That's some aggressive rent seeking right there.
Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
81–90 of 168 posts
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Samsung can generally fight for special concessions because they're A. One of the largest OEMs and B. Actually have the technical capability, monetary resource, and customer loyalty necessary to fork or replace Android. Everyone else has really no choice, and Google gives them the my way or the highway approach.
even samsung is limited. they have their alternative OS, but they are not allowed to support android apps on that OS because that would violate their android license which they need on other devices. other alternative systems have more freedom than samsung because they are not bound by a license from google.
Samsung does have an app store though.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their customers are not your right For example,you are not forbidden from developing for some random Linux distro They did not build their trust and ecosystem for free,so you should'nt have access to them for free 30% is not unreasonable,costs can be managed,since you are selling a digital product
You're not quite seeing the point: This is not a developer trying to use their ecosystem for free, not in the OnePlus example: This is a developer saying "Thanks but no thanks, we'll choose a different ecosystem" And Google inserts itself into the relationship between the business partner for that other ecosystem and bullies them into cancelling the deal. Off course it's important to keep in mind that as of right now…
It's also worth remembeting that contracts forbidding bundling by OEMs got MS into antitrust trouble in the 90s for locking BeOS out of the market.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why do I only have 2 choices? There’s an extremely high barrier to entry and people don’t have time to learn different operating systems.
The barrier to entry is not high. There used to be many more options for phone OS.
I doubt developers miss the days of having to make a dozen different builds just to get a single J2ME app working on major phones. Forget about cross platform.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#85why aren't they like, suing sony for not letting you sideload games on playstation or nintendo for not letting you sideload games on the switch
It's easier to own multiple consoles than it is to own multiple phones. And hey, maybe that's next.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#86Reminds me of how Microsoft would make deals with OEMs to only sell PCs with Windows on them, and how that, among other things, was used against them in their antitrust suit 20 years ago.
And because of the great effectiveness of the American government, MS lost their dominance in the PC operating system market and rank nowhere near the top five most valuable companies in the US like they did 20 years ago.
You say it like it’s a bad thing. Perhaps if MS had remained so all-powerful, we would not have seen the rise of other US companies, including Google. If Google lost its monopoly stranglehold on Search and mobile, what interesting and useful innovation might emerge?
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's been gone from Google for six years, so I don't think we can paint him as a hypocrite or going back on his word over this. EDIT: In fact it was around the time Android was changing a little bit away from its open source roots that Rubin was sidelined out of the Android division and into robotics, shortly after which he quit.
October 2013... “Google's iron grip on Android: controlling open source by any means necessary” https://www.wired.co.uk/article/googles-iron-grip-on-android
That really doesn't go against what I said: At that time anyone could still fork Android, and if they wanted the open source versions of apps replaced by closed source ones they could use the source code for those old apps were perfectly serviceable alternatives to the closed-source ones Google replaced them with. In fact the article mentions two very prominent examples of successful break-aways of Android from Google: Amazon's devices and some made for the Chinese market.
So my point stands: As of Andy Rubin's departure, Android was very much an open OS.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not quite seeing the point: This is not a developer trying to use their ecosystem for free, not in the OnePlus example: This is a developer saying "Thanks but no thanks, we'll choose a different ecosystem" And Google inserts itself into the relationship between the business partner for that other ecosystem and bullies them into cancelling the deal. Off course it's important to keep in mind that as of right now…
It's also worth remembeting that contracts forbidding bundling by OEMs got MS into antitrust trouble in the 90s for locking BeOS out of the market.
Ah, that's right, and excellent point!
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#89why aren't they like, suing sony for not letting you sideload games on playstation or nintendo for not letting you sideload games on the switch
Because they might actually be able to win this one.
Re: Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, claims Epic Games
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why do I only have 2 choices? There’s an extremely high barrier to entry and people don’t have time to learn different operating systems.
The barrier to entry is not high. There used to be many more options for phone OS.
When phones were much more limited in their functionality and user expectations were nowhere near as high as they are today.
Complexity of phones since 2007 has skyrocketed. Can a small team create a phone OS and the ecosystem users have grown accustomed to today?