[HN Gopher] Google "contemplated buying some or all of Epic" to ...
___________________________________________________________________
Google "contemplated buying some or all of Epic" to stop
"contagion"
Author : haunter
Score : 216 points
Date : 2021-08-08 08:31 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
| admax88q wrote:
| I'd take this with a grain of salt for the time being. "Google
| contemplated" could mean nothing more than a random exec said
| this in passing or as a joke once to somebody else.
|
| Not to mention no internal and communications are cited in the
| article.
| polote wrote:
| Of course, if you were the ceo of Google and have something like
| that happen. You would ask your teams, what are the different
| scenarios we can explore? And one of them would be buying Epic.
| What people expect?
|
| Google is a for profit company don't expect them to act like an
| non profit organization
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| > Google is a for profit company don't expect them to act like
| an non profit organization
|
| I can and I will.
|
| The _only_ remedy prescribed by capitalism to evil companies is
| that consumers hold them to the consumers ideals of how ethical
| a company must act.
|
| This can NEVER happen, if every time this comes up, somebody is
| making excuses for them.
|
| "Google is a for profit company of course they are gonna try to
| make money"
|
| Irrelevant. Stop making excuses.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| It would be nice if they could take a hint from getting slapped
| around on anti-trust complaints. Maybe the fines aren't big
| enough for them to notice? I wonder if CEOs would be more
| amenable if getting rid of them was a possible sanction for
| anti-competitive behavior.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Yup. It's take a pretty altruistic company not to even _think_
| about buying out someone who was giving them trouble.
|
| That, or stupid. And I don't think a stupid company would get
| to where Google is today.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| No, it would take a company that realizes that they already
| are flying close to the envelope and that they are in deep
| anti-trust shit already. That is, a company with some common
| sense among the leadership who can see where the wind is
| blowing. As it is, Google and Apple have no political or
| business allies and lots of regulatory actions incoming. They
| might have done well financially so far, but they aren't in a
| good position.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Under your scenario (which I realize matches real life)
| they would still have to _think_ about it. They wouldn 't
| just have an instinctive reaction without any thought.
|
| It would take a company filled with perfect people to avoid
| having anyone even _think_ about doing the wrong thing.
| Part of being human is considering the wrong thing and then
| doing the right thing. (Or not, sometimes.)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Google flies close to the envelope by existing. At their
| scale, a lot of what is legal and what isn't is undecided
| (because no other company had been big enough to raise the
| question).
| 15155 wrote:
| Standard Oil
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I don't find it surprising, either. It's just frustrating to
| find yet another bit of evidence you don't own a device you
| bought and the manufacturers think you should pay them for any
| little piece of software you want to run on it.
|
| One missing bit that still hasn't happened - but one day will -
| is the subscription required to use your device. For now it's
| optional (called iCloud storage etc.) - you are nagged and so
| on but are able to refuse, but one day it will become
| obligatory. It could be 10 years from on or 20, but for sure
| they're thinking how to do it.
| moksly wrote:
| These lawsuit doesn't really do much about ownership part
| though. It's about billionaires deciding how many of them get
| to rent us software on the platforms that we don't own.
| jpambrun wrote:
| Your point is fair, it's reasonable for Google to consider this
| options and this is why antitrust regulations are needed. In
| this, it looks like it's time for the gouvernement to step in.
| 015a wrote:
| > Of course, if you were the ceo of Google and have something
| like that happen. You would ask your teams, what are the
| different scenarios we can explore? And one of them would be
| killing the CEO of Epic. What people expect?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30WTWkFe910&t=415s
| paganel wrote:
| > And one of them would be buying Epic.
|
| One would have expected a big company like Google not to take
| illegal choices into consideration, no matter its profit-
| related motives.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| We should be able to start with a clean slate - these companies
| should delete all user data that wasn't explicitly given by the
| user in a clear and obvious way (like profile credentials) and
| start from scratch. Every time any information is collected,
| the company should obtain consent after displaying the data to
| the user. A person should be able to inspect all data that had
| been associated with them, and to delete any or all of the data
| at any time. Within the personal profile, a the user should be
| given the option to opt-in to any and all uses of their data,
| with zero third party sharing unless allowed by the user on a
| byte-by-byte basis.
|
| If a company violates this a progressive and percentage based
| fine should be imposed for every day of non-compliance.
| Something like .01% of the company's net worth per day,
| increasing to 2% over the course of 30 days, half of which goes
| to federal enforcement and half to the user. Something painful
| and crippling, with teeth, and enough to incentivize people to
| watch out for themselves and to force companies to behave well.
|
| Data beaches should be lethal if data was leaked that wasn't
| obtained with consent.
|
| Faang is not entitled to surveil the lives of everyone in the
| world by dint of people merely visiting websites.
|
| Participation in a relationship with a person or business or
| community should be consensual.
| [deleted]
| mnd999 wrote:
| Buying up anyone who threatens to compete with you will certainly
| draw the attention of regulators.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Maybe in the 1930s.
| mtgx wrote:
| It should be prevented by law in most cases.
| cududa wrote:
| How arrogant do you have to be to know a civil suit on
| anticompetion is inbound, and still email about plans to stifle
| it? A long time ago a mentor said "never put anything in email
| that you don't want to show up in a court of law" and that's
| always stuck.
|
| But how monumentally dumb/ arrogant do you to be to not realize
| these emails and docs would show up in discovery?
| crazygringo wrote:
| A company "contemplated" something...?
|
| News flash: yes, in internal meetings, people suggest all _sorts_
| of options. It 's called brainstorming. And then they're looked
| into in varying levels of detail to investigate pros/cons.
| Research isn't action.
|
| Also, most people in meetings aren't lawyers, so they come up
| with options _before_ running it by legal. It 's not always clear
| what is or isn't illegal -- lawyers even disagree with each
| other.
|
| At the end of the day, what matters is what Google _does_. It you
| 're going to criticize, criticize _actual actions_ , not what was
| "contemplated".
|
| Criticizing a company for "contemplating" something is as bad as
| criticizing someone for having a thought. Any responsible company
| _should_ be contemplating a wide variety of options... and then
| rejecting the ones that are no good.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is the same concern apple has if epic succeeds.
| tonetheman wrote:
| What is the end goal of this?
|
| Google is to still have infrastructure and people working on
| putting code/binaries on phones but not be compensated for it? Or
| is it to get Google completely out of it and let the phone
| provider do it? Or just willy nilly and you are on your own? Or
| finally will other stores popup instead of Google?
|
| I think if I was Google I would want some percentage of the end
| revenue or a flat fee every time you push new code out. Maybe
| force them to lower their fee.
|
| I dislike the idea of there being no store. End users will be
| tricked into installing god knows what...
| cryptica wrote:
| Anticompetitive behaviour in the global marketplace is so
| pervasive that it's pointless to even mention specific cases - It
| only serves to perpetuate the ridiculous illusion that some
| people in government give a crap about it. Antitrust is a joke.
|
| Everything is essentially a trust nowadays.
| kfprt wrote:
| Buying a company to prevent even a hint of competition seems like
| quintessential antitrust. Over the last few decades society has
| really dropped the ball on antitrust.
| download13 wrote:
| Yep, the whole of society. Most of us have a great deal of
| control over how things are run in this definitely real
| democracy
| busterarm wrote:
| How many of us here on this board specifically work at Google
| or choose to work at companies that integrate with Google or
| otherwise use their services.
|
| It's always a choice.
| gmadsen wrote:
| It is most certainly not, when your economic survival is
| dependent on these services. It is a false choice.
|
| I challenge anyone to try and live a normal life completely
| disconnected from the servers of Amazon, google, Facebook,
| and Apple. It is impossible.
| carlivar wrote:
| There's a big difference though between minor ongoing
| consumption of their services versus choosing to work for
| these companies.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Please elaborate. Many of us avoid the services of the
| four entities you mention, completely or almost. Their
| <<servers>>, or their intrusion (monitoring) more
| difficult, requires strategies, but there are ways. Where
| would those four crucial for one's economic survival?
