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Imagine being able to make in app purchases for boosting your posts, or ad campaigns, facebook marketplace items (think meta brand items just like amazon bran

Imagine being able to make in app purchases for boosting your posts, or ad campaigns, facebook marketplace items (think meta brand items just like amazon brand items) or tiktok shop items. Now imagine those companies paying a percentage off the top for app store in-app purchases when there is an alternative that doesn’t involve that percentage. Facebook and Amazon have both tried (and failed) to make their own phones. That’s how much they want to control the entire UX. Of course they would funnel people to their own app stores. Hell, app stores themselves are places to sell ads and other apps, Apple has proven that. So why wouldn’t a company with the developer resources and monetization potential of Meta or Amazon create their own app store?

infotainment 3y ago
Simple: if they were going to do that, they already would have on Android, where it's possible right now. Sure, Meta could demand that people install their super-extra-spyware version of Instagram from the META STORE instead of Google Play. But, what they'd likely find out is the same thing Epic found out when it tried to found its own store: most users just don't care enough to install stuff from third-party stores, and generally won't bother.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  > Simple: if they were going to do that, they already would have on Android, where it's possible right now. Maybe, maybe not. Android didn't attempt to destroy their business though, whereas Apple did (and then turned around and introduced their own, non ATT compliant ad system).
  - jjulius 3y ago
    I'd grant you that point if this was someone like Musk that we're talking about, but Zuck just doesn't seem like he's at that level of vindictive/petty to go to all of this trouble[1] just out of spite. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013192
    - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      Yeah, fair. iOS was super, super important to their business though, so it might net out as financially worthwhile, especially if they created it more as a gaming store with a pitch to all the mobile gaming companies that they'd be able to do analytics again. (Actually, they're one of the few people that could make a store like that work, dunno if they'd want the distraction but it might be worthwhile for the ads business).
CrimsonRain 3y ago
You have a valid concern but directed in the wrong way. If apple charged similar to a normal payment gateway, none of these would have happened
jjulius 3y ago
>So why wouldn’t a company with the developer resources and monetization potential of Meta or Amazon create their own app store? Because that is an incredibly excessive alternative. Instead of just duplicating their app to a third-party app store run by someone else, you're assuming that Meta will go to the effort to create an entire ecosystem that they then have to manage. They would have to ensure that each app on the store is on the up-and-up and hire an immense amount of staffing for that sort of thing - moderation, development, backend support, customer support, yadda yadda. Not only do they already struggle to control the narrative around content moderation on their platforms, but now they've gotta work on preventing malware from being installed on folks phones, too? It's way too extra, when the much more affordable option is to drop a Meta-preferred alternative onto a third-party app store that already exists. Yet they haven't even bothered doing that with something like f-droid, so I'm expected to believe that they're just going to jump to the more cumbersome option of opening their own store? When the average end user will just use the default store that comes installed on their phone? I don't buy it. And I say this as someone who is very much in the "Fuck Zuck"/"Meta is trash" camp.

infotainment 3y ago

Simple: if they were going to do that, they already would have on Android, where it's possible right now. Sure, Meta could demand that people install their super-extra-spyware version of Instagram from the META STORE instead of Google Play. But, what they'd likely find out is the same thing Epic found out when it tried to found its own store: most users just don't care enough to install stuff from third-party stores, and generally won't bother.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
> Simple: if they were going to do that, they already would have on Android, where it's possible right now. Maybe, maybe not. Android didn't attempt to destroy their business though, whereas Apple did (and then turned around and introduced their own, non ATT compliant ad system).
- jjulius 3y ago
  I'd grant you that point if this was someone like Musk that we're talking about, but Zuck just doesn't seem like he's at that level of vindictive/petty to go to all of this trouble[1] just out of spite. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013192
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    Yeah, fair. iOS was super, super important to their business though, so it might net out as financially worthwhile, especially if they created it more as a gaming store with a pitch to all the mobile gaming companies that they'd be able to do analytics again. (Actually, they're one of the few people that could make a store like that work, dunno if they'd want the distraction but it might be worthwhile for the ads business).

CrimsonRain 3y ago

You have a valid concern but directed in the wrong way. If apple charged similar to a normal payment gateway, none of these would have happened

jjulius 3y ago

>So why wouldn’t a company with the developer resources and monetization potential of Meta or Amazon create their own app store? Because that is an incredibly excessive alternative. Instead of just duplicating their app to a third-party app store run by someone else, you're assuming that Meta will go to the effort to create an entire ecosystem that they then have to manage. They would have to ensure that each app on the store is on the up-and-up and hire an immense amount of staffing for that sort of thing - moderation, development, backend support, customer support, yadda yadda. Not only do they already struggle to control the narrative around content moderation on their platforms, but now they've gotta work on preventing malware from being installed on folks phones, too? It's way too extra, when the much more affordable option is to drop a Meta-preferred alternative onto a third-party app store that already exists. Yet they haven't even bothered doing that with something like f-droid, so I'm expected to believe that they're just going to jump to the more cumbersome option of opening their own store? When the average end user will just use the default store that comes installed on their phone? I don't buy it. And I say this as someone who is very much in the "Fuck Zuck"/"Meta is trash" camp.