The apparent information gathering and brutal review process is unbelievable here. If I'm understanding this correctly, the requirement is that eg Epic Game Store must register and upload every single APK for every app they offer, and cannot offer it in their store until Google approves it, which may take a week or more - including every time the app updates.
Meanwhile they get full competitive insight into which apps are being added to Epics store, their download rates apparently, and they even get the APKs to boot, potentially making it easier for those app devs to onboard if they like, and can pressure them to do so by dragging their feet on that review process.
> Provide direct, publicly accessible customer support to end users through readily accessible communication channels.
This is an interesting requirement. I want to see someone provide the same level of support that Google does to see if it draws a ban.
their Play store review practices are such a joke. Apps review is a completely obscure process, no clear way to see that the app is in review state, if they reject - amount of information why it was rejected is minimal and you have to second-guess; appealing is not trivial; most of the reviews are done by AI which gets triggered in totally random places from time to time (e.g., in my case, some pictures which looked fine for kids for years and went through many previous reviewed, suddenly seem too violent).
I'm not subscribed to too many Youtubers. But it's insane that I still need 2 digits to count how many of those creators tried to work for over a week to address some urgent issue brought upon by one of Google's automation tools. Then simply resorted to Twitter to get their fanbase to rile up YouTube for them.
The fact that this is being introduced after the whole Epic/Apple thing clearly shows that the penalties in that case were not nearly severe enough and the standards set were not nearly stringent enough. The mere attempt to engage in policies like this should result in fines in the hundreds of billions.
The cheaper and more effective way is tk tbeeaten to jail any key decision nakers. Remove the freedoms they enjoy and abise and suddenly they start falling in line quickly.
It should be partial government ownership. That way the true 'company' the owners feel the penalty in the form of stock dilution. Plus no one wants the government on the inside and the pains that will come with that. And repeat offenders end up owned by the government.
I’d also point out in the same observation that they knew better than to try this in Europe and that their strategy of trying to hold large tech companies accountable seems to be working (with the minor caveat that it’s now official US defence policy to try and break up the European Union and US trade policy is extremely focused on the idea that nobody is ever allowed to fine a US company for breaking the law)
I am morbidly curious about how far the attempt to destroy the USA will be allowed to proceed before even the Republican party has decided that it is probably enough. So far they have exceeded my wildest (and worst) expectations.
Unfortunately I can't get myself and those I care about off this planet (no, thank you, Elon) and we all will most likely lose a lot, possibly life and limb on account of this.
Another reason they could be attacking NATO allies on this front is that the UK has been acting against Bully XL dogs. They’re scared that these dog regulations will spread and so Trump must be surely considering exiting NATO over this.
The US’ current desire to break up the EU is not because of EU regulations, it’s because the US president is a convicted felon who has been a Russian mob asset promoting Putin’s talking points for decades.
He's also a by-the-dictionary-definition fascist authoritarian including the part where corporations are untouchable and above the law, so long as they pay to play with his new mafia government modeled directly on Russia.
> The following fees apply when a user completes [...] any app installs within 24 hours of following an external content link
So does this mean a malicious competitor or motivated disgruntled user could fraudulently cause millions of app installs? With the scale smartphone activity fraud farms are at these days, paying a few thousand dollars on such a service to cause a developer to spend a few million dollars on worthless installs (or a lot of resources arguing with Google) seems like a worthwhile endeavour for the motivated.
I got my AdSense account disabled because "fraudulent click activity" or how they worded it (someone clicked my ads frequently, I assume?). Google then kept all the my hard earned 16++ EUR or so.
I’m very curious how Tim Sweeney will react to this. This is very much not the victory lap he was hoping to take (nor are the Apple rulings)
1. I think uptake of third party stores is quite low and there’s a strong incentive to stay available on the primary store
2. The App Store model has very much been that the paid apps are subsidizing the free ones. So it’s somewhat fair to charge for using the infrastructure, if you’re not contributing into the pot (and are siphoning away from it)
3. Those per install costs are brutal. I was thinking they’d do a dollar , but at almost $4, they’re outside what most people would spend. This is a strong way to keep F2P games from instituting external payment processing.
Developers pay Google to access its services. Infrastructure costs account for less than 1% of the profit margin and are practically negligible. Google acts like a pimp, obsessed with squeezing profit above all else.
If Google allowed other App stores on Android then maybe Amazon could make one. Or maybe they could add a setting to allow users to install their own APKs somehow.
> I’m very curious how Tim Sweeney will react to this.
“Epic has indicated that it opposes the service fees that Google announced it may implement in the future and that Epic will challenge these fees if they come into effect.”
I’m sure they’ll oppose it but I’m not sure what footing they’d have if this doesn’t fall under googles collusion case, seeing as it’s for everyone in the same boat.