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| A good majority of media takes advantage of AWS;
|
| From [0]:
|
| > Here are the names that are on record publicly as using
| AWS:
|
| > Aon, Adobe, Airbnb, Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Acquia,
| AdRoll, AEG, Alert Logic, Autodesk, Bitdefender, BMW,
| British Gas, Baidu, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canon, Capital
| One, Channel 4, Chef, Citrix, Coinbase, Comcast,
| Coursera, Disney, Docker, Dow Jones, European Space
| Agency, ESPN, Expedia, Financial Times, FINRA, General
| Electric, GoSquared, Guardian News & Media, Harvard
| Medical School, Hearst Corporation, Hitachi, HTC, IMDb,
| International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research,
| International Civil Aviation Organization, ITV, iZettle,
| Johnson & Johnson, JustGiving, JWT, Kaplan, Kellogg's,
| Lamborghini, Lonely Planet, Lyft, Made.com, McDonalds,
| NASA, NASDAQ OMX, National Rail Enquiries, National
| Trust, Netflix, News International, News UK, Nokia,
| Nordstrom, Novartis, Pfizer, Philips, Pinterest, Quantas,
| Reddit, Sage, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Scribd,
| Securitas Direct, Siemens, Slack, Sony, SoundCloud,
| Spotify, Square Enix, Tata Motors, The Weather Company,
| Twitch, Turner Broadcasting,Ticketmaster, Time Inc.,
| Trainline, Ubisoft, UCAS, Unilever, US Department of
| State, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, UK Ministry of
| Justice, Vodafone Italy, WeTransfer, WIX, Xiaomi, Yelp,
| Zynga and Zillow.
|
| _Just_ AWS (as of 2020, per the artice). Apple could
| even be included in that list, according to CNBC. How
| many more are on Azure or GCP? I would argue you 're not
| _completely_ avoiding their services if you 're still a
| 'customer' of their customer, they're just getting a much
| smaller cut of your (or the advertiser's) money at the
| end of the day.
|
| [0]: https://www.contino.io/insights/whos-using-aws
| busterarm wrote:
| European companies and retailers are extremely sensitive
| to using Amazon and Google.
|
| I have a long list of large customers that insist that
| none of their data is stored in AWS.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Where would those four crucial for one's economic
| survival?
|
| (Sidenote, I'm adding Microsoft. I assume your solution
| isn't "everyone should move to Azure")
|
| I assume that most of us work in tech which, if it
| doesn't require actually working on software that is
| hosted by one of those five (or for them directly),
| requires looking at projects that are controlled by them.
| Do you use React or Angular? Maybe backend work in Go or
| C#? Ever use LinkedIn to network (or FB/IG), or use
| WhatsApp/MSTeams/Skype/GoogleChat to coordinate telework?
|
| And 3/5 of those control all the major consumer OSes.
| Sure, maybe you run Linux as your primary device, but you
| probably have to develop stuff compatible with Windows,
| iOS or Android. So you need those to at least test.
|
| Here's one article, probably not the best, of people
| trying to blackhole the major cloud providers and how
| that destroyed the internet experience.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/technology/blocking-
| the-t...
| srswtf123 wrote:
| I do it, daily, for several years now. In fact, I've left
| the industry entirely as a result of what I personally
| view as a complete lack of ethics on the part of every
| tech company.
|
| You being defeated isn't the same as being unable to live
| without FAANG.
| kfprt wrote:
| I completely understand your feelings regarding a lack of
| control and agency. Modern politics now essentially revolve
| around outrage. No politician wants to vote on something at
| all controversial, every vote they take is liable to outrage
| one half of the population or another. Every time they do
| they halve their voting base until it's an irrelevant tiny
| minority that agrees on everything. So they have outsourced
| their job to the supreme court, federal agencies, and the
| parliamentarian. If you can cause enough outrage you will
| find that they fold relatively easily.
| kook_throwaway wrote:
| There's plenty of things governments could be busy doing
| that aren't controversial, but managing the existing state
| doesn't have nearly the glamour (or reelection PR) of
| changing it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| These topics tend not to be uncorrelated, so making 4 votes
| doesn't leave you with 1/16th of your base, but often with
| 31/32nds of your base.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| They posture on identity politics, culture wars, and fear
| mongering, while their actions do nothing but service the
| needs of billionaires and corporations. "Critical race
| theory" in schools as an issue was manufactured out of thin
| air to make gullible racists afraid of something.
| berkes wrote:
| > the whole of *the USA-n* society.
|
| Being pedantic, I know. But this distinction does matter a
| lot in this context.
|
| From Europe, where we have our own issues and politics is not
| better; just different. But where anti-trust cases against
| _American_ companies is taken serious, both EU wide and by
| smaller local governments. And where many of us can vote for
| a myriad of parties, some with "taking large US monopolies
| down" as a primary point. (pirateparty, Volt, that I know
| of). Parties who make real chance of taking the lead or
| getting people in parliament.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| Work from home during the worst of covid was the best time to
| threaten a strike.
|
| Everyone loaded up on extra TP, a work stop was all of not
| opening laptops for 35-40% of the country.
|
| But feudal exploitation by the rich and each other locally is
| preferred.
| lapinot wrote:
| > a work stop was all of not opening laptops for 35-40% of
| the country
|
| Strikes are social events, you don't do it alone. There's
| usually a minority of agitators/organizers that are
| respected/trusted among workers and that call the
| shots/organize the fun. So working from home is very much
| anti-organization and hinders strikes. It isolates workers.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| Literally isolates.
|
| I seem to recall an invention called "Internet" which
| allowed for concerts, talk shows, and numerous other
| social events to occur during covid.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| This sarcastic tone will really help you in life. Keep
| doing it.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| This patronizing tone will really help you in life. Keep
| doing it.
|
| The extent of our interaction is a few lines on HN while
| I'm bored on vacation due to bad weather.
|
| You really have my behavior the other 365 days a year
| figured out.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is "mob dynamics". A visible picket line, a
| blocked street - that creates attention and draws more
| workers into the strike. On the Internet, these crowd
| dynamics don't work nearly as effective as they do in the
| meatspace.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Isn't Twitter a thing?
| kktkti9 wrote:
| You don't think Amazon would notice orders not coming in?
|
| Google wouldn't notice code not being checked in?
|
| Call centers wouldn't notice Q's backing up?
|
| No one would notice if Reddit's front page was days old?
|
| Commerce now relies on people being at computers daily at
| scale.
| kfprt wrote:
| Amazon and Google will notice but your local news station
| will not. Without press coverage forcing the company to
| negotiate employees have very little bargaining power.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| You seem to be of the opinion the stoppage of e-commerce
| supply chains would be a quiet little event no one would
| notice?
|
| I don't care whose grandpa did what 80 years ago. I don't
| owe deference to a figurative identity they want to carry
| around if it's also literally abusive to the species as a
| whole.
|
| Industrialist power is a privilege, not a right.
| christophilus wrote:
| What I'd like to see is a coalition of companies pitch in and
| develop an open platform to dethrone Android and iOS. If every
| big corporation with an app contributed to Mobian, say, it
| could be done.
| ajb wrote:
| The companies in the best place to do this would be the
| chipset vendors, who essentially do all the work for Android
| already. However I don't see the incentive, there are
| probably legal obstacles, and finally companies generally
| fail at trying to replace their customers.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > who essentially do all the work for Android already
|
| They don't, that's the whole point. They do the bare
| minimum of booting up a barely-usable, heavily hacked
| downstream kernel, and call it a day (or rather, move to
| the next device release). "Proper" support is left to the
| community.
