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Comment by diego_moita | Hacker News Reader

I welcome this.

It will be messy, it will open oportunities to corruption, lobbying, crappy user experiences, unsafe apps, government abuse, nationalism, ... it is really a Pandora box.

But mess can be a fertile ground for competition and innovation when excessive regulation blocks it.

Today's app stores are just feature development labs for Apple & Google. There is no chance that anyone will be able to create a big business within any app store and keep Apple or Google out. Just ask big players as Steam, Facebook and Microsoft how they feel about Google's and Apple's stores.

If you're in the apps development business then you're just looking for golden opportunities for Apple/Google and being very badly payed for that.

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I am just puzzled about one bit of this, why the hue and cry few days back about this. Don't Android App stores like the Amazon one already exist? What's stopping these devs to even distribute the apps themselves?

iOS is a different matter but Android has always allowed this. Not sure if they exist in India, but I have seen Android phones come with non Google App Store as well.

Yes alternative Android app stores already exist. For example Samsung devices have their own proprietary app store pre-loaded.

Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore. The same case could not have been made for Amazon's and Samsung's store.

Won't Apple just refuse to sell iPhones in India?

No. It won't.

That would result in a somewhat strange situation considering Apple is trying to move at least some iPhone manufacturing to India.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/17/indian-iphone-production-begi...

> Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore.

What is the problem with this? If the device manufacturers don't want to preload the Indian Appstore then they can prevent sale of their devices in India. If they agree, and this is limited to India only, then what is the problem?

Putting apps on Samsung's Galaxy Store gives developers access to the 893 million Samsung smartphone users[1] who have the app installed by default, so an ever stronger case can be made for it than the government's proposed app store. Yet it does not have anywhere close to the same number of apps or devs.

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/09/13/s...

This enables tax revenues for the Indian government.

Pretty sure they are already getting tax money from the existing app stores. Do you have any source that they don't?

https://inc42.com/buzz/indian-govt-likely-to-tax-google-face...

They only collect a limited subset of taxes (VAT). The larger part of income is to the US and isn't taxed in India yet.

I would say that the government is not the right institution to take this up. They should support secondary app stores, or legislate to force Apple and Google to make their stores more developer friendly. Getting involved in this business, goes against their own narrative. On one hand, we are privatizing state owned companies and on the other, we are taking up vanity projects which the tax payer has to fund. Do check up on our new government building, that no one apart from the powers that be asked for. Also, this announcement very much coincided with an attempt from some of the major apps in introducing a form of sports betting (see IPL), which was thwarted by the very same Google and Apple, in line with the laws of our country. All over, it seems like American tech. giants are more pro-indian-consumer than our own government, which is tremendously dissappointing in and of itself.

3rd party app stores that are not pre installed by the manufacturer are crippled and provide a bad user experience. Auto updates is also not possible.

But big businesses have been created so it's not entirely true.

Do you have any good examples where you think innovation has been stifled on the play store? (Apple's app store aside)

> big businesses have been created so it's not entirely true.

examples?

Epic

Epic has desktop alternative, tiktok is mobile only

Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok...

all vc-supported , with huge money. not exactly the "indie studie that made it big" type. But more importantly, those are a decade ago (and TikTok reportedly bought its users).

At this point it doesnt seem there is any potential for making a profitable app company, the profit would be to be acquired

Tiktok?

>The sources said, "Android has 97% market share in India so we should intervene and handhold Indian startups. Making it mandatory for Android phones to be pre-instaled with our apps in under consideration". [1]

Indian Government being arbiter of the app ecosystem on a phone and pre installing apps? Ominous vibes. Good luck with your desire for competition and innovation.

[1] - https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/industry/artic...

So they are competing on same terms as google, in practice. Thats good

I'd like to think the Indian government will have the interests of its own citizens at heart better than Google or Apple. India has a long and not very pleasant history with foreign corporations.

Haha no. The Indian government will have the best interests of the ruling party at heart. I'd rather trust Google with all of my data, even the sensitive bits, rather than give even an iota to the government. And yes, I know how disgusting that sounds.

In the Delhi riots early this year, the government used data gathered from the national database to track and arrest protesters. Imagine what they could do if they could track your phones. At least Google is only selling me real estate ads (woefully inaccurate ones too) and not actively trying to imprison me or my family (bonus points if you're a minority).

If you're a tech entrepreneur, this should worry you regardless. Any industry that the Indian government meddles in eventually gets regulated to death. You have to pay bribes for X or Y license or permission.

The tech industry thrived precisely because there is little regulation.

If your apps have to go through the Indian government to be published, be prepared to pay bribes to pass through the regulatory hurdles and needless paperwork.

No Indian government in my living memory has worked to reduce regulations and compliance, including the current one.

The fact that you mentioned "paperwork" for an app store application sums up exactly how this whole mess will turn out. :)

This Indian government has certainly reduced regulations and compliance - if you're in the B club. I have a distant grand uncle and an uncle both in the B club. They were essentially waved through to set up shop in UP - even though they're Muslim, openly religious and practicing, and have literally been photographed very often inviting Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders to their homes right before elections.

Money talks. I mentioned in another comment on HN, that if you are in the B club, you're likely the one ordering the gangsters in the government.

I run a very small online business incorporated as a Pvt Ltd. There is more paperwork now than ever with GST. What's worse is that the regulations keep changing every few months. Tax rates change, deadlines change, exemption limits change. One of the most flawed and confusing taxes I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

The thing is, why would anyone voluntarily use a censored/restricted app store?

For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari.

For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to just create a subset of the Play store that doesn't have Chinese apps, why the hell would anyone use it?

And if the government is forcing the entire population to use its app store -- do they have the authority to do that? I thought India was a democracy with free speech.

>> It's pretty open

I disagree. It's the quite opposite. So many popular apps don't even get a notice before getting banned, let alone small indie developers trying to get some users.

>> why the hell would anyone use it?

Not sure about others but I definetly don't want a US company to put nose in everything I do online. Plus I don't want to give a 30% cut for a regional app that I can publish on some local platform for local users. And I would rather deal with low quality apps than popular apps disappearing every now and then just because Google doesn't like them.

>> do they have the authority to do that?

Yes but it's not practical in country like India to enforce it. Free speech and what govt can regulate about internet are different things as far I've seen.

> I thought India was a democracy with free speech

The First Amendment is radically unprecedented and unique, in its text, judicial upholding and cultural backing.

While India technically has freedoms of speech, in practice it is heavily regulated [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Ind...

You're confused. India has a populist, nationalist authoritarian who will stop at nothing to remodel the country somewhere between China and Nazi Germany.

The Indian government can block all other app stores, require app developers and mobile OSes install spyware SDKs and turn over data about their users, and ban encryption. Then, the "subversives," academics, and journalists can be rounded-up.

You are the one who is confused here with all the fear mongering. With such a huge democratic country like India with all the decades old entrenched power centres one doesn't get to power just by getting elected to office.

I welcome the idea that Apple should be required to allow third-party app stores, but the only end game I see with a government app store is a legally-mandated requirement to have that app store installed on all citizens'/residents' phones. At that point the phones just become extensions of the state's intelligence apparatus, and that's a net negative for everyone's privacy.

Apple should certainly allow alternative app stores, and Google should make it easier and safer for customers to install alternative app stores, but I never want to see governments get into that market.

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