A senior Apple exec could be jailed in Epic case

All thanks to Epic for spearheading this effort. We do not want 30% cut takers in the age of digital distribution. It's parasitic way of making money. Apple (also Steam) does not deserve to earn billions from software they have contributed nothing to. They're akin to digital feudal lords and we must fight this.

Apple's 30% app cut is why we don't have the ability to make websites and web apps appear and operate like an app. Pinning a website onto your home screen to make it seem like an app is a cumbersome process which can't be automated into some "install" button. This is probably intentional to force people to make wrapper apps and thus subject something to the Apple platform fee.

They're also worrying about declining revenues in hardware so they are aggressively shifting to subscription and service fees, to the point of destroying the user experience of the Apple ecosystem. I am almost forced to use iCloud backups because of decades of neglect with offline syncing. Why must I pay monthly for gigabytes of storage to backup my iphone when a single $30 hard drive could do it?

I understand and see the value apple provides in a walled garden. It's not totally useless. It's one of the reasons apps tend to be higher quality in the App Store and the platform is basically free of viruses unlike an "open" platform like Windows. But I also welcome the changes that might make it easier for web based technologies to run freely on iOS.

"The judge declared that Apple’s VP of Finance Alex Roman lied under oath in a court of law. Apple knew this and did not comply with its legal obligation to correct the record.…

…Roman could literally be sent to jail for this, with Apple also subject to criminal sanctions."

Unfortunately, that's hardly likely, nowadays the US justice system hasn't the balls to go that far. Everyone knows Apple is too big and powerful to touch other than to wave a feather at it.

These days governance and democracy first and foremost serve the rich and powerful.

In the age of floppy disk and CD distribution of software, what was a retailers markup/cut? I imagine, Staples, Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot, etc were taking 30%+.

Shelf space, physical distribution, and store operations, etc costs money -- but so does bandwidth, security, tech ops, etc of all of these platforms.

Why isn't it ok for a digital store to require a markup to sell?