Epic Sues Apple and Google due to Fortnite getting pulled [2020-08-13, 2021-05-03]

[wco81]

My own checkbook?

Epic has the effect on Apples finances that a tick has on an elephant.

 

[zed]

Epic has the effect on Apples finances that a tick has on an elephant.

not if its the spark that gets apple to reduce that unwarranted (*)30% down to something reasonable

Btw after seeing ppl write epic have made billions off the apple store with fortnite, I had a look for usage stats
fortnite usage USA 78% consoles, so 22% = PC & IOS & android
so IOS counts as a fraction of 22% so not being on IOS aint really the end of the world

(*)I don't know what a more fair number is, 0.3% is far closer to the actual app store upkeep
perhaps 5% like this is what epic charges people to use their engine (which even wco81 would agree is a lot more effort than running an appstore)

wco81 What has epic done so much to get your animosity. I'm not the biggest fan of epic due to not liking the unreal engine and their lack of documentation but whats your reason?

 

[zed]

maybe should be spun off into a separate thread but on arstechnica I see yesterday in a related thread ppl started talking about creditcard fees, some useful info for those in the USA as it seems some folks are unaware paying by creditcard actually costs more, even if you get charged the same as with cash the merchant raises the price of everything to cover the creditcard fees

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-telling-users-about-30-percent-event-charge/

https://www.valuepenguin.com/credit-card-surcharges-convenience-fees

Statistical Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius et Subscriptor
reply Aug 28, 2020 5:49 PM
VISA and MC did prohibit companies from disclosing fees and they also prohibited companies from charging credit card customers more. They used their market dominance to force this cost onto merchants while hiding it from the consumer. To the consumer it was "free" but merchants were stuck with this cost or they would operate at a competitive disadvantage.

VISA and MC were sued for this anticompetitive behavior and lost. Today merchants CAN tell consumers how much credit card fees cost them and they can charge extra to makeup that fee. That is why you see some businesses have one price for cash and then a 3% surcharge for credit cards.

So yeah the situation has remarkable similarities to Apple and Google but likely not in the way you intended them.

Since it is another related strawman at trial VISA and MC argued that antitrust provisions didn't apply to them because there were two options and they never colluded on pricing. A merchant could not accept MC and just accept VISA or the reverse. The judge struck down that defense because a oligarchy doesn't require collusion. The mere fact that VISA/MC had >90% marketshare combined was sufficient. Yes a merchant could only accept MC or only accept VISA but the pricing was near identical meaning there was no real competition.

Another disastrous outcome for VISA/MC that Apple/Google will surely want to avoid is the judge found that competition was not possible . That the court had no remedy it could impose which would create meaningful pricing competition. Thus it ruled the US government could set rate caps on credit card merchant fees. That is the ultimate antitrust remedy and one the courts are reluctant to use unless there is no other options.

 

[Entropy]

maybe should be spun off into a separate thread but on arstechnica I see yesterday in a related thread ppl started talking about creditcard fees, some useful info for those in the USA as it seems some folks are unaware paying by creditcard actually costs more, even if you get charged the same as with cash the merchant raises the price of everything to cover the creditcard fees

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...-telling-users-about-30-percent-event-charge/

https://www.valuepenguin.com/credit-card-surcharges-convenience-fees

Maybe it’s just my age, but I find it bizarre that anyone would believe that bank services didn’t have a cost. I don’t know what to call it - willful obliviousness? Stupidity?
Note to World - services cost money, and yes that includes public services, which is why tax evasion is a crime.

 

[Betanumerical]

Yes just roll over and go what the friendly dictator is telling you.

But it's obvious you are only thinking of your own checkbook.

Roll over and do what the owner of both the platform and the hardware has told them. Epic went against the ToS and then when given two weeks to remediate the problem decided to stubbornly continue, if they had just removed the parts of the application that violated the ToS whilst the case was running then they wouldn't have been removed.

No one has a 'right' to have an application the App Store, its a privilege and Epic decided to go against the ToS and this privilege was removed.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Again, there are rules, laws and regulations. Just because Apple owns the store does not mean they can do whatever they want. The smartphone OS market is basically Apple and Google which means those two have a lot of power that they could easily abuse.

