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Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
- guardian5x 2y agoCrazy that Google and Apple are in the top 10 of game revenue companies without making any games.
- CryptoBanker 2y agoI’m confused, I’ve been using 3rd party app stores on Android for years now?
- advisedwang 2y agoFrom the article: > Google will have to distribute rival third-party app stores *within* Google Play Right now you have to side-load 3rd party apps. Also Google must: > * Stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store > * Let Android developers tell users about other ways to pay from within the Play Store > * Let Android developers link to ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store > * Let Android developers set their own prices for apps irrespective of Play Billing
- dugite-code 2y agoNot as a first class citizen. * It's only recently you could have unattended updates of applications. * It was not possible to distribute additional app stores in Google play, third party stores had to utilize sideloading which includes "scary" warning messages * Googles terms and conditions essentially required the play store be installed by default by vendors.
- baal80spam 2y agoOnly fair.
- ZunarJ5 2y agoBumping Droidify because it's great! https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.looker.droidify/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.looker.droidify/ https://github.com/Droid-ify/client https://github.com/Droid-ify/client
- maelito 2y agoOh cool ! Will the apps installed through froid be recognized in droidify ?
- aaronax 2y agoSo the better F-Droid client is recommended to be installed via F-Droid? Seems complicated.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> the better F-Droid client How's it different? Neither link appeared to discuss this.
- g-b-r 2y agoDroidify used to be much better because the official F-Droid client had a lot of problems, but now the latter is alright
- clhodapp 2y ago> and it must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps That one feels a step too far to me. It seems like it should be the developer's job to share their app with third party stores, not Google's.
- georgeecollins 2y agoGoogle is the developer.
- clhodapp 2y agoOh! Is this only Google's own apps? I read it as requiring Google to offer some kind of API to allow any app that any developer lists on the Play Store to be sucked into a third-party store. What would "unless developers opt out individually" mean then?
- dialup_sounds 2y agoThis applies to every app in the Play Store, not just Google's apps.
- wccrawford 2y agoThat isn't "all apps on Google Play". It's "all apps developed by Google that integrate with the Google Play system."
- flutas 2y agoNah, it's absolutely all apps on google play. > For a period of three years, Google will permit third-party Android app stores to access the Google Play Store's catalog of apps so that they may offer the Play Store apps to users. For apps available only in the Google Play Store (i.e., that are not independently available through the third-party Android app store), Google will permit users to complete the download of the app through the Google Play Store on the same terms as any other download that is made directly through the Google Play Store. Google may keep all revenues associated with such downloads. Google will provide developers with a mechanism for opting out of inclusion in catalog access for any particular third-party Android app store. Google will have up to eight months from the date of this order to implement the technology necessary to comply with this provision, and the three-year time period will start once the technology is fully functional. I think it's a tough call though. I get it, the court ruled Google had a monopoly, and this is supposed to prop up 3P app stores temporary until they can get footing. The fact it's opt out is... good? I mean at least there's an option. But it also feels they are also forcing devs hands by making it opt out.
- bagels 2y agoSo, then, Apple is next?
- DannyBee 2y agoNo, apple won on the exact same claims in front of a different judge.
- vitus 2y agoThat's an unfair characterization of the situation. Epic v Google was decided in a jury trial, whereas Epic v Apple was decided by a judge (as preferred by both parties). The other big difference is that Tim Cook wasn't caught trying to destroy evidence, so the judge in that case had no reason to sanction Apple. https://www.fastcompany.com/90955785/google-deleted-chats-in-doj-antitrust-trial https://www.fastcompany.com/90955785/google-deleted-chats-in... https://www.gibbonslawalert.com/2023/05/01/lets-not-just-chat-about-it-district-court-sanctions-google-for-failing-to-preserve-chat-messages-in-antitrust-suit/ https://www.gibbonslawalert.com/2023/05/01/lets-not-just-cha...
- DannyBee 2y ago"That's an unfair characterization of the situation." Gonna strongly disagree on that one. 1. Apple is not next, which is the main point 2. The sanctions are 100% irrelevant here? Why do you think they mattered? 3. The legal portion would have still been decided by a judge anyway - juries decide facts, not law. The judge decided the relevant market, etc. None of your points seem to matter as to whether Apple is next or not?
