WaltC wrote on Jan 15, 2021, 17:45:
Amusing when you consider that no one would sit still for Dell forcing their customers to buy their software exclusively though the Dell store and nowhere else, while Dell keeps 30% of the proceeds. Imagine if, on top of that, Dell decided what the owners of Dell computers could buy and what they could not. Nope, can't imagine that because no one would stand for it. Apple customers, however, are used to it. I hope that Epic succeeds--Apple software/hardware customers have been brow-beaten and dominated so long By Apple they no longer understand when they are being taken--even with $1k monitor stands...;)

Except, of course, that if Dell computers was forced to provide technical support for non-Dell software, and if Dell Computing was forced to provide infrastructure and distribution for all the non-Dell software companies, and, oh oh!, and if Dell wasn't being paid by any of the people using their framework, you'd be up in arms. Epic's argument is ridiculous - we want all of Apple's tools, analytics, data, support and framework, and we don't want to pay a single penny for it. They want all of the information from Apple's marketplace, they insist that Apple maintain their updates and connectivity work... It's not like Epic is doing this out of any sense of nobleness. They're literally trying to say "we shouldn't have to pay for any of this, because we don't want to, and we still demand you provide all of it."