You can no longer purchase Kindle books through the Amazon app on Android | Hacker News Reader

You can no longer purchase Kindle books through the Amazon app on Android

theverge.com

177 pointspgrote167 comments

What's going to be the real stickler when this finally comes to a courtroom showdown is that Google and Apple are competitors in this space.

First, they let their competitors onto their platform without charging extortionate fees. They wait for them to become large and well-used on the platform. Then they change the fee structure so that it's no longer profitable for their competitors to compete on the platform at all. This leads to customers switching apps for their needs.

It's abuse of market power from being the marketplace/platform owner.

As I always say: a market or platform owner/operator should not be allowed to also be a competitor within it. The incentives get messed up and abuse will always follow.

The incentives dont always get messed up. Every grocery store has their own branded items, they even usually get special shelf placement and sales. Its only the greed of these tech companies that makes it an issue by really going hard on abusing their position

French producers complain of unfair negotiations with large supermarket corporations. Multinationals can win against distributors, but it's much harder for smaller local farms.

Greedy doesn't make sense as a criticism of individual for-profit corporations any more than predatory makes sense as a criticism of a cat. The problem in this case isn't that Google and Apple are greedy; the problem is that there aren't effective competitive forces in their markets to keep them in check.

That's probably not the best example. There are a lot of brands on the shelves, but very, very few companies. The grocery chains don't produce those items. Store-brand stuff is more of a white-labeling situation with the goal of capturing more of the price curve. It's pretty much a single producer for all the stuff, occasionally with slight variations so people don't catch wise. If you were to start an independent producer, you'd have a very hard time finding shelf space.

That example is always brought up, but honestly? I don't think that's a fair thing either. I think that particular form of abuse is mild enough and has existed for long enough that we don't even think about it.

A law that stops tech companies from this abuse should also stop grocery stores from doing the same thing.

I would really not like to double my grocery bill by being excluded from buying the store brand items. I actually like Great Value because it's half the price, same as Amazon Basics. I think they are both fine things to exist.

The best way to keep prices low is strong competition.

Amazon Basics undercuts competitors by having no cost to sell on the Amazon marketplace. Then once the competitor they're imitating is out of business, they can raise prices, and you wind up paying more.

I think it would be perfectly fine if the Basics brand existed as an independent company and paid the same fees as everyone else. But real competitors can't sell at a loss indefinitely just to win over the whole market.

>Amazon Basics undercuts competitors by having no cost to sell on the Amazon marketplace.

Amazon branded products have an advantage through access to analytics, not cost of doing business. Amazon issues internal chargebacks to subsidiaries and business units for use of their platforms.

That's still an unfair advantage to Amazon Basics that competitors can't get.

Good points.

Still, even with those charges, Amazon can just choose to take losses knowing they aren't really losses. They can run that brand unprofitably and if the losses are coming from distribution fees being charged internally, well, the company still comes out ahead.

And the internal analytics is really a much worse abuse. I suspect that grocery stores make their internal brands the same way, and again, I'm strongly opposed to that being allowed.

I think a significant difference is that supermarkets don't make significant money on their own branded items. They are more like loss-leaders.

Aldie and Lidl operate by selling almost exclusively, recent supply chain issues have at least temporarily changed this some, their own store brands. If whole chains survive by selling cheaper store brands I assume the other supermarkets are making decent money off their store brands.

It's often not fair. Trader Joe's has a reputation for bringing in new and popular name brand items. Once they determine market fit with their customers and build demand they clone the items and replace with their own brand.

The dirty little well known secret is that store brands are created in the same factories as the name brand and are often the same companies.

> I think that particular form of abuse is mild enough

How mild is it, really? Consumers might not feel it, but for all we know manufacturers (at least the smaller ones) are getting anti-competitively slaughtered.

grocery stores aren't a marketplace, they're a store. they purchase product from suppliers, and re-sell it. they're making the purchase and taking on the risk of stocking the competitor's product. if they can't sell that product, they're the ones taking a loss, not the supplier (generally speaking, some vendors get better terms than others).

the problem with a marketplace is that the marketplace isn't taking on any of the risk. google is just getting a cut of sales, so their incentive is to sell the product where they get the biggest cut and there's no self-interest in them treating anybody else fairly.

