9 ms·

Agreed, personally I think 3-5% would be fair anything more is rent seeking.

by joenathanone 5y ago

kfprt 5y ago
The percentage should be set by the market. The problem is that there exists a rent seeking monopoly at present.
- cvlasdkv 5y ago
  Markets naturally lead towards monopolies.
  - WkmYq 5y ago
    Citation needed. Can you name a monopoly that lasted 10 years or more without government help?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rnjesus 5y ago
      de beers?
      - WkmYq 5y ago
        De Beers certainly had government help. The paper used by Wikipedia to support the claim that they are considered a monopoly[1] acknowledges this: > In addition to the structure of the De Beers cartel, the main force behind this dominance for many years has been the role played by governments. It is possible for a cartel to continue if there is a governing body above that can enforce agreement. Through continuously changing its stance toward corporations, the South African government and other governments essentially protected the companies that were providing them with easily and centrally collected tax revenues. Governments have frequently imposed output quotas and have used legislation, such as the Illicit Diamond Buying laws (IDB), to protect these companies from black markets and their effects on pricing. (As a comparison, one of the weaknesses of OPEC is that it is a cartel of governments over which no other actor can impose control, whereas De Beers has formed a cartel of companies and has often successfully lobbied governments to enforce cooperation on its behalf). > This argument of government-forced cooperation held while Africa was the dominant supplier of diamonds, but it no longer has the complete stranglehold that it once did. As the cartel has not yet disintegrated, however, other reasons must also exist. Researchers believe that De Beers exists as a monopoly to maximize profits, not just to maintain them. Hence, it is in the members’ interest to stay within the cartel rather than go it alone. It's however conceivable that a monopoly like De Beers could survive even in a free market because they seem to be the optimal solution to a coordination problem where everyone's (including the consumer's and the prospective competitor's) incentives are aligned. The paper explains: > Second, the demand for diamonds is not typical and must be analyzed using Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption. This theory replaces the traditional downward-sloping demand curve with one that is upward-sloping, suggesting that the higher the price of an item, the higher the demand. This phenomenon would imply that higher prices have a dual effect on the profits of a company, first, through higher margins and, second, through increased sales. Therefore, it is in a company’s best interest to maintain high prices. For diamonds in particular, this means that the perception of desirability associated with diamonds is critical to the life of the industry as a whole and that if the price of diamonds falls, the overall demand for them will follow. Therefore, it is again in the interest of the individual players in this industry to “play nice” and cooperate, since cheating the cartel will actually lower their profits instead of raising them. [1]: https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/107/Global_Diamond_Industry.pdf https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfile...
echelon 5y ago
Credit card transactions take far less, and they deal in legitimate risk (chargebacks, stolen cards, fraud, etc). As developers, we don't even need app stores. They're an artifice that got shoved down our throat by trillion dollar mega corporations. A taxation clearinghouse. You can distribute the same program bytes from anywhere, most notably the web. It's Steve Ballmer's old dream of taxing all software. There's just no point in it. It's massively unfair. The excruciating review process adds insult to injury. And it makes fixing bugs a slow and stressful nightmare. If smart phone manufacturers really want to protect customers, the best way to do that is to store signatures of known bad applications and provide solid permissions-based access to system resources. Screw app stores.
- beojan 5y ago
  From a user's perspective, the review is absolutely necessary and really needs to be much better on Android. Proactive vetoing of malware from distribution is much better than reactive malware scanning against a signature library. That doesn't really justify a slice of subscription revenue though.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > review is absolutely necessary Wholeheartedly disagree. I download software on Linux and Mac frequently without ever having it reviewed. I buy physical products that have sensors. These don't get scrutinized. If we truly need a "health inspector", then it should be a third party. Not the mafia that makes the device and frequently launches competing apps and features. And it seems totally uneven that websites can access and deal in the same data, yet they escape review. It's an invented charade that is brutally unfair.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      But you know, that you can also just download and install software on Android? But yes, this requires knowledge of what you are doing. So most people rightfully choose the playstore - and maintaining (and curating) the playstore requires work. So I also think it is fair, if google gets a cut. But 30% and also 15% is just cutthroat price range.