| ajb wrote:
| Look, I kind of agree with the sentiment, but I think
| your comment doesn't paint a very realistic picture of
| the situation. I'd estimate that there are above 3
| _orders of magnitude_ more people working on Android at
| the chip vendors than there are people working in the
| community. Which, these days, includes quite a lot of
| user space work, as well as the kernel.
|
| Essentially, any phone vendors other than the big names
| expects to get a fully-working Android image with their
| chipset to ship with the phone. And Google also punted a
| bunch of lower-end userspace work off on the chip vendors
| as well. Chip Vendors don't just ship drivers in that
| market. Not if they expect to sell any chips.
|
| Source: Worked at a chip vendor.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| OK then, replace "kernel" in my previous comment with
| "kernel plus a bunch of lower-level userspace". If
| anything, this makes things _worse_ not better. It means
| we 're re-introducing the possibility of duplicated
| effort and gratuitous breaks of compatibility in that
| lower-level userspace, which is exactly what we were
| trying to get away from via AOSP.
|
| This makes it more important rather than less to work on
| an AOSP alternative that's far more in line with existing
| Linux practices in the mainstream, non-embedded
| ecosystem. And let's face reality, the chip vendors
| aren't doing it.
| ajb wrote:
| Sure. But what happened in non-embedded was that a lot of
| the chip vendors were eventually persuaded to lend their
| support to the Linux ecosystem. If that doesn't happen in
| mobile, the community faces an uphill struggle.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The chip vendors came around _because_ the community was
| standing behind the ecosystem, not for any other reason.
| We 've been through this before.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| At this stage, contributing to Mobian is not a matter of
| writing "apps". It's more of a boring job of hardware
| enablement and bringup on existing devices, probably best
| coordinated via postmarketOS (which has a successful history
| of upstreaming support to the mainline Linux kernel). The
| differences between pmOS and Mobian are comparatively
| trivial, so any work done on the former can easily benefit
| the whole FLOSS ecosystem.
| kfprt wrote:
| While I love the FLOSS ecosystem I don't see how it's
| anything but a rounding error for consumer electronics.
| Unless there was a _massive_ societal shift I don 't see
| any future that includes a plurality of users owning FLOSS
| PC's or phones. The best place to start would be to get
| software freedoms included in the school curriculum.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| We don't need a plurality share of the market, we just
| need it to be useful for power users, like FLOSS
| operating systems on PC are today. That will make for a
| great starting point already - disruptive innovation will
| do the rest.
| kfprt wrote:
| This has got to be _absolute peak HN bubble_.
|
| OS's success is almost entirely defined by network
| effects. This is why the UNIX wars ended with everyone
| using Linux. It was available (for free) and lots of
| people used it. It wasn't better in any way, that came
| later. 'Disruptive innovation' in software is a myth.
|
| 'Power users' on HN are 95% software developers who have
| a very good experience with FLOSS because everything from
| the OS to the apps is written by them for them. This is
| absolutely not the case for anyone else. The number one
| reason people don't use FLOSS is because they can't get
| Adobe and MS Office. Without users FLOSS will never get
| these. Until FLOSS products are the plurality available
| on store shelves it will _never_ reach the mass market.
| No one who isn 't a software developer is switching to
| FLOSS and without a massive restructuring of society that
| will remain the case. I just wish we could be more
| realistic and work on finding strategies that would
| actually move the needle. Chiefly by lobbying
| governments.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > This is why the UNIX wars ended with everyone using
| Linux. It was available (for free) and lots of people
| used it.
|
| Right, which is more than you can say today about Android
| given the reality of current mobile hardware lifecycles.
| Make Linux-for-mobile available today, and people will
| gladly use it to extend the usability of their otherwise
| "obsolete" devices. The overall setting is in fact
| remarkably similar.
| kfprt wrote:
| I would very much enjoy seeing you trying to teach my
| grandma who has a deep fear of technology to install
| Linux on her obsolete iPhone.
| kfprt wrote:
| I'd like that too, however outside the HN bubble this isn't
| anywhere close to possible.
| robert_tweed wrote:
| Surely if there's one thing the HN bubble _is_ capable of,
| it 's rallying a critical mass of contributors around a
| project like this.
| kfprt wrote:
| The HN bubble has intellect and skill, but certainly not
| the 10's of billions it would take to make a viable
| android/iOS competitor. At this scale only the government
| has the power to effect change.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Don't sell us too cheap:
|
| People connected to "HN Bubble" controls hundreds of
| millions if not a few billions of dollars.
|
| Not every of those dollars are liquid, far from that,
| but, in addition to the raw monetary value of certain
| people here HN also commands a lot of attention.
| kfprt wrote:
| I wouldn't oversell HN either. Arguably the value of HN
| lies in how relatively few users it has compared to FB or
| Reddit. Bringing to market a competitor to android/iOS
| that everyone including your parents could and would use
| would cost literally tens of billions. HN doesn't have
| that much clout, nowhere close.
| eitland wrote:
| > that everyone including your parents could and would
| use would cost literally tens of billions.
|
| We need a name for this, the classic "someones parents
| can't use it and therefore it can't work fallacy".
|
| My parents don't use Mac.
|
| In fact most people don't, including me.
|
| Doesn't prevent Mac from being a huge success and a
| viable platform for developers.
|
| Same with a good number of applications: A few hundred or
| thousand hard core users. Bonus if one of them is an oil
| giant, a defense giant, the armed forces of a wealthy
| country or something.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > would cost literally tens of billions
|
| You keep saying this as if it was somehow true or
| relevant. At this stage, we have no real need for an OS
| that grandma will want to use. That can come later. She
| can stay on iOS/Android for the time being.
| bingidingi wrote:
| it's not even possible in the bubble
| blacktriangle wrote:
| How much of the HN bubble is already comfortably employeed
| by these giants at golden handcuff level salaries? I don't
| think I'd look for disruption to come from here.
| deelowe wrote:
| I don't care how we get there but I'd like to see a pic
| revolution of sorts for phones. I'm continuously let down by
| how quickly modern computing is being locked down.
| Unfortunately the opposite appears to be happening, PCs are
| becoming more phone like.
| brundolf wrote:
| It all comes down to concentration of the industry. Open
| standards thrive when one company isn't able to just roll
| their own stack from the hardware all the way up to the
| applications; in-housing and locking-down thrive when one
| company is big enough to just do everything itself.
|
| When Google was small it embraced an open OS, the open web,
| email, RSS, etc. Now it's big enough that it doesn't need
| (and therefore doesn't want) open technologies.
| DethNinja wrote:
| Real scary next step is locking all PCs to MS Cloud and
| preventing consumers from accessing high performance
| computers.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| We need a way to manufacture our own computer hardware at
| home. We need hardware manufacturing to be as easy and
| democratized as free software development. Until then,
| we'll forever be at the mercy of these corporations.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| That's infeasible.
|
| Do you expect to be able to press your own
| semiconductors?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Maybe one day someone will create new technology that
| will enable manufacturing electronics at home. I don't
| know.
| kfprt wrote:
| Indeed. On the bright side PC gaming may save humanity.
| k12sosse wrote:
| You've obviously never read global chat in Chivalry 2.
| ;-)
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| Google would block access to its services from that os. Just
| like they did with windows mobile. And that would be the end
| of it.
| rvz wrote:
| > Buying a company to prevent even a hint of competition seems
| like quintessential antitrust.
|
| Then someone else will buy them then, given that Google was
| about to buy Twitch but dropped it due to the same reasons and
| instead went to Amazon.
|
| Won't be surprised to see them do it again or another >$1TN
| company do this. Who knows, maybe one will create a bill which
| prevents >$100BN companies from out right buying out other
| multi-billion dollar companies. Oh wait. [0]
|
| [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/13/hawley-antitrust-bill-
| trus...