- vitus 2y ago> 1. Apple is not next, which is the main point Sure, I agree with that point. I disagree with the rest of your framing why, which was a dismissal that "Apple won on the same claims in front of a different judge". The judge in Epic v Google didn't render the verdict (as that was performed by the jury), while the judge in Epic v Apple did. > 2. The sanctions are 100% irrelevant here? Why do you think they mattered? Sanctions mattered as far as explicitly informing the jury that they were permitted to assume the worst against Google. If you don't think that might have impacted the jury's decision, I don't know what to say. The fact that the judge who later handed down the punishment thought that the sanctions were necessary should also be relevant to any harshness associated with his ruling. > And yet, the judge decided today that he would not issue a “mandatory inference instruction” — one that would tell the jury they should proceed with the understanding that Google destroyed evidence that could have been detrimental to its case. > Instead, there will be a “permissive” jury instruction — the jury “may” infer that the missing evidence might have helped Epic and hurt Google. https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/1/23984902/judge-james-donato-investigate-google https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/1/23984902/judge-james-dona... > 3. The legal portion would have still been decided by a judge anyway - juries decide facts, not law. The judge decided the relevant market, etc. Yes, Donato decided the punishment (to the extent that the law gave him discretion to do so), but it was a jury that decided that Google exercised illegal monopolistic behavior. The judge doesn't have discretion to completely disregard the jury's verdict, as per the seventh amendment. The aforementioned behavior on Google's behalf certainly didn't help garner any favor with Donato.
- tmtvl 2y agoWait, 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.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoI was under the impression the App Store was indeed ruled a monopoly and that Apple was going to be made to open up third party app stores?
- iLoveOncall 2y agoIn the EU only
- whimsicalism 2y agothey still have to go through Apple review & still have to pay Apple a revenue cut, so it's basically been defanged
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoI mean, the review part I support. The revenue part is fucking horseshit.
- whimsicalism 2y agoI think it should all be circumventable. My phone, like my computer, should be able to install whatever code I damn well please.
- atrus 2y ago> My phone Maybe that's the assumption you need to change
- tencentshill 2y agoSoon we'll have the Verizon Appstore and the Spotify Appstore and the Zoom Appstore, the exclusive home for each app and their partners, each with it's own overlapping user tracking libraries and insecure payment methods, and no one can even tell them to do otherwise. Coming soon to iOS, too!
- n_plus_1_acc 2y agoPoints at the netflix app, through which you can install bloons Tower defense
- whimsicalism 2y agoRight, just like how they've done on desktop environments
- hooli42 2y agoThis is exactly the situation for desktop games right now, something Epic is profiting immensely from. It's an extremely annoying situation for users, having a dozen launcher/store apps around contributing to bloat.
- Mindwipe 2y agoNo it isn't, the competition is great and is lowering prices across the board, and no arbitrary censorship exists. The desktop games market is much heathier and less dangerous for users than the mobile app market.
- brink 2y agoThat's exactly the competition that keeps PC from having the hiked prices the likes of Switch/XBox/PS5 stores and having to pay $15/mo to play games with your friends online. I'll happily have to deal with a few extra launchers on PC in comparison to what the alternative is.
- wiseowise 2y agoI literally don't have anything but Steam installed.
- mike_d 2y agoEpic's "First Run" program does all the things they got mad at Apple and Google about. You don't have to pay any license fees for Unreal Engine if you use Epic exclusively for payments. They give you 100% revshare for 6 months if you agree to not ship your game on any other app store. Let's not kid ourselves, Epic never cared about consumer choice or a fair playing field, they only want the ability to profit without having to invest in building a hardware platform.
- ethbr1 2y agoAll I care about is having some healthy competition in the marketplace again. If that takes tying Google's hands behind its back for a few years, fine. Taking a 30% cut should have been, prima facie, evidence of monopoly abuse.
- bsimpson 2y agoAs I recall, the original App Store argument was "It would cost a lot more than 30% to mint CDs and sell them in Waldenbooks, so we're doing developers a favor by _only_ charging 30% to distribute."
- hu3 2y agoHow generous! That's the kind of argument that only gets a pass if you have no other option as a user. Wink wink.