Your grandad's grocery store worked that way, but modern retailers are actually pay to play. They are more like a marketplace than you'd think.

Ever wondered why big stores have meters of just Coke and Pepsi, but corner shops have a few each of dozens of brands of drink? it's because only the big brands can afford to buy in. The retailers have market power and they use it to divest cost and risk onto the suppliers.

Getting a new product into a grocery chain also often involves expenses beyond buying shelf space like paying fees setting up sample tables.

There are some beloved brands that can get away with not paying to play. In Canada Hawkins Cheezies made it a badge of honour that it was usually on the bottom shelf at gas stations because they had a policy of not paying for shelf placement.

I wonder how Amazon feel about someone doing that.

The power Amazon has over the retail market is no where close to what Google & Apple together have over the mobile market.

But amazon has enough power, enough to win and lose, to be able to actually bring google and apple to court for that.

Last I checked they have their own alternate app store which is used on Fire devices.

If people knew that twitter and YouTube would censor so much, they would have not joined. It's a kind of a fraud too. Become market leader with open standards, destroying competition,than start censoring and try to sway elections.

What does Twitter have to do with this?

Twitter was never a market leader in the way Google and Apple are. It was a distant 3rd or 4th behind FB, IG and Snap.

You realize that most people don’t really have a problem (or even think about) twitter/YouTube censorship right?

You also realize that people sign in the thousands for these services every day?

Also, which elections did YouTube and twitter sway? Provide proof. Tbh, a direct connection between trumps addled brain and the internet through twitter has a much larger negative impact on his electability than any kind of “deplatforming”. Twitter did him a favour.

Hunter Biden's story was purposely censored and even a mainstream newspapers account suspended for reporting on it. Just one example. Trumps account suspended too. Accounts suspended for reporting on the lab theory of the virus. Many accounts suspended that questioned the safety or efficiency of the vaccine. Rember they purposely told a lie that it was 95% efficient. Informed consent is opposite of being lied to. Your reality is carefully constructed by billionaires that don't have your best interest in mind or ideologues with claims of doing things for the geater good. Ideologies are always flawed. The world is too complex to fit into their narrow solutions. Hence why you should care more about censorship. Those that set out to get you to believe lies through media monopolies have gone on to kill millions in the past.

> a market or platform owner/operator should not be allowed to also be a competitor within it

This problem is somewhat analogous to regulatory capture, you dominate a market so totally you get to set the rules for everyone else too.

There is no doubt in my mind that these rules should be set by democratically elected persons. As it is now, we are basically letting capitalist corporations get away with greediness on a scale of literal sea piracy. What’s more, we’re not protecting our culture, our children, or our values anymore because of this nonchalant laissez-faire attitude to what people STILL think is an industry in its infancy. WAKE UP, these people are on the brink of upending the very foundations of democratic society with their antivax-spewing clickbait engagement treadmills.

Rant over.

> a market or platform owner/operator should not be allowed to also be a competitor within it. The incentives get messed up and abuse will always follow

Isn't that how almost every digital game store works?

Apple stopped allowing apps from selling digital goods in app back in 2011. Kindle is still more popular than iBooks.

It doesn’t hurt that Amazon is either number one or number two as far as having the number of credit cards on file. Apple is the other one. People don’t want to enter their payment methods when they purchase. Amazon users don’t have to worry about that,

That being said, you also can’t sell digital goods on Amazon without Amazon getting a cut.

But if you don’t think that platform owners shouldn’t allow competitors, do you also think that the console makers shouldn’t be able to produce games?

The situation with Barnes and Noble is even worse. They partnered with Google to use Android on the Nook Tablets, so users could have access to the Play Store and Google apps. Now, because of this change you can't even buy eBooks from Barnes and Noble on their own first-party Nook tablet.