| TechnoTimeStop wrote:
| Yeah its when Tencent acquired tons of Western story telling
| IPs in the Video Game space so they can control the narrative
| of our society.
| tjpnz wrote:
| IIRC Netflix are able to get around this problem by processing
| subscription payments outside of their app. Wouldn't this solve
| the problem for some use cases? Or has Netflix got a "special"
| arrangement with Google and Apple?
| lom wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203630/apple-amazon-prim...
| They do have a special arrangement, and iirc there was a case
| of an email company being taken down due to them handling
| payments outside of the app, on a website.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You buy things in-app in Epic games. Google and Apple don't let
| you do this unless you use their payment processing.
|
| Netflix and Office 365 you buy a subscription and then you
| simply use the app on a multitude of devices.
|
| As an aside - does anyone know if it's explicitly banned to buy
| "coins" somewhere else - and then use those coins to buy things
| in the app? This is actually how Epic games works.
| csmiller wrote:
| I see "sub coins" on sale in the Twitch app, my assumption is
| that you can offer them outside the app, but you cannot
| promote that alternative in the app and you must also sell
| them in-app (presumably for 30% more)
| tjpnz wrote:
| >Netflix and Office 365 you buy a subscription and then you
| simply use the app on a multitude of devices.
|
| Fortnite appears to offer a subscription. What would've
| stopped them from doing that when the game was still
| available on the app stores?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| An important distinction. Office 365 and Netflix get nearly
| all of their revenue from subscriptions. Just because Epic
| offers a subscription doesn't mean that's where it derives
| >95% of its revenue.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Having false choices (App store vs Google Play) is typical of a
| really bad monopoly situation.
|
| I really hope to see them broken down, as I am pretty sure that
| we'll all regret it if we let those giants left untouched.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| One major difference is that with an Apple device, they
| practically control the platform unless you are willing to take
| the risk and jailbreak - provided that your device is
| jailbreakable. With Google, you can at least install an
| external app or even connect an external app store like F-Droid
| (surprisingly, with time it looks better and better than the
| official Play Store).
| qmmmur wrote:
| I think this is being less straightforward, although the
| developer community has been creative since the get go.
| breakingcups wrote:
| You will of course still have Google insist asking to enable
| "Google Play Protection" with every app you install or
| update, without the possibility to reject it entirely.
|
| If you accept, they'll never ask you again. You're only
| option to reject is "not now".
| IshKebab wrote:
| Distributing apps outside the Play store isn't really viable
| currently even though you can technically do it because
| there's no way to automatically update them. They are
| apparently fixing that in Android 12 but I seriously doubt
| they would have without Epic.
| [deleted]
| quambene wrote:
| As much as like F-Droid, it is only for open-source apps,
| isn't it? However, the majority of apps is still closed
| source. I would like to see an alternative android app store,
| which can also serve closed-source apps.
|
| Another problem is a missing alternative to Google Mobile
| Services (GMS), which are installed on virtually all android
| devices. For example, if you need push notifications or in-
| app purchases you are dependent on them as well.
|
| IMO, it is the widespread distribution of GMS (and a lack of
| alternatives thereof) that make google a quasi monopoly.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I would like to see an alternative android app store,
| which can also serve closed-source apps
|
| Don't Amazon, Samsung and Huawei have their Android app
| stores, for any app?
| quambene wrote:
| Yes, you are right. The real problem is the ubiquity of
| Google Mobile Services (GMS) though, rather than the app
| store itself. For example, GMS are pre-installed on all
| Samsung devices, but Samsung's equivalent is not
| installed on all Google devices.
|
| This means, that everyone will still use Google Play for
| in-app purchases out of convenience.
| commoner wrote:
| Neither Amazon nor Huawei is selling devices with Google
| Play Services right now. Both have their own alternatives
| to Google Play Services. Amazon offers an unnamed
| collection of APIs (the push notification one is called
| Amazon Device Messaging) for its Fire devices, and Huawei
| offers Huawei Mobile Services.
|
| Amazon Device Messaging:
| https://developer.amazon.com/docs/adm/overview.html
|
| Huawei Mobile Services:
| https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms
| quambene wrote:
| For Huawei this has only been true since the US-china
| trade wars. There are still a ton of Huawei devices with
| GMS pre-installed.
|
| A service like GMS would be important for Samsung, too,
| as there are quite some Samsung devices out there.
| However, with GMS pre-installed on all Samsung devices,
| the Samsung Galaxy Store is completely useless as
| everybody and his brother will use Google Play for app
| and in-app purchases.
| nerdbaggy wrote:
| What about the Amazon App Store? When I had Android years go
| the Amazon was rather abysmal but usable.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/amazonapp
| quambene wrote:
| Currently, there are four (more or less relevant) android app
| stores as far as I know:
|
| - Google Play
|
| - Huawei AppGallery
|
| - Samsung Galaxy Store
|
| - Amazon AppStore
|
| But Google Mobile Services (GMS) are so widely spread and
| often pre-installed on the devices that there is no real
| competition for Google.
|
| Currently, the most promising alternatives for GMS are:
|
| - Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) [1]: more widely used now
| because GMS was banned from Huawei devices since US-China
| trade wars
|
| - Amazon + Microsoft [2, 3, 4]: Microsoft is planning to
| serve android apps in Windows Store with Windows 11 in
| cooperation with Amazon
|
| [1] Huawei Mobile Services:
| https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/hms
|
| [2] Amazon in-app purchases:
| https://developer.amazon.com/docs/in-app-purchasing/iap-
| over...
|
| [3] Amazon push notifications:
| https://developer.amazon.com/docs/adm/overview.html
|
| [4] Windows 11 and android support:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22548428/microsoft-
| window...
| busymom0 wrote:
| If Google had bought Epic games, would they have a stronger case
| against Apple in the Epic vs Apple case? Could Google then claim
| Apple was practicing anti-competitive practices?
|
| Though I guess Apple could make the same case against Google too.
| kktkti9 wrote:
| Epic copied id
|
| Epic copied Valve
|
| Epic copied PubG
|
| Epic is suing to stop others
|
| Epic isn't a very novel business
|
| Edit: thanks everyone. Was in the dumps due to rain at the beach.
| The downvotes have made me feel alive on an otherwise boring day
| stuck inside far from home.
| johnyzee wrote:
| 30% of every sale is extortion, but even worse, and further
| proving the point, is that they prohibit taking payments through
| any other channel. How is it not illegal for the platform to
| force the use of their own payment service? Isn't this classic
| misuse of a monopoly?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > 30% of every sale is extortion
|
| This is either ignorance or delusion. Brick and mortar stores
| take a lot more of a cut than that, and it isn't like Google's
| distribution infrastructure is free or something. It's a bit
| like saying developers demanding 6-figure salaries is
| extortion.
|
| How the hell did we get to this point? Where ostensibly
| reasonable people feel entitled to shove their crapware on any
| storefront they want without paying for it?
|
| > but even worse, and further proving the point, is that they
| prohibit taking payments through any other channel.
|
| How so? Unlike with Apple, You can deploy Android applications
| without the store, or distribute on a different storefront for
| Android.
|
| > How is it not illegal for the platform to force the use of
| their own payment service?
|
| Companies choose what methods of payment they'll accept all the
| time. I can't buy a pizza with XBox Bux[0] or whatever the fuck
| either.
|
| > Isn't this classic misuse of a monopoly?
|
| No. For one, Android and the Google Play Store are not a
| monopoly. Android doesn't even have a majority market share in
| the US.
|
| I generally agree that giant corporate conglomerates like
| Google are a bad thing for basically everyone, but I don't
| think that diluting the meaning of "monopoly" helps anyone, and
| neither do silly entitled arguments against paying a commission
| for distribution.
