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

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

#311

Post by chrjxnandns » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

edouard-harris wrote: post #164

dalbasal wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 25% of Google's app sales to keep them from developing rival app stores Google also pays Apple 7 billion annually^ to be its default SE. Despite Adwords' incredible profitability, Yahoo & MSFT's experience as 2nd place in that market was working very hard and earning $0 profits... Their Revenues @ were far lower than proportional to their market share, and costs are the opposite. Better to just take your share of…

> Google also pays Apple 7 billion annually^ to be its default SE. It's actually between $8-12 billion now. [1] > Yahoo & MSFT's experience as 2nd place in that market was working very hard and earning $0 profits. This is an exaggeration though. MSFT made nearly $8 billion in revenue last year from search (mostly Bing), and the business has naturally high margins so it would be extremely surprising if it was unprofit…

It’s insane that Google spends more than Bing’s entire yearly revenue in order to buy a default spot and keep their competitors out of it.

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

#312

Post by peakaboo » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #307

Renaud wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible I would like someone to make some objective research on that. My experience is the reverse, so I strongly suspect our reticence is just one of changing our habit more than an real thing. I switched to DDG years ago and it took a few weeks to wean out the tendency to compare searches, usually brought on by the fear of missing out something. I very ra…

There is not much interesting stuff on the internet these days outside closed FB etc, so search is just not as important as it used to be.

That's a sad statement. I never even had Facebook and I love the Internet.

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

#313

Post by richardfey » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:24 AM UTC

Gotta love this. Marketing newspeak at its finest: "always had programs in place that support best-in-class developers with enhanced resources and investments to help them reach more customers".

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

#314

Post by jhrmnn » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #272

TheRealNGenius wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get it, what you describe is not necessarily a monopoly.

You don't need to be a monopoly to be a cartel or take part in anticompetitive behavior that would draw the ire of Congress or the DOJ. I think we've seen sufficient evidence in this to call for having both Google and Apple split up. Famgopoly is just a play on words to describe these never before seen emergent phenomena. You're right - they're not monopolies. They're something new the world has never seen before. Fa…

There are many huge corporations involved in hundreds of different markets that no one is concerned about because they don’t dominate (and skew) those markets. Corporations spread over many markets is not a problem, a corporation (or a cartel) dominating a single market is.

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

#315

Post by oblio » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:41 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #225

jakecopp wrote: post #9

> 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." ... > This unredacted graf shows that telcos get up to 25% of Google's app sales to keep them from developing rival app stores on the smartphones they sell and service. Insane reading.

>> 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." They're literally a cartel.

Do you remember the no poaching agreement started personally by Steve Jobs? They have been a cartel for decades. They share board members, they compete only as much as not to threaten the status quo.

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

#316

Post by rce » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

Jasper_ wrote: post #112

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.

> In 2001, Microsoft "constituted unlawful monopolization" under Antitrust Act for bundling a web browser with their operating system. You're forgetting how that ended. Remember, the DOJ threw the book at Microsoft. It was an intensely publicized trial, with pretty much all the country hating Microsoft and Bill Gates. Waffling over the word "ask", the infamous "knife the baby" email, the Halloween documents and Embra…

I cannot find any references online to the DOJ budget being slashed by George W. Bush let alone by 80%. That sounds quite outlandish to me. Do you have any more information on what you're referring to?

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

#317

Post by ohazi » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

fingerlocks wrote: post #172

cartoonworld wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question to downvotes: I’ve seen people saying in these comments often that you have to use safari. I am using ff on my iOS device right now, what am I missing?

The technical reason is that a very powerful system call is blocked on iOS that’s required to build a custom language runtime needed for a browser. This is done to increase security of the device. The trade-off is that the JavaScript engine and renderer must be shared by all browsers on iOS. But if you can’t tell the difference, does it really matter?

> But if you can’t tell the difference, does it really matter?

Firefox on Android supports add-ons, in particular uBlock origin. Firefox on iOS does not. That's a huge difference.

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

#318

Post by stinos » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

Renaud wrote: post #288

solarkraft wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been reports and speculation that they’re doing just that. Of course it’s worth it for the negotiation threat alone, but Apple also really doesn’t seem to like depending on Google. I personally can’t see them switching any time soon, as DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible and I’m not sure they can do much better without collecting more data.

>DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible I would like someone to make some objective research on that. My experience is the reverse, so I strongly suspect our reticence is just one of changing our habit more than an real thing. I switched to DDG years ago and it took a few weeks to wean out the tendency to compare searches, usually brought on by the fear of missing out something. I very ra…

Having used DDG for almost a decade now, I indeed doubt any objective research would come up showing the results are never up to par or even better than Google's (or other search engines for that matter). Of course I'm also not going to compare DDG results with others when DDG immediately finds what I need so never really checked that myself actually..

Still, no matter how much I like and promote DDG, I'm definitely not in the 'I always find what I need' camp. I don't know why but DDG is simply bad in some aspects. Sometimes it can be circumvented by altering search terms, but other times I have the impression after all those years its crawling or database is still lacking. I encounter this almost daily, most recent example: searching for 'preamp for hypex' Google and Bing (in private search windows) immediately turn up posts from audio forums I expect to have these topics. DDG just doesn't have those probably, because instead it automatically "Includes results for amplifier hypex" (which I find extremely annoying in any case, and makes no sense in this case since the word 'preamp' is key) and after forcing it to quote each term instead then it still doesn't come up with the expected results.

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

#319

Post by woofie11 » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

VelkaMorava wrote: post #144

woofie11 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually quite exactly the behavior you expect from a competitive duopoly. In a duopoly, I know that if I lower prices, you'll match. Operating at the Nash Equilibrium isn't anticompetitive. I'm not disagreeing with the conclusion -- I agree that they are colluding -- but the logic isn't right.

I'll tell you a secret. Game theory and economics is mostly voodoo wrapped up in statistical mumbo-jumbo. In other words, if economists could explain what is happening, why are they poor and have to go to work to make living?

I'll tell you another secret: Basic economics works pretty well and isn't very hard.

Economists are poor because there isn't any competitive advantage. Any competently-run business of any significant size should have plenty of people able to apply basic economics. Engineers who don't learn basic econ are at a disadvantage, on the other hand.

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

#320

Post by Foobar8568 » Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #223

bushbaba wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s likely the payoff is also to prevent apple from building its own search engine to compete. As googles payoff is so lucrative

There have been reports and speculation that they’re doing just that. Of course it’s worth it for the negotiation threat alone, but Apple also really doesn’t seem to like depending on Google. I personally can’t see them switching any time soon, as DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible and I’m not sure they can do much better without collecting more data.

Google results aren't much better, I feel that nowadays, if I want to find anything relevant, I need to use site:, and most often than not, it'll be either stackoverflow, reddit and some other french sites. Anything else is either spam/sales or ebay "proxys".

It's scary how the web feels much more narrower.