4 ms·

I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space. I don't want that. In

by 3np 6y ago

I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space. I don't want that. Instead, Google should be required to provide equal capabilities to third-party app stores as the Play Store now enjoys on Android. Like Microsoft was forced to accommodate for other browser vendors in Windows way back when. This is in contrast to ISPs, which I whole-heartedly believe should be subject to net neutrality.

lelanthran 6y ago
> I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space. That's a false dichotomy. The options are not: 1. Any company, anywhere and at any time can refuse to do business with anyone, anywhere and for any reason. 2. All companies, everywhere and all the time must allow voices from everyone, everywhere and all the time. There's a good middle ground - antitrust regulations could be modified so that, if the company has a large enough piece of the market they shouldn't have the /choice/ of denying access for any reason.
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
I do think that solution has a lot going for it. Probably even best to allow for multiple app stores from the very beginning. For example during setup of the device being prompted: "There are various app stores to install software from. Each comes with their own form of app curation, and policies regarding payments, privacy, updates and more ; please select the app stores you would like to use. If you'd like to learn more, click here." with a list of app stores given and 'Google Play' being pre-selected for example. It's not something I've thought about a lot before, so I'm sure we could do better than that. But in principle that doesn't sound too bad.

4 ms·

I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space. I don't want that. In

by 3np 6y ago

lelanthran 6y ago
> I'd argue that any other stance would acknowledge and justify their position as a utility provider and the Play Store as a public space. That's a false dichotomy. The options are not: 1. Any company, anywhere and at any time can refuse to do business with anyone, anywhere and for any reason. 2. All companies, everywhere and all the time must allow voices from everyone, everywhere and all the time. There's a good middle ground - antitrust regulations could be modified so that, if the company has a large enough piece of the market they shouldn't have the /choice/ of denying access for any reason.
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
I do think that solution has a lot going for it. Probably even best to allow for multiple app stores from the very beginning. For example during setup of the device being prompted: "There are various app stores to install software from. Each comes with their own form of app curation, and policies regarding payments, privacy, updates and more ; please select the app stores you would like to use. If you'd like to learn more, click here." with a list of app stores given and 'Google Play' being pre-selected for example. It's not something I've thought about a lot before, so I'm sure we could do better than that. But in principle that doesn't sound too bad.