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A Jury Will Decide If Google's App Store Is an Unjust Monopoly
(www.wired.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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It's such a monopoly!! Epic Games decided they don't want to pay Google a 30% cut so didn't put Fortnite on the Play Store, and now they have absolutely no way of making an Android version! (/s)
What's up with Apple not allowing sideloads? They also have an app store, AND don't allow installing from outside of it. Users can only do that if they hack their devices. You can kinda de-Google stock Android, and disable all Google apps to not show up, and install a third-party store. You can fully de-Google it by rooting. There is a literal button to unlock the OEM, and then you can unlock the bootloader, and root or install a custom OS. Sure, it's not that easy, but you can. No matter how scary the warning is that it gives at boot, it's still an intended thing. Just because it gives a warning when you install an *unsigned app, it isn't a monopoly. Windows SmartScreen also does it when an app is unsigned, and the install anyways button is hidden behind a more details button.
Ok, it can't auto-update without root and Play Store doesn't allow other app stores to be put on it, I just don't understand why they are targetting Google out of all things.
They could make a section in the Play Store that lists other trusted app stores, and maybe even allow downloading them directly from the Play Store, but I can't decide if they should manually put them there, allow free submissions, or allow submissions while still having to pay. And they should make implementation of auto-updates for non-system apps easier.
This is definitely not an unjust monopoly tough.
Epic games decided they don’t want to pay 30% of every transaction to Google or Apple. They sued Apple already and lost. They’ve filed an appeal, so we will hear more on that soon ish. I’m not an epic fan at all, but 30% of all sales is ridiculous. Epic themselves take 12% on the epic store. Valve, Apple, Google—none of these companies should get a third of the sale price for everything sold through an app downloaded from there store. Not just the price of the app, but all app revenue. Every in app purchase. All of it.
The $25 registration fee is just for the account. That’s negligible considering Apple charges $100 a year. It’s the commission these companies take that epic is suing over.
The Epic Games Store isn't profitable so it may not be a good example for how fees should be set.
Also, Epic is trying to argue lower fees would benefit consumers but games generally aren't cheaper on Epic's store than on Steam.
Yeah I mean they're handing out games for free left and right, their store sucks, their reputation sucks (both among gamers and most devs), of course they're not making a profit. Their 12% cut is only able to about cover costs because it doesn't include transaction fees and while I'd like Stream to lower their cut they're providing a fuckton of service for devs and the health of the wider ecosystem. I'd wish Gabe would finally figure out succession, though, e.g. make Valve a foundation, think Zeiss or Bosch, to make sure it stays bound to statutes instead of finance for eternity.
They aren’t cheaper in epic, but more money goes to the publishers and developers. It sucks when a game studio you like goes under.
I’d argue they aren’t profitable because of steam. Everybody uses steam, and most people will wait 6 months to get the epic exclusives after the exclusivity runs out.
I guess as a studio it boils down to is would they rather get 70% of 10 million sales or 88% of 1 million sales. They have to make that calculus and also whether they're going to spend money to make, test, distribute and support multiple builds of the same game to capture as many sales from as many platforms as possible.
I once made an app for Android that I distributed on Play, Amazon and Blackberry(!) app stores and it soon became a huge pain in the ass. Since the stores have different banner / screenshot requirements, different upload requirements, even different approval procedures that could mean uploads took a week to appear. In the end I just gave up and used Play because it was the largest audience and relatively frictionless.
I think the way 2k does it is a good model. They release in epic exclusively for like 6 months, and tben steam and epic after. Idk what the different requirements are for the various game stores, but the build version should be the same for a software that large.
It’s also the publishers job to handle marketing, so that would fall under their purview rather than the devs at least. With 2k’s model for the ‘lands series, they get the best of both worlds for the most part. The only customers they lose are the ones who are staunchly against using multiple game portals or just really dislike epic for one reason or another.
For a small developer, I do agree though. It comes down to whether they think a larger audience will benefit them. Sometimes being a large fish in a small pond is better, sometimes not. I won’t pretend I’ve got personal experience marketing and selling a game, but I do believe (and not just because I’m a developer) that the dev companies and publishers should get more of the pie than the platform they are selling on.
Because as you said, it's impossible to create an alternative app store that works and auto update like the Play Store does.
Google has is in a duopoly with Apple for smartphones OS. They are abusing their dominant position on mobile OS to ensure a dominant position on mobile app stores.
That's exactly what the antitrust laws are about: abusing your position in one domain to kill competition on another.
Yes Apple is worse, that means the situation needs to change on both platforms.
It's COMPLETELY possible to have an alternative app store that does these things. You could install F-Droid on your phone if you so wished right now. Many phones have Samsung's app store baked into them. Amazon also have an app store.
It would more correct to say that Google preinstalls Play store and enjoys the power of the default - this stuff is in all their licensed phones, it does the job and vast majority people lack a motivation to use anything else. But if people were motivated they could do something else it since the door isn't completely closed as it is on many other platforms.
I think this is just Epic getting pissed that they either have to agree to the terms of using Play, including give a cut of in-app purchases or go it alone and do their own thing. They could even have their own app store if they wanted - who knows if they had better terms than Google then maybe they could attract other games onto the platform, or find some other model, like curated subscription based gaming.
If you wanted fdroid to update apps automatically ~~you'd need to have some system level service running like Google Play services. This is course could be achieved with a custom rom or using root. (This is how huwai and other devices that don't get the play store, as well as Samsung handle their own stores)~~ [untrue as of Android 12, see below comment]
That said I view automatic updates as an anti feature most of the time. I should be asked if I want updates. You can of course turn off auto updates in the play store too though so that's more of a side note.
Actually as of Android 12, there are APIs that allow third party app stores that aren't system apps to automatically update apps.
Huh that's cool. I haven't looked into the apis since about Android 9 so that checks out.
Android 12 not API 12
Just so that there's no misunderstanding