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Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

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Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#81

Post by dekhn »

mard wrote: post #18

In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system. 20 years later, Apple and Google bundle not only their browsers, but whole irreplaceable app stores with no legal consequences. I don't know how the law sees it, but it's simply illogical from the common sense standpoint.

you're mixing up the details of the MSFT lawsuit.

Also, there's nothing antitrust about bundling web DLLs in an OS, or using the web shell for applications. That's what a Chromebook did.

What MSFT did was abuse its monopoly position to take advantage of other companies and customers.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#82

Post by wayneftw »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #69
eptcyka wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they make both iOS and the iPhone doesn't mean they get a pass to be anticompetitive on their platform.

They can be anticompetitive on their platform as long as their platform doesn’t have a lock on the market. So say, if you didn’t need to buy an iPhone and could buy an android instead, and if that actually happened in practice, Apple could reasonably argue they didn’t have a monopoly on the market even if they had a monopoly in their own platform.

Not when their platform holds the majority of users in the US and when they're colluding with the "competition".

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#83

Post by dalbasal »

mard wrote: post #18

In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system. 20 years later, Apple and Google bundle not only their browsers, but whole irreplaceable app stores with no legal consequences. I don't know how the law sees it, but it's simply illogical from the common sense standpoint.

>>I don't know how the law sees it, but it's simply illogical from the common sense standpoint.

Let's make a point of starting here. There's room for the legalistic standpoint, especially if we're trying to understand legal processes... but this isn't a law forum. It's near impossible to discuss antitrust usefully from a mostly-legalistic perspective. The laws, precedents, legal doctrines and economic doctrines they relate to are extremely patchy, flimsy and often barely exist.

I think a core part of the problem is a weak, badly grounded antitrust framework in the first place. Key definitions like "monopoly" use contradictory conceptual frameworks, from different eras. Generalizing from one instance to another is difficult. A lot of key concepts don't have definitions at all, or really wishy washy ones.

I think the nature of monopolies has a lot to do with this. One possible definition of monopoly is an singular market entity... IE not generalizable, by definition. Are courts supposed to be punishing violations, or structuring markets and doing industrial policy? Are they supposed to be regulating monopolies, preventing them, or declaring their existence so that a different set of regulations kick in? Is monopoly a normal occurrence in market maturity, or market failure?

At some point, Peter Thiel gave away the game when he said that "monopoly is the goal." If you read microeconomics basics, but conceptualize it as software companies instead of a auto manufacturing... you tend to think of monopoly, rather than commoditization as the equilibrium point that's never quite reached. Successful tech companies don't try to make money by competing in a level field with lots of competitors. That's for appstore app developers, salesforce plugin consultants, spotify artists and such.

The whole premise of the tech miracle is that monopolies are the bull case. How else to expect/justify/realize tech company valuations.

Imagine pitching an investor like Thiel on your idea to spend a billion dollars making youtube content for ad revenue? That's all wrong. Your bull case is that you'll temporarily profitable, if successful. Even if you're very profitable, its temporary. There are zillions of youtubers and squillions who could be. They'll copy you, or maybe your content will just get stale over time. A youtube policy change could wipe you out. In the turbulence of youtube's free market for online videos, profits don't last at scale. To get Thiel's attention, you need to go for your own monopoly.

"Commoditize your compliments" has long been a tech motto. Well... what's the corrolorary? Monopolize your market segment.

Commoditize PCs. Monopolize the OS.

Commoditize smartphones. Monopolize the OS.

Monopolize consoles, Commoditize games. Platform/Content. Market/Vending. Users/Advertising. Data/Advertising.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#84

Post by grishka »

sandworm101 wrote: post #73
grishka wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop OSes aren't alternatives to mobile ones. They serve different purposes.

Except when they are. There were windows phones briefly. And linux will run on phones. And Android laptops. Such choices were not around in 2001. PC users in 2001 would have killed for the number of options available to phone users today. The 2001 decision was comparing desktop options at a time when they weren't any. Today's mobile users have plenty of options, plenty of brands and OSs to choose from.

Windows Mobile may have had the same kernel as the desktop counterpart (but I believe it was heavily stripped down), but the userspace was entirely different because the usage paradigm is entirely different.

Android is Linux under the hood. It just doesn't use any of the cruft that desktop Linux usually has, like Xorg.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#85

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

IncRnd wrote: post #77
woofie11 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketshare. The law sees marketshare. * Google and Apple compete against each other, so there is no monopoly. * Microsoft had no effective competitors. You don't need a monopoly for antitrust, but it sure makes for a stronger case.

