Comment by cced | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cced | Hacker News Reader

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I’m getting really tired of this simplistic “analysis”. At what point does a monopoly on the distribution infrastructure start harming consumers? Would you accept that your ISP tell you that you need to use their DNS instead of any other? Or their search engine instead of any other?

Why do we give Google/Apple the right to decide on donations? They developed the infrastructure? They have benefited from this. Why isn’t this being looked at similar to the patent system where innovators receive the benefits for early days work instead of a long-forever-their-right to dictate how the rest of us work?

You can’t even deploy native apps in any official capacity on iOS without Apple taking their cut. Did you know that the IAP for a youtube premium subscription is more expensive than if purchased directly from Google? So, not only is everyone forced to pay more because Apple wants their cut, but they aren’t even allowed to give information as to why this is the case.

_Really_ competitive and we’re all benefiting from this type of behaviour, I’m sure. /s

I just don’t see “they built the infrastructure so they should benefit” as being the end-all justification for why we should accept this.

I guess in support of it:

1. Why build it if they don’t stand to benefit. 2. Building it and having it be the only source of applications (case of Apple) centralizes application source. Better than needing to jump through 3 stores for your apps.

But.. against it..

1. I just want someone to be able to buy me a coffee. Why does Apple need any part of this and why do I need to jump through discretion hoops in the black of night to make it happen?

My 2c.

You're misunderstanding my point. I've already said so in a sister comment, but we're fully on the same side about them being near-monopolies and them being very expensive on what they offer. No discussion there.

But two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, they take advantage of their position in pricing and yes, they have benefited a lot from offering their infrastructure for free. But that does not make it okay to use the infrastructure they provide for your personal gain just because they are "bad".

We also need to differentiate between Google and Apple here, as the case is totally different. Google simply has a large market share on Android; iOS, on the other hand, has (nearly) no option of alternate stores and the App Store is not free. That's why I mostly talk about Google here; with Apple, it's an entirely different story.

> But two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, they take advantage of their position in pricing and yes, they have benefited a lot from offering their infrastructure for free. But that does not make it okay to use the infrastructure they provide for your personal gain just because they are "bad".

Theoretically, no. Pragmatically, yes.

Pretending Google is just like everybody else is like pretending racism doesn't exist. It's not helpful. Google doesn't play by the same rules as others and we shouldn't pretend that they do. At this point, anything that harms Google is probably good for the consumer.

>But two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, they take advantage of their position in pricing and yes, they have benefited a lot from offering their infrastructure for free. But that does not make it okay to use the infrastructure they provide for your personal gain just because they are "bad".

The app store is also using him to enrich their ecosystem. They allow free apps for a reason even if it does cost them a miniscule amount of money to host them. It draws people to the platform.

The only reason they're willing to sacrifice kicking him off is because they think that they can wring a small amount of extra cash out of him which they can feed to their shareholders.

> The app store is also using him to enrich their ecosystem. They allow free apps for a reason even if it does cost them a miniscule amount of money to host them. It draws people to the platform.

And he is using the stores to deliver his app, which he is payed for by his donators and Patreon supporters, to them. And I'd argue that his benefit from having the reach of the store is far greater than the stores benefit of having another game there. So it's not like he's not profiting from that relationship as well.

You've essentially just rephrased "might makes right", no?

If I wield a vast amount of economic power and you do not, you are therefore obligated to bow to my whims...?

It's not like he's profiting a lot, anyway. This is more akin to a beggar having to fork over 30% of their earnings to a Walmart coz theyre standing outside it. After all, technically the beggar "profits" from doing that.

Well, he does profit from the app store. I don't think it's inherently unfair from Google to ask for a share of the money he makes due to their arguably mutually beneficial relationship.

If he'd complained that 30% is too large of a share, I would be fully on his side. This is unreasonable and I've made that point in the past. But the general principle of getting a share is very reasonable and, just because Google could afford to give him money, they have no moral obligations to do so and change the rules for him because they're so "rich".

No, he doesn't. He gets donated cups of coffee for an app he developed and gave out for free and which makes the app store a more valuable platform.

It's only profit if you discount the value of his labor to zero.

Google is demanding that every time somebody wants to gift him a cup of coffee to say thank you for giving away something of value for free that they get a cash payment.

This isn't about Google just being rich, it's about Google using their power to extract profit from charity simply because they are economically more powerful.

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