- callc 2y agoThere are a myriad of points which make this metaphor a insufficient argument at best (at worst intentionally obfuscating the nature of digital publishing and digital marketplaces as having similar physical analogues) in favor of the current app store landscape: 1. AFAIK anyone can manufacture and distribute CDs 2. The argument that anything below the cost to manu CDs is acceptable only holds water if you have an inefficient market that doesn’t reflect the actual cost of digital distribution.
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- gytisgreitai 2y agoGood. Android will continue becoming s*t show.
- TrianguloY 2y agoOh! So I'll finally be able to add donation links to my apps? And links to both play store and f-droid?? Currently, if you do that, the review fails for "Payments policy violation" (for the donation link at least, link to fdroid should be allowed, although I think I had some issues in the past...)
- sigmar 2y agoI've been pretty anti-google on this topic (and a long time fdroid-lover). but this ruling is nuts to me, particularly where it says google "must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps" I don't think we are going to see a healthy competitive marketplace with 4 years of chaos where every app store has the same apps, there's no curation at all or incentive structure for stores to win over app listings, and app stores get created and destroyed at the whims of a random single person. Maybe the committee will operate within the confines of this outline to set more structure and make this workable, but it seems very handy-wavey in how this is going to work...
- 015a 2y agoOne counter-take to this is the web itself: There's no curation or incentive structure to the web, yet it thrives in ways far outpacing the walled garden app stores.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoand likewise, 90% of people still converge onto some dozen websites per region anyway. If people really want that "one true platform", they will congregate and make that platform a monopoly. Against their best interests in my experience, but humanity sometimes need to re-learn the same pitfalls every generation.
- silverliver 2y agoI think the key deference here is that the web is open and people can build competitors on a level playing field. They don't have anti-competitive restrictions placed on them by their competitors (i.e. Apple and Google).
- 015a 2y agoI think that's a critical piece that anyone opposing a more free and open mobile computing paradigm needs to recognize. We point to PC gaming as a horrible state of affairs no one in the mobile world wants; but it really isn't. There were a half-dozen storefronts a few years ago. Today: Everyone is on Steam. There's EGS if you play Fortnite. I think Rockstar still has their own stuff, maybe? A couple blizzard games are still only on battle.net. Xbox has their app for Game Pass, but all their games are also on Steam. That's... it. Steam won. Its never not won. It turns out that markets love centralization. Its an efficiency thing. Mobile will be the same. Epic will have their store. A few others, maybe. You'll still download all the apps you care about from the App Store. Your user experience won't change (unless you want to give Fortnite a try). What might change is: It gives a pressure point developers can leverage against Apple to negotiate better terms. Their services revenue will drop... maybe. I say "maybe" because opening platforms and reducing prices also tends to grow the overall pie. See, there are companies like Netflix who refuse to support Apple IAP for subscriptions because the terms are unfavorable to their business. If those terms became more favorable: 10% of a million is more than 30% of zero. There are companies like Adobe and AutoDesk that refuse to build any meaningful software for the iOS and iPadOS platforms, because (in part) they would be willingly sacrificing the agency of their business to Tim Cook (for 70% of all sales; a penance). With storefront options: You might have to download the Adobe Storefront, but you'd, at least, have After Effects. No one reasonable would pick "not having After Effects" over being given the choice between using After Effects with Adobe's inevitably shit launcher/storefront and not.
- ApolloFortyNine 2y agoIt's straight depressing that Google, who has allowed loading third party apks since 2008, is the one punished when their competitor with higher market share doesn't even allow that. I just can't help but think of a world where every company pulled an apple. Not being able to install your own applications on your own device is horrifying to me, and we were just one android (apparently stupid in hindsight) decision away from that being the case. Imagine if that was the case with pcs. 30% obligatory apple tax or you can just go release your own phone.
- artursapek 2y agoI should also be able to sell any food I make at home at my local grocery store.
- kernal 2y agoGoogle will win on appeal.
- dmvdoug 2y agoFor all the people commenting on the discrepancy between this ruling and the one in Apple’s case: now perhaps you see the value of good lawyers. Apple was able to convince the judge in their case to fairly narrowly define the market segment at issue. Google failed to do that here. And no, it’s not as simple as saying they’re the same so this will get overturned on appeal to stay consistent with the Apple ruling. The market segment definition is case-specific and fact-intensive.