|
| [0] As an aside, it is especially silly to me that people claim
| Google Play Store and Apple Store are bad but seem completely
| fine with the exact same practices on their game consoles.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Brick and mortar stores take a lot more of a cut than that"
|
| And feudal lords used to take even more. Apple is neither the
| former nor the latter. They dont maintain a physical supplt
| chain, or need to raise a fyrd
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Brick and mortar stores take a lot more of a cut than that
|
| But they do not prohibit the producer from selling their
| goods elsewhere, and they are not a monopoly intermediary,
| unlike google.
|
| Also, Google has intentionally crippled Android and
| background app running, so you have to depend on FCM to
| deliver notifications, and you can't deliver FCM
| notifications uf app is installed via apk or fdroid or other
| third-party appstore.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Also, Google has intentionally crippled Android and
| background app running, so you have to depend on FCM to
| deliver notifications, and you can't deliver FCM
| notifications uf app is installed via apk or fdroid or
| other third-party appstore.
|
| FCM could indeed offer support for non-play-store apps, but
| weren't background apps on Android leashed in because abuse
| of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing users'
| battery life? I remember this being a pretty big Android
| issue for less technical users and an annoyance to more
| technical users.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > weren't background apps on Android leashed in because
| abuse of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing
| users' battery life?
|
| This should have been addressed by giving the user a
| capability to determine power usage by each app and
| either allow it if he needs the app, or restrict
| background running.
|
| The way it was done is far from adequate. Also, many
| manufacturers (samsung, xiaomi, huawei) cripple android
| even further. See https://dontkillmyapp.com
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > weren't background apps on Android leashed in because
| abuse of the capability was rampant and was torpedoing
| users' battery life?
|
| Yes, you can still run in the background but you need to
| show a persistent notification to that effect. The user
| can then choose whether to hide it.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| If the user hides it, the app loses background
| capabilities.
|
| Also, notification area becomes unusable if there are too
| many persistent notifications. Syncthing, VPN, xmpp
| client, and you almost have no space for regular
| notifications, they become stacked.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > If the user hides it, the app loses background
| capabilities.
|
| That seems quite incorrect to me. Source?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| We develop an app that needs to stay in the background
| (an xmpp client). If a user hides the notification, the
| app dies in 30-60 seconds.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Looks like the outcome of some custom/wild "battery
| optimizer" logic. AIUI, this just doesn't happen on stock
| hardware without such customizations.
| ehnto wrote:
| > How the hell did we get to this point? Where ostensibly
| reasonable people feel entitled to shove their crapware on
| any storefront they want without paying for it?
|
| Apple and Google have a duopoly with their respective app
| stores, they hold the keys to the majority of the customers
| since the customers only buy through their platforms. So it's
| different in at least that way. It's not as if I couldn't
| host my own downloads, take my own payments and give my own
| authentication, but no one could install my app without a
| long-winded process they are very unlikely to go through.
|
| It's not like they don't provide services for their cut, I
| get it, they host the infrastructure, maintain the platform
| and so on, but I only have to use their services because
| otherwise I'm selling to a void, a void that they created.
| This would not be the case had they not captured the entire
| consumer market with their app stores, and had all their
| default OS settings on their market leading phones default to
| only accept their app stores.
|
| If there was a vibrant ecosystem of third-party installer
| capabilities, say the ability to install something from a
| website easily with all my own infrastructure like in the
| wild west days, it wouldn't be an issue (customer easy, not
| tech wiz easy).
|
| But they lock it all up and funnel everyone through their
| stores, and so as a seller you're coerced into their
| ecosystem and they get to take whatever cut they want. We
| have no negotiating power, we are locked out of customers if
| we don't participate, and we are regularly screened and
| bullied by the app approval processes, so the comparison to
| extortion isn't as far-fetched as you're making it out to be.
|
| Here's a thought experiment, whenever someone complains about
| the app store banning their app and them losing all their
| income, tonnes of people reply with "You shouldn't have put
| all your eggs in one basket!" so okay, where are the other
| baskets? Where else can I sell an app? And be reasonable, be
| sensible, it's nowhere. There are no other options for a real
| business operating in a commercial reality. You can
| technically sell elsewhere, but I can technically sell
| chocolate bars in the desert, that doesn't make it a
| reasonable option.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Some of your points are very valid.
|
| I do think there is a big difference between Apple and
| Google.
|
| I also think there is a difference between consoles and
| general purpose devices that have not being properly explored
| by anyone and at some point should be identified by the law.
|
| That being said, digital rights are a disaster right now, it
| will take ages before it's fixed.
|
| Consoles might need to be fixed too: for some reason, digital
| items cost the same or more than the physical counterpart,
| but provide you with less (can't re-sell, can't lend). And
| this doesn't take into account yet the fact that digital
| libraries will disappear when people die (can't leave to
| family your account, in theory). So consoles are not a good
| example, they are the most abusive ones.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I also think there is a difference between consoles and
| general purpose devices that have not being properly
| explored by anyone and at some point should be identified
| by the law.
|
| I disagree and would say that today the difference between
| these devices is arbitrary. Game console manufacturers
| don't allow Outlook or Google Docs or whatever on their
| stores, but there's no reason they couldn't be there. Their
| absolute control over their platform is no different than
| Apple's except that Apple is less restrictive.
|
| > Consoles might need to be fixed too: for some reason,
| digital items cost the same or more than the physical
| counterpart, but provide you with less (can't re-sell,
| can't lend). And this doesn't take into account yet the
| fact that digital libraries will disappear when people die
| (can't leave to family your account, in theory). So
| consoles are not a good example, they are the most abusive
| ones.
|
| I am by no means defending this practice in consoles. I'm
| objecting to carving out an exception for them. If you
| believe that phones should be more open as platforms then
| you should also believe that the consoles should be too.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Good point. Yeah, I'd rather have the same rights
| digitally everywhere. Makes also things easier.
|
| I vote with my wallet and avoid buying consoles (but I
| can't stop my wife from owning one), but there isn't much
| more you can do about it, sadly.
|
| Politicians tend to be controlled by the money, everyone
| turns a blind eye to the idea of real digital rights.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I generally agree that giant corporate conglomerates like
| Google are a bad thing for basically everyone, but I don 't
| think that diluting the meaning of "monopoly" helps anyone,
| and neither do silly entitled arguments against paying a
| commission for distribution._
|
| Google and Apple very much represent a duopoly, that's just
| calling a spade a spade.
|
| Nor did I see anybody here argue they should just distribute
| other people's apps for free.
|
| The issue is over the size of the fee they demand and how
| they also demand to exclusively use their payment services,
| so they can extort their 30% fee on every single transaction
| even past the original distribution.
|
| To apply that example to a brick and mortar store would be
| the equivalent of the store getting a cut off
| attachments/replacements the customer directly orders from
| the manufacturer because the customer bought the original
| device in the brick and mortar store.
| pgcj_poster wrote:
| > It's a bit like saying developers demanding 6-figure
| salaries is extortion.
|
| Developers don't typically make that much in any country
| except the US, and that seems mostly attributable to
| protectionist immigration laws. So I would agree with your
| analogy in that Google and US software developers are both in
| an unfairly advantageous bargaining position that one might
| call "extortionary" with some degree of hyperbole.
| mrweasel wrote:
| One small point: profit on retail games are at most 7% and
| frequently no higher that 3 to 4%. We often saw brick and
| mortar stores lose money on new releases as advertising and
| try to upsell electronics. Clothing, toys and electronics do
| have much higher margins. Toys are at least 40% and I worked
| with a team dealing with eletronics, if they couldn't make at
| least 50% they didn't want to deal with it. Gaming console is
| the exception, here margins are 0% or less.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Gaming console is the exception, here margins are 0% or
| less.
