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Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#151

Post by einpoklum »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #135
einpoklum wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But can't Google avert this by paying off politicians? You know, with the legalized-bribe political contributions that are so popular? Anyway, Google's hold on mobile ecosystems is really a menace. So much so that it's difficult to even tell apart Google Play the store, Google Play the service(s), Google Play the library(/ies), and whatever else they call by that name.

Paying off politicians has worked well for Google since the Obama era, but it's not working anymore. Reason why was Trump's election. Politicians realized that Google's services, and how they're moderated, can do a lot more to affect an election than a donation ever could.

You have a point there... but even so - Google has been censoring non-mainstream political views, and artificially promoting mainstream news media (the big networks anyway). Isn't that enough to curry favor?

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#152

Post by oblio »

eru wrote: post #149
dalu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly one of the reasons, but a representative one, why Google needs to be broken apart

Wouldn't more competition be the logical thing to ask for instead?

More competition how?

MS-DOS cornered the desktop market around 1981. It remained the dominant desktop OS, despite being an utter piece of crap OS and technologically obsolete even at the moment it was introduced, until around 1990, when it was overtaken by products from the same company, Windows 3.1 and later Windows 95.

Windows 95 then took over in... 1995 :-) Windows is still the dominant desktop platform in 2021, and it will probably be for at least 1 more decade.

Linux took over server environments around 2005, I think, and its still dominating in 2021. It will probably dominate for many decades more.

Smartphone OSes are in the same place. Smartphones have matured, they're primarily slabs of glass/metal/plastic. You either get Android or you switch both hardware AND software and get iOS.

Android is almost free for manufacturers and customers, so it's even worse than Windows. How is it ever going to be displaced? Keep in mind that not even beauties such as Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made much of a negative dent in the Windows marketshare.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#153

Post by ROARosen »

eru wrote: post #149
dalu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly one of the reasons, but a representative one, why Google needs to be broken apart

Wouldn't more competition be the logical thing to ask for instead?

The first step in fostering a healthy competitive market is breaking down the monopoly, which is prob what the prev comment was suggesting.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#154

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

krisgenre wrote: post #144
lenkite wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So basically nothing" Umm..no. IE could now be un-installed on Windows. After various settlement fines in the US with several parties, the EU took it further and also leveraged its largest anti-trust penalty of that era. (~1 billion) Microsoft were forced to share ALL their earlier private computing API's as open specs. MS word, excel formats, SMB, etc. This was amazing and resulting in several OSS libraries.

>>IE could now be un-installed on Windows. Why is this important?

And I was never able to make it actually work. Like the whole system became much more unstable if you did uninstall IE.

That being said, I didn't know much about computers back then, so I probably messed up somewhere.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#155

Post by oblio »

quelsolaar wrote: post #82
freddie_mercury wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft didn't lose the anti-trust case. Go check Wikipedia.

They did loose, then they appealed and settled.

Yeah, people should start treating, morally, settling just as losing a case. This doesn't apply for individuals, but companies settling for millions and millions are morally admitting defeat. Corporations can afford the drawn out court battles, so if they're not continuing them, it means that they're admitting they lost.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#156

Post by criddell »

shimfish wrote: post #106

What's also not being said here is that ~99% of apps on Google Play don't make money this way either. Due to a combination of Android user's reluctance to spend money on apps at all and the rampant piracy that Android's open model makes trivially easy, most developers only way to make money is through in-app advertising, which this change obviously makes no difference to. Google Play is mostly a pyramid scheme. Devel…

I've always wondered what it is about Android that makes users reluctant to pay for apps. I'm guilty of it too. I have both iOS and Android devices and I spend far more money buying apps on my iOS device.

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#157

Post by oblio »

pjmlp wrote: post #69
modeless wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a recent Android blog post that said "we will be making changes in Android 12 (next year's Android release) to make it even easier for people to use other app stores on their devices". https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/09/listening-...

90% of future Android 12 users will only get it when their phone dies and they buy a new one.

It's actually getting better. New versions of Android are getting adopted faster: https://www.gsmarena.com/report_android_11_has_the_fastest_a...

It's not yet at iOS levels, but Google is actually getting there, I'm impressed. It's much easier to pull this off when you're a huge company making the hardware and the software and you can just boss OEMs and telecom companies around, it's much harder when you have a Microsoft Windows-like arrangement.

They're still at least 5 years from getting near iOS, but still... progress! :-)

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#159

Post by oblio »

Sebb767 wrote: post #120
himujjal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only 30 million? considering how much apple makes in profits from their app store thats a lot less

That's only servers - they still need developers, managers, reviewers etc.. Apple surely does not make a loss, but the server bill is probably a negligible part of the cost.

Poor Apple:

> In 2020, customers spent an estimated 72.3 billion U.S. dollars on on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps in the Apple App Store.

The App Store is a money printer for Apple, that's how low their operating expenses are. It's rent-seeking at its best, abusive landlords would be proud of them :-)

Re: Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year

#160

Post by Dylan16807 »

cletus wrote: post #146
hu3 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's proposition is better still. If I make $2 million on Apple i'll have to pay $600k in fees. On Google it's $450k.

Does Apple really do that? If you make $1m, they'll take $150k but if you make $1 more they'll take $300k? Really? I assumed it wouldn't be that dumb. Is it really the case?

If you can convince apple to let you into the 15% program and then hit $2M, you'll pay $450k for that year and then get kicked out of the program. Subsequent years you will pay $600k if your revenue stays the same. If your revenue drops below $1M at some point, you'll have to pay 30% for that year, but the next year you'll be able to re-enter the program.
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