My problem with apple and google charging 30% is when they are the competitors. So in essence you are asking your competitors to finance you. If apple wants Apple music or a video subscription service they can't charge as Spotify or netflix 30% same for google etc. And I think this should apply to almost all market services/stores not just mobile app stores. If you want to be market infrastructure provider you should not be allowed to compete in it or allowed to charge 30% rather it should be a nominal fee.
The allegation that Google prevented OnePlus and LG from preloading the Epic Games launcher onto their devices is a factor in this case that does not apply to Epic Games v. Apple.
The Epic Games launcher wouldn't just be preinstalled bloatware, it would be bloatware that historically had security vulnerabilities. I don't blame Google for stopping the deal.
You can sideload apps on android - im far less sympathetic to Epic here compared to their case against Apple. I remember looking into seeing what fortnight looked like on mobile a while back and for Android I dont recall there even being an option to get it through the play store - it had to be sideloaded - and that worked fine. They're standing on thin ice going against android (especially considering the entire country if China uses phones that essentially don't use Google services at all but still run android - Google does not have the same sort of control over android that Apple does over ios).
Epic did for a time only distribute their game through their launcher, available only as an APK from their website, but they eventually capitulated to Google's policies and listed Fortnite on the Play Store. They did this because it is evidently not realistically possible for a commercial app to be distributed outside of the Play Store and reach a critical mass of the Android userbase, whatever the cause(s) may be.
Google has made the process of installing alternative app stores obtuse enough that general consumers might not do it. It's not that obtuse, especially to readers of this site, but it looks as though it's enough. There's also the restriction that app installs and updates cannot be done in the background.
Another possibility, or perhaps in addition to the above, is that the general public never goes outside of default app stores to search for games, or is never persuaded to do so. It's the path of least resistance to only use the one(s) included with the phone. Fortnite is the one attempt at a massive enough scale that could have broken this pattern, but it didn't, even though they had Fortnite on all the other platforms to use as an ad, which targets exactly the people most likely to jump through the hoops.
From what I can tell Epic has two (three, depending on how you count) main arguments against Google. The first is what you mentioned - that they _do_ have the option of sideloading an app like Fortnite. The problem being that they lose out on a massive market because they don't want to use Google's IAPs. This is made worse by the fact that Android gives "scary" warnings when trying to install an app from an untrusted source - which is arguably a good thing for safety/security, but at the same time questionable when Google also benefits from it.
The other issue is that Google actively makes it harder for an alternative storefront to operate on Android by forcing OEMs to only include the Play Store (though I think OEM's own stores might also be acceptable? not sure) if they want Google Play Services (which most apps require). Which means Epic can't go out and make a deal with an OEM to add the Epic Store (or possibly even just a single app like Fortnite that doesn't use Google's IAPs, not sure) to an Android device because said OEM would have to drop Google Play Services.
And they can't just tell you to download the store - there are limitations that you cannot bypass without being a system app (i.e. something preinstalled). The most notable one for a store being that it can't auto-update other applications.
Google (like Apple) is trying to claim that the only harm Epic has suffered is fortnite being kicked off the play store.
That's not how Epic see it. Epic think the harm is that they are unable to do payments the way they want and smoothly run their own games store on phones. They even claim that Google is blocking them from making deals with phone manufactures about bundling their games store on certain phones out of the box.
Epic has a more shaky case here because you can side load on android. The biggest thing I could think epic can shake at google is how google pushed handset manufactures to limit agreements with epic. Although I am not a fan of bloatware it's interesting google singled out epic here.
In a related area, it may be time for independent "add-on stores" for browsers, separate from the ones Google, Mozilla, and Apple operate. Chrome and Firefox now use the same add-on format ("WebExtensions"), so there's no need for separate stores, and Safari is going that way. But each browser vendor has a separate approval process with its own rules and fees.
Off topic, I am wondering what are missing in mobile browser before we can completely move these games to web and get rid of native apps? Faster JS? Accelerometer and other censor APIs?
WebGL 2.0 is at the level of OpenGL ES 3.0 (we are at GL ES 3.2 since years now) and has constraints in place due to security reasons.
WebGL 2.0 compute got a standard update last September, but there are no plans in sight to ever make it out of nightly previews, specially given WebGPU.
WebGPU still remains to be seen when it will be available, and in what form, if ever.
WebAssembly in 2020 is still trying to catch up with what Flash Alchemy allowed for in 2011.
