Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked • Hacker News Board

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#841

Post by cycloptic » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #717

cycloptic wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they had competition, they would be spending billions on customer support, but because they have a monopoly, they can get away with having virtually none. I can't agree with this, there is so much competition in this field already and and it doesn't seem to make a difference. There will always be ad-supported free services with minimal support and few security/privacy guarantees, that is the entire low end of the…

There is no competition if you want to sell phone apps. You have to sell via google store and apple store. Foregoing one of the stores drops 50% of your userbase that you can't reach with the other store, so you have to do both or leave money on the table.

I think that's completely different from what was said in the GP post, but I'll address it anyway. I agree there should be anti-trust action taken against Google and Apple for their behavior with the app stores and there are actually solid claims to be made there. I can't say the same about them running a free email or social media service that has crappy support.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#842

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

MikeUt wrote: post #764

robotresearcher wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For counterpoint, they provide products like Gmail for free at point of use because the support costs are very low (amongst other factors). Would you prefer government change this balance by regulation, or let users decide what they want? Many users choose very cheap typical service with a small but real risk of misery. Perhaps it's because they don't understand how miserable it can get. It's important that the bad e…

Would I prefer government enforce food safety standards, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I prefer government enforce building safety codes, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I completely ignore the fact that Google has sucked the air out of the room with their market dominance, so hardly any competitors are left for consumers to decide between?

I don't think public safety standards are the same thing as support level for free email, subscription music, etc.

We can all easily name multiple email and subscription music providers.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#843

Post by stale2002 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

iooi wrote: post #723

dr_hooo wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly Email is not the point of discussion here, as no one is building a business around it. It's Android with its app ecosystem, stadia, YouTube etc. Do you not see any problem with having effectively no support for these services?

Why is Google forced to provide customer support* for something they provide for free? * they do provide customer support, it could obviously be a lot better

> Why is Google forced to provide customer support* for something they provide for free?

Providing something for free is not a defense against anti-trust law.

The most famous example showing this, was regarding internet explorer, which was provided for free, yet anti-trust law effected it anyway.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#844

Post by astrange » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

harha wrote: post #541

blunte wrote: post #477

Google uses non-human automation to make some decisions, including banning accounts. As others have mentioned, this is not unreasonable as long as there is a reasonable (in terms of time and effort) path to disputing a ban - i.e., speaking to a human about the issue. But Google (and Facebook, and probably some other companies) don't have reasonable processes for disputing or resolving these situations. Some have said…

I'm actually surprised there isn't more legal action taken. Not this specific case, but in advertising there's quite some damage for automated bans with unreasonable time to resolve the issue. In a setting where advertisers are effectively forced to use Google to avoid giving market share to competitors, there's the element of not having a choice while ending up with a significant disadvantage once these mechanisms f…

For some of these cases you could sue them in small claims or pursue CFPB or GDPR claims depending on jurisdiction. I’ve had good luck with CFPB.

People might be afraid of lawyers but they aren’t involved in these processes.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#845

Post by grishka » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:13 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #827

grishka wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ISP has literally a single public IP address they use for all subscribers. And, I have third-party cookies disabled in my browsers because they are almost never used for something legitimately good. Because of these two things, I'm constantly being punished with captchas, and sometimes downright bans ("your IP isn't good enough to post on this forum"), in places where I least expect. Yes, looking at you, Google an…

Oh wow, the dreaded carrier-grade NAT. I still can't believe that's a thing.

I asked them about IPv6 at some point, they said there are no plans to deploy it but "well you could buy a static IPv4 address if you don't like the NAT or want to run a server". It's a nice ISP otherwise, no "value-added" services, the speed is high (too high for many servers) and service disruptions are rare.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#846

Post by incrudible » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:14 PM UTC

ck425 wrote: post #775

eldavido wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! What we need is competition and choice to ensure companies are responsive to what people want. I can't, for the life of me, understand why people think "regulation" will magic away all our problems. Here's what happens: a lengthy political process results in a bunch of laws getting passed. The large companies who have enough skin in the game to care send their lobbyists, who ensure the outcome of the process does…

"Regulation" gave us the end of Slavery. "Regulation" gave us the end of child labour. "Regulation" gave us a 5 day work week. "Regulation" gave us a reasonable number of holidays (in Europe atleast). Regulation isn't fundamentally bad. Nor does is need to be controlled by lobbyists and big business. Your points against regulation aren't against "Regulation", they're against bad regulation. The response to bad regula…

"Regulation" gave you slavery. In the more natural state of affairs, you can't just go about enslaving someone without the risk of them running away or outright murdering you while you're looking away. It is the power of the state that captures the fugitive slave or punishes them for defending themselves.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#847

Post by msoad » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:16 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #528

I feel like Google is a case study in an engineering only company. Everything is reduced to a technical problem. Incentives are aligned to solve technical problems. No one wants to work on something unless it is technically interesting and new. There is no incentive at all for delivering an excellent user experience over the long term - which usually can't be done with tech only, and involves a lot of dredge work of…

This is not just Google. All other tech companies including Facebook are using the same system to promote workers. As a result:

* Nobody is held accountable for the long term success of the product. Making little things work nice is not rewarded. Maintaining UX is defiantly not rewarded.

* Rewarding process over product. That's why you see so many Google products shut down. It takes a few people from L7 to L8 to build it and rewards someone from L6 to L7 to wind it down. Every annual performance review in the process is all roses and rainbows!

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#848

Post by II2II » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

MikeUt wrote: post #764

robotresearcher wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For counterpoint, they provide products like Gmail for free at point of use because the support costs are very low (amongst other factors). Would you prefer government change this balance by regulation, or let users decide what they want? Many users choose very cheap typical service with a small but real risk of misery. Perhaps it's because they don't understand how miserable it can get. It's important that the bad e…

Would I prefer government enforce food safety standards, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I prefer government enforce building safety codes, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I completely ignore the fact that Google has sucked the air out of the room with their market dominance, so hardly any competitors are left for consumers to decide between?

The first and second case deals with issues that are mostly opaque to the consumer and affects their safety.

The third case is not actually a singular case. When we are talking about consumer facing services, there are many competitors in most cases. I suspect that it would even be difficult to make anti-trust arguments since the factors that funnel people towards Google is largely outside of Google's control.

Google's behaviour towards businesses is a different matter. While businesses may turn to the competition, their dominance means that avoiding Google will have negative consequences.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#849

Post by MikeUt » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #842

MikeUt wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would I prefer government enforce food safety standards, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I prefer government enforce building safety codes, or let consumers decide what they want? Would I completely ignore the fact that Google has sucked the air out of the room with their market dominance, so hardly any competitors are left for consumers to decide between?

I don't think public safety standards are the same thing as support level for free email, subscription music, etc. We can all easily name multiple email and subscription music providers.

What about giant app stores that control almost all consumer spending in those markets? How many businesses can survive being banned by both Apple and Google's stores? Or even by just one?

Sure your business is destroyed, but you're right, you can easily get a new email address.

Re: Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked

#850

Post by majormajor » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:19 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #774

esja wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lesson here is: you are too big. If you were smaller, you could manage these issues. But you choose to be big instead.

You can't choose to stay small unless you're someone like clubhouse which still has a long waitlist for sign-ups, and even then they're trying to build their infrastructure wide enough to accompany everyone. Not offering service to all/99.9% of potential customers is effectively lost value and goes against shareholders' expectations.

Then lets regulate size if the market is going to push companies towards inhumane choices.