Thread

1. pi-victor · 1790425525 · focus · HN ↗

   I think it bothers OP less that they take a 15% tax than the fact that google provides terrible support for their own play store. If they would take that tax and provide good feedback and speedy version reviews, nobody would ever complain - it is expected to pay something since the play store doesn't run on good thoughts and prayers. But because they're a monopoly (or a duopoly if you count apple, which is a different platform altogether) they can afford to act this way.

   1. inputmice · 1790428175 · focus · HN ↗

      Author here: Indeed, 15% is fine. They do provide some services. They provide the CDN for downloading the APK. They handle sales taxes in the various countries, which would be a PITA to handle yourself. Similar-ish services like Patreon charge a fee too. The 30% they charged a couple of years back was bad. But I could live with 15% if the support were anything other than zero.

      1. rkangel · 1790428452 · focus · HN ↗

         The problem is that it ISN'T a fee for services as it should be. Their platform power means that they can levy a tax, and they don't feel the need to do anything on exchange for that.

         1. lemagedurage · 1790428866 · focus · HN ↗

            Yep, I'd hypothetically economically gladly build an alternative app store charging "only" 5% on app revenue. The blocker would be that Google has a hold on what store is installed by default on Android. Apple even more so. This is hardly a fair market.

            1. philipallstar · 1790429067 · focus · HN ↗

               That would work because someone else "Google" is doing all the development of Android etc etc. Of course you can create a parasitic service for less.

               1. rpdillon · 1790435702 · focus · HN ↗

                  Parasitic? Writing software for folks' devices and selling it isn't parasitic...it's just participating in the market. Weird that the overton window has moved so far that anything not built by the trillion-dollar duopoly is considered some kind of free-rider.

                  1. philipallstar · 1790438773 · focus · HN ↗

                     It's not weird - you've just completely misunderstood the situation. This is about the OS, which the software in question (the alternate app store) relies on, but generates no revenue for. The devices are still being sold, because their manufacturers are allowed to make money, the alternate store is allowed to make money. Only the OS maker will make no money, because that would be bad.

                     1. arrosenberg · 1790440758 · focus · HN ↗

                        Ah yes, Microsoft famously never made money off of Windows.

                        1. philipallstar · 1790452997 · focus · HN ↗

                           Are you not following? The OS maker in this case is Google.

                           1. happymellon · 1790498727 · focus · HN ↗

                              Ah yes, Google historically lost money from Android.
                     2. necovek · 1790443064 · focus · HN ↗

                        You seem to imply Google was forced to open source Android or even to give it for free: sounded like it was a purely business decision to capture more of the market.

                        Now that they have, they are also turning around on bits of that too.

                     3. zem · 1790448433 · focus · HN ↗

                        what you are arguing for is objectively extremely bizarre. if you take a step back, this is what is playing out: company C makes a device. it needs an operating system to run software, so they add it. if there was no operating system the device would be useless and no one would buy it. now person A buys said device. it's theirs, they have paid money for it, they own it. person B writes some software. it runs on the device's operating system. they want to sell it to person A. person A wants to buy it from them. why should company C be involved at all? I found this super weird and distasteful when game consoles were allowed to use this business model, and am even more taken aback that general purpose computers get away with it.

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