|
| For reference: https://www.gamesradar.com/ps5-is-being-
| sold-at-a-loss-but-h...
|
| For both game consoles and phones (mostly on the iOS side)
| the post-sale revenue is part of the overall profit scheme
| - PS5 hardware is sold very near-cost but all the money
| Sony makes off PSN and their cut of game sales becomes
| profit. Apple makes up-front margin from the hardware but
| also expects profit from in app purchases - if that wasn't
| guaranteed, they might raise prices to make up the
| difference. Is it anti-consumer? Probably, for both the
| game console side and the phone side since the consumer
| ends up indirectly paying more after purchase.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I stand corrected. I was only second-hand aware of the
| kinds of markups you see on physical goods like toys and
| electronics you see in B&Ms and didn't realize that
| software was different.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Please note that those 3-7% margins only apply to games.
| I never dealt with other types of software.
|
| To make money on reselling games from Blizzard, EA and
| others you have to be an insanely talented buyer and have
| very little overhead.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Sellers can sell at other stores.
| the_duke wrote:
| > This is either ignorance or delusion. Brick and mortar
| stores take a lot more of a cut than that
|
| This is a completely false equivalence, for two reasons.
|
| A) stores have very limited shelf space they need to
| allocate. They also carry the cost of logistics, keeping
| inventory and the risk of bad sales. The cost to app stores
| for reviews and distribution in comparison is tiny per unit
| and easily scalable. The only context where this could apply
| is highlighting of apps, but that is handled via separate
| advertisement.
|
| B) The high fees do not apply only to app sales but also to
| in-app transactions. This is where the cost is truly
| ridiculous and can be called extortion.
|
| Credit card companies, for comparison, charge a few percent.
| The EU has even limited the maximum interbank exchange fees
| to 0.2% in 2014. Visa and Mastercard seem to be doing just
| fine with that cut... (there are additional fees, but it
| still only a mounts to a few percent)
|
| The equivalence would be Walmart getting 30% for every in-
| game transaction for games that were bought at Walmart.
|
| On Android you can at least use other payment providers, but
| on Apple you have to use Apple Pay.
|
| > No. For one, Android and the Google Play Store are not a
| monopoly. Android doesn't even have a majority market share
| in the US.
|
| They are a duopoly. Many concerns that are relevant for
| monopolies apply to duo or oligopolies as well. The companies
| split up the market and arrive at a comfortable equilibrium
| where they can milk the customers. They might squabble for
| market share, but they also coordinate (directly or
| indirectly) to not hurt each other too much. This can be seen
| in the matching of the cut they take.
|
| The only reason the stores get away with their pricing is
| because there is no practical alternative for the average
| consumer for Android, and no alternative at all for iOS. The
| Google/Apple situation is indeed a classic economy textbook
| duopoly.
|
| Calling something "ignorance or delusion" is quite a strong
| statement with such shallow insight.
| berkes wrote:
| > This can be seen in the matching of the cut they take.
|
| This is crucial: any efficient market would have them
| compete on price. Google lowers the fee to 25%, developers
| move over to Google, so Apple has to follow and lower the
| fee to 20%. untill we reach the price-point that just about
| matches the costs made.
|
| Unless you can argue that this 30% is exactly that lowest
| price-point: just about covering the hosting, staff and
| some risk, there is the proof that a monopoly is distorting
| this efficient market.
|
| Proving that the current price is exactly that price-point
| is probably impossible; we might _feel_ it is far from the
| actual costs, but we cannot prove it, which is probably one
| of the reasons this cannot be given as hard proof for a duo
| /monopoly.
| tzs wrote:
| > Credit card companies, for comparison, charge a few
| percent. The EU has even limited the maximum interbank
| exchange fees to 0.2% in 2014.
|
| There are fees other than those to processes a credit card
| payment.
|
| Each card brand has its own assorted assessment fees. Some
| are percentage based and some are pre transaction. Your
| payment processor also has fees, typically per transaction.
|
| For small transaction, such as a $1 app or song purchase,
| those fixed fees bring the processing cost to a lot more
| than 0.2%.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| While I largely agree with your points, your comparison to
| MC/Visa isn't sensible. The EU has limited the interchange
| fee to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards, but
| that goes to the card issuing bank anyway. MC/Visa charge
| scheme fees which were not capped in such a way.
| [deleted]
| pjmlp wrote:
| It is not a monopoly a per law definition across most
| jurisdictions.
|
| Additionally playing sales commissions is a traditional
| practice in most markets.
|
| Finally, maybe devs would appreciate to pay the 80 to 90% that
| used to be common on the Symbian, J2ME, BREW and Blackberry
| shops from mobile operators, about 15 years ago.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Armchair lawyers striking again...
|
| I was there during the Symbian era, the commissions at the
| time were outrageous, but closer to 40-50% than 80-90%.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Former Finland mobile phone company employee over here, the
| actual percentages depended pretty much on the territory.
| pydry wrote:
| Monopolistic behavior in markets where you have limited
| market power is just shooting yourself in the foot.
|
| I didnt even realize symbian HAD an app store.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| They didn't, it was managed by carriers, mostly. And
| Handango on some devices like running Windows Mobile or
| PalmOS.
| pjmlp wrote:
| They eventually did, it was called Ovi Store.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovi_(Nokia)
| nix23 wrote:
| While i agree with you that playstore is not a 100% monopoly,
| if anything it is a duopoly (Apple/google). But on the
| Marketing/AD's side it is definitely a monopoly, that should
| be addressed first i believe.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Is it? I mean, if you think the u. s., it's one thing, but
| worldwide google has something like 90% marketshare on
| phones.
|
| That being said, if Google started charging monthly for
| play store, you can easily change. The same is not true for
| Apple
| roenxi wrote:
| I'm not quite finding the angle here to state my thoughts
| clearly, but there seems to be a definition of monopoly at
| play in some of these threads that means something close to
| "I would make more money if Apple/Google made less, plus
| they already make lots of money so it isn't fair!".
|
| Google/Apple having gained the trust of the market and
| acting as middlemen to sell access simply isn't monopoly
| activity. In the same way that renting out space in a
| commercial complex isn't.
|
| There is no question they are running these stores to make
| an outrageous profit. But the monopoly would be expressed
| by how the gates are closed to alternate App Stores, or in
| Google is unfairly pushing competitors to their own Apps
| off the store to make a profit - which given that they
| generally provide their Apps for free is a hard argument to
| make. Nobody seems to be making either of those arguments.
| Particularly the first one would involve more references to
| Samsung being made.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Suppose google's chrome started charging websites 30% of
| their revenue to be accessible in their browser. Is this
| an abuse of monopoly? Yes.
|
| The issue is HNer's are still living in the "website era"
| of the internet -- that's ending. We're now in the app
| era. And _devices_ are the browsers.
|
| Their app stores are monopolies on their devices; in that
| the person who controls the road is a monopolist, despite
| the existence of air travel.
|
| That android devices compete with ios devices is
| irrelevant, in as much as comcast/et al. can say, "go to
| a different state". The app store is an iOS monopoly --
| the hardware apple provides is a road/telephone/browser
| device for access apps -- the new predominant mode of
| social/economic communication & infrastructure.
| roenxi wrote:
| > Is this an abuse of monopoly? Yes.
|
| It isn't though. That is my point, monopoly doesn't just
| mean big market share + you don't like it. Half the web
| would go dark to Chrome and everyone would dump the
| browser in a couple of months if they pulled a stunt like
| that. Because they _don 't_ have monopoly. They only have
| a very high market share because Chrome is the best
| browser.
|
| If the best-browser part stops being true there is not
| reason for the highest market share part to stay true.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Well I take 'monopoly' to be a pretheoretical concept
| tied to the moral concequentialist justification of
| markets: aggregate social benefits.
