> I was hoping to publish my new game on the store and charge for it, but their review process is so broken, I think I'll stick to fdroid and itch.io.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. -- Princess Leia
Not really, unless paying users switch to alternative stores, which they don't just because I as a developer face friction in publishing to Google Play.
In fact, Google is making alternative stores even less convenient with their latest 'side-loading' hurdles.
Regulators need to wake up, issue record fines, mandate equal access and a 'Choose your app stores' screen on device setup.
Otherwise competitive third party stores and a fair market are going to remain a pipe dream.
Provided the rapture doesn't come, so what? Provided infinite things. It adds or removes nothing.
And yet trivial little alternatives like idk maybe you ever heard of Steam did actually happen, or the entire Android ecosystem itself when there was already an immense Palm app ecosystem that was like desktop apps where you got apps all manner of ways from physical sd cards to web sites to various curated stores. Or idk Epic, over a single app. They are back on the traditional stores now only because they called everyone's bluff and were suceeding, so the old stores caved rather than be seen to lose to someone so much smaller and newer, even in a small way that was more appearance than material.
There is no such thing as unthinkable. It's all not only thinkable, it has all actually already happened before and multiple times.
If something seems unimaginable, that only says something about your imagination not the reality.
You severely underestimate the market capture of the Google Play Store, the related network effects, their control over Android OS, and their power and motivation to use all of that to prevent any competition from ever getting traction.
F-Droid is not doing too bad. And yet, the vast majority of people will never ever use it after Google Play implenents their developer verification scare screens.
None of your examples succeeded in an environment that was even remotely as hostile, neither Windows nor Palm could have done what Google does today, without risking a fatal user backlash.
It's one thing for something to be thinkable and imaginable. Of course you can imagine Google Play getting dethroned. It's just so incredibly unlikely to happen without regulatory antitrust intervention that it is pointless to consider seriously.
Fdroid can never replace the main default because their strict rules rule out too much. I approve BTW, I like that a special place like fdroid exists, but it can only ever be this special niche thing.
But as time goes on and software tools become more powerful, there is just not much moat. I don't even mean AI, I just mean the ordinary power annordinary computer and the gobs of highblevel languages and frameworks and automation that just grows and grows all the time. It's not that hard to port an app to a new platform, or a new distribution mechanism, or a new clone source for an existing platform and distribution mechanism.
Big universal things with 100% capture get replaced overnight all the time. Everyone switched from MySpace to Facebook in like an hour one day. Other things like my Steam example took longer but they became at least an equal player, a real alternative that normal people could and did choose in numbers that Sony and MS couldn't ignore, pretty quickly.
Everyone switched from Palm to Android pretty quickly.
Google has a few extra levers which is agreements with all the phone manufacturers who in turn have to deal with the carriers, and google are doing the bulk of the ongoing os developement and security work so the manufacturers don't have to.
But they could just start doing that same work, or spin up a new 3rd party who's work they all share, easily, any time. They all actually already maintain half-assed backup plans they can switch to and go whole-assed if google gets that 1% too annoying one day.
There are really no easy robust moats any more. Even the biggest are precarious and have to be actively maintained through constant shenanigans.
No matter how big the capture, it's never actually very strong.
delichon · · focus · HN ↗
user43928 · · focus · HN ↗
In fact, Google is making alternative stores even less convenient with their latest 'side-loading' hurdles.
Regulators need to wake up, issue record fines, mandate equal access and a 'Choose your app stores' screen on device setup.
Otherwise competitive third party stores and a fair market are going to remain a pipe dream.
Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
user43928 · · focus · HN ↗
Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
And yet trivial little alternatives like idk maybe you ever heard of Steam did actually happen, or the entire Android ecosystem itself when there was already an immense Palm app ecosystem that was like desktop apps where you got apps all manner of ways from physical sd cards to web sites to various curated stores. Or idk Epic, over a single app. They are back on the traditional stores now only because they called everyone's bluff and were suceeding, so the old stores caved rather than be seen to lose to someone so much smaller and newer, even in a small way that was more appearance than material.
There is no such thing as unthinkable. It's all not only thinkable, it has all actually already happened before and multiple times.
If something seems unimaginable, that only says something about your imagination not the reality.
user43928 · · focus · HN ↗
This is very unlikely to change without regulatory intervention.
schubidubiduba · · focus · HN ↗
F-Droid is not doing too bad. And yet, the vast majority of people will never ever use it after Google Play implenents their developer verification scare screens.
None of your examples succeeded in an environment that was even remotely as hostile, neither Windows nor Palm could have done what Google does today, without risking a fatal user backlash.
It's one thing for something to be thinkable and imaginable. Of course you can imagine Google Play getting dethroned. It's just so incredibly unlikely to happen without regulatory antitrust intervention that it is pointless to consider seriously.
Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
But as time goes on and software tools become more powerful, there is just not much moat. I don't even mean AI, I just mean the ordinary power annordinary computer and the gobs of highblevel languages and frameworks and automation that just grows and grows all the time. It's not that hard to port an app to a new platform, or a new distribution mechanism, or a new clone source for an existing platform and distribution mechanism.
Big universal things with 100% capture get replaced overnight all the time. Everyone switched from MySpace to Facebook in like an hour one day. Other things like my Steam example took longer but they became at least an equal player, a real alternative that normal people could and did choose in numbers that Sony and MS couldn't ignore, pretty quickly.
Everyone switched from Palm to Android pretty quickly.
Google has a few extra levers which is agreements with all the phone manufacturers who in turn have to deal with the carriers, and google are doing the bulk of the ongoing os developement and security work so the manufacturers don't have to.
But they could just start doing that same work, or spin up a new 3rd party who's work they all share, easily, any time. They all actually already maintain half-assed backup plans they can switch to and go whole-assed if google gets that 1% too annoying one day.
There are really no easy robust moats any more. Even the biggest are precarious and have to be actively maintained through constant shenanigans. No matter how big the capture, it's never actually very strong.