Meanwhile, Amazon chose to forgo the Google Play Store & apps and instead created their own app store on top of AOSP for their Fire Tablets, so at least those tablets aren't impacted by this, just third party android device.

It's important to remember, if you ever build on a Google platform, they will hands-down always eventually screw you over for doing so. No company is as aggressive at actively hurting their own partners.

Loved my original Nook Color and it's willingness to default booting off a microSD card if present. Hopefully with the benefits of partnering with Play completely gone, B&N dumps Play Services and installs their own store again like the old days.

The Amazon App store can be installed and used on third party android devices.

You won't be able to purchase Comics through the Comixology app either, as of v. 4.0.1.

I personally make the majority of my Amazon purchases through the Amazon/Kindle/Comixology apps on my phone, quite frankly because the process of doing it on my laptop requires several more steps (open laptop; open Amazon; re-authenticate with password manager; sign into Amazon; pull out 2FA token to complete sign in; find the thing; check out). For all the security trade-offs with Amazon's "1-Click" buy options, it really works. The loss of revenue is not going to be from things I research and plan to buy (e.g. if I order a new TV after hours of meticulous research), it's going to be the impulse buy's of $2 e-books and the like, where the added burden of logging in will force me to think about whether I really want this e-book enough anymore to finish jumping through all the hoops.

Maybe that's a plus in many people's eyes. But it's probably going to take a sizable hit on Amazon's bottom-line.

You could use your phone's browser instead of your laptop.

That doesn't solve the login headaches, though, and in fact it makes them slightly more headachey as my browser of choice (Firefox) doesn't seem to play well with the AutoFill API on Android.

Store it in Firefox internal credentials database instead?

Once you log into Amazon on Firefox it should remember your account. (I just tested it in Firefox Android and I am logged in.)

You can stay signed into Amazon, one click buy works on their website, and if you started your search for the content on the computer instead of the phone you would only have to click buy instead of those other steps.

Not only that, but they only rolled out the Comixology web store in the US and UK:

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/comics-store/home

There is no such page on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, etc. Actually, the route exists, but it's broken:

https://www.amazon.ca/kindle-dbs/comics-store/home

In Canada, the only place I can buy Comixology titles now is the generic Kindle store, and it's pretty bad for browsing comics.

Yeah, Amazon really effectively destroyed the "browsing" experience of the comixology store. Really they just destroyed the comixology store - it's been subsumed by amazon's generic storefront which is pretty pessimally designed for discovering new non-mainstream content.

> You won't be able to purchase Comics through the Comixology app either, as of v. 4.0.1.

Did they do that years ago? I used to read comics through Comixology, and when Amazon bought them, and shortly thereafter disabled purchasing comics through the app, was when I stopped buying new comics.

Maybe it was different for you because you had a pre-acquisiton Comixology account?

For me (did not get into Comixology until after Amazon bought it but kept the apps separate), I could always buy through the Comix app, but it was in effect signing into my Amazon account whenever it wanted to make a purchase.

> Amazon's made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android

No. Apple and Google have made it a little harder. While I have no sympathy for Amazon usually, they're one of the very few that could actually fight this effectively and finally bring this App store madness under control. I would be very careful about messing with Amazon's money. The whole payments/app store paradigm is on shaky ground anyway. It really will not take much for someone like Amazon to get the anti-trust ball rolling.

> It really will not take much for someone like Amazon to get the anti-trust ball rolling.

Seems like it's in full gear right now...

Not that Amazon really has much of a leg to stand on here in these conversations.

The fact that both companies are steamrolling ahead into the payments space should have us all on edge.

Once physical credit cards disappear, Apple and Google can start to strongarm local businesses into 15% transaction fees.

As opposed to how it's been until now, where corner store merchants are all "rand() % added to debit/credit charges (even tho we're technically not allowed to)" ?

> rand() % added to debit/credit charges (even tho we're technically not allowed to)

Citation needed? This sounds like one of those myths like "not accepting cash (for purchases, not debts) is illegal!" - I couldn't find anything searching online to support this claim. Or are you referring to stores that don't advertise this surcharge upfront and surprise you with it?

https://www.merchantmaverick.com/credit-card-surcharges/

> As of mid-2021, only two states and one US territory don’t allow credit card surcharges.