- gerash 2y agoGood lawyers or BS legal system?
- dmvdoug 2y agoYes.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoBias in a supposedly neutral court would certainly fall under BS legal systems, yes.
- SllX 2y agoCases aren’t decided purely by the law. They’re also decided on the facts, and the facts are what are entered into the court record. It is also a fact observable to anyone outside any court of law that while Google sells phones, their main relationship with Android is as a vendor-neutral OS developer that licenses the OS out and takes responsibility for its maintenance and a services provider that required favoring their own software and services over that of their competitors as part of their agreement with phone makers. Apple makes and sells phones, including the OS, and services for those phones including the App Store. They’re not telling Samsung they must favor Apple services in order to receive an iOS license because they don’t license iOS to Samsung for Samsung’s phones. Google and Apple both chose their own business plans here, which is their right, but it also put them on different legal footing when Epic came calling in Court because in theory, Android was supposed to be an open ecosystem that third party app markets could thrive on and it just wasn’t that, in particular because Google was putting their thumb on the scale.
- gerash 2y agoIf the court is less consistent in its ruling than perhaps any tennager in the US in this case then I wonder what other cases they are adjudicating
- pfdietz 2y ago> Stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store (the jury found that Google had illegally tied its payment system to its app store) Woot! I'll be able to buy books in the Kindle app again.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoBut not on iOS.
- qwertox 2y agoNext up in the TODO list: Force Google to open source Google Play Services and allow users to choose which which publisher's version of it they want to use. That thing has become a huge proprietary spyware blob and without it the device is nearly useless. It's nearly obligatory for developers to code against it.
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- jaimex2 2y agoGoogle will do an uno reverse on the EU If Apple's store isn't illegal then they will switch to their model. Android will lock out alternative stores completely in response. They'll probably rename Android to something else and say its a new, more secure OS.
- nijave 2y agoI think it's more useful to think in context of vertical integration. Mobile phone software is very tightly vertically integrated such that a single company can control components that historically other companies were able to compete at providing. Apple and Google not only control hardware, kernel, OS facilities, user land, software loading/download facilities, but also payments, code signing, and even venture into other forms of banking. On top of that, they're actively blocking potential competitors to many (most) of those pieces.
- juliangmp 2y ago>Google also can't offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first Gee I wonder if these sorts of rules also apply to Epic Games
- jasoneckert 2y agoThe most interesting bit for me was "I won’t discuss the Apple case more than this brief outline since I’m ethically bound." This included a link to: https://www.theverge.com/authors/sean-hollister/archives/38 https://www.theverge.com/authors/sean-hollister/archives/38 Did his wife sign an Apple NDA that applies to family members? Or does he not want to anger Apple out of fear of retaliation towards his wife? Either way, I don't see how the word "ethics" applies to either situation.
- ordu 2y agoHe has a potential motive to lie or to distort the truth. Or maybe he has not, but an outside observer cannot know it for sure. So if he will speak freely he will become a target of attacks based on his supposed hidden motivation, and it can happen without regard to his real impartiality.
- ocdtrekkie 2y agoSo probably more than half of his household income comes from Apple, so there's a conflict of interest. The ethical choice is not to "try to be neutral", but simply to acknowledge that someone else who actually is neutral is more qualified to report on that topic. It's like how judges should recuse themselves from cases where they have a stock portfolio including one party to the case.
- jasoneckert 2y agoThat makes sense, thank you.
- huhkerrf 2y agoYeah that's weird. Like, maybe they should have gotten someone else to do the story if the reporter couldn't have done a full job of it?
- abalone 2y agoI'm not trying to be provocative or a downvote magnet here but does anyone actually have a concrete response to the concerns Frederighi raised about sideloading and privacy / phishing protections three years ago?[1] Isn't it like very, very obvious that while you and I and everyone else on HN appreciate the power of sideloading, average users are more easily tricked into bypassing the protections of well-run app stores? [1] https://youtu.be/f0Gum8UkyoI https://youtu.be/f0Gum8UkyoI
- Timber-6539 2y agoLooking to the day we can finally say goodbye to Google's SafetyNet.
