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Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

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Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#611
post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is Apple's deal with Netflix anticompetitive though? Towards other streaming services? Yes.

Giving preferential treatment to one customer at the expense of other customers is not anticompetitive behavior as defined by any law I'm aware of. The law doesn't say you have to give everybody the same deal just because it's "unfair" to others. The monopoly/antitrust/etc. laws are about misusing a position of power for your own benefit at the expense of competitors. Apple doesn't have to be "fair" to Netflix vs Max…

Plus, Netflix isn’t even Apple’s customer. It’s actually kinda the other way around: Apple’s customers are what Netflix wants access to, as a source of potential Netflix customers.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#612
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandboxing had nothing to with any app store, and Android security empathetically doesn't suck.

I just had a coworker say that he surreptitiously installed an app on his son’s phone that allowed him to see everything his son was doing remotely and listen in to his son’s conversations. He showed it to us in action.

This sounds suspiciously similar to the “evil maid” attack: all bets on security are off when you’ve got physical access to the device. This is a well known weakness in all platforms. Some platforms manage short term protections against this, but nothing ever withstands it in the long run.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#613
post #23

For anyone curious why Google lost: >Epic v. Google [...] hinged on secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and big game developers, ones that Google execs internally believed were designed to keep rival app stores down. Without finding the same thing in Apple, I doubt this will affect Apple's case much, but of course I should mention I'm not a lawyer; I'm perfectly happy to be schooled if som…

>Without finding the same thing in Apple, I doubt this will affect Apple's case much it sounds like the EU is going to slowly push on Apple t do the very thing Epic wants regardless. https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/11/08/apple-admits-thir... So I guess Epic had the right idea but the wrong angle (or simply the wrong judges in the US. Probably a bit of both).

Epic's angle was to get discovery so they could embarrass the shit out of regulatory agencies and legislators by pointing out how they were sleeping on an obvious, decades old antitrust case. It worked. The DMA wouldn't have been a thing without Epic suing.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN does generally feel the same about Apple. 30% cut is egregious especially when they give favors to certain app owners. “Court System” is very contextual: the Texas Supreme Court just blocked a woman getting an abortion for a non-viable pregnancy.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I want to discuss how deviously literal the Supreme Court decided to be in order to avoid letting anyone establish any precedent about what was or wasn't a legal abortion. The original filing said "It is also Dr. Karsan’s good faith belief and medical recommendation that that the Emergent Medical Condition Exception to Texas’s abortion bans and laws permits an abortion in Ms. Cox’s cir…

Jesus, that's the exact kind of reasoning that happens in Catch 22. When did reality become more farsical than parody?

I'd laugh, if it wasn't a situation with so much real harm to real people.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#615
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It runs as a privileged app. It uses that to install new applications and update applications installed by other app stores without the OS-level confirmation, probably can't be uninstalled on most Android OSes and perhaps some other things.

Auto updates can be implemented by other apps without prompt. [0] But you're right on initial install there is that installation confirmation prompt and other stores may be uninstalled. [0] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/pm/P...

This was only implemented after the Epic v. Google lawsuit.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but apple is hurting consumers with their 30% fee. I would not have bought an iPhone if I knew about that. Now Im locked in.

A. That's not exactly secret information, so your ignorance is not an excuse when you could have easily found that information if you cared. It's not a secret contract. B. Android also charges 30%. Developers making under $1M per year pay only 15% (initially announced by Apple, copied by Google). You can't argue you'd save a penny going to Android. C. You can always sell your iPhone, if it matters to you now, and buy…

> It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. I agree that developers are unlikely to lower prices if the 30% fee is eliminated or reduced. But it seems reasonably likely that the next time they look into raising prices, they may raise them less, or decide not to raise them at all.

I do agree with the underlying point: prices are not set based on cost, but are set in line with what the market will pay. If the market will pay $10 when the developer has to pay a 30% fee, the market will still pay $10 if that fee disappears.

But still, consider that for many apps there's going to be a tension between what the market will pay, and the minimum the developer needs to keep the lights on. The developer might settle for a lower per-sale profit if they get a bunch more users that more than offsets the lower per-user revenue.

Let's say a developer sells at a $10 price point, which nets the developer $7 (after Apple's 30% cut), and that they need $6 to keep paying their other costs; they'll get $1 in profit after all is said and done. But maybe they can only make 100,000 sales at that price point, or $100,000. Kill the 30% fee, and they make $4 per sale, or $400,000. Great! Instant 4x profit! But maybe they'll be able to make 150,000 sales if the price were $9, which would give them $450,000 in profit. That's a compelling reason to drop prices. Or at least not raise them even when their other costs go up from $6 to $7.

Obviously these numbers are made up; maybe dropping the price to $9 only nets them an additional 5,000 sales, so it's not worth it. But we can't just flat-out say that no developer will do the math and decide that dropping prices can actually help them.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#617
The impact of the OEM deals can not be understated, and actually account for Android not being dominant in TV or IoT because Google don't quite understand that other companies aren't idiots and they didn't want a replay of the phone situation.

For instance, for a long time if you wanted to make a device with the Play Store on you could not make any Android device which did not have the Play Store, even as a third party for someone else.

If you do that while making billions in platform fees don't be surprised when everyone else thinks building their own app stack on top of vanilla embedded Linux is a better idea.

Of course often the OEM intentions are far from honest, but the deliberate result of Google's antics is to prevent the emergence of any honest actor trying to produce an Android device which does not serve the ad tech beast.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#618
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... it does not have to be about adjacent markets. Maintaining a monopoly alone can be illegal, depending on the means. Blocking all other means of distributing apps in a reasonable way absolutely should have been enough to get Apple sanctioned. Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is now forbidden, but blocking the access using code i…

The US actually had it right when the antitrust laws were written. The Libertarian Party and Austrian Economists fucked it up for the rest of us by convincing everyone that "no, actually, antitrust is just about prices and consumer welfare, not control". This interpretation was ahistorical and illiberal, but it became history regardless, like to the point where Originalism as applied to antitrust law is derided as "h…

Just to defend the libertarians briefly, no legal bullying tactics means trusts have a significantly harder time forming and maintaining their monopolies.

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third party stores do not have the same functionality as Google's store, this is one of the things Epic sued over, so I imagine it will factor into the remedies.

AuroraStore is very close, using a ton of reverse engineered stuff from the play store It should all totally be open though

AFAIU Aurora isn't an alternate store, but an alternate front-end to the Google Play Store.

That is, the only apps available through Aurora are those on Google Play, and if Google's rejected an app, then you won't be able to install it via Aurora.

By contrast, F-Droid is an alternative front-end and app store, with apps available which aren't included in Google Play (for example, Termux).

(I use both Aurora and F-Droid on an Onyx Android device.)

Re: Epic vs. Google: Google Loses

#620
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolies are not illegal. It’s leveraging the monopoly to exert force on adjacent markets that is. In the case here googles foul play is making side deals for preferential treatment against other app stores given their control over the handset operating system. Apple doesn’t offer an App Store market and never has nor ever represented otherwise, the app store is and always has been part of the operating system. Thi…

According to https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... it does not have to be about adjacent markets. Maintaining a monopoly alone can be illegal, depending on the means. Blocking all other means of distributing apps in a reasonable way absolutely should have been enough to get Apple sanctioned. Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is now forbidden, but blocking the access using code i…

> Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is now forbidden, but blocking the access using code is allowed. This is stupid.

I don't think that's stupid. Blocking access using code is an honest act. Everyone knows the rules and can build their business accordingly. Blocking alternatives with economic incentives is manipulative. It gives the impression that the platform is open to competition, when it isn't.

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