the industry for years.

Having to deal with multiple stores would be strictly worse for developers than the current situation.

And worse for consumers. No way I'm dealing with entering my CC again and again. The current situation is not perfect, but it does have advantages for both consumers and developers.

Really?

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple already have my CC number. If I could buy all my apps through (ex:) the Microsoft store that exists on PC, Android, and iOS I could delete my CC info from Google and Apple. That's a win in my book.

Maybe the competition would force all of them to innovate a bit. Wouldn't it be nice if you could give your CC number, but set a hard limit on in-app purchases? Ex: Here's my CC, but you're not allowed to charge more than $50 / month to it. I bet there are a lot of people that have gotten multi thousand dollar IAP bills that wouldn't mind a better system for some of that stuff.

So if Apple had entertained the original pre-lawsuit request, would epic have fought until Apple allowed app stores other than Epic and Apple existing?

What does it matter? They're fighting for something that benefits everybody (except Apple) now.

There is no evidence that what they are fighting for would benefit anyone other than a small group of already rich companies.

There is plenty of evidence from Android that it would benefit both users and developers.

Android is not a model for this. Stores on Android simply don’t have equal footing with the play store.

Epic is suing Google too over this.

Epic is suing Google for pressuring OEMs against preinstalling its app store on devices, not for preventing users from installing its app store themselves. It's true that app stores not signed with the system key can't automatically update apps, and users would benefit even more if they could, but users already benefit from being able to install apps outside of the official app store at all.

You just confirmed my point.

Android app stores other than google play aren’t remotely on a level playing field with the Play store.

I never disputed your point (though it is technicall bwrong because some phones have other app stores installed on the system partition) because as I already pointed out, your point is irrelevant. The fact that users can install apps from other sources at all has massive benefit, as Android has already shown. There would be even more benefit if other apps could do automatic updates, but there is already benefit with what is available.