My bad, I wasn't aware of these exceptions. I'd argue characterizing it as illegal when it's legal in 48 states is a little misleading though.

It is misleading because it is out of date but absolutely used to be true (or atleast put forward as true by the CC companies in their contracts), so isn't really a "myth" like you say.

> After a decade of fighting in court, the merchants involved in the suit, along with the card networks, reached an expensive settlement — and more importantly, the lawsuit laid the groundwork for merchants to recoup some of the costs associated with credit card transactions. The card associations have changed their rules as a result of the lawsuit.

The legal situation is still complicated so it is perfectly understandable that there is some confusion and people think the old rules apply.

It has been over 10 years since Dodd Frank made cash/debit card discounts explicitly legal.

http://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/new-rules-ele...

This is effectively the same as saying credit card surcharges are legal.

> This is effectively the same as saying credit card surcharges are legal.

They are functionally similar but not effectively the same. Most notably, you couldn't vary the discount based on card type, which makes it useless when negotiating fees with specifiv PCNs. This is precisely why there was a class action antitrust lawsuit, the settlement for which required PCNs (specifically Visa and Mastercard) to change their terms to allow surcharges.

Even in Apple's near-totalitarian payment ecosystem, physical goods have never had the same (exorbitant!) transaction fees and rules as digital goods.

Why haven't you on edge with a handful of banks controlling the payments space?

Then we can finally get federal legislation letting stores pass fees on to the buyer. The fact that Visa/Mastercard contracts forbid that is incredibly anti-competitive.

In the EU we got legislation prohibiting the stores from passing on the credit card fees. I shit you not. Champagne corks must have been popping at the credit card companies when that happened.

Dodd Frank legislation outlawed those contract terms in 2011.

http://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/new-rules-ele...

I learned something from that so thanks. However, I don't think it gets at this issue. Different credit cards charge different fees and afaik there's no way to pass those on. Offering discounts to not use CCs is a good step, though.

How is it not the same thing? Person paying with debit card or cash pays less than if they were to pay with credit card.

I guess technically the merchant can do an AmEx discount and a Visa discount or whatever, but it is probably easier to just do a flat percent off for all credit cards (3% to 5%).

Different cards on the same network have different fees

Visa Credit Card Swipe Rate (card present)

Visa Credit Basic 1.51% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Traditional 1.65% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Signature 2.30% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Signature Preferred 2.1% + 10¢

Visa Business 2.20% + 10¢

Visa Corporate 2.50% + 10¢

https://www.creditdonkey.com/interchange-rates.html

Ideally, the CC fee would be a line item in the receipt specific to the card. Then people will make more informed decisions about which card to use. With the "discount" model the fee changes at each merchant when it should always be the same for a particular card.

My solution to this as a human person is to use cash for all transactions that I can.

Which also costs time and money to handle and secure, potentially more than card charges do.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New...

If I were running a business, I would only accept credit cards. The small fee is worth the tradeoff of not having to handle cash with the risk of employee theft, robberies, counting money, going to the bank, etc.

Unfortunately, some cities outlawed that.

Well, yeah, because cash is legal tender, so allowing companies to not accept cash subverts the whole system.

I get it that cards are cash equivalent, but it's terribly anti-consumer for companies to not accept cash. That removes poor people's ability to acquire goods and services as well.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

> There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.

> Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.

I guess Amazon thinks they should be the only one able to charge a large fee for access to the store. Last time I looked, Amazon commission charges topped out at 65%!

https://www.authorimprints.com/amazon-kdp-royalty-pricing/

This misses the point of what antitrust laws are and what they exist to prevent. The problem here is not solely that google charges a large fee.

I couldn’t care less about Amazon, but fees for listing in the store aren’t a problem (or not a large one). Problem is that fees are viral and follow you outside of the store.

Ah yes, I forgot that two wrongs make a right /s.

We can care about more than one thing at once! It doesn't always have to be "well what about....".

