Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 10:49 UTC (Mon) by wazoox (subscriber, #69624)Parent article: F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree
Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:05 UTC (Mon)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (1 responses)
At least 3 of the biggest have a tacit understanding between them that each has certain 'territories' or scopes that are theirs, and the others will mostly try avoid encroaching. I.e., search and video, social, and retail/cloud (IIRC). I have heard this understanding spoken of by management at 1 of those big 3.
It's stereotypical protectionism and monopolistic behaviour.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:13 UTC (Mon)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
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Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:11 UTC (Mon)
by decorum (subscriber, #178110)
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Posted Sep 30, 2025 8:53 UTC (Tue)
by comio (subscriber, #115526)
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Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:18 UTC (Mon)
by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:40 UTC (Mon)
by davecb (subscriber, #1574)
[Link]
The suggested breakup before the courts is to the ad business, so Google has to chose between being the agent for the seller, agent for the buyer and auctions house. Right now they're all three (Can you say "moral hazard"?)
Android, in particular is not a money sink: Google collects significantly from the
Google Play Store, pre-installed Google services and default search placement.
The Play Store alone generates billions in revenue annually.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 11:47 UTC (Mon)
by excors (subscriber, #95769)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 29, 2025 12:59 UTC (Mon)
by magila (guest, #49627)
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Posted Sep 29, 2025 12:39 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (13 responses)
And, pray tell, how will breaking up Google solve the problem F-droid is facing?
Because as I've pointed out elsewhere, this is a direct consequence of government regulations ("know your developers", "cut off sanctioned entities") that Google (and any hypothetical successor owner of "Android") has to follow. Turns out governments really like having gatekeepers after all.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:03 UTC (Mon)
by davecb (subscriber, #1574)
[Link]
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:17 UTC (Mon)
by hailfinger (subscriber, #76962)
[Link] (11 responses)
This is not a direct consequence of government regulations, it is just one of the most obnoxious ways (i.e. Apple style) to simulate conformance to some government regulations in some countries. Just like preventing exploitation of a software security bug by permanently switching off the affected machine.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:35 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (10 responses)
So, you're saying that Google (and Apple) isn't currently being held responsible for what gets installed via alternative storefronts? They aren't being told to prevent sanctioned entities from doing business on the Android/iOS platforms?
Who am I to believe, you or my own lying eyes?
(This is not unlike how Google/Apple/etc are being ordered to "respect privacy" by one regulation/court order and "collect and validate individual IDs to validate <age/nationality/etc>" by others. In the same jurisdiction.)
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:41 UTC (Mon)
by hailfinger (subscriber, #76962)
[Link] (2 responses)
> They aren't being told to prevent sanctioned entities from doing business on the Android/iOS platforms?
> Who am I to believe, you or my own lying eyes?
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:49 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
https://www.theverge.com/news/767344/apple-removes-itorre...
Posted Sep 29, 2025 15:16 UTC (Mon)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
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Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:45 UTC (Mon)
by intelfx (subscriber, #130118)
[Link] (6 responses)
Isn't this rebuttal (I've heard it several times on LWN already) basically a textbook case of the premise being mistaken for the consequence?
It is very plausible that it is mainly *because* Google (and Apple) *are* gatekeepers, they are being told to gatekeep in favor of the government. If they weren't gatekeepers to begin with, there would be a very slim chance of any (democratic) government demanding anything of the sort without causing massive reaction.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 13:54 UTC (Mon)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (5 responses)
We live in the real world, not an alternative what-if-history-had-been-different thought experiment.
This is why I question what good breaking up Google would do in this context, as no matter which of the chunks gets to keep Android, it's still a singular gatekeeper.
Posted Sep 29, 2025 19:19 UTC (Mon)
by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850)
[Link] (4 responses)
Neither corporations nor governments are artificial other-worldly entities which mere mortals have no power over. If enough people agree that there should be no gatekeepers, they have the power to make it happen.
(Until such a thing happens, I guess I'll keep being ever more disgusted at and uninterested in phones, both as a user and as a developer.)
Posted Oct 4, 2025 4:16 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (3 responses)
Oh, absolutely -- but the key word above is *think*.
When we see proposals on how to "improve" things, negative consequences of those changes are rarely considered, or worse yet, hand-waved away as a problem to be "trivially" solved by "nerding harder" [1].
Nearly every attempt to regulate away a problem results in a higher barrier to entry. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but is often at odds with the nominal reason for enacting said regulations to begin with (eg "levelling the playing field will increase competition that will eventually bring down prices"). This is why $bigcorps tend to like expansive regulations, as those form the moat that keeps out new competitors. What good does a "level playing field" accomplish when to even get started you now need an order of magnitude more startup capital to even reach it?