People keep making the comparison between the Apple App Store or the Google Play store and the XBox store or the Fortnite store.
But these are likely irrelevant comparisons.
For one thing, the degree of monopolization simply doesn’t exist. Gaming is a market. There are many gaming platforms that are extremely popular. Xbox, PS, Nintendo, Steam, and then just open distribution on PCs which essentially means there is no lock in in this industry. And unlike the “web app” comparison folks try to make, open distribution can easily leverage the same capabilities as the store distributed games can (and in fact, they are more capable than games from some stores, like the Windows store).
But more importantly, gaming isn’t an essential part of life, which is basically what smartphones, dominated entirely by iOS/Android, have become at this point.
People depend on these platforms. There are businesses you cannot interact with if not through your phone. There are public transportation systems that are almost unusable.
And finally, maybe this is just me, but I think the idea that general purpose computing is the same as playing video games just strikes me as wrong. General purpose computing, which is what phones are, are basic infrastructure for modern life. They should be treated differently and we shoudoht allow 2 companies to monopolize and/or embargo them like Apple/Google are trying.
I feel like many commenters are misunderstanding what this is about. This is about apps that are distributed via Google Play. It's an exception to the long-standing rules that a) all monetary transactions for non-physical items must use IAPs, and b) a Google Play distributed app can't install or ask the user to install something from outside of Google Play.
As far as I can tell, none of this applies to apps installed from elsewhere, be that F-Droid, other stores like RuStore, or just a downloaded apk. As long as the alternative store itself wasn't installed from Google Play that is, but none of them work like that anyway.
I'm not defending Google of course. Their entitlement is still insane.
Since Google is making sure to use all its monopolistic power for keeping Google Play the "default" app store for 99% of users, I fail to see this distinction as particularly relevant. From an anticompetitiveness perspective, that is.
A common pattern in social networks with a political identity, is that bait news stories are less scrutinized for truthfulness and more baited into raging. E.g:
Political group:Right
Social media: twitter
Headline: "the police detained a 15 yo for posting on tiktok"
Reality: "15yo called for violence on a specific event and group of people"
Pol group: left
Social media: bluesky
Headline: "young mother of 2 gets detained by ICE for speaking in spanish"
Reality: "DUI, didn't speak english, translator was used, prior records"
Reminds me of how phishing attempts play to our political identities as well, recently there was a phishing attempt were the platform said that during pride month all uploaded content would have the pride flag added or something like that.
The common pattern is that some things are ridiculous, but people want to believe that "the enemy" is as ridiculous, it's an opportunity to be enraged and vindicated that the injustice is too obvious to hold on its own. That it will all come crumbling down, or at least that any insecurities in our political positioning are reduced, and our position becomes clearer and our certainty increased.
In our case, it seems to be something very specific about external links from the play store. I can't be sure but it seems as if this rule relates to apps distributed through the google play store that in turn can download other apps. This provides an alternative agreement to the rev share model, where app stores can pay per install rather than on all future revenue.
Let's try to understand news and be on the same page before analyzing implications.
Hopefully this gets slapped down hard just like Apple recently did. Both Apple and Google want to continue business as usual despite the court rulings.
I honestly don't understand the court rulings regarding all of this. Like, "you need to allow someone to install your software for free" is easy to understand. And "you can ban software that doesn't pay you your chosen cut" is also straightforward (even though I'm a dirty OS Commie that wants that shit for free). Both of those follow clear-cut legal principles based in antitrust and intellectual property law (respectively).
But it seems to me that the court is trying to enforce some kind of middle ground, which doesn't make sense. There's no legal principle one can use to curtail the power of an IP holder aside from mandating it be given away for free. Indeed, the whole idea of IP law is that the true value of the underlying property can only be realized if the property owner has the power of the state to force others to negotiate for it. Apple was told "you can charge for your IP" and said "well all our fee is actually licensing, except for the 3% we pay per transaction". The courts rejected this, so... I mean, what does Apple do now? Keep whittling down the fee until the court finds it reasonable? That can't possibly be good faith compliance (as if Apple has ever complied in good faith lol).
From just this page it's rather unclear what triggers this... if an fdroid app that does not use any Play libraries has a purchaseable thing on another site, is that in scope? Do they need to add Play libraries to track it, or be smacked? If yes, it'd certainly explain their "developer verification" effort, as it's a way to enforce rent extraction.
Readit News
Meanwhile they get full competitive insight into which apps are being added to Epics store, their download rates apparently, and they even get the APKs to boot, potentially making it easier for those app devs to onboard if they like, and can pressure them to do so by dragging their feet on that review process.
> Provide direct, publicly accessible customer support to end users through readily accessible communication channels.
This is an interesting requirement. I want to see someone provide the same level of support that Google does to see if it draws a ban.
