Linked List: February 4, 2025

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Tim Sweeney on the Apps With Porn in Apple’s App Store ★

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, on X:

Apple is being extremely disingenuous in attacking the European Union here. The iOS App Store hosts the Reddit app, which provides access to massive amounts of porn. Apple knows this, permits it, and gave Reddit a 17+ (!!!) rating and Editors Choice award. [...]

As a recently deleted (by who?) post on the r/iOS subreddit explains, Apple’s iOS App Store welcomes apps that host tons of porn, as Reddit does, as long as the majority of the content isn’t porn, and the app has controls to hide the porn.

Sweeney has a real point here, and it really is a bit of a conundrum. I’m not sure what he’s alluding to with the “by who?” parenthetical, but I don’t think one deleted Reddit thread on the topic was the result of Apple dispatching some Men in Black agents to knock on Reddit’s door. Reddit is full of non-deleted threads from people asking variations of the same question. And the press has been covering the saga for a decade.

But how is it possible that these super popular platforms have apps in the no-porn App Store while hosting tons of porn? It’s an issue with Reddit, with Tumblr (multiple times), and apparently especially so with X (fka Twitter). (I’m not trying to feign prudishness here, but I’ve heard, several times, that you really don’t want to go looking for NSFW content on X because what you’ll find is ... something.)

I think Sweeney’s synopsis captures Apple’s de facto policy accurately, with the exception that they don’t welcome apps that host porn (so long as the app has controls to hide it, and if the adult content is effectively a side hustle in the overall context of the app), but tolerate it. It’s a de facto policy of tolerating unadvertised pornographic content on platforms that are too big to ban from the App Store without generating far more of an outcry than any controversy over the side-hustle porn will.

Some banks are too big to fail. Some platforms are too big to ban. Apple won’t say that, but that’s clearly the tacit policy. It’s not confusing that the exceptions are super popular apps — they are exceptions because they’re super popular. And it’s absolutely not a policy of looking the other way — Apple’s policing of the situation is an enormous never-ending pain in the ass for the platforms involved. To see NSFW content in the iOS Reddit app, for example, you need to be signed in, and enable an off-by-default setting. Tumblr does similar. You can’t just download the Reddit or Tumblr apps from the App Store and innocuously find yourself viewing pornography.

AltStore PAL Is Free of Charge, Thanks to ‘MegaGrant’ From Epic Games ★

Apple, in its media statement re: Hot Tub (the you-have-to-admit-it’s-a-fun-name hardcore porn app now available in the AltStore PAL alternative app marketplace in the EU), closed its statement with the following: “The truth is that we are required by the European Commission to allow it to be distributed by marketplace operators like AltStore and Epic who may not share our concerns for user safety.”

On X, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote:

Contrary to Apple’s false statement, the Epic Games Store doesn’t carry this app, doesn’t carry any porn apps, and has never carried porn apps.

Epic Games does run an alternative app marketplace for iOS in the EU, and Sweeney is correct that neither Hot Tub, nor any other porno apps, are in it. But what Apple is alluding to here is Epic’s financial backing of AltStore by way of an “Epic MegaGrant”. AltStore announced the grant back in August:

GOOD NEWS EU 🇪🇺 For innovation in app distribution, Epic Games has granted us a MegaGrant grant that we plan to use to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee going forward — and we won’t take it for granted!

What does this mean? AltStore PAL is now FREE — no subscription necessary 🎉

Prior to the grant, AltStore PAL charged €1.50 per installation to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee, the rules for which have gotten more complicated since originally announced, but for app marketplaces themselves (like AltStore PAL) costs €0.50 per-user per-first-installation per-year. After the grant from Epic, AltStore PAL became a free download.

Is it fair for Apple to lay AltStore PAL’s content decisions at Epic’s feet? I’d say it’s more fair than describing Hot Tub as “approved” by Apple for having been notarized.

Dithering ★

If you enjoy podcasts, you should subscribe to Dithering, the twice-weekly 15-minutes-on-the-button podcast I do with Ben Thompson. Dithering as a standalone subscription costs just $7/month or $70/year. (It’s also included in Ben’s excellent Stratechery Plus bundle.) People who try Dithering seem to love it, too — we have remarkably little churn.

If you’re on the fence, subscribe for a month and you’re only out $7 — but I bet you’ll stick around. Trust me. And thanks to everyone who’s already subscribed.