So the argument that it's Apple store so whoever wants to be on there should just suck it up and comply with whatever Apple wants is, well, not very smart.

 

[Zeross]

Yes just roll over and go what the friendly dictator is telling you.

But it's obvious you are only thinking of your own checkbook.

Or you know, just respect the terms of a contract that you've agreed to for ten years ?
Epic can dispute the AppStore fee but that doesn*t give them the right to unilaterally break a contract.

Again, there are rules, laws and regulations. Just because Apple owns the store does not mean they can do whatever they want. The smartphone OS market is basically Apple and Google which means those two have a lot of power that they could easily abuse.

So the argument that it's Apple store so whoever wants to be on there should just suck it up and comply with whatever Apple wants is, well, not very smart.

Yes exactly : there are rules, law and regulations and until a court has stated that the AppStore fee is abusive or whatever Epic HAS to respect the terms of service it has signed. This is not in Epic power to unilaterally decide what the conditions of the AppStore should be. At the moment they're completely bypassing Apple payment and thus does not give any money to Apple, do you think the bandwidth and the storage to keep Fortnite on the store is free ?

In my opinion this is your argument that is not very smart. If you want to dispute the terms of a contract, just do it in court but don't break it, even if you think it is unfair, this is the way it should be done.

 

[MfA]

Another disastrous outcome for VISA/MC that Apple/Google will surely want to avoid is the judge found that competition was not possible . That the court had no remedy it could impose which would create meaningful pricing competition. Thus it ruled the US government could set rate caps on credit card merchant fees. That is the ultimate antitrust remedy and one the courts are reluctant to use unless there is no other options.

That's a silly statement. Google has far less to lose than Apple ... they already have the most likely remedy, third party stores.

At most they'd have to give customers a selection screen to give third party stores equal billing similar to what Microsoft had to do with browsers in a long gone age. Very little skin off Google's back, flaying for Apple.

 

[Betanumerical]

Again, there are rules, laws and regulations. Just because Apple owns the store does not mean they can do whatever they want. The smartphone OS market is basically Apple and Google which means those two have a lot of power that they could easily abuse.

So the argument that it's Apple store so whoever wants to be on there should just suck it up and comply with whatever Apple wants is, well, not very smart.

You could easily make the same argument with {Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo} instead of {Apple, Google}. Yet, I dont see people demanding a third party app store on those closed devices that make up 100% of the console market.

 

[Malo]

Nor do I see Epic removing Fortnite from console stores and going on a twitter rampage against them as well.

 

[BRiT]

That'll be the next domino they push should they win against Apple and Google.

 

[zed]

Maybe it’s just my age, but I find it bizarre that anyone would believe that bank services didn’t have a cost. I don’t know what to call it - willful obliviousness? Stupidity?

Yes there are ppl that don't know about these things, perhaps it is stupidity, though they prolly just dont give it much thought, like someone on these forums going Oh 'I get my health insurance free cause my job pays for it' which is obviously false, the employer factors in the cost of the insurance and then deducts that from their wages or something similar, its not a bonus they give out of the goodness of their hearts.
The fact is paying with credit card incurs an extra cost to the business that they pass on to the customer, in NZ (*) theres a similar system to creditcards where the business has to pay $~30 a month for unlimited transactions and plus the electricity but the cost per use is $0.00. now when the customer scans their bankcard the price is the same as paying with cash.

Note to World - services cost money

well duh,generally true, how much extra does it cost the shop if someone pays with a debit card?.
the funny thing is paying with cash should cost more than paying with a credit card (as it involves a lot more work), so why does paying with a CC incur an extra 3%? From memory A large factor of why the figure is so high is cause of creditcard fraud, failure of repaying debt.

FWIW creditcards should make things cheaper NOT more expensive compared to cash.
1. less work involved in the transaction
2. the person often goes in to debt, which they often have to pay interest on, thus its in the banks interest for the person to pay with creditcard vs money

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card

EFTPOS (electronic fund transfer at point of sale) in New Zealand is highly popular. In 2006, 70 percent of all retail transactions were made by Eftpos, with an average of 306 Eftpos transaction being made per person.