- raxxorraxor 2y agoThat abomination should die in a fire and apps should be forbidden to use it, banking apps included.
- Kon-Peki 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia [0]: > The events and initial actions on Epic's lawsuit against Google were brought on the same day as Epic's suit against Apple, but Google stressed the legal situation around their case is far different. Google asserted that the Android operating system does not have the same single storefront restriction as Apple's iOS, and thus allows different Android phone manufacturers to bundle different storefronts and apps as they desire. Google said they are negotiating with Epic Games far differently from Apple in their case. I have no idea how the two cases are different, but Google said they were. And it sure sounds like Google specifically chose to take a different path, which ended up being a loser. Cautionary tale of hubris and stuff. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
- topherPedersen 2y agoLove this, but Apple's the big offender not Google. Google's already pretty open, and they approve most apps. It's not hard to get your app on the Play Store, it's Apple and the App Store that make publishing your apps a nightmare. Hope to see things start opening up though. Very happy for Epic and developers everywhere.
- rendall 2y ago"Why my apps will soon disappear from Google Play Store" was on the front page of HN a day or so ago. Enlightening. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41727933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41727933
- postsantum 2y agoNo, it's the opposite. Apple has reasonable process with human support Google Play is full of trip wires, you trigger one and your account is gone, your career of independent developer is over
- benoau 2y agoI think the concept of lifetime bans from big tech platforms needs to be reevaluated, but there is not much difference between Google's "trip wires" and Apple's "red lines": your app is not allowed to exist either way. Patreon faces an existential crisis right now: use in-app purchases or the app will be removed. Game streaming wasn't banned right up until it was. No amount of support has helped with these red lines - not even the committee they allegedly created for developers to challenge the rules. Their support has only helped in the absurd cases, like demanding WordPress implement IAPs or rejecting dictionaries for containing swear words.
- gok 2y agoWhich mean Tencent (Epic's parent company) will finally be free to open their app stores world-wide.
- jakeogh 2y agoGood. Google is actively trying to force everyone to have an account via Play Store monopoly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41517159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41517159 Now do Apple.
- seydor 2y agoEpic being the true antitrust commisionaire, having achieved more than entire groups of countries . The ruling may be on the extreme side but it's still good to see things moving back to a more open software world. Google is probably not afraid of it, they know that their users will keep using their services because they are better . (Just like how browser choice in the EU did not move the needle). Any rule enforcing openness should be celebrated, as a win to change the culture of walled gardens that has plagued technology for decades
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>Google is probably not afraid of it, they know that their users will keep using their services because they are better . ehh. We can discuss that all day. All I care is that any apps they don't allow should be able to find or make a platform that does allow it. Freedom doesn't mean that others will think like me and choose that freedom over familiarity.
- Frieren 2y agoSo many comments advocating for centralized tightly controlled technology. Capitalism and freedom are truly dead in the name of small short-term conveniences. Or, most probably, invested interest in increasing share value for big-tech. If the USA decides that monopolies are the only way it is going to lose the tech race. The death of AT&T created some chaos but a lot of opportunities for technological and business advancement. Breaking all monopolies is the only way forward for a healthy competitive economy. Big share value gains just show that the system is not working. That there is no competition, no choice, just a rent-seeking economy that reduces value at the cost of everybody.
- bhawks 2y agoThe browser should have been the distribution mechanism and user agent sandbox for mobile apps. Unfortunately both OS platforms owned their own browsers and would benefit from controlling app distribution under the guise of protecting app quality. It is also exceedingly ironic that browsers played such a key role in wrestling control from the dominant windows platform to the benefit of Apple and Google.
- _cenw 2y ago> Google also can’t: Offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first or Offer developers money or perks not to launch their apps on rival stores. Very funny, that's Epic's bread and butter on PC.
- flacebo 2y ago> Google also can’t: > Offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first That's exactly what Epic did trying to make their store happen. They're not the good guys, they just want part of the profit. Other than that, I see this as a win for other developers and consumers. Although I don't think this is over, Google will do everything to fight this.
- bayindirh 2y agoEpic was never "the hand of good faith" in these fights. They just want more money. From engine wars to app-store wars, why I get the same feeling 20 years later?