You should read the actual page before you comment! From the article: After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."

I want to know how opulent the celebration at the plaintiff's lawyer's office was when they found that.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#87

Post by IncRnd »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #85
IncRnd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read the actual page before you comment! From the article: After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."

I want to know how opulent the celebration at the plaintiff's lawyer's office was when they found that.

I can't even guess. That could be a huge factor.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#88

Post by adventured »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #27

I've grown pretty pessimistic about the prospects of the Internet as a motor for entrepreneurship. Today it is theoretically still "free" but wherever you go you'll find gatekeepers like Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft that keep a tight grip on who is visible on the net and who can offer a service or software product on a given platform. In my view, the market dominance of the big players has led to a…

It's simultaneously true that big tech is too big (and set to get far bigger yet) and there is no scenario where you can escape being under the influence/impact of platform owners.

Want to advertise? You had to go through radio stations with license monopolies. Or maybe you had to go through a newspaper, historically there were usually one or two that thrived per city, and usually one dominant super paper in a given city (2-3 times larger than its smaller competitor). Or maybe you had to go through one of the few big broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox). Just a few behemoths dominanted television.

Want to transport goods? Say hello to the railroad oligopoly, going back more than a century now.

Maybe you needed a lot of vehicles for your business, circa the 1950-1970s. Say hello to the GM and Ford oligopoly, your dependency.

Maybe you wanted to buy airplanes, it's 1971 and you're starting a version of Fedex. How many choices do you have? How many suppliers are there in terms of dependency?

You want to get something on a store shelf across the country? Let me introduce you to Sears, Pennys, Kmart, Woolworth, WT Grant, Genesco, Allied, McCrory's, May. That's 50 years ago, they owned retail.

The new boss, same as the old boss (today some of them are even bigger, that much is true). You can't escape it. Unless you own all the platforms, you will always have to go through other platforms, other gate keepers. The best you can hope for is to intelligently diversify your risk exposure, so it takes more than one of them to cripple you.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#89

Post by cblconfederate »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #27

I've grown pretty pessimistic about the prospects of the Internet as a motor for entrepreneurship. Today it is theoretically still "free" but wherever you go you'll find gatekeepers like Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft that keep a tight grip on who is visible on the net and who can offer a service or software product on a given platform. In my view, the market dominance of the big players has led to a…

The endgame of entrepreneurship is monopoly, if possible. The (western) internet has no physical barriers so is infinitely scalable so it got monopolized very very quickly. Whether those monopolies are forming a cartel to prevent new entrants is another matter; it might well be the case that it is now closed for new entrants. There is some innovation in things like decentralized finance which are inherently orthogonal to the current state. There is also the old internet which could never be centralized, it's still out there but it's unmonetizeable now.

If there is going to be competition for the big players, it will come when closed markets like Russia or China develop enough to threaten them. It is possible that Europe at some point will also follow their example.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#90

Post by dalbasal »

woofie11 wrote: post #25
mard wrote: post #18

In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system. 20 years later, Apple and Google bundle not only their browsers, but whole irreplaceable app stores with no legal consequences. I don't know how the law sees it, but it's simply illogical from the common sense standpoint.

Marketshare. The law sees marketshare. * Google and Apple compete against each other, so there is no monopoly. * Microsoft had no effective competitors. You don't need a monopoly for antitrust, but it sure makes for a stronger case.

"The Law" is pretty patchy, inconsistent and self contradictory. A lot of them are old. A lot of definitions are sketchy. There aren't many precedents, and the normative precedent of what doesn't get prosecuted is vast and confusing.

>> You don't need a monopoly for antitrust, but it sure makes for a stronger case.

The realities of being a primary OS, App Store, or browser vendor today are both more significant, and more well known than in the 90s. They have financial consequences many times greater.

I don't see how you can come to an intelligible concept of monopoly, market power and such with a general, legal-friendly theory of monopoly. The logic needs to be reversed.

NEW UNDERPANTS PLAN:

0. Forget about proving a monopoly exists to strengthen your case that X is acting as a trust.

1. Use evidence that X is acting as a trust, as to make the case that monopoly exists instead.

2. ???

3. Profit.

The problem is that we don't have a step 2. What happens when markets mature into an monopoly dynamic? We need an answer, because some have.

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