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Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

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Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#271
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange to me, because there's literally more competition in the space, but people are unhappy about it. PC games used to regularly be Steam exclusive for years on end, and now games are often available on multiple stores within months or a year from release, but people are for some reason unhappy about this fact. For example, Borderlands 2 (on PC) was Steam exclusive for something like 7 years and nobody seemed…

That’s because people don’t actually give a rats ass about competition directly. They care about _cost_ AND _convenience_. Steam is great on both fronts and you don’t have to create yet another account or have another buggy pos launcher on your computer.

yup. And that cost/convinience is how we get trapped in the FAANGs of tech. The steam gamers are naive if they think the same can't happen to Valve. Gabe won't live forever.

and as a last bit of irony, we're already seeing those backdoor deals being opened up as we see how there was a point to the price fixing argument Wolfire accused of. They could have just let Overgrowth sell on their website, and now Valve is playing a game of cat and mouse on whether they re getting mass arbitration or class action.

>and you don’t have to create yet another account or have another buggy pos launcher on your computer.

Steam is another account I don't care much for personally. And steam has always allowed for third party accounts to be needed. You think then GTA 6 launches in 2029 on PC or whatever that people are gonna complain about needing a Rockstar account?

A lot of that "discourse" is just turf wars and entitlement.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you claim the platform you create is open, but use anticompetitive actions to retain control of it, you end up in a worse legal position than you would have by being clear that the platform is closed. Look at Microsoft. They have been found guilty of anticompetitive conduct related to their open Windows platform in multiple jurisdictions, but not so with XBox. Either never claim your platform is open, or refrain f…

This is a terrible incentive structure to set up for platforms. I get the reasoning, but I chose Android because it's open and I've never run into any of the anticompetitive problems people claim are so damaging. If Google had known that this was the deal at the beginning, I doubt they'd have created Android the way that they did and I wouldn't have an open platform to use—we'd just have two walled gardens. How is th…

If you chose Android because it’s open, then the judge has just forced Google to make it more open for you.

If someone chose iOS because it’s closed then the judge has decided it can stay mostly closed.

Also Google is where it is because they pitched a platform that was friendlier for carriers to load up with crapware than Apple was. It wasn’t really openness for openness’ sake. If Google hadn’t done that we might have been in a world where Palm or Microsoft were the secondary or primary player next to iOS.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people would actively want their game to require either EGS or Steam, though, even if it's convenient. EGS has business practices that drive a lot of people crazy, and Steam has an awful security track record and was also convicted of anticompetitive pricing. (Though people seem to like Steam's business practices even with that conviction, which also always struck me as a little weird.) It seems like…

? It’s like putting an android apk file on your website for an app. If you’re giving it away for free to friends, sure. If not, how do you sell it? How do you stop people stealing it? How do people find out about it? Obviously, you the answer is usually “you write your own installer / updater” and do your own marketing. Maybe that’s fun, and there’s something to be said for owning the entire stack… but it’s a loooot…

>If not, how do you sell it? How do you stop people stealing it? How do people find out about it?

we solved that issue long ago: make the APK a thin client to the actual service you keep on a server. Devs don't care where you download your APKs anymore. that's what the 90+% piracy took from us: the idea of premium, offline games.

advertising is tricky, but if we're being honest with ourselves: google play has only been a hinderance to discovery these days. My ideal pipeline is uploading to F-droid and throwing an APK release on Github as well.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite as convoluted as you describe, and I don't think Android ever changes that setting on your behalf. The fact of the matter is that it is dangerous. IMO it's a good thing that they provide you with appropriate warnings.

It's only dangerous if Google has better judgment than the end user. This may be the case for the majority of users, but there's a significant subset for whom it's not the case. It'd be nice if there were a way for the end user to nudge Google to step aside.

There is : the end user allows side loading from their preferred app, such as f-droid. Am I missing something?

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#275
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google appears open yet is closed in practice How is Android closed in practice?

For years, OEMs were made to install a number of Google apps onto the homescreen at predefined places. One of which is the Play Store. Amazon (for example) absolutely did not have this advantage, despite this kind of thing happening on non-Google hardware. Or we can look at why Google's Play Store is allowed to auto-update apps without user interaction, and... that's it. That's the only store that's allowed to do tha…

> Amazon (for example) absolutely did not have this advantage

Google incentivized the OEMs to do that. Amazon could have incentivized OEMs to do that also, but the business plan that Amazon pursued did not involve third parties building their own Kindle devices.

> Or we can look at why Google's Play Store is allowed to auto-update apps without user interaction, and... that's it.

This has never been true for Android in general. This hasn't been true for phones that only ship with the Play Store since Android 12, which I credit Epic for.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange to me, because there's literally more competition in the space, but people are unhappy about it. PC games used to regularly be Steam exclusive for years on end, and now games are often available on multiple stores within months or a year from release, but people are for some reason unhappy about this fact. For example, Borderlands 2 (on PC) was Steam exclusive for something like 7 years and nobody seemed…

Because Steam is good and EGS sucks donkey balls. It's slow as shit, crashes randomly, and is missing boatloads of features. People don't object when a different store brings actual value, like GoG. They object because Epic's version of competition is just dump trucks of cash thrown at game publishers - that doesn't help the consumer any. It's not unlike everyone here that loves to champion Apple even when the articl…

> People don't object when a different store brings actual value, like GoG

and look how they equated to sales. Just world fallacy isn't working out.

GOG may be more consumer friendly, but from what I could read EGS is the 2nd biggest PC platform in the US.

>except so far Valve hasn't really done anything like that.

they've done plenty, just behind closed doors. They have their own interesting lawsuit situation that HN conveniently buried a few weeks back.

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#277
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 3rd party store auto updates (you need to install some stuff as root in order to get this working on f-droid)

This might explain (or be related to) why when I installed an Amazon app through Amazon's store it would get hijacked by the Play Store version eventually.

Generally no that doesn't happen. It may be very specific to Amazon though. Android uses signing keys to validate updates, and if the signing key doesn't match, it is impossible to install the update. My guess is Amazon (was?) using the same signing keys between the two stores.

Most developers use Google's app signing service to ensure that a loss of the signing key will not strand their users on old versions. In that case, it would not have been possible for Amazon distributed apps to use the same signing keys. I say would not have, because these new requirements mean it will actually now be possible since Amazon could distribute the updates published to Google Play, and doing resigning shenanigans would throw the baby out with the bathwater (allowing users to seamlessly switch app stores)

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#278
post #6

Wait, so the Google Play Store, which you can install alternatives to (F-Droid, Aurora, Amazon,...), and where you can easily install apps through other means (such as downloading an APK through your browser and running it from the file manager) is an illegal monopoly while the Apple App Store isn't? Well, I guess Google's market cap is only 2 trillion compared to Apple's 3 trillion, so I guess that's fair.

Is the title confusing or am I missing something ?

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#279
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually did promise you could get the source code for Android. From a Twitter message by Rubin in 2010. https://techcrunch.com/2010/10/19/andy-rubin-twitter/ > the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

AOSP still exists, but it doesn't include most of the Google specific apps.

And Google has continuously moved away from “open” - that’s just the point

https://www.osnews.com/story/136235/google-further-guts-the-...

Re: Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge

#280
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important competition isn't Google v Apple. It's everyone else v Google and/or Apple. Ironically, forcing this onto Google might be the best thing for Android, as it's the openness the platform really needed to compete against Apple, but costs Google too much revenue to ever do it if left to their own decision.

Then why is there one result for Google and the opposite one for Apple?

Because the law isn't written the way fairness is written in our heads, and judges decide based on the law.
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