yeah! don’t they remember the glory days and freedom of choice to wait in a virtual line on GameSpy to download the bandwidth limited patch from version 1.4 to 1.5 only to realize they’re on 1.2 and there is no delta patch from 1.2 to 1.4 so they can either try again with the full upgrade for 1.x to 1.5 which is about 10x the download size or they can get each incremental patch from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 to 1.5?

come on. there’s a distinct value these app stores add and there is a distinct value in having one for the platform.

the ONLY benefit to this future is Epic gets a larger slice. they will not “pass the benefit down” in some trickle down user freedom economy. they will shove more micro transactions and advertisements into every corner of their marketplace.

Softwares can auto update and hide the process to the user without the need for a store.

I would argue that removing the App Store as a single point of failure for free speech [1][2] would be a pretty big benefit.

[1] https://torrentfreak.com/apple-bans-vpns-from-app-store-in-c... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced...

You have to realize that saying the app store is a single point of failure for free speech is hyperbolic.

How the hell do you get from "App Store" to "Freedom of Speech"?

Going online to a download website and downloading what ever you want.

There has always been "app stores" if it's tucows download or filehippo or gamespy or what not.

Very few people google "simulation games" and scroll through the pages and pages of google results and go directly to a publishers website and download an exe that they run.

There is and always has been a middleman.