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Somehow google manages to have a store without fully locking your out of alternatives. Their position certainly makes it so they can and do behave as a monopso

Somehow google manages to have a store without fully locking your out of alternatives. Their position certainly makes it so they can and do behave as a monopsony in ways but certainly not to the same extent as apple. > If theres a random app on my phone discovered to be malicious, PLEASE delete it. Yet they also do it if the app competes with them or their functionality. Both google and Microsoft have gone to court for way less. >Grocery chains charge for shelf space. Grocery chains buy the product for resale. A notable difference. Grocery stores also have plenty of competition that can offer the same product. Consumers aren't locked into choosing one grocery store to buy from after purchasing a membership or some shit. Grocery stores aren't one of 2 viable options and generally can't dictate pricing of the seller and their cut. Grocery stores don't often pull anticompetitive shit like this: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-six-high-tech-companies-stop-entering-anticompetitive-employee https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s... >Ok then how much money would YOU be ok with them making? What's the cutoff? Would you be ok with your app being capped in how much money it could make? I don't think so. Perhaps they could make money of value of the service they provide that being the hosting of apps and curating a nice app-store rather than you know being a monopsony.

surfpel 6y ago
> Yet they also do it if the app competes with them or their functionality Is this about the screen time apps? Not all apps were targeted and there was a legitimate reason for that: that they could be malicious... A more likely narrative is that Apple wanted to offer a safer version of these apps so they let it slide until they could get around to it. If you have a different/counter example, please share. > Grocery chains buy the product for resale. A notable difference. The shelf space fee is analogous to the $99 yearly developer fee and the the markup the grocery store charges is analogous to the 30%/15%. I don’t see a significant difference here. > Grocery stores also have plenty of competition that can offer the same product Yet all but the smallest grocery stores do this making this fact irrelevant since for lots of products you don’t have a choice anyway. > Grocery stores don't often pull anticompetitive shit like this Bad of course, but also not relevant here either. > Perhaps they could make money of value of the service they provide You underestimate the extent of the service they provide. They develop all the hardware/software and built a powerful brand attracting the wealthiest customers to spend money in the store. There’s much more to selling apps than just App Store infrastructure.
vlovich123 6y ago
> Somehow google manages to have a store without fully locking your out of alternatives. Their position certainly makes it so they can and do behave as a monopsony in ways but certainly not to the same extent as apple. Arguably they accomplish that by bundling (i.e. the problem that Microsoft in trouble with Explorer). https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/19/17999366/google-eu-android-licensing-terms https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/19/17999366/google-eu-andro... You have to pay $40 to be able to launch your phone with GMS (Play store, Maps, other 1p Google apps not part of AOSP) and where until recently it looks like waiving that fee if you also preinstalled Chrome as the default browser. That's literally the bullshit Intel & Microsoft did that got them in trouble as monopolies. Google & Apple have pointed to each other as reasons neither is a monopoly so that their BS practices don't get them into trouble. The EU has been taking a harder stance than the US. In general I think we should be banning these kinds of practices once the company size exceeds some point (revenue, # of customers, something). It doesn't matter if you're a monopoly. You're throwing your weight with dominance in once area to artificially improve your reach in another (i.e. the customer isn't getting to make that choice).

surfpel 6y ago

> Yet they also do it if the app competes with them or their functionality Is this about the screen time apps? Not all apps were targeted and there was a legitimate reason for that: that they could be malicious... A more likely narrative is that Apple wanted to offer a safer version of these apps so they let it slide until they could get around to it. If you have a different/counter example, please share. > Grocery chains buy the product for resale. A notable difference. The shelf space fee is analogous to the $99 yearly developer fee and the the markup the grocery store charges is analogous to the 30%/15%. I don’t see a significant difference here. > Grocery stores also have plenty of competition that can offer the same product Yet all but the smallest grocery stores do this making this fact irrelevant since for lots of products you don’t have a choice anyway. > Grocery stores don't often pull anticompetitive shit like this Bad of course, but also not relevant here either. > Perhaps they could make money of value of the service they provide You underestimate the extent of the service they provide. They develop all the hardware/software and built a powerful brand attracting the wealthiest customers to spend money in the store. There’s much more to selling apps than just App Store infrastructure.

vlovich123 6y ago

> Somehow google manages to have a store without fully locking your out of alternatives. Their position certainly makes it so they can and do behave as a monopsony in ways but certainly not to the same extent as apple. Arguably they accomplish that by bundling (i.e. the problem that Microsoft in trouble with Explorer). https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/19/17999366/google-eu-android-licensing-terms https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/19/17999366/google-eu-andro... You have to pay $40 to be able to launch your phone with GMS (Play store, Maps, other 1p Google apps not part of AOSP) and where until recently it looks like waiving that fee if you also preinstalled Chrome as the default browser. That's literally the bullshit Intel & Microsoft did that got them in trouble as monopolies. Google & Apple have pointed to each other as reasons neither is a monopoly so that their BS practices don't get them into trouble. The EU has been taking a harder stance than the US. In general I think we should be banning these kinds of practices once the company size exceeds some point (revenue, # of customers, something). It doesn't matter if you're a monopoly. You're throwing your weight with dominance in once area to artificially improve your reach in another (i.e. the customer isn't getting to make that choice).