5 ms·

Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download

by bko 5y ago

Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download the app, pay some amount when you're in the app which would unlock the functionality. I don't think its unreasonable for Google to have a problem with this. They want to get the reach of the app store, and make money off it, without paying a cut to the host like everyone else. What am I missing here?

colechristensen 5y ago
That Google’s cut of payments is very high which points to market position abuse
- lolinder 5y ago
  High compared to what? It's the same as Apple's, so you're not comparing to other app stores. Amazon charges the same percentage on Kindle for eBooks. When people claim that the app store fees are excessively large they're usually comparing to payment processor fees, but neither major app store functions solely as a payment processor. So if not that, what are we comparing to when we say the fee is high?
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    The fee could be lower. They (the App Store owner) only needs to sign a blob. They (Google/Apple/Amazon) choose to host the blobs, and then charge the developer for it. They claim “marketing” too, but as far as I can tell, that usually involves a sale and the app owner has no choice but to sell their app for less without their consent. I think Apple sometimes has “curated” lists, but it’s questionable how “effective” that is since they don’t release much numbers. What is the ROI of getting randomly chosen to be on that list? Is it worth 30%? We will never know.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
alasdair_ 5y ago
Exactly. Epic have their own store for games. Would they be fine with each AAA game releasing on the store for “free” but required a credit card to be entered once it was run, with 100% of the money going to the publisher?
- mdoms 5y ago
  Yes, the Epic store enables this exact scenario. Lots of free games on Epic make all of their month through micro transactions billed entirely through their own systems. See Rocket League for one example, but there are many.
  - SXX 5y ago
    I really unsure about EGS monetization model, but Psyonix (developer of Rocket League) are subsidiary of Epic. UPD: At least while ago in 2019 Epic claimed to give a choice of payment processor to use for games on their store: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games-store-implements-in-game-purchases-for-third-parties https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games...
    - mdoms 5y ago
      As I said there are lots of free games on Epic which use their own store fronts for transactions.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
amelius 5y ago
In the 80s and 90s you could buy software running on Windows, where the vendor of the software didn't pay anything to Microsoft; in fact, I'm sure Microsoft was happy with them supporting and increasing the strength of their platform. Why does this have to change now? Why does the platform need a cut?
- bobviolier 5y ago
  Because back then you paid a lot of money for Windows and they also sold you on Office and the likes. Google's business model with android is exactly this, give the OS for cheap but earn money on the apps. Not saying 10 or 30 is the correct amount. It's just different now.
  - tester756 5y ago
    majority of the world never paid a single cent for windows
    - josh2600 5y ago
      It was built into the cost of the computer.
      - belltaco 5y ago
        And cost of Android isn't or can't be? They make most of their money from user data and search anyway.
      - oauea 5y ago
        Same for Android. Google charges a licensing fee from manufacturers.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    During most of the time since Windows exists, the majority of its users have not paid for Windows separately, but as a part of the purchase price of a new computer. Android could also be paid as a part of the purchase price of a smartphone and maybe it already is, but of course a one-time payment would be much less profitable for Google than a continuous stream of revenue from the apps.
oauea 5y ago
Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Once the user has installed the app the transaction has been finalized. And if that app is given away for free, and Google has a problem with that, they should ban all free apps and require charging a fee.
- zyemuzu 5y ago
  Google use licensing models for many of their products. I'm sure they could devise a model whereby a company such as Epic pay a fee per client download of their software. It could be negotiable. That way everyone wins, and customers get user friendly access to the content they want.
- lolinder 5y ago
  > Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Running a store means deciding what goes on the shelves. The only features that Google could use to decide whether they want to sell an app are the features that are apparent after installation. Your argument would suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to curate their content at all.
novok 5y ago
Google also makes google chrome and doesn't get a single cent off of transactions done on that web browser too.
- ydlr 5y ago
  A horrible injustice that will one day be corrected. It just takes a couple generations to change expectations.
bombcar 5y ago
Should you (or Disney, but costs always end up at the customer eventually) have to pay a fee for every single device you sign into Disney+ on? It’s bad enough you can’t use it on an Xbox without Gold Live or whatever it is.
hansvm 5y ago
It's one thing for Google to have a problem with something and quite another to anti-competitively leverage their other market positions as the solution. Other comments describe a few specific examples of that abuse (like also thwarting Epic's attempts to be preloaded by OEMs), but I think it's more interesting to look at how money is changing hands as evidence of market power being abused. In particular, consider that Google in theory should be fine accepting payments as low as their hosting costs (and probably much less since their app store helps attract phone purchasers to fuel their ad network, since they also take a cut from OEMs, etc). Compare that to each individual developer on the store who in theory is able to afford at most some large fraction of revenue for the privilege of being on the store. Note that the latter number is (usually) much greater than the former and that the latter is what's actually being paid. If there were any real competition for something as trivial to build as an app store then you wouldn't expect Google to be able to successfully price discriminate across so many orders of magnitude of prices and extract nearly all of the surplus value from the end user purchasing an app. The fact that they're able to do so and are doing so should serve by itself as a strong indication that something suspiciously anti-competitive is happening. My $20 app wasn't 20x harder for Google to host than your $1 app, so why are my fees 20x higher? Because they can get away with charging that much because they stomp on any competition. That isn't any kind of nail-in-the-coffin proof mind you, but it serves as a useful heuristic for spotting abuses of market power in many markets. Throwing that same idea at the right to repair movement, the amount paid to John Deere for tractor repairs is many times greater than what people have been able to achieve on their own (when they've been able to do so), and the only barrier is DRM that was added to prevent unauthorized repairs. If John Deere were really that much better at repairing their tractors than third parties then they wouldn't have to artificially exclude everyone else from attempting it to retain market share and command those prices. Nobody's saying that Google or John Deere shouldn't be allowed to profit from the things they make, but using existing power to hamper competition and seek greater rents isn't good for society as a whole.