|
| Ie., a monopoly is whatever situation gives rise to a
| situation where a company can set prices without regards
| to legitimate competitive market processes. Where
| 'legitimate' is effectively a concequentialist constraint
| concerning aggregate consumer benefit.
|
| There are many theories of /when/ a company is a
| monopoly; including very narrow case law definitions
| around pricing.
|
| The pretheoretical use of the term however is taken to
| permit a broader scope.
|
| And lets be clear: a 30pc surcharge on all our economic
| activity (whether that be a mastercard or an apple) given
| no market justification _has no justification_.
|
| Let there be many app stores on the iphone-- and we shall
| see what the market price on an app store. If it ends up
| being 30% then theres no objection.
| feanaro wrote:
| > They only have a very high market share because Chrome
| is the best browser.
|
| This is very much a matter of opinion, not something you
| can reasonably state with a straight face. A large part
| of Chrome's large market share is the fact that it comes
| installed as a default on more than half the world's
| phones and that it's heavily marketed by the world's
| largest search engine and video hosting website (owned by
| the same entity!).
|
| It also good enough, for now.
|
| It has nothing to do with it being the _best_ , though.
| pjmlp wrote:
| > Their app stores are monopolies on their devices; in
| that the person who controls the road is a monopolist,
| despite the existence of air travel.
|
| Not when there are other roads to be taken, regardless of
| how many pot holes they have on them.
|
| So buy another device, a feature phone, give money to
| Jolla, FairPhone, whatever.
| mjburgess wrote:
| airplanes exist, and theyre owned by a baron too
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "So buy another device, a feature phone, give money to
| Jolla, FairPhone, whatever."
|
| You are peddling a fantasy - my bank has mobile only
| access, and the app wont work on any alternative you
| lifted. The UK goverment app to apply for riggt to resde
| for European immigrants won't work either.
|
| What the fuck am i meant to do with those phones?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Switch bank if that is so important to you.
|
| I only use banks that provide access via ATM and Web, in
| addition to apps.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Should I also switch countries? I cant uproot my entire
| life just to spite google
| pjmlp wrote:
| You don't need to switch country to spite Google, only be
| more clever with your options and vote with your wallets.
|
| I still carry my Windows Phone around.
| tomohawk wrote:
| 70% market share is considered a monopoly "on the face of it"
|
| https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-
| single-...
|
| Google holds many monopolies. Is the play store not a
| monopoly?
| yyyk wrote:
| >>How is it not illegal for the platform to force the use of
| their own payment service? Isn't this classic misuse of a
| monopoly? >It is not a monopoly a per law definition across
| most jurisdictions.
|
| It's not so relevant whether the stores are a monopoly or
| not. They're doing anticompetitive behaviour and misuse of
| market power, that's illegal regardless.
| croes wrote:
| Doesn't need to be a monopoly, could simply be case of
| illegal price fixing because all big players took 30%
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Is it really price fixing or just copying strategies? There
| comes a point where the optimal strategy for a firm is to
| simply do what every one else is doing. Price fixing
| requires an element of collusion.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "the optimal strategy for a firm is to simply do what
| every one else is doing"
|
| Such a convenient worldview, conpwtition doesn't exist,
| banks did nothing wrong prior to 2008, etc.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Competition requires players to remain in the game. No
| one is required to make a profit-losing decision realized
| or unrealized. If they do make such a decision, they're
| one step closer to going out of business. Survival is an
| incentive to taking the correct actions.
|
| In an iterative prisoner's dilemma, the optimal solution
| is most often tit-for-tat or some variation of it. It's
| logical for one firm to do the same as another until it
| can obtain a strong hold on a profit-making activity that
| gives it more degrees of freedom with regards to its
| strategies. At that point a firm can move from merely
| surviving to experimentation or it can continue to milk
| the opportunity for all its worth.
|
| Your cartel argument requires more than sameness of
| strategy. It requires motive and direct action towards
| achieving a forced equilibrium (e.g. willfully punishing
| other market players in concert to dissuade the use of
| alternative profit-making strategies).
|
| I never brought up banks. What do they and the 2008
| recession have to do with online stores and 30% cuts in
| 2021?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "direct action towards achieving a forced equilibrium"
|
| Do you expect the head of Apple and Google to sign a
| public document "hereby we form an illegal cartel"?
|
| At a minimum the competition and market authority should
| take an interest as to why there is no competition. If
| they botheresld to investigate, maybe we would actually
| find out if there is any wrongdoing.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| No. But I don't take a 30% cut as an indication of
| cartel-building when it has existed since Jobs first
| announced the App store in 2008 [1] and was done at a
| time where the Walmarts and Best Buys of the world
| charged 70% if not more. Quite recently Apple sought fit
| to reduce it's revenue share to 15% after the first year
| on the store store. Google has done the same. I wouldn't
| call putting more money in the pockets of developers a
| lack of competition.
|
| [1]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9cKe_Fch8
| TekMol wrote:
| Your question implies that Google has a monopoly.
|
| As far as I know this has not been agreed up on by a court so
| far. Or has it?
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| How is that relevant?
|
| If a court does find that, did they not have the monopoly
| before the court made their ruling?
| nix23 wrote:
| Well it's a duopoly Apple/Google you need one of the
| platforms to be remotely functional in today's world, online
| banking, buying tickets, corona certificates etc...
| zepto wrote:
| You can do all that with a $50 android phone.
|
| Nothing about this so called duopoly prevents you from
| spending money on a gaming device if you like games.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| You could argue that it is the way they pay for the
| distribution channels. I can't exactly go in and take a product
| in Wallmart and then pay target for it.
|
| The way I see it, Apple and Google made the platforms worth
| something, made the stores, made the development tools, run the
| stores (which can't be cheap).
|
| They could charge you a flat fee of several thousand dollars
| per app, but that would stifle competition too much. Instead
| they charge a percentage of what the app developer makes and
| ensures that as a user I can always trust the payment option to
| be save and, if I buy a subscription, to be easy to cancel.
|
| They could allow you to pick your own payment provider, but
| then companies would still have to pay the 30% tax to
| Apple/Google, so what would be the point?
| simion314 wrote:
| >they charge a percentage of what the app developer makes
|
| What seems perverse to me is they don't tax you on your
| profits, I am sure Google and Apple won't like the
| governments do the same to them.
|
| Btw I understand it is super hard to implement a tax on
| profits only so it would make more sense IMo to give the
| developers a choice, pay on what you use (pay for bandwidth,
| for reviews, for dev tools licenses, for advertising) OR pay
| the tax. The small devs could chose the tax , the big
| developers would chose the first one , Apple will have less
| money from this giant devs but they could keep their high
| walls for a few more years(I prefer if Apple and Epic don't
| get a secret deal and this fight continues so judges and us
| uncover more data about this topic)
| sitkack wrote:
| The work done by the app stores isn't linear wrt to the
| purchase price. Clearly they shouldn't be taking a
| percentage cut.
|
| Together, GA has a duopoly on app stores and they have set
| their fees to be the same. That one of them would consider
| buying the trouble maker on the other platform is just ...
| telling.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I considered the option of pay for what you use, but those
| prices would have to be massive (tens of thousands of
| dollars per dev) to even start to make up for it. It would
| essentially be a monopoly gift for the biggest developers.
| simion314 wrote:
| That seems fishy, can you elaborate?
|
| - bandwidth is not that expensive , so only if the giants
| would screw you over with inflated prices. You could
| force the giants to reveal how much it actually
| costs(though I seen that even in the face of a judge the
| bastards pretend they are clueless and avoid answering
| questions)
|
| - app reviews, You pay per review or per hour, maybe you
| submit a game to Sony or MS and they want a review dude
| to play it all to ensure is not broken.
|
| -ads , only if you want, this should be an auction system
|
| - dev tools, you should only have to pay for Apple
| signing your stuff, compilers, SDKs, IDEs should be
| always an opion for the dev to chose.
