Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#81

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

RC_ITR wrote: post #58

PeterisP wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

>which Google certainly has You’re conflating some ideas here. A marketplace owner always has “dominant market power” over the market they own. That’s the nature of marketplace, the owner gets to set certain rules like the types of payments accepted at the marketplace, because that is literally the job of a marketplace. Google also has dominant market share, since their App Store is the best for android, but that’s l…

No, Google is attempting to engage in a vertical restraint of trade. That is one of the behaviors generally considered to violate antitrust rules, if the company is using its leverage in one market to attempt a vertical restraint of trade in another market.

In this case, the leveraged market is the app store, and the restrained market is mobile payment processing.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#82

Post by ece » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #39

bko wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I just tried downloading an APK directly (telegram). Android warns me file might be harmful. Do you suggest they shouldn't warn someone when they download an APK? It's also browser specific and I imagine all major browser give the same kind of warning because , you know, downloading an APK directly from a website might be harmful.

So you've gone through all the weird flows to accept and enable installing. Now how do you get security updates? Google scares them again every time, even though android apps can already execute arbitrary downloaded unsigned code at runtime (otherwise V8 and other JITs that generate machine code can't work), so it isn't really protecting much and mainly makes things more insecure by not letting you add your own trust…

Self updates can be a thing now in Android 12 I believe[1]. The initial install and updates should be easier though, and not just on 12.

[1] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#83

Post by jedimastert » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #77

spywaregorilla wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite skins are a store, not a marketplace. There's a big difference.

While this is an absolutely true statement that distinction is an active choice by Fortnite to monopolize their platform.

Do other people allowed to sell skins on the store? Is side-loading an official feature elsewhere? I feel like if side-loading or community skins aren't actually supported then it's an important distinction

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#84

Post by mdoms » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #74

mdoms wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Epic store enables this exact scenario. Lots of free games on Epic make all of their month through micro transactions billed entirely through their own systems. See Rocket League for one example, but there are many.

I really unsure about EGS monetization model, but Psyonix (developer of Rocket League) are subsidiary of Epic. UPD: At least while ago in 2019 Epic claimed to give a choice of payment processor to use for games on their store: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games...

As I said there are lots of free games on Epic which use their own store fronts for transactions.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#85

Post by dessant » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #72

PeterisP wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

>Antitrust rules apply for abuse of dominant market power (which Google certainly has) Antitrust rules apply to monopolies, and Google has no where near monopoly over app stores or phones, the relevant systems here.

> Antitrust rules apply to monopolies, and Google has no where near monopoly over app stores or phones, the relevant systems here.

I'm sure that will be consolation to the growing number of victims whose businesses and livelihoods were destroyed when an overworked reviewer or an algorithm allowed to go rampant kicked out their products from the app stores where the overwhelming majority of users could discover them.

Your definition of monopolies and applicable antitrust rules is divorced from reality, and from the legal framework based on which these monopolies have been repeatedly fined, and will be forced to open up their platforms.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#86

Post by GeekyBear » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

warning26 wrote: post #6

While 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.

>Unlike on iOS, there's nothing on Android stopping Bandcamp from releasing a standalone sideloadable app with any payment system they desire.

On iOS, just as on Android, there is nothing stopping you from handling purchases and payments through your own website and having your app only handle content consumption as companies like Netflix and Spotify have done on iOS for years.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#87

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #43

amelius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 80s and 90s you could buy software running on Windows, where the vendor of the software didn't pay anything to Microsoft; in fact, I'm sure Microsoft was happy with them supporting and increasing the strength of their platform. Why does this have to change now? Why does the platform need a cut?

When you bought software at a retail store, the vendor didn't get the full retail price. It's not the platform getting a cut, it's the store. What we need to ensure is that platforms can't force you into their store.

The ship has already sailed on that long ago.

If there's a new store on the iPhone, virtually no one will use it.

The default is good enough, it's already installed on ~1Bn devices, and most of those devices use it somewhat regularly already.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#88

Post by hamburglar » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #60

riversflow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only outrage I feel is that Tim Sweeney is using the compensation of starving artists, the main demographic on Bandcamp as I understand it, to try and make himself and EPIC richer or more relatively powerful. I don't give two hoots about "breaking up the App Store Model" and I doubt many/most musicians do either. I personally feel that 30% isn't even outrageous considering the value proposition. Relatively rich/p…

> I don't give two hoots about "breaking up the App Store Model" and I doubt many/most musicians do either Well you should. Because regardless of if Epic bought bandcamp or not, the fee that google charges would come directly out of musicians pockets. Regardless of who is running bandcamp, that feel would directly cause artists to not make as much money. > I personally feel that 30% isn't even outrageous Ok, and now…

Yes, 100%. Epic or no, google announced that they were going to start taking an additional (and rather large) cut of payments for music sales which they have no part in. Bandcamp built a payment system that facilitates artists making money at zero cost to google, and now google wants to prevent that unless they get a cut.

You can argue that google provides the foothold that gets the app on the device, so maybe a small fee could be justified, but taking place in all transactions that enables in perpetuity despite providing no technical contribution to them is ridiculous.

Bandcamp could do a billion dollars a week in sales and it wouldn’t cost google a dime.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#89

Post by IIsi50MHz » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:54 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #53

chongli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far back as the 80’s there were means of distributing software without paying a retailer a commission on every sale. Shareware [1] was one such model. The software was distributed by users copying it from floppy to floppy, handing it out at user group meetings, conferences, even on the school playground. It was later included in large CD-ROM collections packaged with computer magazines. The point is that you could…

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.

Re: Epic is asking a court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off the Play Store

#90

Post by hamburglar » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:55 PM UTC

warning26 wrote: post #6

While 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.

If there is a path to sideload an app without google scaring the pants off users, then I agree. Making apps from the play store sound safe and apps from a 3rd party store sound scary and dangerous is abusing your position, however.