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Comment by ohazi | Hacker News Reader

No, the real reason Amazon is doing this is that they want to get the Amazon App Store onto Google and carrier branded Android phones. It's a fight for survival and relevance against Google Play.

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I think there should be an "app store" selection dialog, just as there should be a "default browser" selection dialog (ruled by the EU).

That might help, but I think that first there should be no rules that prevent apps which are not malicious and doesn't hurt end user from being in the app stores. What the world would have been like, if you wouldn't have had the ability to use IE6 to download Firefox?

Taken in the light of today's news about Fire engineers being laid off, it might suggest that Amazon is walking away from the Android hardware space but wants to stay relevant in the Android App space.

Is amazon really in a fight to the death with Google play? Can I buy cat food there?

It's less Google Play and more breaking the control Google has over the Android platform, despite Android being open-source and spread out across a number of manufacturers. Google Play is a critical piece of that control.

The ads look like a way to defray that cost.

I wonder what Samsung will try to do. Something similar or something from out of their own playbook?

Partner with Amazon? I know when I got a Galaxy S4 the OEM Android included the Amazon App and Google Play stores. While they may do something different in Korea, it seems like a reasonable move in markets where Amazon has traction.

Does Amazon actually provide compelling apps on their store? The comments here and this new advertising platform would suggest otherwise.

Amazon's app store is a cesspit, full of either very similarly named Apps to ones on the play store, but that do something different, or people just straight up stealing other people's Apps and selling them themselves.

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