4 ms·

All I care about is having some healthy competition in the marketplace again. If that takes tying Google's hands behind its back for a few years, fine. Taking

by ethbr1 2y ago

All I care about is having some healthy competition in the marketplace again. If that takes tying Google's hands behind its back for a few years, fine. Taking a 30% cut should have been, prima facie, evidence of monopoly abuse.

bsimpson 2y ago
As I recall, the original App Store argument was "It would cost a lot more than 30% to mint CDs and sell them in Waldenbooks, so we're doing developers a favor by _only_ charging 30% to distribute."
- hu3 2y ago
  How generous! That's the kind of argument that only gets a pass if you have no other option as a user. Wink wink.
- callc 2y ago
  There are a myriad of points which make this metaphor a insufficient argument at best (at worst intentionally obfuscating the nature of digital publishing and digital marketplaces as having similar physical analogues) in favor of the current app store landscape: 1. AFAIK anyone can manufacture and distribute CDs 2. The argument that anything below the cost to manu CDs is acceptable only holds water if you have an inefficient market that doesn’t reflect the actual cost of digital distribution.
  - rahkiin 2y ago
    It was 30% vs whatever parties like Symbian asked at the time. Or other existing platforms like consoles where developers were left with less than 70%. Safely distributing software was a pain in 2007 and did involve a lot of expensive publishing
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      The problem is that cut hasn't come down in the last 20 years, because there's no competitive pressure within ecosystems to force it to.
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        It’s because no one wants to wade through the oceans of malware that exist online, and reputation is expensive to build. I told my family many years ago now that they get no tech support for issues caused by downloading things outside of the App Store. I will download from outside of the App Store, but I have zero confidence that the vast, vast majority of people will ever be able to not get fooled, and if they do, they won’t be able to fix it. With an Apple problem, my relatives call Apple, and the Apple tech support person remotes into their phone and walks them through a solution. Or gives them a refund. And the thing with phones and computers these days is that they are your identity, they are your wealth, they are your life. You lose control of that, and you are in for a world of hurt. Someone can clean out your brokerage and bank accounts. The stakes are too high.
lolinder 2y ago
Tying Google's hands while giving Apple a clean bill of health isn't going to increase competition, it's going to solidify Apple's lead in the US. The competition that actually matters is between whole platforms, it's only Epic's lawyers who want everyone to get fixated on the idea that the app store markets are the whole story (or even really a significant portion of the story). I could totally get behind efforts to prevent Google and Apple from together duopolizing the entire mobile phone space, but this is not that.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The important competition isn't Google v Apple. It's everyone else v Google and/or Apple. Ironically, forcing this onto Google might be the best thing for Android, as it's the openness the platform really needed to compete against Apple, but costs Google too much revenue to ever do it if left to their own decision.
  - elevatedastalt 2y ago
    Then why is there one result for Google and the opposite one for Apple?
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      follow the money. Which judges handled which cases in which location? but the non-partisan bailey answer is along the lines of "android promised freedom, IOS never did".
      - elevatedastalt 2y ago
        So it's better to be bad than to try to be good and fail?
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Based on the legelese here, yea. I guess an equivalent is how you can be a for profit corporation with no issue, but if you're a non profit and you honestly mismanage some $10k as an accounting error, you get the book thrown at you.

by ethbr1 2y ago

bsimpson 2y ago

As I recall, the original App Store argument was "It would cost a lot more than 30% to mint CDs and sell them in Waldenbooks, so we're doing developers a favor by _only_ charging 30% to distribute."

hu3 2y ago
How generous! That's the kind of argument that only gets a pass if you have no other option as a user. Wink wink.
callc 2y ago
There are a myriad of points which make this metaphor a insufficient argument at best (at worst intentionally obfuscating the nature of digital publishing and digital marketplaces as having similar physical analogues) in favor of the current app store landscape: 1. AFAIK anyone can manufacture and distribute CDs 2. The argument that anything below the cost to manu CDs is acceptable only holds water if you have an inefficient market that doesn’t reflect the actual cost of digital distribution.
- rahkiin 2y ago
  It was 30% vs whatever parties like Symbian asked at the time. Or other existing platforms like consoles where developers were left with less than 70%. Safely distributing software was a pain in 2007 and did involve a lot of expensive publishing
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    The problem is that cut hasn't come down in the last 20 years, because there's no competitive pressure within ecosystems to force it to.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      It’s because no one wants to wade through the oceans of malware that exist online, and reputation is expensive to build. I told my family many years ago now that they get no tech support for issues caused by downloading things outside of the App Store. I will download from outside of the App Store, but I have zero confidence that the vast, vast majority of people will ever be able to not get fooled, and if they do, they won’t be able to fix it. With an Apple problem, my relatives call Apple, and the Apple tech support person remotes into their phone and walks them through a solution. Or gives them a refund. And the thing with phones and computers these days is that they are your identity, they are your wealth, they are your life. You lose control of that, and you are in for a world of hurt. Someone can clean out your brokerage and bank accounts. The stakes are too high.

lolinder 2y ago

Tying Google's hands while giving Apple a clean bill of health isn't going to increase competition, it's going to solidify Apple's lead in the US. The competition that actually matters is between whole platforms, it's only Epic's lawyers who want everyone to get fixated on the idea that the app store markets are the whole story (or even really a significant portion of the story). I could totally get behind efforts to prevent Google and Apple from together duopolizing the entire mobile phone space, but this is not that.

ethbr1 2y ago
The important competition isn't Google v Apple. It's everyone else v Google and/or Apple. Ironically, forcing this onto Google might be the best thing for Android, as it's the openness the platform really needed to compete against Apple, but costs Google too much revenue to ever do it if left to their own decision.
- elevatedastalt 2y ago
  Then why is there one result for Google and the opposite one for Apple?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    follow the money. Which judges handled which cases in which location? but the non-partisan bailey answer is along the lines of "android promised freedom, IOS never did".
    - elevatedastalt 2y ago
      So it's better to be bad than to try to be good and fail?
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Based on the legelese here, yea. I guess an equivalent is how you can be a for profit corporation with no issue, but if you're a non profit and you honestly mismanage some $10k as an accounting error, you get the book thrown at you.