To top this, even if you managed to make a cool 3D Web game in proper framerate, it can run like a dog in the customers browser in spite of their good native gaming experience, because the browser for whatever reason blacklists their GPU model and reverts back to either software rendering or not running at all.
We're missing the desire of Apple & Google to make this happen. Apple won't let Safari compete with its app store and Google won't let Chrome compete with its app store.
Call me a corporatist, but I don't even think Google and Apple should have to justify their 30% pricing at all as "reasonable". They could charge anything they like -- 100%. It's a voluntary contract, and Epic doesn't have to engage in it. We don't have to engage in it. There's no fundamental right to offer an app on an app store, and if the scope of the market is defined as the market for video games/content, then none of these places are monopolies and companies/people are free to set their desired prices.
Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace? That's like someone telling you what your profit margin should be for a product that everyone wants. Why should it be tied to your costs?
I mean, in many cases it is, due to customer demand reasons, but there are tons of things that you pay for that have prices nothing close to what it costs to provide.
That's why I think it will fail in court at least (maybe not the SEC, or Congress). The argument that 30% is unfair goes nowhere in court -- so what should it be? Courts are not the forum for that question.
Anyway, I finish with snark: if Epic invoked its same logic on itself, clearly it should reduce its profit / subscription charges to a "reasonable" level. Epic is the only one I'm able to buy Epic games from -- clearly they're a monopoly and need to have their market-abusive behavior and extortionate pricing regulated? Right?
I find irony in many people who get probably so knee-jerk opposed to Google/Apple and "on Epic's side" will find themselves justifying why they should be free to set their own prices when they launch their next product.
Call me a democrat but I think the United States of America shouldn't have to justify its laws at all and should regulate Google's and Apple's store however they want, tax them 100% instead of 20%, after all they voluntarily made a business, they can move their HQ to Swaziland, who is to tell the American people how to regulate their businesses
It's not like Apple and Google can't move, there's like 200 countries, that's like a hundred times more countries than app stores
"Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should* be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace?"*
That falls under competition law. It's in a government's interests to encourage companies to compete with each other, and to prevent a single or a handful of companies explicitly or implicitly agreeing to control market pricing to the detriment of consumers.
In this case, both Google and Apple set the same 30% pricing, and clearly neither have any incentive to rock the boat and compete with each other, and every incentive to dissuade or prevent other companies from creating competing app stores. When competition in a market fails, it's up to the courts or government to step in.
"I find irony in many people who get probably so knee-jerk opposed to Google/Apple and "on Epic's side" will find themselves justifying why they should be free to set their own prices when they launch their next product."
Its not hypocritical (or even ironic) to say that there should be different rules for companies operating as part of an oligopoly, compared to small business competing in a crowded marketplace.
ISP should also take a cut, I mean why not..they can... then the electric company can charge all of us a % ... why don’t camera companies get a cut of movie revenues... why don’t tv companies charge cable companies to work with one another, I mean... let’s just go for it
" They could charge anything they like -- 100%. It's a voluntary contract, and Epic doesn't have to engage in it. We don't have to engage in it. There's no fundamental right to offer an app on an app store, and if the scope of the market is defined as the market for video games/content, then none of these places are monopolies and companies/people are free to set their desired prices."
They are monopolies, or more precisely, an oligarchy.
Mobile devices have become 'essential utility' not quite but almost like roads, internet access etc. and Google/Apple have absolute control.
Imagine if Verizon and AT&T said: "We're going to charge 30% of all revenue derived form Internet Usage".
What would be the difference?
Could we just 'refuse to engage' and 'not use the internet'?
We scream 'net neutrality' when it comes to network access, we need to recognize some of the same logic applies here as well.
Sometimes it's hard to demonstrate 'consumer harm' when we don't know what the market would look like otherwise: in Canada, literally up until the 1980's, the telephone system was a de-facto government monopoly called 'Bell Telephone'. You had to buy everything from them, they set prices etc. etc..
Imagine what would happen if iOS and Android 'banned' anything other than Safari and Chrome.
Imagine if theY forced Bing and Google only respectively as search engines and banned all others?
How would we react?
In much the same way Europe has required users have the ability to have the choice of Search, even default search, I think the minimum requirement would be to allow 3rd party apps and 3rd party app stores.
Epic have bought up games and moved them to their store which, as a Windows only platform, has reduced choice. They should totally get regulated as well since they are reducing competition.
