I'm right with you. This is much worse than what Microsoft got in trouble for many years ago. They know what they're doing in wrong and I sure hope Epic gets their day in court.
It's predatory and anti-consumer. Apple can eat shit.
Both bad. Android may allow side-loading a bit easier than Apple, but the Play store is still a large monopoly on Android. It comes pre-installed on basically every device and is the de-facto way of installing software there. Side loading requires the user to click past a bunch of scary messages that is not required for apps installed through the Play store.
It is much more difficult to distribute apps from outside the original store when compared with desktop platforms. Changing this would be a good thing for users and developers alike, for both Android and iOS.
That's an interesting question.
Couldn't they distribute a "Fortnite loader" through Play store? Since Fortnite is free-to-play, the loader wouldn't charge anything, so it wouldn't technically violate any policy. Seems like an interesting workaround to avoid giving Google the paycut.
But what if you distribute "Fortnite"? Free to play, no premium functionality, free "upgrade" - except that the upgrade is from outside the app store. And once you get it, you can start paying for stuff. I don't think this qualifies as "an app store", since it's not an app store/ you can't download other applications from it (just the premium version of this one).
It's predatory and anti-consumer. Apple can eat shit.