Tim Sweeney, who is probably celebrating the small victory of Apple slashing their cut from App Store developers making less than $US1million in half, does not know when to shut up.
As reported by TechCrunch, the CEO of Epic Games decided to fix his mouth to liken his company’s struggle against Apple to the civil rights movement in a conversation hosted by the New York Times online summit Dealbook.
Here’s the quote:
It’s everybody’s duty to fight. It’s not just an option that somebody’s lawyers might decide, but it’s actually our duty to fight that. If we had adhered to all of Apple’s terms and, you know, taken their 30% payment processing fees and passed the cost along to our customers, then that would be Epic colluding with Apple to restrain competition on iOS and to inflate prices for consumers. So going along with Apple’s agreement is what is wrong. And that’s why Epic mounted a challenge to this, and you know you can hear of any, and [inaudible] to civil rights fights, where there were actual laws on the books, and the laws were wrong. And people disobeyed them, and it was not wrong to disobey them because to go along with them would be collusion to make them status quo.
So there can be little doubt about what he is saying, here’s a tweet:
It’s a good article. Hey critics, please read what I said and tell me if it’s actually wrong: When the rules were wrongful, it was right to disobey them. That’s the comparison to the civil rights movement. pic.twitter.com/WMomQXwEjr
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) November 18, 2020
And another from Sweeney:
The comparison wasn’t to the wrongs being fought – there’s no comparison – but to the means of fighting them. The question that was directly asked was why Epic broke Apple’s rules. The answer is the principle that it’s right to disobey rules that are wrongful.
Listen I get it, Apple sucks, their fees are exorbitant, and they’re anti-competition. I’m on your side. Stick it to ‘em. But I will not stay on your side if you keep making this fight against Apple as some kind of moral crusade when in truth you are a billion dollar company trying to pay less money to a trillion dollar company.
That struggle is nothing like the regular people — my aunts, uncles, and grandparents — who literally risked their lives fighting to get their government to treat them like real people.
In the immortal words if Issa Rae:
*deep, heavy, negro spiritual sigh*
— Issa Rae (@IssaRae) October 12, 2017
Please. Tim Sweeney, you’d help your cause a lot more if you would just…not.
Leave a Reply