If it wasn't run by a complete and utter dickhead I may have more sympathy.
Alright, now lets say microsoft did the exact same behavior, on every single PC. And made it impossible for you to install unapproved apps that did not give them a cut.
Would you really believe that such behavior would not break anti-trust law? Because the courts already ruled against microsoft in a much less extreme situation.
And furthermore, are you really OK with that behavior, if microsoft forced every single windows PC in the world, to disallow unapproved apps?
> The argument that 30% is unfair goes nowhere in court -- so what should it be?
The lawsuit has nothing to do with the 30% cut. Instead it has to do with Google and Apple engaging in anti-competitive behavior, and using their significant market power to prevent competition.
They should not be forced to change their price. Instead, they should be force to stop their anti-competitive behavior, and allow other apps to be installed, in an easier way (in Apple's case), where as Google should be stopped from forcing OEM providers to not preload the epic app store.
> why they should be free to set their own prices
It has nothing to do with price setting. That is nowhere in the lawsuit. Instead, Epic is trying to stop anti-competitive behavior.
That's strawman, Epic's fortnite is not one of the only 2 surviving videogames in the world, while Android and Apple are the only 2 mobile platforms; if Fornite was somehow one of the only 10 mobile games people had available at all I would agree but not in the current state of affairs.
I agree, but they should both be charged with colluding on pricing (neither can justify the prices and it's obvious no market price discovery ever happened.
>Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace?
This comes down to what I call competitive capitalism VS Hobson's Choice capitalism. Android doesn't really have any competitors - Amazon, Samsung, they have zero legal access to the apps on the Google Play store unless they go through Android. As such, if they refuse to allow competitors to force them to compete, they have a responsibility to compete despite the lack of competition and if they refuse to do that it's the government's job to beat them until they comply.
Again: the problem here isn't "freedom", it's competition. Your next product probably doesn't have a major captive sub-market.
But let's address the " freedom" argument: what I call Hobson's Choice capitalism. "If you don't like it, you're free to rewrite the OS from scratch, then convince every single app on the app store to switch over while starting with no hardware support and no app support. This is a Hobson's Choice - it's not about making an improvement on Android, it's about making a unilateral improvement on the entire universe just to push Android forward. It's absurd and not a real choice.
But more importantly, if you consider Hobson's Choice capitalism to be capitalism, then technically the government is equivalent to a private corporation as long as you can forfeit your citizenship and move to Somalia to be free of your country's obligations on you. This basically contradicts the standard definition of the free market, but that's the point - everyone rejects the Hobson's choice out of hand, because it's just so absurdly irrelevant to competition.
So let's talk about competition: would Google rather take a lower cut, or legally permit Amazon and Tizen to access Google Play apps from their non-Android OSes?
Because right now, they're not competing. They're just sitting on their chicken-egg problem based laurels.
As for Epic: I sort of agree with your pejorative - copyright is intended to provide funding, but the right it actually grants is the right to deny a copy. Some companies simply sit on copyright they never actually intend to monetize, and others keep hold of it far longer than they need to make a healthy profit proportionate to its success. The notion that all copyright needs the exact sake period is also absurd, as some industries are much more fast-moving than others. I think we need to take a long, hard look at copyright monopolies, starting with the absurd "lifetime plus 70 years" duration.
Google and Apple have gotten too big. They're harming our industry. It's time to break them up.
Besides, our devices are computers. The next evolution of laptops for most people. We should be able to run whatever software we want on them. Google and Apple purposefully acted like mafia to keep them as locked down as they could, while they both benefited from the web and open source to rise to and ultimately cement their position.
While I broadly agree with your sentiments, Epic's issue here isn't the percentage commission per se.
It's the fact that both Stores do not allow apps that circumvent Apple/Google's payment systems for in-app purchases (and in Apple's case, the fact that side-loading is prohibited, forcing you to use the App Store for any software you want to run on portable Apple devices).
If you took a favourable interpretation, a 30% commission only becomes anti-competitive once Apple/Google take away any alternative.
That being said, I don't agree with that and I'm still not clear what the legal basis for that argument is. I'm leaning towards Epic losing this one mightily.
"If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use is the rule?"
Do we really want to live in a world in which a few tech companies get to shave 30% off of all the value produced by a significant portion of the entire economy? Why should we put up with that? Because we made a rule a long ago that in general companies can decide their own pricing structure and device policy? Is a slavish adherence to this rule worth making us all 30% poorer? Why?