So has the USA in 2020 caught up to NZ in 2006?

 

[Malo]

So has the USA in 2020 caught up to NZ in 2006?

Probably 95% of my transactions in stores are by Debit Card

 

[wco81]

not if its the spark that gets apple to reduce that unwarranted (*)30% down to something reasonable

Btw after seeing ppl write epic have made billions off the apple store with fortnite, I had a look for usage stats
fortnite usage USA 78% consoles, so 22% = PC & IOS & android
so IOS counts as a fraction of 22% so not being on IOS aint really the end of the world

(*)I don't know what a more fair number is, 0.3% is far closer to the actual app store upkeep
perhaps 5% like this is what epic charges people to use their engine (which even wco81 would agree is a lot more effort than running an appstore)

wco81 What has epic done so much to get your animosity. I'm not the biggest fan of epic due to not liking the unreal engine and their lack of documentation but whats your reason?

Epic are frauds in this matter. They made a ton of money and are crying foul because they see a way to make even more money. To present it as anything but that is a fraud.

As for what Apple is entitled to, Apple like any other private commercial entity is entitled to charge what the market will bear.

There are thousands of app. developers in the App. Store willingly paying Apple's price because they are making money. Hell Epic paid that fee for years on Fortnite until they decided Apple is a high-profile target so they might be able to get better terms.

If Epic doesn't like Apples terms, they have a choice, they can go to many other platforms and make money on them.


Now it's FB, with Zuckerberg telling FB employees that Apple hurts innovation and competition, charges monopoly prices.

This is the same Zuckerberg who used his relationship with Trump to advocate for banning Tiktok, talking about someone else trying to kill competition.

Apple is about to apply more strict privacy policies in iOS 14, which will hurt monetization from the FB app. on iOS.


It's interesting that all these vocal anti-Apple companies are headed by personalities who have problematic characters, shall we say?

 

[wco81]

Probably 95% of my transactions in stores are by Debit Card

Some stats about payment method usage. I think this is only for the US:

1. 
   80% prefer card payments over cash.
2. 76% of consumers have at least one credit card.
3. Only 10% of consumers make all of their purchases with cash.
4. But 88% of consumers use cash at least sometimes.
5. The average cash transaction is $22.
6. The average non-cash transaction is $112.
7. The average credit card user has 4 credit cards.
8. There are 459,000,000 credit cards in circulation.
9. Debit cards account for 67% of card payments.
10. 90% of households use more than one payment method.
11. The average consumer uses 3.6 different payment methods each month.
12. 45% of consumers prefer stored card information for online transactions.
13. There is $784 billion in outstanding credit card balances.
14. 45% of credit card holders pay off their spending each month.
15. 51% of card users said high interest rates were the most significant drawback of credit card use.
16. 38% of credit card users cite the inconvenience of carrying cash as their main reason for card use.
17. 41% of credit card users have retail and store-specific credit cards—the most common types of credit cards.
18. ATM withdrawals are declining in number but increasing in value.
19. Card payments are increasing in number and in value.

Have to admit, I'm surprised debit card transactions comprise 67% of all card transactions. I've never used my debit card for anything other than ATM cash. I know people will go to grocery stores and pay with debit cards and get cash back.

I have more than one credit card which will pay back 2 cents or more on grocery store purchases so I use them and pay off the balance every month. I only carry at most $40 in cash, will use Apple Pay or credit cards whenever I can. It makes it much easier to track my spending to use cards than cash.

Now, mobile wallets such as Apple Pay are growing. Forecasts are that mobile wallets will go from $1.1 trillion in transactions in 2019 to $3.1 trillion in transaction in 2024. Fast growth but even $3.1 trillion is just a fraction of all transactions.

Note the top mobile wallet payment systems. WeChat and AliPay each have over a billion active users, at 1.151 and 1.2 billion. They each outnumber all other mobile wallet user bases combined.

https://www.merchantsavvy.co.uk/mobile-payment-stats-trends/

I don't think AliPay and WeChat will ever catch on outside of China/Asia.

