But separately, the only reason to root for ‘the little guy’ is if the little guy is somehow hard done by.
We dislike the fact that Apple makes some money by charging developers 30% for payment services, software delivery, and operating a storefront that users feel safe to buy from.
We say 30% is too much to change for that, because the margin is way too high. Fair enough.
Epic on the other hand makes its money from selling in game currency to children.
That practice needs to be banned altogether.
Sweeney may technically still have the majority vote, but he can’t do anything they seriously oppose, or not do anything they are strongly in favor of without facing serious consequences.
Epic didn't bow to China like other American companies did. And Epic didn't even stay silent. Epic made a clear statement in opposition to China.
That should've put to bed any of this silly "it's controlled by China" nonsense. Tencent just likes having a good stake in a company that prints money.
Support Hong Kong?
How is that in opposition to China? Hong Kong is part of China, and I’m pretty sure the Chinese government thinks of itself as supporting Hong Kong.
All Sweeney actually did was make some carefully worded statements about free speech and said that they wouldn’t filter messages on their platform.
He made no statement encouraging support of any particular political stance.
It’s a way to monetize addictive videogames without providing any additional value.
Do you think we should sell cigarettes to children? If not, why not?
If you buy in-game currency from epic, you have nothing except the memory of a dopamine hit.
Epic is fore casting earning something like 5 billion dollars this financial year.
You'll have to try a bit harder to get a bit of sympathy for them than 'they're smaller than apple'.
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5 billion dollars.
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And you want me to care that another company is shaking you down for a couple of million?
Boo hoo. Poor epic. I wonder how they pay the bills.
Oh, I know! They use some that 5 billion dollars they made to do it.
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I think maybe there are some, you know, real people, who will get some tangible benefits from these rate cuts.
If Epic loses out.. or... you know, if they get them too? Really, it makes no difference to them at all. So.. I really. Do. Not. Care.
Epic's definitely not a little guy, but compared to Apple, it looks more like a respectable medium-sized company.
I find Apple's revenue numbers and market value truly staggering. Few companies seem to be able to compare.
[1] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...
[2] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/26/what-to-expect-fr...
Of course nobody ‘compares’.
But compared to almost any other iOS developer Epic is a giant.
Yes, Apple sells one of the most successful products in human history... and they also illegally use that power to control the market and extract revenue from thousands of other companies who have no choice but to do business with them.
False: Epic wants to pay less commission themselves, and to be able to take a cut of other developers work.
One big difference between Apple and Epic is that Epic didn’t do any work to create the platform.
As to those smaller developers. Apple just cut the commission for them in half. A lower level than Epic was promising. Apple seems to care about the smaller developers.
Epic is not fighting for anyone but themselves.
Let’s note that more than half of Epic’s profits belong to just one man.
Although, if we're going by how popular the apps are on the store...I could see how Epic would be considered a heavyweight on the App Store.
The narrative here is amazing, because you're not sympathizing with Epic because they're so big and have so much money... but they're still the little guy compared to Apple. The scale of Apple's monopoly profit makes Epic look like a corner pharmacy in Montana.