The reality is that we're all beholden to these mega companies and a little infighting between them could us do some good.

What percent does Amazon charge authors on kindle book sales? And competing bookstores on Kindle device?

We can care about more than one thing at once! It doesn't always have to be "well what about....".

The reality is that we're all beholden to these mega companies and a little infighting between them could us do some good.

I got rid of all my Rokus and replaced them with Fires because Amazon removed Twitch from the Roku and it’s a large part of my streaming content. I grumbled at them for making me do it, but I still did it because at the end of the day I just wanted to be able to stream Twitch.

My point is they all flex where they can flex and Amazon deserves no sympathy here. Only consumers are hurt by these territory games.

Just a heads up (from articles and comments on other HN threads)--

Roku wants a cut of revenue from apps too. It is not in Amazon's incentive to limit distribution of Twitch. This may be why it is no longer on Roku.

Roku supports casting and Airplay. I've used both specifically for Twitch. Don't reward Amazon's bad behavior by buying their Fire sticks

This must be recent - none of my Roku devices support Airplay, so I've opted to finally switch to an Apple TV. I wonder if mine are just too old though.

Oof. Twitch app on the AppleTV sucks hard, at least for watching recordings. Live watching is okay. But the seeking in the recordings would win one of those "worst UI on purpose" awards. And they banned third party clients, so the official app is the only option.

Convenience side, driving people back to web browsers that are platform independent and away from apps is good though right?

I feel the same way and tend to default to using the browser for things that have app alternatives. There are likely some devices where this will be a problem, but for the overwhelming majority of device users - where there's a Kindle app there's a browser.

From the consumer perspective perhaps this isn't a big deal? Are we missing something?

Honestly, what's the difference between a web app on mobile and a native app?

Web browser tech has gotten so advanced that it seems more like just a difference in frameworks between the two.

  > Web browser tech has gotten so advanced that it seems more like just a difference in frameworks between the two.

on older or lower end devices, or slower networks the difference can be pretty dramatic

just as an example, youtube on web vs app on a 5 year old ipad (that otherwise would be totally usable) is pretty huge, same with even banking sites like chase or amex is light and day in app vs web ui performance*

*please note i'm not advocating for closed technologies as much as pointing out that web and native still have differences that matter to a lot of customers

Even on the fastest mobile phone on the planet, apps like AirBnB, Papa Johns, and banking apps are much faster than their web equivalents.

For a lot of apps, the website is better. But there are still some things that an app does better. Mainly either apps that require a lot of data to download once, or apps that require sensors that don't work as well or at all in the browser.

Apps working off-line is much less of an issue now, but still an issue. E.g. one app I wrote to let kayakers check the water levels updates in the background, so the data is available when they get out in the hills with no service. Similarly with some of my astronomy apps, by the time you think to use the app, you might be well out of a service area, so a background data update is very useful.

Doesn't Amazon have its own Android app store? Why don't they offer the full version there and allow users to side-load?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/get/amazonapp

My guess is : Google lawyers already thought of this.

Probably more likely people aren't used to side loading and if you succeed in teaching people to do this you have also taught them how to avoid paying you as well.

You can. I've done that with Audible in order to make cash purchases. With that said, the app has taken a hit since it's clearly optimized for its primary installation target. I can technically purchase through the app, but prices are buried and sections like "deal of the day" have been removed entirely.

Strangely, even though I installed the app through the Amazon App Store, the Google Play Store will overwrite it when an update is available. And then I'm back to a version that can't make cash purchases. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on there. The solution was to disable auto-updates for the Audible app from my Google Play Store account. But, why is Google replacing an application installed by a different source in the first place?

Google makes it aggressively difficult to install third party app stores, full of scary warnings that it compromises the security of your device. They also threaten/pressure any OEM that thinks about including their own or a third party app store.

If it was that simple, Epic Games wouldn't have risked their entire mobile footprint suing them and Apple over it.

I always hear this about Google making it difficult and scary but that has never been my experience. There are a couple of warnings when you 1st install an app through a 3rd party app store but I wouldn't classify them close to be aggressive or overly scary.