Then again, I don't see Apple Pay or Google Pay ever catching on outside the industrialized countries -- Europe, Japan, North America, maybe South Korea and a few other countries.

Since they're dependent on big credit card networks, they are usually tied to banks in each country, whether they're willing to cut deals with Apple, Google or Samsung to have their credit cards be put in these mobile wallets.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If my bank/credit card company was charging 30% I would probably use debit. As it stands I actually make hundreds of dollars from cash back on my cards that mostly just goes back into those businesses so I don't think they are suffering that much on a couple %.

I don't see a lot of people paying with their phones anywhere. I have 3 options to do so on my phone (google pay, samsung pay and my royal bank app, but activating an app really isn't more convenient than using pay pass on my cc.

I should add that when I pay for business and ask, most say they prefer to be paid by credit card over a cheque.

 

[wco81]

Remember the old days when you're waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket and someone pulls out a checkbook?

the clerk has to stamp it a few times, check the drivers license, copy the license number, study the signatures, then put the checks in a special pouch.

Slowed the hell out of the line.

 

[zed]

Then again, I don't see Apple Pay or Google Pay ever catching on outside the industrialized countries -- Europe, Japan, North America, maybe South Korea and a few other countries.

dont be so sure I was in kenya a couple of years ago, a lot of ppl paid with their phone (certainly more than ppl in the USA do)
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47292757

Probably 95% of my transactions in stores are by Debit Card

Nice, well WRT anecdotes I havent been in NZ for a couple of years but prolly the previous 5 years there I did not pay with money once (I did not have money), perhaps 10x in the previous 2 decades. Not using cash is common there, even if something costs less than $1 ppl still pay with their card.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If my bank/credit card company was charging 30% I would probably use debit. As it stands I actually make hundreds of dollars from cash back on my cards that mostly just goes back into those businesses so I don't think they are suffering that much on a couple %.

That's visible to you. But your purchases are higher in price in order to support people using credit cards, so you aren't really making hundreds of dollars in cash back. You're likely still profiting slightly over a hypothetical world in which credits cards don't exist, but not to extent that you think you are.

And to top it off, you using a CC is making everyone lose money who doesn't use a cash back credit card...again compared to a hypothetical world where CCs don't exist.

And for people that don't pay their CC off in full every month they are losing significantly more in cash than what they get with cash back bonuses.

If merchants take advantage of the antitrust lawsuit against Visa and MC that allows them them to disclose the CC fees and charge customers for CC cards, then the cash back % will at most mitigate the 3% or more CC fees associated with CC purchases.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlphaWolf]

That's visible to you. But your purchases are higher in price in order to support people using credit cards, so you aren't really making hundreds of dollars in cash back. You're likely still profiting slightly over a hypothetical world in which credits cards don't exist, but not to extent that you think you are.

There's no hypothetical world. I get hundreds of dollars back every year that I would not if I used debit. If i paid cash or debit, I would get 0. In fact I would possibly incur costs depending on how many transactions are allowed at my bank

And to top it off, you using a CC is making everyone lose money who doesn't use a cash back credit card...again compared to a hypothetical world where CCs don't exist.

Again there is no hypothetical world. Credit cards have always offered a convenience advantage and a small cost is likely well worth it to most businesses to not lose the sale to the guy who can't buy it because his pay hasn't hit his account yet.

And for people that don't pay their CC off in full every month they are losing significantly more in cash than what they get with cash back bonuses.

There's a whole discussion here about the cost of borrowing, but CCs often aren't the most expensive option. In fact for a lot of people it's the least expensive option they have available to them.

If merchants take advantage of the antitrust lawsuit against Visa and MC that allows them them to disclose the CC fees and charge customers for CC cards, then the cash back % will at most mitigate the 3% or more CC fees associated with CC purchases.

Regards,
SB

Most big merchants won't do anything which will leave those that do stuck charging a premium or just going like they have been. Perhaps they will be able to negotiate some better terms.