If it wasn't a hack, Google moves like molasses.
This looks tailor made to navigate the Epic v. Apple ruling's contours.
Repeat offenders should be given fines at an exponentially increasing percentage. The more and frequent you offend, the more fines you pay.
Unfortunately I can't get myself and those I care about off this planet (no, thank you, Elon) and we all will most likely lose a lot, possibly life and limb on account of this.
Couldn’t be anything else to be honest.
He's also a by-the-dictionary-definition fascist authoritarian including the part where corporations are untouchable and above the law, so long as they pay to play with his new mafia government modeled directly on Russia.
So does this mean a malicious competitor or motivated disgruntled user could fraudulently cause millions of app installs? With the scale smartphone activity fraud farms are at these days, paying a few thousand dollars on such a service to cause a developer to spend a few million dollars on worthless installs (or a lot of resources arguing with Google) seems like a worthwhile endeavour for the motivated.
1. I think uptake of third party stores is quite low and there’s a strong incentive to stay available on the primary store
2. The App Store model has very much been that the paid apps are subsidizing the free ones. So it’s somewhat fair to charge for using the infrastructure, if you’re not contributing into the pot (and are siphoning away from it)
3. Those per install costs are brutal. I was thinking they’d do a dollar , but at almost $4, they’re outside what most people would spend. This is a strong way to keep F2P games from instituting external payment processing.
Deleted Comment
“Epic has indicated that it opposes the service fees that Google announced it may implement in the future and that Epic will challenge these fees if they come into effect.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/848540/google-app-fees-externa...
Free mobile games work via whales subsidizing free users. It may be more than the median user, but it's less than the average spend per user.
These would not be free to play. They would have an up front cost beyond what the free users would be paying otherwise.
But these are likely irrelevant comparisons.
For one thing, the degree of monopolization simply doesn’t exist. Gaming is a market. There are many gaming platforms that are extremely popular. Xbox, PS, Nintendo, Steam, and then just open distribution on PCs which essentially means there is no lock in in this industry. And unlike the “web app” comparison folks try to make, open distribution can easily leverage the same capabilities as the store distributed games can (and in fact, they are more capable than games from some stores, like the Windows store).
But more importantly, gaming isn’t an essential part of life, which is basically what smartphones, dominated entirely by iOS/Android, have become at this point.
People depend on these platforms. There are businesses you cannot interact with if not through your phone. There are public transportation systems that are almost unusable.
And finally, maybe this is just me, but I think the idea that general purpose computing is the same as playing video games just strikes me as wrong. General purpose computing, which is what phones are, are basic infrastructure for modern life. They should be treated differently and we shoudoht allow 2 companies to monopolize and/or embargo them like Apple/Google are trying.
As far as I can tell, none of this applies to apps installed from elsewhere, be that F-Droid, other stores like RuStore, or just a downloaded apk. As long as the alternative store itself wasn't installed from Google Play that is, but none of them work like that anyway.
I'm not defending Google of course. Their entitlement is still insane.
Political group:Right
Social media: twitter
Headline: "the police detained a 15 yo for posting on tiktok"
Reality: "15yo called for violence on a specific event and group of people"
Pol group: left
Social media: bluesky
Headline: "young mother of 2 gets detained by ICE for speaking in spanish"
Reality: "DUI, didn't speak english, translator was used, prior records"
Reminds me of how phishing attempts play to our political identities as well, recently there was a phishing attempt were the platform said that during pride month all uploaded content would have the pride flag added or something like that.
The common pattern is that some things are ridiculous, but people want to believe that "the enemy" is as ridiculous, it's an opportunity to be enraged and vindicated that the injustice is too obvious to hold on its own. That it will all come crumbling down, or at least that any insecurities in our political positioning are reduced, and our position becomes clearer and our certainty increased.
In our case, it seems to be something very specific about external links from the play store. I can't be sure but it seems as if this rule relates to apps distributed through the google play store that in turn can download other apps. This provides an alternative agreement to the rev share model, where app stores can pay per install rather than on all future revenue.
Let's try to understand news and be on the same page before analyzing implications.
The costs provided here may very well fall into the acceptable boundaries for the courts.
But it seems to me that the court is trying to enforce some kind of middle ground, which doesn't make sense. There's no legal principle one can use to curtail the power of an IP holder aside from mandating it be given away for free. Indeed, the whole idea of IP law is that the true value of the underlying property can only be realized if the property owner has the power of the state to force others to negotiate for it. Apple was told "you can charge for your IP" and said "well all our fee is actually licensing, except for the 3% we pay per transaction". The courts rejected this, so... I mean, what does Apple do now? Keep whittling down the fee until the court finds it reasonable? That can't possibly be good faith compliance (as if Apple has ever complied in good faith lol).
https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/complying-w...
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315033)