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Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

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Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#211

Post by scarface74 »

RandomException wrote: post #208
scarface74 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don’t buy Android because it’s “open” - they buy it because it’s cheap. If people cared about open, the “Year of Linux on the Desktop” would have already happened.

Android is cheap and it's widely used because it's open. If manufacturers weren't able to customize it to their needs, we would still be living in a world with separate OSes for every single manufacturer. This is important especially in Asia where the market is completely different from western market. In Asia it's also very important to be able to live without Google proprietary software in Android because for examp…

Android is cheap and it's widely used because it's open. If manufacturers weren't able to customize it to their needs, we would still be living in a world with separate OSes for every single manufacturer.

That’s not what happened with PCs. DOS/Windows was never open but when OEMs wanted an OS, they chose Windows. By 1990, every manufacturer of computers besides Apple who tried to make thier own operating system was dead.

Before Android or iOS, there were dozens of Windows Mobile phones. Most Manufacturers were not capable of making thier own OS.

If Microsoft could build at least equivalent mobile OS as Android or iOS, they would get pretty much all corporate customers to themselves and it would most definitely affect private customers as well.

They could and they did make a good mobile OS. By the time it was released it was too late. Android had already won over all of the OEMs and developers didn’t want to develop for it.

Also, with the iPhone, the trend of the “consumerization of IT” started. Blackberry owned the corporate world before the iPhone. But between both Apple adding features that made it a decent corporate alternative and executives bringing thier iPhones to work and demanding from the IT department that they make it work, Apple basically took over the corporate mobile market.

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#212

Post by windows_tips »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
AlexandrB wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that really got my goat too. Google getting a cut of Fortnite’s revenue would be pure rent seeking.

That is essentially what taking a large cut on your app platform is: rent seeking. It's your ecosystem, but it comes out of my pocket as the consumer (unless you're large enough to avoid, like Fortnite).

What does Fortnite's size have to do with this? Can't anyone distribute apps that way?

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#213

Post by ksec »

krn wrote: post #207
Eridrus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should Epic care about Android's development costs? He seems to care about console makers' costs and considers their 30% there reasonable, but he does not seem to consider them reasonable here. > Why overpay for Google's? I don't think he's under any obligation too, but it's interesting to see platforms like Steam gain traction despite not handling most of the investment in the platform, and that's on Windows w…

> He seems to care about console makers' costs and considers their 30% there reasonable, but he does not seem to consider them reasonable here. Because the absolute majority of Android devices are not made by Google, just like the absolute majority of Windows devices are not made by Microsoft. What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store?

>Because the absolute majority of Android devices are not made by Google, just like the absolute majority of Windows devices are not made by Microsoft. What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store?

And you have to paid for Windows License? Somewhere along the line someone will have to paid. Open Source isn't free.

Of course it is perfectly fine for EPIC to avoid the 30% charge. But to judge Google charging 30% as unreasonable while you are getting the ecosystem for free, and than compare the cost of console maker is just being hypocrite.

This is speaking as someone who doesn't like Google even before the first iPhone shipped.

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#214

Post by oliwarner »

UncleMeat wrote: post #190
oliwarner wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better direction might be making side-loading safer. Rather than forcing people to whitelist all APKs, adding signatures, doing organisational verification. Stuff that Google Play does, just split out from the marketing and download service.

The problem is that a tremendous amount of sideloading happens offline. This makes it very hard for anybody to make it safe.

I don't recognise that market. Why are these people able to get APKs without a network connection?

Either way, I would imagine that the sort of market we're talking about here —Fortnite, an online-only game— would probably have a network connection available.

And even then, signature chains would still work for strong signing the APK, even if it were installed offline.

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#215

Post by Eridrus »

krn wrote: post #207
Eridrus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should Epic care about Android's development costs? He seems to care about console makers' costs and considers their 30% there reasonable, but he does not seem to consider them reasonable here. > Why overpay for Google's? I don't think he's under any obligation too, but it's interesting to see platforms like Steam gain traction despite not handling most of the investment in the platform, and that's on Windows w…

> He seems to care about console makers' costs and considers their 30% there reasonable, but he does not seem to consider them reasonable here. Because the absolute majority of Android devices are not made by Google, just like the absolute majority of Windows devices are not made by Microsoft. What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store?

> What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store?

This is exactly how it works. Steam also takes a 30% cut.

This is literally how every app platform works now.

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#216

Post by gspetr »

dbt00 wrote: post #163
izacus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few years the media (which has always been very pro-Apple) has internalized the idea, that all your software MUST come from a single corporation controlled walled garden and pay tax to them. The whole concept of being able to install software from a source you choose is now so foreign that they'll speak against it when possible. And unfortunately, this seems to be the case with a lot of HN commenters as well.

I've been running open source, free, libre, etc software since the mid-90s. My firewall is openbsd. my laptop runs linux. I use emacs for most of my software editing. I want you to understand that I am a big open source weenie, and have been for decades. I think asking consumers to evaluate risk of installing third party apps and manage permissions is insane. My phone runs iOS. My family the same. The volume of malwa…

> I think asking consumers to evaluate risk of installing third party apps and manage permissions is insane.

Is it? What do you think billions of people using Windows have done for decades?

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#217

Post by krn »

ksec wrote: post #213
krn wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He seems to care about console makers' costs and considers their 30% there reasonable, but he does not seem to consider them reasonable here. Because the absolute majority of Android devices are not made by Google, just like the absolute majority of Windows devices are not made by Microsoft. What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store?

>Because the absolute majority of Android devices are not made by Google, just like the absolute majority of Windows devices are not made by Microsoft. What if Microsoft took away 30% of revenue from all software developers publishing on Windows Store? And you have to paid for Windows License? Somewhere along the line someone will have to paid. Open Source isn't free. Of course it is perfectly fine for EPIC to avoid…

> And you have to paid for Windows License? Somewhere along the line someone will have to paid. Open Source isn't free.

Open source is free. Android is based on Linux, just like Ubuntu, and smartphone manufacturers are major contributors to AOSP[1].

[1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2012/04/26/key-android-enginee...

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#218

Post by SonnyWortzik »

vetinari wrote: post #188
dbt00 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comment was saying that it's way worse than income tax. I don't think you're disagreeing.

Exactly; it's at least one order of magnitude worse than the income tax.

agree. I read your comment defensively. my fault. I was trying to imply that Google is acting like some government entity taxing your income.

Re: Google will lose $50M or more in 2018 from Fortnite bypassing the Play Store

#219

Post by Someguywhatever »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #131
Someguywhatever wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Google really should have done was allowed FortNite onto the play store at a reduced cut, as a one-off discount that only applies to this title and nobody else. Some percentage of 50M is better than 0%.

Should they? Everybody would have complained that Google was giving them preferential treatment just because they're big and important. Is there a precedent for this?

I think that everybody does this in almost every industry, huge players get different rules than everybody else. You might not like this but I can almost guarantee that if you were running a successful app store the amount of money involved would make you behave in the same manner and bend the rules for the big guys to get a piece of that big money.
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