Tag Archives: ethics

Apple vs Epic

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Some of you may have heard of the video game Fortnite, which Epic makes for the cell phone market and sells through Apple’s app store. Associated with that is Epic’s move to make in-app sales—purchases of other products made from within an app—without having to pay the 30% commission Apple charges for in-app purchases via an app that was sold through Apple’s app store.

Some of you may have heard of Apple’s subsequent decision to block Fortnite sales through its app store and of the ensuing antitrust hoo-raw over Apple’s move.

The hoo-raw is centered on government intervention into what should be a free market: government antitrust law and the use of the government judiciary branch to press the beef.

That’s wrong, however legal the beefing might be.

I consider Apple’s use of its facility, here its app store, to be entirely withing Apple’s right to control its property, regardless of how widespread third-party use might be. Walmart, for instance, is not legally required, nor is it morally obligated, to sell any particular third-party product that wants shelf space. To provide space, or not, is a purely business decision, whether the space is physical for physical goods or virtual for electrons.

On the other hand, there’s nothing preventing Epic from selling its output through other facilities than one provided by Apple. There’s nothing preventing Epic or other app producers from forming their own individual app stores or from banding together to form a collective app store or collection of app stores.

Along with that, there’s nothing wrong with app developers selling their output exclusively to or through Android device producers and eschewing Apple device compatibility altogether.

That’s what a free market does. It’s what should be occurring here. Don’t bother with antitrust litigation; instead, set up separate app stores.

As an aside, Alphabet’s Google Play charges the same 30% for the same in-app purchase process, but the current beef only involves Apple. If there is a legitimate legal beef here, maybe it’s in the two biggest players in the app sales business charging the same price. It’s hard to believe that the two entities have sufficiently identical cost structures that they would arrive, naturally, at the same market price.

Lies and Bigotries of Joe Biden

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Now that the Progressive-Democratic Party has finished its nominating process and formally put Joe Biden at the top of its Presidential candidate ticket, it’s useful to look at him.

Lies:

  • Plagiarized college papers
  • Plagiarized campaign speeches
  • Claimed to have marched with protesters during the civil rights movement when he had not—had not even been an activist
  • Repeated the civil rights activism lie during the just-concluded primary campaign
  • Presaging a Hillary Clinton lie, claimed during a 2007 presidential primary debate that he’d been “shot at” while visiting Iraq
  • During this year’s primary campaign, claimed he’d been arrested in South Africa while trying to see the anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela

Bigotries:

  • Said on an earlier campaign trail, You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent
  • Called then-Presidential candidate and campaign rival Barack Obama the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy
  • Republicans want to put blacks in chains
  • 15% of Americans are just no good
  • If you don’t support me, you ain’t black
  • Picked his running mate on the basis, first, of her sex and, second, of her skin color
  • Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids
  • Bragged about working well with and getting along well with openly avowed segregationists, Senators James Eastland (D, MI) and Herman Talmadge (D,GA)

Bonus—stupidities:

  • Told a reporter he had a higher IQ than the reporter when the latter questioned his law school record
  • At a townhall, called a questioner a liar
  • At another townhall, called a questioner a lying dog-faced pony soldier
  • At an impromptu outdoor gathering, called a questioner a liar
  • At another townhall, challenged a questioner to a pushup contest in irritated, non sequitur response to a question

Progressive-Democrats claim to be all about character in any candidate who would be President. This is the character of the man they want for President.

Agitators Agitate

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And nominally peaceful protesters condone.

Peaceful demonstrations in downtown Chicago ended in a violent clash between police and protesters Saturday, leaving 17 officers injured and two dozen people arrested.
…
“Multiple agitators hijacked this peaceful protest,” Mr [Chicago Police Superintendent David] Brown said late Saturday. “This group deployed large black umbrellas, changed their appearance and began pushing and eventually assaulting officers.”

It’s not strictly true that agitators hijacked the protest.

If those “peaceful” protesters had truly wanted to stay peaceful, they would have dealt with the agitators in their midst before the latter could convert the protest to violence.

Certainly, that would be hard to do, but hard means possible.

At best, the “peaceful” protestors are shirking their personal responsibility and putting their obligations off on others.

Panic Over Kern County, California

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Kern County, California, is in serious Wuhan Virus trouble. Or so think some journalists and the State of California.

Residents of the agriculture-rich Central Valley are falling victim to Covid-19 at the highest rates in California….

And

Kern County, which lies in the Central Valley’s southernmost part, had the highest per capita rate of new Covid-19 infections in California between July 31 and Aug. 13, averaging 56.2 new cases per 100,000 people….

Now for some context, using Alejandro Lazo’s—he’s the author of the piece at the link—own numbers.

In total, 25,888 people there have been infected and 204 have died, according to the county health department. Statewide, California recorded 601,075 cases as of Friday and 10,996 deaths.

The mortality rate in Kern, given an infection, is 0.8%

Statewide, the mortality rate is 1.8%.

Both rates are quite low (so why are Newsom and the NLMSM in such a blind panic?), but Kern looks quite a bit safer than the State at large, contrary to the tone of the article.

Go figure.

“I personally spent time”

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden has claimed credit for setting up the possibility of the Israel-United Arab Emirates mutual formal recognition.

I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the UAE during our administration building the case for cooperation and broader engagement and the benefits it could deliver to both nations, and I am gratified by today’s announcement[.]

Never mind that, as Dr Qanta Ahmed, Independent Women’s Forum Senior Fellow and Attending Critical Care Physician at New York University Langone, noted,

President Obama and Vice President Biden did nothing other than empower Iran, feed into the Islamist machine, bring back funds that would be then deployed to Hezbollah, undermine and delegitimize the Sunni Muslim world, eviscerate any confidence the Arab world had in the United States, [] laid the ground for tremendous mistrust, [and t]hey sided with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt against the Egyptian people.

‘Course, Biden has to claim something of the sort, since his BFF Al Gore has already invented the Internet.