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Percent of revenue of digital transactions should open up companies to regulation. Nintendo should be free to do whatever they want up until a certain percent o

Percent of revenue of digital transactions should open up companies to regulation. Nintendo should be free to do whatever they want up until a certain percent of the digital pie is controlled by them. What that number is should be up to regulators/we the people. Apple/Google's app store duopoly is a tax on competition and innovation. BTW these two app stores dwarf anything Nintendo is doing with theirs.

ericmay 3y ago
What percent? Apple for example is known (I don't have the numbers in front of me) for making high margins on their hardware and not digital transactions though they're certainly trying to grow that sector. If you mean of the overall pie, wouldn't that just place burdensome regulation on new and small businesses or new sectors since as soon as you own a percent of the "digital pie" (what exactly is that anyway?) you have to then comply with regulations that could just open up your proprietary business features to your competitors? Why is it that Apple and Google's app store duopoly a tax on competition when they created the sector that enabled businesses to sell products? If anything they should charge more. But aside from that, doesn't this also discourage Apple, Google, and others from profiting off of or creating software features? Why even build the API? And if another company forks Android or creates a new mobile operating system they can keep all of their stuff closed until a later point in which they're beating incumbents and then just open up? Idk I feel like there's already too much additive logic here to make this worthwhile. Good regulation would be much cleaner and ideally subtractive instead of additive. > BTW these two app stores dwarf anything Nintendo is doing with theirs. I'm aware and I find this to be irrelevant.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  > What percent? I don't know, that's the regulator's job. > If you mean of the overall pie, wouldn't that just place burdensome regulation on new and small businesses or new sectors since as soon as you own a percent of the "digital pie" (what exactly is that anyway?) you have to then comply with regulations that could just open up your proprietary business features to your competitors? Businesses have to deal with new and changing regulations all the time. Once a business starts to worry about being too big and associated regulations, that's their legal team's job. > Why is it that Apple and Google's app store duopoly a tax on competition when they created the sector that enabled businesses to sell products? If anything they should charge more. Right, without regulation we're on a path for these megacoprs to start charging us more, especially if if our attempts to regulate them fail. They won't compete fairly out of the kindness of their hearts. > But aside from that, doesn't this also discourage Apple, Google, and others from profiting off of or creating software features? Why even build the API? And if another company forks Android or creates a new mobile operating system they can keep all of their stuff closed until a later point in which they're beating incumbents and then just open up? The beauty of competition is that if they don't continuously add new products or features, someone else will — Just like Apple/Google once did to the older tech incumbents. > Idk I feel like there's already too much additive logic here to make this worthwhile. Good regulation would be much cleaner and ideally subtractive instead of additive. While I proposed something, what I'm really looking for is outcomes that change tech into a more competitive landscape, and don't really care how it happens. > I'm aware and I find this to be irrelevant. It's not irrelevant in the context that antitrust regulations looks at the number of people impacted, which is very correlated to how much revenue is being generated.
  - ericmay 3y ago