We can and should make an exceptionion to the general principle of corporate independence whenever we find ourselves in a situation in which a key piece of public infrastructure happens to be privately owned --- and app stores have definitely become public infrastructure). We shouldn't let a blind adherence to an abstraction prevent us from ensuring that this public infrastructure is run in the public interest.
Hijacker: yes I shot him but it is of his own making. He didn't cave in to my demands.
(Yes, I know Android marketplace is Google's but what we'd think if MS did the same with Windows, charge a cut of every transaction. Don't like it? Too bad, no one is forcing anyone to use Windows)
All of the app stores charge 30%, with some stores going so far as to impose an evaluation fee when listing a new app. It is completely outrageous relative to the amount of work they have done (which is amortized over all of the apps in the store), versus that of creating the app/game. Plus I find it fishy (in a collusionary way) that all of the stores charge basically the same percentage. And, as pointed out, they will not allow another competitive app store on their platforms. Each store in basically a monopoly per platform, with the possible exception of steam/windows.
I think this is ultimately about what the consumers want. Google and Apple can easily drown epic games in lawyer fees and expenses etc. ... But do they have a case in front of the public, do consumers care enough to give a shit, maybe ... I don't see it.
Leading Indian startups are supposedly forming an alliance to launch their own App Store for fighting the duopoly[1].
IMO, There was already an open, accessible, free app store called - 'Internet Browser' upon which Internet was built. These companies undermined it in collusion with the duopolies to hoard more data from their customers and are now crying wolf.
So, the answer they are proposing now is creating a monopoly to fight the duopoly?
IMHO, Google & Apple are safe for at least 4 more years: the current and next US administration has no interest in changing the status quo in the corporate world. Maaaybe something will happen in 2030.
It's like if you would have to ask Google or Apple for permission when you want to open a coffee shop or any other business and have to give them 30% of your profit.
App marketplaces must be a public good and under the surveillance of the public and not controlled by a few old chief executives of Google or Apple.
It must be fun being Apple to be both perpetually doomed by detractors as having minuscule marketshare and collapsing sales (any day now for the last 40 years)... and also a rampant monopolist that must be turned into a public utility because we’d much rather have the government review apps than Apple or Google (wait what?).
Pick one! But if you pick monopolist, don’t expect regulation to necessarily go the way you want it to. It probably will preserve everything you hate about the current system, just replacing Apple with a bureaucracy.
Forcing the return of the Wild West of the PC ecosystem Into mobile will only happen when consumers demand it. They won’t, because that wasn’t a very user friendly approach. It Was originally for tinkerers and hackers and that pedigree continues to this day. Mobile carriers and government aren’t likely too fond of the idea of phones where anything can be installed on them.
I feel bad for Epic. I know their intention, but the way they are going into this battle is just wrong. And they are kind of losing public support and court orders, all while burning bridges with Apple and Google.
One could argue Epic is trying to demonstrate Apple and Google are basically Visa and MasterCard. ( That is purely my guess, personally I dont see Epic has planned a decent, long term strategy other than simply charging into battle ) And in EU Visa and Master had to lower their CC processing fees from their 3-5% in US to somewhat sane %. Similar case in AUS as well.
I wonder if Tim Sweeney saw the opportunity from DHH / Hey.com, decided to take a bet and jump onto it. Simply judging the flow from Twitter and people within his own circle. ( or Bubble )
I actually have no problem with Apple or Google charging 30% for gaming. I do have problem with Apple charging business like Fitness class, Online Email Services, Education or all other Services simply for access through their Apps. Had it been something like 5% to 10% I think everyone would have been happy to pay. It was estimated 80% of App Store revenue were from Gaming. Apple could have lower their non-gaming cut without substantial loss of services revenue stream.
But it seems there are large enough group of Americans thinking Apple can charge whatever they want. It is their platform.
> I actually have no problem with Apple or Google charging 30% for gaming. I do have problem with Apple charging business like Fitness class, Online Email Services, Education or all other Services simply for access through their Apps.
Why differentiate gaming and non-gaming? The platform should be blind to the content and be a platform.
I would also argue that a platform can curate, but the platform should not lock-down the user from escaping the platform. For example, side-loading should be a legal right that an owner of a device should have.
[+] [-] xbmcuser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] commoner|5 years ago|reply
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-ga...
