[HN Gopher] Google will reduce Play Store cut to 15% for a devel...
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       Google will reduce Play Store cut to 15% for a developer's first
       $1M annually
        
       Author : Alupis
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2021-03-16 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | throwawaysea wrote:
       | That's nice, but we need to just regulate the oligopoly of stores
       | held by Google-Apple on mobile phones, Google-Mozilla for
       | browsers, Steam for games, etc. much more strongly. The fees are
       | atrocious, their support of developers is terrible, and their
       | arbitrary and capricious bans of content they disagree with is
       | unacceptable from a free speech perspective.
       | 
       | Ultimately what we need is freer hardware and freer fundamental
       | software (OS, browsers, etc) that does not have controlling
       | interests from these entities no one elected.
        
         | jayparth wrote:
         | How is steam a monopoly? If you don't like Steam, just use
         | another distributor like GoG or self publish.
        
           | throwawaysea wrote:
           | Most of the users are on Steam and the fact that they have an
           | existing library on there is a bit of a network effect. Users
           | will prefer to get more games where their existing ones are.
           | The social networking aspects (having friends on Steam, the
           | ability to stream to each other, join games, and so on) also
           | provide a barrier to new competition via network effects.
           | 
           | Are they a monopoly? I am not sure if it meets the current
           | definition of one in practice, since seemingly no antitrust
           | action is taken on by the government these days. But in my
           | mind Steam is a monopoly for digital game distribution on PC.
           | You could argue that consoles constitute a similar monopoly
           | within each console's platform, I suppose. And you could
           | argue that not all games are sold via digital distribution.
           | But I think we need a new modern anti-trust law that doesn't
           | rely on a very high bar like a "monopoly" but some other less
           | stringent definition.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | I hope they are also supportive of the government taxing all
       | income in similar brackets: 15% until 1M, 30% until 1B, 40% until
       | 10B, 70% until 100B. This type of thinking should apply to the
       | big tech companies...
        
         | Alupis wrote:
         | Why should Google get 70B on 100B earnings through an App in
         | the App Store? That makes no sense at all.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-16 23:03 UTC)