    > I don't know, that's the regulator's job. Ok but you should at least have an idea because it's the central premise of your proposal. I'm not asking for you to split hairs between a percent or something but to provide something meaningful from a categorical standpoint. > Businesses have to deal with new and changing regulations all the time. Once a business starts to worry about being too big and associated regulations, that's their legal team's job. Sure that's fair though I'm still concerned about decreases in competition here due to this regulation as noted. > Right, without regulation we're on a path for these megacoprs to start charging us more, especially if if our attempts to regulate them fail. They won't compete fairly out of the kindness of their hearts. On the consumer side I don't see this as a big threat, it's more of a threat to developers. The vast majority of apps, games, etc. are junk and not worht acquiring for free or paid, and if those prices increase because companies are charging more then the likely scenario is they just die off which is good for the economy and the quality of the app stores. On the developer side this also has the added benefit of weeding out uncompetitive apps and poor products, and the cost burden is beared by developers instead of the corporations and personally I don't really care that much if, say, Epic gets more or less revenue than Apple because of these dynamics. Neither are lowering their prices so it's not relevant to me. > The beauty of competition is that if they don't continuously add new products or features, someone else will — Just like Apple/Google once did to the older tech incumbents. Nothing stops those new products or features today though so I'm not sure what the argument here is. Are you suggesting if Apple and Google open up their APIs then other competitors will... open up their non-existent APIs? If anything these things just further cemement Apple and Google dominance. > It's not irrelevant in the context that antitrust regulations looks at the number of people impacted, which is very correlated to how much revenue is being generated. Are you suggesting regulation overall due to company size or regulation within a sector? If it's the former I think there's likely to be some faulty rationele here and if it's the latter it's irrelevant because Nintendo isn't competing in the same sector as Apple or Google.
    - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
      >Ok but you should at least have an idea because it's the central premise of your proposal. I'm not asking for you to split hairs between a percent or something but to provide something meaningful from a categorical standpoint. The central premise of my proposal is that once a company reaches antitrust-size, it should be regulated as such. Perhaps percent of all digital transactions is one way to do it without writing company-specific regulation that could be worked around in the future, perhaps not. I categorically do not want a handful of companies to control our digital landscape, and we need regulators to step in. >On the consumer side I don't see this as a big threat, it's more of a threat to developers. The vast majority of apps, games, etc. are junk and not worht acquiring for free or paid, and if those prices increase because companies are charging more then the likely scenario is they just die off which is good for the economy and the quality of the app stores. On the developer side this also has the added benefit of weeding out uncompetitive apps and poor products, and the cost burden is beared by developers instead of the corporations and personally I don't really care that much if, say, Epic gets more or less revenue than Apple because of these dynamics. Neither are lowering their prices so it's not relevant to me. Just because you don't feel personally impacted doesn't mean others aren't. > Nothing stops those new products or features today though so I'm not sure what the argument here is. Are you suggesting if Apple and Google open up their APIs then other competitors will... open up their non-existent APIs? If anything these things just further cemement Apple and Google dominance. If you zoom out a bit, you'll notice the entire web is effectively controlled by 2-3 companies via Chrome/Safari. It's not about being able to build on particular APIs per se. It's that if Apple/Google want web browsers to have (or NOT have) certain features, it's them who get to decide, and developers will fall in line. Google in particular has been working on features that make ad blocking worse, thus protecting their advertising empire, for example [1]. Edit: Just to clarify, what can/cannot be done on web browsers directly impacts the kind of apps developers build for app stores. However, the takeaway here is that what these big corporations want happens both in and out of app stores for their own benefit, because consumers lack choice. >Are you suggesting regulation overall due to company size or regulation within a sector? I meant that if we lived in a world where 1 in 2 people had to pay Nintendo ~30% when buying a digital good (Costs are passed to consumers), they too should be regulated. The rationale is protecting consumers from harm via higher prices, which result from a lack of competition. [1] https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-in-the-war-on-ad-blockers-slower-extension-updates/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-i...