|
| Btw, I am including all stores in my critique (including
| Steam,Sony's Play Station, and Microsoft)
| remus wrote:
| I don't think anyone is arguing that Google/apple shouldn't
| be able to charge to use their stores. What is wrong is the
| amount they charge and the lack of options if you don't want
| to pay that fee.
|
| In a non-monopolistic market you can take your business
| elsewhere. If you don't like apple and Google's cut, you have
| no options.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| You are welcome to create your own store or sideload on
| Android. I will agree with you on Apples store, I wished
| there was a way to override it hidden well within the
| settings.
| VelkaMorava wrote:
| Aaah, the good old "you can create your own platform"
| argument. Please remind me again how that went for Parler
| and Gab.
| krapp wrote:
| Both Parler and Gab are currently up and running, so they
| seem to be doing fine.
| VelkaMorava wrote:
| Yes, they are running in the same sense that Xerox is a
| modern prosperous company and not a shadow of its former
| glory. It's beyond me how normal people push for
| centralized monopolies that can end you on a whim.
|
| I have written a long-ish post but deleted it. I just
| wanna say this new left-capitalist doctrine really scares
| me. Communism all over again except instead of woke
| comrades at the Central committee censoring things we got
| young programmer thought police at trillion dollar
| companies cancelling you over usage of "blacklist",
| "master" or not respecting preferred pronouns in a git
| repo or email.
|
| Don't worry, I'll check my privileges to become
| sufficiently woke and be a plus plus good warrior for
| justice.
| krapp wrote:
| You probably should have kept the older comment, as this
| one is a single vaguely on topic assertion followed up
| with a pseudointellectual word salad of snark and anti-
| progressive memes. I'm sure that's verysmart content on
| the forums you're used to but we try for something better
| here.
|
| From what I can tell, Gab is the same cesspool that it
| always was. I assume the same about Parler but I don't
| know, since I don't have an account. Both still seem
| popular with Trumpists, QAnon and the alt-right, so I
| don't know what Xerox-like "former glory" you believe
| these platforms have lost, but Xerox is still a billion
| dollar corporation so...
|
| And if having to abide by the terms of service of app
| stores, social media platforms, ISPs and the actual laws
| of the land are too "Communist", there's an entire dark
| web out there that will let anyone do or say just about
| anything.
| VelkaMorava wrote:
| > I assume the same about Parler but I don't know, since
| I don't have an account. Both still seem popular with
| Trumpists, QAnon and the alt-right
|
| I asked some other dude on this website - do you really
| want a country with one party in the control of
| everything (Congress, presidency, governors...)?
|
| I am not from the US, but this is so bizzare to watch.
| Half of your country voted for Trump, and you just hand-
| wave them away as "Trumpists" as if they were nutjobs who
| should be censored. That's half the country which
| opinions you have just dismissed.
|
| > And if having to abide by the terms of service of app
| stores, social media platforms, ISPs and the actual laws
| of the land are too "Communist", there's an entire dark
| web out there that will let anyone do or say just about
| anything.
|
| Funny how no one mentions this in posts about China,
| North Korea, Iran, Syria or Daesh. They have just set
| their own rules, why should they be labeled as tyranical
| or authoritatian countries?
| krapp wrote:
| >do you really want a country with one party in the
| control of everything (Congress, presidency,
| governors...)
|
| No, but if I have to choose one, I'm not choosing the one
| that believes in Satanic pedophile cults and Jewish space
| lasers, and that gathers neo-nazis like flies, so simple
| math says I have to _choose the other one_ until my
| country gives me a viable option besides "lesser of two
| evils."
|
| >Half of your country voted for Trump,
|
| A popular bit of propaganda, but no, Trump never carried
| the mandate of half the country. In 2016, only about 56%
| of the voting-eligible population - already a subset of
| the entire population - voted. Between them, Trump and
| Clinton each got about 27% of the possible vote, and
| while Trump won the Electoral College, he lost the
| popular vote.
|
| In 2020, 66.7% of eligible voters turned out to vote.
| Biden won with 51.8% of votes cast, against Trump's
| 46.8%.
|
| >and you just hand-wave them away as "Trumpists" as if
| they were nutjobs who should be censored
|
| It's common to refer to followers of a particular social,
| religious or political movement - particularly those
| associated with a cult of personality - by the name of
| their leader. I refer to the unique blend of populism,
| neo-reactionism, persecution complex and conspiracy
| theory that makes up Trump's politics, and that of his
| followers, as "Trumpism" and them as "Trumpists" in order
| to draw a distinction between them and the Republican and
| Conservative ideals they supplanted.
|
| >Funny how no one mentions this in posts about China,
| North Korea, Iran, Syria or Daesh. They have just set
| their own rules, why should they be labeled as tyranical
| or authoritatian countries?
|
| Well, for one thing, you're confusing the laws of those
| countries and extremist groups with the terms of service
| of social media platforms. Twitter isn't beheading
| anyone, and Facebook isn't sending anyone to
| concentration camps, so attempts to draw some kind of
| equivalence between them and totalitarian regimes don't
| really work.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Both Gab and Parlor would have done fine if they had been
| allowed to create their own platform. I am assuming here
| that paypal will not dump a google competitor, nor will
| AWS.
| capableweb wrote:
| > How is it not illegal for the platform to force the use of
| their own payment service?
|
| A) Legislators haven't caught up with how the (digital) world
| works, so they don't even understand what is happening
|
| B) These "stores" are run by two of the biggest companies on
| the planet (Apple and Google), so big that they can afford to
| spend countless amount of money to lobby and influence the
| legislators so the discussions never even hit the table
|
| C) Both of the above
|
| > Isn't this classic misuse of a monopoly?
|
| Not really. While the App Store has monopoly on distributing
| apps on iOS, Apple and iPhone are far off from being a monopoly
| as more people have Android phones. Android phones allow side-
| loading so can't really claim Android has any misuse of a
| (potential) monopoly.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Sideloading on Android is not viable. And Google is working
| hard to enforce this situation.
|
| This might be a monopoly. Or at least, I think the current
| scrutiny from legislators is fully warranted and we should
| not jump to conclusions because AFAIK the jury will be out
| for a while.
| distances wrote:
| Alternative app stores can finally do automatic updates
| with Android 12: https://www.xda-
| developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...
|
| I don't know the details, but I imagine this is pre-emptive
| move from Google to avoid monopoly judgements.
| shrikant wrote:
| This may sound like I'm nitpicking, but if anyone reading this
| wants to save some money _and_ pay devs more: Google /Apple
| absolutely do NOT prohibit taking payments through any other
| channel.
|
| I know plenty of apps where one can buy the subscription at a
| significant discount directly on the service's website instead
| of through the stores and it works perfectly fine.
|
| I think the restriction is on obviously advertising that fact
| in your app. So I'd recommend checking if the subscription
| you're about to buy through the app can be bought on the
| website instead.
| dvh wrote:
| Some time ago there was comment on /r/gamedev from someone who
| implemented their own payment system and visa has like $20
| payment cancellation fee, imagine someone buying a game skin
| for $1, then cancelling and you loose $19, suddenly 30% doesn't
| look like bad deal at all.
| commoner wrote:
| There are payment processors that offer chargeback protection
| for much less than Google's and Apple's 30% fee. For example,
| both Stripe and PayPal only charge 0.4%.
|
| Stripe Chargeback Protection:
| https://stripe.com/radar/chargeback-protection
|
| PayPal Chargeback Protection:
| https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/what-is-
| chargeba...
| akudha wrote:
| Woah. Now, how is _this_ ($20 fee) not extortion?
| travoc wrote:
| How much do you think it costs a bank to collect and review
| evidence from the consumer and seller in a charge dispute?
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