Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download the app, pay some amount when you're in the app which would unlock the functionality. I don't think its unreasonable for Google to have a problem with this. They want to get the reach of the app store, and make money off it, without paying a cut to the host li…
Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Once the user has installed the app the transaction has been finalized. And if that app is given away for free, and Google has a problem with that, they should ban all free apps and require charging a fee.
Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
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Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
High compared to what? It's the same as Apple's, so you're not comparing to other app stores. Amazon charges the same percentage on Kindle for eBooks. When people claim that the app store fees are excessively large they're usually comparing to payment processor fees, but neither major app store functions solely as a payment processor. So if not that, what are we comparing to when we say the fee is high?
The fee could be lower. They (the App Store owner) only needs to sign a blob. They (Google/Apple/Amazon) choose to host the blobs, and then charge the developer for it. They claim “marketing” too, but as far as I can tell, that usually involves a sale and the app owner has no choice but to sell their app for less without their consent. I think Apple sometimes has “curated” lists, but it’s questionable how “effective”…
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download the app, pay some amount when you're in the app which would unlock the functionality. I don't think its unreasonable for Google to have a problem with this. They want to get the reach of the app store, and make money off it, without paying a cut to the host li…
Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Once the user has installed the app the transaction has been finalized. And if that app is given away for free, and Google has a problem with that, they should ban all free apps and require charging a fee.
Running a store means deciding what goes on the shelves. The only features that Google could use to decide whether they want to sell an app are the features that are apparent after installation. Your argument would suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to curate their content at all.
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Antitrust rules apply for abuse of dominant market power (which Google certainly has) even if theoretical alternatives exist. It does not matter that it's not literally a monopoly, as that is not the legal bar that needs to be passed for Google to be limited in what they can and can't do.
Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download the app, pay some amount when you're in the app which would unlock the functionality. I don't think its unreasonable for Google to have a problem with this. They want to get the reach of the app store, and make money off it, without paying a cut to the host li…
Other comments describe a few specific examples of that abuse (like also thwarting Epic's attempts to be preloaded by OEMs), but I think it's more interesting to look at how money is changing hands as evidence of market power being abused.
In particular, consider that Google in theory should be fine accepting payments as low as their hosting costs (and probably much less since their app store helps attract phone purchasers to fuel their ad network, since they also take a cut from OEMs, etc). Compare that to each individual developer on the store who in theory is able to afford at most some large fraction of revenue for the privilege of being on the store. Note that the latter number is (usually) much greater than the former and that the latter is what's actually being paid. If there were any real competition for something as trivial to build as an app store then you wouldn't expect Google to be able to successfully price discriminate across so many orders of magnitude of prices and extract nearly all of the surplus value from the end user purchasing an app. The fact that they're able to do so and are doing so should serve by itself as a strong indication that something suspiciously anti-competitive is happening. My $20 app wasn't 20x harder for Google to host than your $1 app, so why are my fees 20x higher? Because they can get away with charging that much because they stomp on any competition.
That isn't any kind of nail-in-the-coffin proof mind you, but it serves as a useful heuristic for spotting abuses of market power in many markets. Throwing that same idea at the right to repair movement, the amount paid to John Deere for tractor repairs is many times greater than what people have been able to achieve on their own (when they've been able to do so), and the only barrier is DRM that was added to prevent unauthorized repairs. If John Deere were really that much better at repairing their tractors than third parties then they wouldn't have to artificially exclude everyone else from attempting it to retain market share and command those prices.
Nobody's saying that Google or John Deere shouldn't be allowed to profit from the things they make, but using existing power to hamper competition and seek greater rents isn't good for society as a whole.
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
You as the Shareware author were paying for the creation of those discs and their distribution. If you had an FTP server, you paid for the bandwidth. Epic isn't doing that. Epic wants access to Google's customers, with Google paying all the bills, without paying Google anything. Despite the fact that Android allows them to run their own app store or sideload apps.
Shareware disks _could_ be written and paid for by the shareware author, but user-to-user distribution, at the _user's_ cost was [seemingly] more common.
A few years later, there were shops that specialized in burned or pressed CDs of Linux/BSD distributions back when dialup was the standard and fetching a few gigs of Debian was out of reach.
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#116While I generally agree with Epic's positions, it seems like a bit of a stretch here, considering that Android allows both sideloading and alternative app stores. Unlike on iOS, there's nothing on Android stopping Bandcamp from releasing a standalone sideloadable app with any payment system they desire.
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#117So why can I make an Amazon purchase, using Amazon pay, through their android app installed through the Play Store. Is Google getting a cut there? Bandcamp must really be a threat to Google.
I have of course no idea how Amazon does their deals (just anyone outside Amazon I guess).
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this might be more compelling if Epic were the ones hosting the download, and Google were just like, listing the download in their listings, where the download button would go to Epic's servers.
And we might ask ourselves: why can’t Google do that? They just need to sign the binary, Google doesn’t have to host it.
Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#119Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store
#120While I generally agree with Epic's positions, it seems like a bit of a stretch here, considering that Android allows both sideloading and alternative app stores. Unlike on iOS, there's nothing on Android stopping Bandcamp from releasing a standalone sideloadable app with any payment system they desire.
Maybe Google should put the playstore behind a developer option flag in the menu with a warning that it's unsafe and see themselves if it'll work.