4 ms·

But it's also fragile; that fee might not turn out to be sustainable.

• darkwater 5y ago
  How come? Also they already have a dominant position, producer licensing can go a long way. Nobody is gonna make Android suddenly irrelevant in the next 10 years.
  • emn13 5y ago
    As the epic vs. apple showdown shows, the position of gatekeeper is potentially legally tricky. Additionally, google works as a gatekeeper now because handset makers kind of need googles blessing. But android is open source, and potentially forkable. What really keeps handset makers onboard are the google services. But... if you split google, are those handset makers really going to feel as beholden to the android play store if they can get all major apps to run on an alternate store (already the case), and can get access to essentially all google apps without giving the android store any cut (after all, those aren't part of a single "google" bundle anymore then!) I suspect the 30% cut would have to go; that super-high margin is really a bit of rent-seeking behavior even today, and only sustainable due to Google's overall market position. It's so high that the case could be made that e.g. Samsung's efforts to duplicate it is merited solely as a form of negotiating leverage, rather than as an actual alternative today. Without the whole consumer lock-in and bundle deal that google provides today, androids value proposition is much, much weaker; they could simply offer additional stores with better pricing, and wait for android to come begging for scraps. Android the platform is certainly here to stay for a while, but as a business unit, assuming it were split from the rest of google? I'm less certain. I mean, I wouldn't count them out, but there are definitely competitors around that would gladly eat their lunch, and might actually succeed then too.