If this allegation is true, it's hard to blame Epic for the losses resulting from a decision that Google made.
[+] [-] jjeaff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aunche|5 years ago|reply
https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...
[+] [-] vikramkr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fej|5 years ago|reply
Google has made the process of installing alternative app stores obtuse enough that general consumers might not do it. It's not that obtuse, especially to readers of this site, but it looks as though it's enough. There's also the restriction that app installs and updates cannot be done in the background.
Another possibility, or perhaps in addition to the above, is that the general public never goes outside of default app stores to search for games, or is never persuaded to do so. It's the path of least resistance to only use the one(s) included with the phone. Fortnite is the one attempt at a massive enough scale that could have broken this pattern, but it didn't, even though they had Fortnite on all the other platforms to use as an ad, which targets exactly the people most likely to jump through the hoops.
[+] [-] redxdev|5 years ago|reply
The other issue is that Google actively makes it harder for an alternative storefront to operate on Android by forcing OEMs to only include the Play Store (though I think OEM's own stores might also be acceptable? not sure) if they want Google Play Services (which most apps require). Which means Epic can't go out and make a deal with an OEM to add the Epic Store (or possibly even just a single app like Fortnite that doesn't use Google's IAPs, not sure) to an Android device because said OEM would have to drop Google Play Services.
And they can't just tell you to download the store - there are limitations that you cannot bypass without being a system app (i.e. something preinstalled). The most notable one for a store being that it can't auto-update other applications.
[+] [-] phire|5 years ago|reply
That's not how Epic see it. Epic think the harm is that they are unable to do payments the way they want and smoothly run their own games store on phones. They even claim that Google is blocking them from making deals with phone manufactures about bundling their games store on certain phones out of the box.
[+] [-] anfilt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattGaiser|5 years ago|reply
Outside of Hacker News, this story seems dead.
[+] [-] wbsun|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 years ago|reply
WebGL 2.0 is at the level of OpenGL ES 3.0 (we are at GL ES 3.2 since years now) and has constraints in place due to security reasons.
WebGL 2.0 compute got a standard update last September, but there are no plans in sight to ever make it out of nightly previews, specially given WebGPU.
WebGPU still remains to be seen when it will be available, and in what form, if ever.
WebAssembly in 2020 is still trying to catch up with what Flash Alchemy allowed for in 2011.
To top this, even if you managed to make a cool 3D Web game in proper framerate, it can run like a dog in the customers browser in spite of their good native gaming experience, because the browser for whatever reason blacklists their GPU model and reverts back to either software rendering or not running at all.
[+] [-] ry454|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supernova87a|5 years ago|reply
Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace? That's like someone telling you what your profit margin should be for a product that everyone wants. Why should it be tied to your costs?
I mean, in many cases it is, due to customer demand reasons, but there are tons of things that you pay for that have prices nothing close to what it costs to provide.
That's why I think it will fail in court at least (maybe not the SEC, or Congress). The argument that 30% is unfair goes nowhere in court -- so what should it be? Courts are not the forum for that question.
Anyway, I finish with snark: if Epic invoked its same logic on itself, clearly it should reduce its profit / subscription charges to a "reasonable" level. Epic is the only one I'm able to buy Epic games from -- clearly they're a monopoly and need to have their market-abusive behavior and extortionate pricing regulated? Right?
I find irony in many people who get probably so knee-jerk opposed to Google/Apple and "on Epic's side" will find themselves justifying why they should be free to set their own prices when they launch their next product.
[+] [-] Barrin92|5 years ago|reply
It's not like Apple and Google can't move, there's like 200 countries, that's like a hundred times more countries than app stores
[+] [-] weavejester|5 years ago|reply
That falls under competition law. It's in a government's interests to encourage companies to compete with each other, and to prevent a single or a handful of companies explicitly or implicitly agreeing to control market pricing to the detriment of consumers.
In this case, both Google and Apple set the same 30% pricing, and clearly neither have any incentive to rock the boat and compete with each other, and every incentive to dissuade or prevent other companies from creating competing app stores. When competition in a market fails, it's up to the courts or government to step in.
"I find irony in many people who get probably so knee-jerk opposed to Google/Apple and "on Epic's side" will find themselves justifying why they should be free to set their own prices when they launch their next product."
Its not hypocritical (or even ironic) to say that there should be different rules for companies operating as part of an oligopoly, compared to small business competing in a crowded marketplace.