by bko 5y ago

colechristensen 5y ago

That Google’s cut of payments is very high which points to market position abuse

lolinder 5y ago
High compared to what? It's the same as Apple's, so you're not comparing to other app stores. Amazon charges the same percentage on Kindle for eBooks. When people claim that the app store fees are excessively large they're usually comparing to payment processor fees, but neither major app store functions solely as a payment processor. So if not that, what are we comparing to when we say the fee is high?
- withinboredom 5y ago
  The fee could be lower. They (the App Store owner) only needs to sign a blob. They (Google/Apple/Amazon) choose to host the blobs, and then charge the developer for it. They claim “marketing” too, but as far as I can tell, that usually involves a sale and the app owner has no choice but to sell their app for less without their consent. I think Apple sometimes has “curated” lists, but it’s questionable how “effective” that is since they don’t release much numbers. What is the ROI of getting randomly chosen to be on that list? Is it worth 30%? We will never know.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

alasdair_ 5y ago

Exactly. Epic have their own store for games. Would they be fine with each AAA game releasing on the store for “free” but required a credit card to be entered once it was run, with 100% of the money going to the publisher?

mdoms 5y ago
Yes, the Epic store enables this exact scenario. Lots of free games on Epic make all of their month through micro transactions billed entirely through their own systems. See Rocket League for one example, but there are many.
- SXX 5y ago
  I really unsure about EGS monetization model, but Psyonix (developer of Rocket League) are subsidiary of Epic. UPD: At least while ago in 2019 Epic claimed to give a choice of payment processor to use for games on their store: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games-store-implements-in-game-purchases-for-third-parties https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games...
  - mdoms 5y ago
    As I said there are lots of free games on Epic which use their own store fronts for transactions.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

amelius 5y ago

In the 80s and 90s you could buy software running on Windows, where the vendor of the software didn't pay anything to Microsoft; in fact, I'm sure Microsoft was happy with them supporting and increasing the strength of their platform. Why does this have to change now? Why does the platform need a cut?

bobviolier 5y ago
Because back then you paid a lot of money for Windows and they also sold you on Office and the likes. Google's business model with android is exactly this, give the OS for cheap but earn money on the apps. Not saying 10 or 30 is the correct amount. It's just different now.
- tester756 5y ago
  majority of the world never paid a single cent for windows
  - josh2600 5y ago
    It was built into the cost of the computer.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      And cost of Android isn't or can't be? They make most of their money from user data and search anyway.
    - oauea 5y ago
      Same for Android. Google charges a licensing fee from manufacturers.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  During most of the time since Windows exists, the majority of its users have not paid for Windows separately, but as a part of the purchase price of a new computer. Android could also be paid as a part of the purchase price of a smartphone and maybe it already is, but of course a one-time payment would be much less profitable for Google than a continuous stream of revenue from the apps.

oauea 5y ago

Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Once the user has installed the app the transaction has been finalized. And if that app is given away for free, and Google has a problem with that, they should ban all free apps and require charging a fee.

zyemuzu 5y ago
Google use licensing models for many of their products. I'm sure they could devise a model whereby a company such as Epic pay a fee per client download of their software. It could be negotiable. That way everyone wins, and customers get user friendly access to the content they want.
lolinder 5y ago
> Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Running a store means deciding what goes on the shelves. The only features that Google could use to decide whether they want to sell an app are the features that are apparent after installation. Your argument would suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to curate their content at all.

novok 5y ago

Google also makes google chrome and doesn't get a single cent off of transactions done on that web browser too.

ydlr 5y ago
A horrible injustice that will one day be corrected. It just takes a couple generations to change expectations.

bombcar 5y ago

Should you (or Disney, but costs always end up at the customer eventually) have to pay a fee for every single device you sign into Disney+ on? It’s bad enough you can’t use it on an Xbox without Gold Live or whatever it is.

hansvm 5y ago

It's one thing for Google to have a problem with something and quite another to anti-competitively leverage their other market positions as the solution. Other comments describe a few specific examples of that abuse (like also thwarting Epic's attempts to be preloaded by OEMs), but I think it's more interesting to look at how money is changing hands as evidence of market power being abused. In particular, consider that Google in theory should be fine accepting payments as low as their hosting costs (and probably much less since their app store helps attract phone purchasers to fuel their ad network, since they also take a cut from OEMs, etc). Compare that to each individual developer on the store who in theory is able to afford at most some large fraction of revenue for the privilege of being on the store. Note that the latter number is (usually) much greater than the former and that the latter is what's actually being paid. If there were any real competition for something as trivial to build as an app store then you wouldn't expect Google to be able to successfully price discriminate across so many orders of magnitude of prices and extract nearly all of the surplus value from the end user purchasing an app. The fact that they're able to do so and are doing so should serve by itself as a strong indication that something suspiciously anti-competitive is happening. My $20 app wasn't 20x harder for Google to host than your $1 app, so why are my fees 20x higher? Because they can get away with charging that much because they stomp on any competition. That isn't any kind of nail-in-the-coffin proof mind you, but it serves as a useful heuristic for spotting abuses of market power in many markets. Throwing that same idea at the right to repair movement, the amount paid to John Deere for tractor repairs is many times greater than what people have been able to achieve on their own (when they've been able to do so), and the only barrier is DRM that was added to prevent unauthorized repairs. If John Deere were really that much better at repairing their tractors than third parties then they wouldn't have to artificially exclude everyone else from attempting it to retain market share and command those prices. Nobody's saying that Google or John Deere shouldn't be allowed to profit from the things they make, but using existing power to hamper competition and seek greater rents isn't good for society as a whole.