Agreed, personally I think 3-5% would be fair anything more is rent seeking.

kfprt 5y ago

The percentage should be set by the market. The problem is that there exists a rent seeking monopoly at present.

cvlasdkv 5y ago
Markets naturally lead towards monopolies.
- WkmYq 5y ago
  Citation needed. Can you name a monopoly that lasted 10 years or more without government help?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rnjesus 5y ago
    de beers?
    - WkmYq 5y ago
      De Beers certainly had government help. The paper used by Wikipedia to support the claim that they are considered a monopoly[1] acknowledges this: > In addition to the structure of the De Beers cartel, the main force behind this dominance for many years has been the role played by governments. It is possible for a cartel to continue if there is a governing body above that can enforce agreement. Through continuously changing its stance toward corporations, the South African government and other governments essentially protected the companies that were providing them with easily and centrally collected tax revenues. Governments have frequently imposed output quotas and have used legislation, such as the Illicit Diamond Buying laws (IDB), to protect these companies from black markets and their effects on pricing. (As a comparison, one of the weaknesses of OPEC is that it is a cartel of governments over which no other actor can impose control, whereas De Beers has formed a cartel of companies and has often successfully lobbied governments to enforce cooperation on its behalf). > This argument of government-forced cooperation held while Africa was the dominant supplier of diamonds, but it no longer has the complete stranglehold that it once did. As the cartel has not yet disintegrated, however, other reasons must also exist. Researchers believe that De Beers exists as a monopoly to maximize profits, not just to maintain them. Hence, it is in the members’ interest to stay within the cartel rather than go it alone. It's however conceivable that a monopoly like De Beers could survive even in a free market because they seem to be the optimal solution to a coordination problem where everyone's (including the consumer's and the prospective competitor's) incentives are aligned. The paper explains: > Second, the demand for diamonds is not typical and must be analyzed using Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption. This theory replaces the traditional downward-sloping demand curve with one that is upward-sloping, suggesting that the higher the price of an item, the higher the demand. This phenomenon would imply that higher prices have a dual effect on the profits of a company, first, through higher margins and, second, through increased sales. Therefore, it is in a company’s best interest to maintain high prices. For diamonds in particular, this means that the perception of desirability associated with diamonds is critical to the life of the industry as a whole and that if the price of diamonds falls, the overall demand for them will follow. Therefore, it is again in the interest of the individual players in this industry to “play nice” and cooperate, since cheating the cartel will actually lower their profits instead of raising them. [1]: https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/107/Global_Diamond_Industry.pdf https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfile...

echelon 5y ago

Credit card transactions take far less, and they deal in legitimate risk (chargebacks, stolen cards, fraud, etc). As developers, we don't even need app stores. They're an artifice that got shoved down our throat by trillion dollar mega corporations. A taxation clearinghouse. You can distribute the same program bytes from anywhere, most notably the web. It's Steve Ballmer's old dream of taxing all software. There's just no point in it. It's massively unfair. The excruciating review process adds insult to injury. And it makes fixing bugs a slow and stressful nightmare. If smart phone manufacturers really want to protect customers, the best way to do that is to store signatures of known bad applications and provide solid permissions-based access to system resources. Screw app stores.

beojan 5y ago
From a user's perspective, the review is absolutely necessary and really needs to be much better on Android. Proactive vetoing of malware from distribution is much better than reactive malware scanning against a signature library. That doesn't really justify a slice of subscription revenue though.
- echelon 5y ago
  > review is absolutely necessary Wholeheartedly disagree. I download software on Linux and Mac frequently without ever having it reviewed. I buy physical products that have sensors. These don't get scrutinized. If we truly need a "health inspector", then it should be a third party. Not the mafia that makes the device and frequently launches competing apps and features. And it seems totally uneven that websites can access and deal in the same data, yet they escape review. It's an invented charade that is brutally unfair.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    But you know, that you can also just download and install software on Android? But yes, this requires knowledge of what you are doing. So most people rightfully choose the playstore - and maintaining (and curating) the playstore requires work. So I also think it is fair, if google gets a cut. But 30% and also 15% is just cutthroat price range.