ericmay 3y ago

What percent? Apple for example is known (I don't have the numbers in front of me) for making high margins on their hardware and not digital transactions though they're certainly trying to grow that sector. If you mean of the overall pie, wouldn't that just place burdensome regulation on new and small businesses or new sectors since as soon as you own a percent of the "digital pie" (what exactly is that anyway?) you have to then comply with regulations that could just open up your proprietary business features to your competitors? Why is it that Apple and Google's app store duopoly a tax on competition when they created the sector that enabled businesses to sell products? If anything they should charge more. But aside from that, doesn't this also discourage Apple, Google, and others from profiting off of or creating software features? Why even build the API? And if another company forks Android or creates a new mobile operating system they can keep all of their stuff closed until a later point in which they're beating incumbents and then just open up? Idk I feel like there's already too much additive logic here to make this worthwhile. Good regulation would be much cleaner and ideally subtractive instead of additive. > BTW these two app stores dwarf anything Nintendo is doing with theirs. I'm aware and I find this to be irrelevant.

ProfessorLayton 3y ago
> What percent? I don't know, that's the regulator's job. > If you mean of the overall pie, wouldn't that just place burdensome regulation on new and small businesses or new sectors since as soon as you own a percent of the "digital pie" (what exactly is that anyway?) you have to then comply with regulations that could just open up your proprietary business features to your competitors? Businesses have to deal with new and changing regulations all the time. Once a business starts to worry about being too big and associated regulations, that's their legal team's job. > Why is it that Apple and Google's app store duopoly a tax on competition when they created the sector that enabled businesses to sell products? If anything they should charge more. Right, without regulation we're on a path for these megacoprs to start charging us more, especially if if our attempts to regulate them fail. They won't compete fairly out of the kindness of their hearts. > But aside from that, doesn't this also discourage Apple, Google, and others from profiting off of or creating software features? Why even build the API? And if another company forks Android or creates a new mobile operating system they can keep all of their stuff closed until a later point in which they're beating incumbents and then just open up? The beauty of competition is that if they don't continuously add new products or features, someone else will — Just like Apple/Google once did to the older tech incumbents. > Idk I feel like there's already too much additive logic here to make this worthwhile. Good regulation would be much cleaner and ideally subtractive instead of additive. While I proposed something, what I'm really looking for is outcomes that change tech into a more competitive landscape, and don't really care how it happens. > I'm aware and I find this to be irrelevant. It's not irrelevant in the context that antitrust regulations looks at the number of people impacted, which is very correlated to how much revenue is being generated.
- ericmay 3y ago
  > I don't know, that's the regulator's job. Ok but you should at least have an idea because it's the central premise of your proposal. I'm not asking for you to split hairs between a percent or something but to provide something meaningful from a categorical standpoint. > Businesses have to deal with new and changing regulations all the time. Once a business starts to worry about being too big and associated regulations, that's their legal team's job. Sure that's fair though I'm still concerned about decreases in competition here due to this regulation as noted. > Right, without regulation we're on a path for these megacoprs to start charging us more, especially if if our attempts to regulate them fail. They won't compete fairly out of the kindness of their hearts. On the consumer side I don't see this as a big threat, it's more of a threat to developers. The vast majority of apps, games, etc. are junk and not worht acquiring for free or paid, and if those prices increase because companies are charging more then the likely scenario is they just die off which is good for the economy and the quality of the app stores. On the developer side this also has the added benefit of weeding out uncompetitive apps and poor products, and the cost burden is beared by developers instead of the corporations and personally I don't really care that much if, say, Epic gets more or less revenue than Apple because of these dynamics. Neither are lowering their prices so it's not relevant to me. > The beauty of competition is that if they don't continuously add new products or features, someone else will — Just like Apple/Google once did to the older tech incumbents. Nothing stops those new products or features today though so I'm not sure what the argument here is. Are you suggesting if Apple and Google open up their APIs then other competitors will... open up their non-existent APIs? If anything these things just further cemement Apple and Google dominance. > It's not irrelevant in the context that antitrust regulations looks at the number of people impacted, which is very correlated to how much revenue is being generated. Are you suggesting regulation overall due to company size or regulation within a sector? If it's the former I think there's likely to be some faulty rationele here and if it's the latter it's irrelevant because Nintendo isn't competing in the same sector as Apple or Google.
  - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
    >Ok but you should at least have an idea because it's the central premise of your proposal. I'm not asking for you to split hairs between a percent or something but to provide something meaningful from a categorical standpoint. The central premise of my proposal is that once a company reaches antitrust-size, it should be regulated as such. Perhaps percent of all digital transactions is one way to do it without writing company-specific regulation that could be worked around in the future, perhaps not. I categorically do not want a handful of companies to control our digital landscape, and we need regulators to step in. >On the consumer side I don't see this as a big threat, it's more of a threat to developers. The vast majority of apps, games, etc. are junk and not worht acquiring for free or paid, and if those prices increase because companies are charging more then the likely scenario is they just die off which is good for the economy and the quality of the app stores. On the developer side this also has the added benefit of weeding out uncompetitive apps and poor products, and the cost burden is beared by developers instead of the corporations and personally I don't really care that much if, say, Epic gets more or less revenue than Apple because of these dynamics. Neither are lowering their prices so it's not relevant to me. Just because you don't feel personally impacted doesn't mean others aren't. > Nothing stops those new products or features today though so I'm not sure what the argument here is. Are you suggesting if Apple and Google open up their APIs then other competitors will... open up their non-existent APIs? If anything these things just further cemement Apple and Google dominance. If you zoom out a bit, you'll notice the entire web is effectively controlled by 2-3 companies via Chrome/Safari. It's not about being able to build on particular APIs per se. It's that if Apple/Google want web browsers to have (or NOT have) certain features, it's them who get to decide, and developers will fall in line. Google in particular has been working on features that make ad blocking worse, thus protecting their advertising empire, for example [1]. Edit: Just to clarify, what can/cannot be done on web browsers directly impacts the kind of apps developers build for app stores. However, the takeaway here is that what these big corporations want happens both in and out of app stores for their own benefit, because consumers lack choice. >Are you suggesting regulation overall due to company size or regulation within a sector? I meant that if we lived in a world where 1 in 2 people had to pay Nintendo ~30% when buying a digital good (Costs are passed to consumers), they too should be regulated. The rationale is protecting consumers from harm via higher prices, which result from a lack of competition. [1] https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-in-the-war-on-ad-blockers-slower-extension-updates/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-i...