- zelphirkalt 2y agoIs the judge epic for their ruling, or is judge employed by Epic? ;D I have a feeling, that headings become more ambiguous over time. OK this one is with capital E on Epic. Still fun to think about the other meanings.
- zelphirkalt 2y agoMaybe stores should simply be uncoupled with mobile OS. Imagine a store, that has apps for various OS, run independently from the OS' vendor, Google, Apple, whoever. Then we wouldn't have all the issues with the vendors behaving like dictators about what can be on _their_ stores, because it is no longer their stores. Only question: How does it get financed and maintained, if not big tech is behind it?
- paldepind2 2y agoThat's what Steam is. It works on both Linux, Windows, and macOS, and it sells apps for all three platforms. Funding isn't a problem, as Valve takes a cut of sales. The whole thing is only possible though since the supported platforms are not locked down.
- mrweasel 2y agoFor this to work in any reasonable manor it should work more like package repos in Linux. There is absolutely no point to any of the 3rd party app stores, if you cannot install your banking, travel or payment apps from them. Who cares about an EPIC app store, where games are ever so slightly cheaper, if you can't install the app for your government ID from that store? There needs to be multiple store fronts, with the option of adding different package streams so that any store can carry any app. This is obviously going to be to confusing for the average person and will make the app stores unusable for most. The whole idea of alternative app stores is idiotic, unless companies and governments aren't being forced to distribute their apps on all of them. Maybe you can have two app stores at the same time, but then I question what we actually gained. I don't want 3rd party app stores because Google and Apple are overcharging, I want them because I don't trust Google and I want to be able to use an Android phone while not giving Google ANY information at all. But I really don't care that Apple and Google are charging developers 30%, I really don't. I have only a few paid apps, and they where price just fine.
- SergeAx 2y agoBut... It is already open to third-party stores and even APK side loading. Who understands what's going on here?
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- always_imposter 2y agoThis is truly baffling to me. Google is far from doing anti-competitive bs than Apple does. You can't install anything on an apple device without the whims of Apple. This calls into question whether you actually own your Apple device or not when you can't even tinker with it. Simply put, you don't own an Apple device. Google's Android is pretty much as open as things can be, yes, from hardware manufacturers' perspective it is a shit deal that you have to install their entire suite of apps if you want to use Play Store. Yes, this thing is anti-competitive but Epic wasn't fighting along these lines. It is not fair to call Google anti-competitive for wanting to maintain their supremacy on their own app. It's like you have a shop selling your brand's merchandise and you are very successful but are told by a judge to allow other brand's merchandise on your acquired customers. Truly wild. With Android, you can always install competing app stores on your phone by going to the website of the developer. It makes zero sense to want to make things "more" open. Yes, Google warns you that you are installing an app from other location, but that is on the user man and is good opsec on google's part to not let any random user install apps from anywhere. There should be a little barrier to prevent apps from being installed and google's os does that. There are plenty of apps in India which operate outside the purview of Google's Play Store and doing business of billions of $. Google and Apple both don't allow gambling apps on their platform but there are so many companies here that are distributing their apps through their website and succeeding and they are a big business at that. I doubt there are any other examples in the world of apps succeeding doing billions of $ in revenue outside Apple/Google stores. The actual action needs to be taken on Apple's App Store who are the biggest offenders of walled garden and not letting users make a choice. I am pretty sure, if the users got to know that they are paying more for apps on their apple devices than their web counterparts, they would be up in arms. Devs cannot even convey to their users that they are paying more when they buy through app store. This is ridiculous.
- fire_lake 2y agoAndroid is not an open platform because in practice everything works on Google Play Services.
- TimCTRL 2y agonot really https://firebase.google.com/docs/android/android-play-services https://firebase.google.com/docs/android/android-play-servic...
- ChoGGi 2y ago"Google also can't: Offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first" Huh, why does that sound familiar epic games store?
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- tarkin2 2y agoIsn't Samsung's Store and F-Droid all ready third party?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agoWhat's illegal. 1. Monopoly power plus 2. anti-competitive conduct. Apple and Google both have #2 but only Google has #1. "Illegal monopoly" is strange terminology. What does it mean. Monopolies are not illegal. Anti-competitive conduct by a party with monopoly power is illegal.
- silexia 2y agoWhy does this link to the verge and not the original source? I hate clickbait.