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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

#421
post #295
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that Safari requires hardware-level apis?

Nope, all PCs came with Windows and OEMs willing to sell alternative computers didn't had volume discounts. It was a choice, but most decided to cave in and only sell PCs. Here that isn't the case, most shops selling iPhones also have other brands available. Customers aren't forced into buying iPhones.

You raised the bar that is required. It is more appropriate to look whether iPhones are a dominant brand, not whether they are the only brand.

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

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence of collusion between Apple and Google coming out of the Epic case is amazing to me. I'd always thought it was a sort of unspoken "game theoretic" type of collusion (which I'm sure it is in part), but it looks like they've had very explicit communication about it: https://mobile.twitter.com/jowens510/status/1428417681351348... > After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showe…

> "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company." Personal feeling after the whole salary fixing case and now this, Google should be forced to move it's head quarters and it's top management to some place like Waco Texas.

The Eighth Amendment forbids “cruel and unusual” punishment.

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

#423
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy my Sony PlayStation games on physical media in six brick and mortar stores owned by three different brands in Belgrade, Serbia. There are also a few online retailers who will send you the disc and you pay the delivery guy with cash. Sometimes I find a game at half the price at one store as compared to the others. I bought PS4 game three years ago in Oslo, Norway, and two years ago in Nicosia, Cyprus, both in di…

How many ISPs provide transit for the bits from Apple’s app store? Sony has a bottleneck upstream of your retail purchase that’s analogous to Apple’s App Store bottleneck. The only thing I see that’s slightly different in your example above is the ability to resell the game once you’re done with it.

No. You could then say "how many NIC manufacturers" or "how many UTP cable manufacturers" etc., as though all of them got their cut from Apple's app store (although one could reasonably argue it is true).

If it is the same, why doesn't Apple allow third party stores even to re-sell apps from app store, competing on price and convenience? As this is what Sony does.

I'm by no means fan of Sony, but these are two completely different situations.

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

#424
post #387

Cartelization is nothing unexpected. Just like governments cut all sorts of deals to form geopolitical blocks, so do leading companies in any industry. It's win-win for them. As for "regulators", they tend to drag their feet for a long time, take even longer to build a case, and after all that time, their action tends to be more show than substance. I wonder why that is. True decentralization is impossible without dr…

Back when I was a young software engineer, I worked for a large consulting company which frequently outsourced people to my country's government(s). As a consequence, I gained some insights into government software projects. And it's as bad as you'd expect it to be, or worse. $gov pays 600eur/day for software developers (which they could hire for less than a third of the price). The pimps renting out these developers…

Aint it interesting, how often governments are crippled by inability to hire talent because that talent is improperly credentialed / whatever; but those problems never prevent the mayor's cousin Cletus from being hired to run the Highway Dept.

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

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time to split the Famgopolies. Apple and Google shouldn't be in so many different businesses, killing everything in their wake. Why the hell does Apple have a film studio? Why does Google have a game studio and cloud? If they keep going, they'll be the MGM and Whole Foods too. (Oh, wait!) Famgopolies also shouldn't be allowed to dictate their payments stacks, software distribution systems, app approval processes…

To be fair, the breadth of FAAMG markets pales in comparison to companies like GE, Samsung, Mitsubishi and similar. The major difference is that those companies don't have a complete choke-hols on any one market, and definitely not on something as important as the modern public square, or something as insidious as PR. Personally, and I know that this is a very controversial opinion, I believe that the biggest problem…

To be fair, the companies you've listed need to be split up too.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> monopoly Most anti-trust actions have nothing to do with monopolies.

> monopolies

ok that's fine

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. The law needs to be updated to account for this new world of "platforms". By platform, I mean an ecosystem a private entity creates which they monetize through content created/uploaded/deployed by external parties. AWS and others fall under this definition too. The truth is, cloud computing should be a low margin industry in the long run. Yes, software has close to 0 marginal cost of production, but the…

>> The truth is, cloud computing should be a low margin industry in the long run. The free market ethos, IIRC, suggests that all industries should be low margin in the long run, no? Innovators and shuch are supposed to be compensated with high margins, but not perpetual high margins. The whole idea is that 25%> margin do not exist in perpetuity.

Yes, exactly. If the market is perfectly competitive, and cost to switching is low, margins trend towards 0.

The same should be true in software, regardless of how cheap it is to produce an additional unit. Of course, because it's cheap for anybody else to produce that additional unit too.

The reason we see such high margins in software is a combination of "first mover advantage", pseudo-monopolistic like elements to the business, and the fact that industry is so new, VC money does not tend to go towards creating direct competitors as there is ample opportunity elsewhere.

In the short run, first movers and innovators will be able to generate high margins of course. And sometimes business X really does produce a better product than the rest, as some would say Apple does. But given that software is cheap to maintain once built, you would expect many viable and roughly equivalent competitors to be built in the long run.

At the end of the day, legislation should be written to foster "competitive capitalism", as that produces the best result for the public at large.

For example, it should be as easy to switch between SaaS providers as the flick of a button. Apple should have to allow competing app stores and not give preferential treatment to their own... And so on.

If you think about the App store example in isolation, the fee they charge is a direct transfer of wealth from app creators and app buyers to Apple. Would they be able to charge 30% if there were competing app stores? Maybe, but I doubt it over the long run. Certainly at least they wouldn't be able to charge Epic that amount, as Fortnite is big enough to entice people through side channels for loading the app.

Looking at it as choice of Apple or Android is not an appropriate level of granularity for anti-trust IMO.

We must recognize that markets created within a platform also must be competitive, not just the gateway into that ecosystem. Cost of switching becomes high, which leads to de facto Monopoly power by the platform owner.

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

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is fixing wages illegal, like price fixing?

If it's not it should be. You can't push free markets for everyone else then controlled markets for yourself (I mean you can, but it's hypocrisy). I'm tired of the double standards businesses and the capital ownership class have.

"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class."

-Final Fantasy Tactics

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

#429

Interestingly, this is exactly what's happening in the console gaming market today; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying subsidies of millions dollar to renowned studios as well as various preferential treatments on advertising, publishing and marketing of their games. The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers. Google didn't have to do this thank…

> Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying subsidies of millions dollar to renowned studios

That's old news =] — now they just purchase all of the studios and "let them do their thing". Probably for significantly less % at the dev end, but, I digress.

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

#430
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody here is talking about things that Apple and Google got busted for already. Everything that we're getting today is new.

So no link to evidence?

Can you not access the tweets being discussed here?
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