[+] [-] shirakawasuna|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strider3g|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
They are monopolies, or more precisely, an oligarchy.
Mobile devices have become 'essential utility' not quite but almost like roads, internet access etc. and Google/Apple have absolute control.
Imagine if Verizon and AT&T said: "We're going to charge 30% of all revenue derived form Internet Usage".
What would be the difference?
Could we just 'refuse to engage' and 'not use the internet'?
We scream 'net neutrality' when it comes to network access, we need to recognize some of the same logic applies here as well.
Sometimes it's hard to demonstrate 'consumer harm' when we don't know what the market would look like otherwise: in Canada, literally up until the 1980's, the telephone system was a de-facto government monopoly called 'Bell Telephone'. You had to buy everything from them, they set prices etc. etc..
Imagine what would happen if iOS and Android 'banned' anything other than Safari and Chrome.
Imagine if theY forced Bing and Google only respectively as search engines and banned all others?
How would we react?
In much the same way Europe has required users have the ability to have the choice of Search, even default search, I think the minimum requirement would be to allow 3rd party apps and 3rd party app stores.
[+] [-] mulmen|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Aircraft_and_Transport_...
[+] [-] hajile|5 years ago|reply
If a monopoly is created and enforced by the state, it is their duty to regulate it.
[+] [-] happymellon|5 years ago|reply
If it wasn't run by a complete and utter dickhead I may have more sympathy.
[+] [-] hhjinks|5 years ago|reply
They do if they want to be on the mobile market, as evident by them being kicked off 98% of the mobile market when they decided to not engage in it.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stale2002|5 years ago|reply
Would you really believe that such behavior would not break anti-trust law? Because the courts already ruled against microsoft in a much less extreme situation.
And furthermore, are you really OK with that behavior, if microsoft forced every single windows PC in the world, to disallow unapproved apps?
> The argument that 30% is unfair goes nowhere in court -- so what should it be?
The lawsuit has nothing to do with the 30% cut. Instead it has to do with Google and Apple engaging in anti-competitive behavior, and using their significant market power to prevent competition.
They should not be forced to change their price. Instead, they should be force to stop their anti-competitive behavior, and allow other apps to be installed, in an easier way (in Apple's case), where as Google should be stopped from forcing OEM providers to not preload the epic app store.
> why they should be free to set their own prices
It has nothing to do with price setting. That is nowhere in the lawsuit. Instead, Epic is trying to stop anti-competitive behavior.
[+] [-] mattigames|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] BobbyJo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riantogo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b20000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Qwertious|5 years ago|reply
This comes down to what I call competitive capitalism VS Hobson's Choice capitalism. Android doesn't really have any competitors - Amazon, Samsung, they have zero legal access to the apps on the Google Play store unless they go through Android. As such, if they refuse to allow competitors to force them to compete, they have a responsibility to compete despite the lack of competition and if they refuse to do that it's the government's job to beat them until they comply.
Again: the problem here isn't "freedom", it's competition. Your next product probably doesn't have a major captive sub-market.
But let's address the " freedom" argument: what I call Hobson's Choice capitalism. "If you don't like it, you're free to rewrite the OS from scratch, then convince every single app on the app store to switch over while starting with no hardware support and no app support. This is a Hobson's Choice - it's not about making an improvement on Android, it's about making a unilateral improvement on the entire universe just to push Android forward. It's absurd and not a real choice.
But more importantly, if you consider Hobson's Choice capitalism to be capitalism, then technically the government is equivalent to a private corporation as long as you can forfeit your citizenship and move to Somalia to be free of your country's obligations on you. This basically contradicts the standard definition of the free market, but that's the point - everyone rejects the Hobson's choice out of hand, because it's just so absurdly irrelevant to competition.
So let's talk about competition: would Google rather take a lower cut, or legally permit Amazon and Tizen to access Google Play apps from their non-Android OSes?
Because right now, they're not competing. They're just sitting on their chicken-egg problem based laurels.
As for Epic: I sort of agree with your pejorative - copyright is intended to provide funding, but the right it actually grants is the right to deny a copy. Some companies simply sit on copyright they never actually intend to monetize, and others keep hold of it far longer than they need to make a healthy profit proportionate to its success. The notion that all copyright needs the exact sake period is also absurd, as some industries are much more fast-moving than others. I think we need to take a long, hard look at copyright monopolies, starting with the absurd "lifetime plus 70 years" duration.