This whole "alternative app stores" thing is another great example. This push effectively creates a completely parasitic ecosystem that is entirely dependent upon the nominal platform owner (eg Google or Apple) to undertake and pay for all of the considerable NRE in developing and maintaining said platform, while simultaneously deriving them of the revenues to pay for it [2]. Folks pejoratively refer to those revenues as "the Apple tax" but it's really an apt metaphor. After all, taxes are what pays for the infrastructure of our civil societies that all of us benefit from. Take away the ability to levy taxes, and your society will fall apart fairly quickly.
For example, take a water purification/treatment plant. It costs (eg) $10M to build before a single drop of water can be delivered, and $1M/year in fixed maintenance costs, but once it's running the incremental cost of each gallon of water is $0.001 whether only 1 gallon or 100 million gallons are delivered. How do you structure your rates? Extra per-gallon fee? Fixed monthly fee? Now what happens if you're forced to allow 3rd parties to run their own water through your treatment plant. How do you pay for maintenance or additional capacity?
The alternative to "pay nothing up front, and we will take a cut of your derived revenues" is "pay up front, no matter your derived revenues". It's fair to question what constitutes a "fair" amount, but make no mistake, the goal is to ensure Google/Apple/etc gets precisely nothing. [3]
[1] see also: crypto that can only be broken by "good" guys.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 5:18 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
Yeah. Apple is a well-known philanthropist. They give out free phones to people, and only eke out a meager existence from the App Store fees.
Apple does quadruple dipping:
1. They sell devices at a huge markup while free-riding on the shoulders of third-party developers ("there's an app for that" was a major selling point).
So no, there's parasitism in this relation, but it runs the other way.
For Google it's more nuanced, they absolutely make profit by charging the phone manufacturers for access to Play Store and by mining the data for ads.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 12:46 UTC (Sat)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
I repeat; It's fair to debate what constitutes "fair compensation", but $0 is not it.
> 1. They sell devices at a huge markup while free-riding on the shoulders of third-party developers ("there's an app for that" was a major selling point).
So... app writers derive zero benefit from Apple's platform?
> 2. To develop for iOS, you need to use a Mac. If you want a reasonable development machine, that's alone about $300-$500 a year of expenses in hardware depreciation.
So to develop software for non-iOS platforms one doesn't need "a reasonable development machine" that also depreciates over time?
> 3. You also need to pay $100 a year.
Of all the costs involved in writing an application, that barely even registers. You'll spend more than that on electricity for your development machine(s).
> 4. On top of that, Apple wants a 30% cut of software sales.
As opposed to the 50% (or greater) cut that was typical when the app store first launched? (I might add that a fee-simple 30% cut was widely lauded in the industry for putting vastly more money in developers' pockets)
...come on, these arguments are ludicrously weak. I honestly expected better from you.
Posted Oct 4, 2025 21:12 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
Why? That's what Microsoft charges Windows developers. You can spend all your life developing Windows applications without paying anything to Microsoft, not even the Windows license cost.
> So... app writers derive zero benefit from Apple's platform?
Arguably, yes. At this point, you _have_ to support Apple as an app developer. An Android-only app will be a failure in the market if we exclude specialized apps. iOS ends up being a drag on the computing world, resulting in perverted architectures and a lot of wasted time to conform to bizarre iOS restrictions and inadequacies.
> So to develop software for non-iOS platforms one doesn't need "a reasonable development machine" that also depreciates over time?
Not my point. My point is that Apple _already_ gets more than $0 from every iOS developer. Even if they produce completely free applications. You asked about "fair compensation" above, remember? In contrast, Google or Microsoft do not necessarily get anything from individual developers.
> As opposed to the 50% (or greater) cut that was typical when the app store first launched? (I might add that a fee-simple 30% cut was widely lauded in the industry for putting vastly more money in developers' pockets)
At that time, I was selling boxed software for Windows without paying any fees to MS. We did have an MSDN subscription, but it was a fixed (and pretty low) expense.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
How would that help? Biggest google products (Chrome, Android) are money sinks, financed by income from Ad business. Split them and there's no viable business model to keep them afloat.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
No, I'm not saying that. It would be interesting to see news about that, though.
No, I'm not saying that.
Well, that is your own decision.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
"" While Apple bans torrent apps on its own iOS store, the EU’s Digital Markets Act gave iPhone users within the bloc greater freedom to install apps from third-party app stores that the Cupertino company doesn’t directly manage. ""
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
[2] see also: RHEL vs the rebuilders that sell their own "support"
[3] see also: Epic
Monopolies must be dismantled.
2. To develop for iOS, you need to use a Mac. If you want a reasonable development machine, that's alone about $300-$500 a year of expenses in hardware depreciation.
3. You also need to pay $100 a year.
4. On top of that, Apple wants a 30% cut of software sales.
Monopolies must be dismantled.
Monopolies must be dismantled.