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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

#101
post #93
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does pro-corporate policy have to do with 9/11?

It marked a shift in thinking and foreign policy

I don't know, it seems to me there was a continuous trend in pro-corporate neoliberal policies you can trace back to the 80's or mid-70's.

Can you give any evidence of what changed after 9/11 in terms of pro-corporate policy?

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

#102
post #30
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.

>In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system. That reductive summary is repeated but isn't accurate. Microsoft didn't get in trouble for adding its own IE web browser to Windows. (Software companies always add new features and enhancements.) The key nuance that triggered the government lawsuit was anti-competitive actions such as…

On a perhaps related note, I have noticed that a Google Meet that consumes just over 1Mbps on Google Chrome consistently consumes close to 4Mbps on Firefox. Same settings, same window size, same participants. I cannot help but wonder whether Chrome has implemented some standard browser feature more efficiently, or whether it has special native features just for Meets.

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple have been caught colluding before on trying to keep software engineer salaries low. They also conveniently had the exact same app store fee for years. Doesn't make much sense if they were actually competing with each other

> have been caught colluding before on trying to keep software engineer salaries low. Wow they are really bad at this then. 200-400k without even requiring a college degree is pretty wild. It’s about what my brother made as a doctor and he had an undergraduate degree, medical school, an internship, a residency program…

Without the price collusion engineers might make 600-800K. Not sure why you are defending a Trillion dollar company illegally working with another Trillion dollar company to lower worker wages. The reason software engineer salaries remain high despite big tech collusion is that startups not in on the deal were willing to pay higher, which forces big tech to continue paying for talent.

not sure why doctor wages are brought up, supply and demand determines prices. Google and Apple tried to artificially distort the labor market

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

#104
post #92

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…

Thankfully I think Web3 (dapps made from composable protocols collaboratively developed by everyone) will form strong competition and maybe even replace Google in the next 5-10 years. Services like social media, finance, gaming, productivity, etc will all be interoperable by default providing a seamless user experience and be built by millions of developers around the world. Each company coding only what they special…

What are the more successful DAO or dapps we can study, to evaluate this model?

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

#105
post #81
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.

Fair enough. Merely bundling some software was not a violation by itself, but that bundling was also additionally reinforced with "concerted series of actions designed to protect the applications barrier to entry", which caused "consumer harm by distorting competition" [1].

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...

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

#106
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.

The different is crystal clear. Microsoft was considered a monopoly. You really had no good choice but Windows.

Apple and Google aren't. You have a choice between iOS and Android, both vibrant and thriving.

It really is that simple. And it's not just the legal but common sense definition of monopoly too -- do you control the market or not?

Now you might have other criticisms of app stores, but basing them on the Microsoft-monopoly-argument isn't going to be helpful or useful. You're going to need a different legal foundation for that.

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

#107
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.

> In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system.

Microsoft got out of that, though. They barely paid a fine. I don't disagree that there are antitrust concerns with all sorts of big company behavior. But this is the world we live in. If you want the government to regulate this stuff for you you need to elect a government willing to do that (or rather, willing to appoint judges willing to do that).

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

#108

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…

> 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

what you 're describing is NOT a monopoly, because the winners were local, physical separation prevented monopolization, and crucially there was more than one dominant player. There is a whole new world on the internet where for every verb there is one, single monopoly for the entire world. In the end , one can look at the money flow: How many people were employed in newspapers vs how many people are in googleplex

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

#109

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…

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

And regulated as a common carrier[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier

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