[+] [-] echelon|5 years ago|reply
Besides, our devices are computers. The next evolution of laptops for most people. We should be able to run whatever software we want on them. Google and Apple purposefully acted like mafia to keep them as locked down as they could, while they both benefited from the web and open source to rise to and ultimately cement their position.
Fuck them both.
[+] [-] nmfisher|5 years ago|reply
It's the fact that both Stores do not allow apps that circumvent Apple/Google's payment systems for in-app purchases (and in Apple's case, the fact that side-loading is prohibited, forcing you to use the App Store for any software you want to run on portable Apple devices).
If you took a favourable interpretation, a 30% commission only becomes anti-competitive once Apple/Google take away any alternative.
That being said, I don't agree with that and I'm still not clear what the legal basis for that argument is. I'm leaning towards Epic losing this one mightily.
[+] [-] quotemstr|5 years ago|reply
Do we really want to live in a world in which a few tech companies get to shave 30% off of all the value produced by a significant portion of the entire economy? Why should we put up with that? Because we made a rule a long ago that in general companies can decide their own pricing structure and device policy? Is a slavish adherence to this rule worth making us all 30% poorer? Why?
We can and should make an exceptionion to the general principle of corporate independence whenever we find ourselves in a situation in which a key piece of public infrastructure happens to be privately owned --- and app stores have definitely become public infrastructure). We shouldn't let a blind adherence to an abstraction prevent us from ensuring that this public infrastructure is run in the public interest.
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|5 years ago|reply
(Yes, I know Android marketplace is Google's but what we'd think if MS did the same with Windows, charge a cut of every transaction. Don't like it? Too bad, no one is forcing anyone to use Windows)
[+] [-] reason-mr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdsdfe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Abishek_Muthian|5 years ago|reply
IMO, There was already an open, accessible, free app store called - 'Internet Browser' upon which Internet was built. These companies undermined it in collusion with the duopolies to hoard more data from their customers and are now crying wolf.
So, the answer they are proposing now is creating a monopoly to fight the duopoly?
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/indian-startups-explore-fo...
[+] [-] stouset|5 years ago|reply
Not that Apple has zero data on their customers, but the difference in quantity (and intrusiveness) is likely off by a factor of thousands.
[+] [-] ry454|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] simonkafan|5 years ago|reply
App marketplaces must be a public good and under the surveillance of the public and not controlled by a few old chief executives of Google or Apple.
[+] [-] ericmay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parasubvert|5 years ago|reply
Pick one! But if you pick monopolist, don’t expect regulation to necessarily go the way you want it to. It probably will preserve everything you hate about the current system, just replacing Apple with a bureaucracy.
Forcing the return of the Wild West of the PC ecosystem Into mobile will only happen when consumers demand it. They won’t, because that wasn’t a very user friendly approach. It Was originally for tinkerers and hackers and that pedigree continues to this day. Mobile carriers and government aren’t likely too fond of the idea of phones where anything can be installed on them.
[+] [-] Razengan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|5 years ago|reply
One could argue Epic is trying to demonstrate Apple and Google are basically Visa and MasterCard. ( That is purely my guess, personally I dont see Epic has planned a decent, long term strategy other than simply charging into battle ) And in EU Visa and Master had to lower their CC processing fees from their 3-5% in US to somewhat sane %. Similar case in AUS as well.
I wonder if Tim Sweeney saw the opportunity from DHH / Hey.com, decided to take a bet and jump onto it. Simply judging the flow from Twitter and people within his own circle. ( or Bubble )
I actually have no problem with Apple or Google charging 30% for gaming. I do have problem with Apple charging business like Fitness class, Online Email Services, Education or all other Services simply for access through their Apps. Had it been something like 5% to 10% I think everyone would have been happy to pay. It was estimated 80% of App Store revenue were from Gaming. Apple could have lower their non-gaming cut without substantial loss of services revenue stream.
But it seems there are large enough group of Americans thinking Apple can charge whatever they want. It is their platform.
[+] [-] chii|5 years ago|reply
Why differentiate gaming and non-gaming? The platform should be blind to the content and be a platform.
I would also argue that a platform can curate, but the platform should not lock-down the user from escaping the platform. For example, side-loading should be a legal right that an owner of a device should have.
[+] [-] Qahlel|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ivanstame|5 years ago|reply
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