I would emphasize that a scary warning for the average Android user is not necessarily a scary warning for the average HN user. Google is well aware of this difference, and absolutely has ensured it's scary for the former.

Because in practice using any appstore other than Google Play is a bad experience on Android.

Within the past month, I've been unable to purchase Amazon Prime content on my smart TV through the Amazon Prime app, for what appears to be the same reason (Google changes). I have to go to Amazon.com and buy it through there for it to show up on the TV.

I've abstained from buying several movies from this increased friction. I wonder how much it's costing Amazon.

Roku doesn't have this problem, I highly recommend it.

Over the last several years, Roku has also changed business models to being a rent seeker, to the point where they now derive four times more income from companies paying to put their channel on Roku than they earn from hardware sales[1].

There have been numerous disputes between streaming providers and Roku, with HBO and YouTube being the biggest.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/how-roku-makes-money-5119488

Roku is one of the worse offenders of gatekeeping snd strong arming content providers. They have the same arguments with providers that cable providers use to have and also demand a cut.

At least with Apple and Google, you can put any app on their streaming devices without having any type of negotiations. You submit it just like any other app.

Which Smart TV is this? I’ve been considering getting a dumb monitor with an Apple TV plugged in, but this makes me think I should just plug in a laptop and do everything in the browser (which I suppose will work until the browsers start taking a cut).

LG G1 OLED. It's my first smart tv, but I'm pretty happy with it. Being an OLED, the contrast ratio is great. And if you mount it, it sits less than an inch off of the wall.

Time to bring back the mobile UMPCs of yore that ran full desktop OSes. None of this ecosystem nonsense, run everything in the browser.

All this hullabaloo about Epic v Apple, Amazon v Google etc reminds me of how comparatively painless it is to do anything on a proper computer. I've never had a Windows device tell me it can't play Netflix in 1080p because the browser doesn't have Widevine L1 DRM support. Or that my bank website won't work because my computer is rooted.

>I've never had a Windows device tell me it can't play Netflix in 1080p because the browser doesn't have Widevine L1 DRM support.

Afaik, Netflix does not by officially support 1080p on Chrome on Windows.

It doesn't tell you, it just plays in a garbage resolution and you have to resort to old forum threads to figure out why

YES please! UMPCs were ohsoclose to good when they went away. Something like a modern VAIO P would be amazing.

Honestly, I hope the Steam Deck and similar reinvigorate the UMPC market. I can't be the only one looking at the deck and thinking UMPC thoughts.

Right?

You also can't buy Audible books through the Audible app. I get that Google wants their cut and Amazon doesn't want to give it, but come on.

fascinating thing that came out of the epic v apple case was the term 'under the bus' (when devs tattled about a violation and reviewers had to ban an app)

https://twitter.com/thedextriarchy/status/139041571691076403...

epic v google feels like a giant industry-wide UTB event

fascinating to me that goog doesn't feel capable of striking large deals that discount IAP. Desperation about revenue as ad margins shrink? Fear of a stronger court / regulatory stance over platform governance?

Can't tell, but would love to be a fly on the wall in these negotiations. Are regulators at the table?

Twitter threads made of 100+ individual tweets should be illegal. How tf is going to actually read all that 280 characters at a time?

yeahhh I normally try threadreaderapp but it, too, chokes on the giant ones I think

twitter web client is like a big bundle of scroll jank, home and end keys broken, page up / down quickly hit a reloader, ctrl+F only works within the small span that is rendered. (reasons TM for all these things but I hate it)

guessing this journalist did it this way to simultaneously take notes on the trial + market the coverage, but yes it's hard to use

Twitter actually introduced a premium version called Twitter blue that adds a reader mode meant for reading long threads.

But the Twitter thread is really it’s own format, and when done well with photos and graphics punctuating the tweets it becomes something more than just a chopped up article. Kamil Galeev’s threads on Russia and Ukraine are a great example of really taking advantage of the format. Here’s a nice example:

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501360272442896388

Had you not heard the term "throwing someone under the bus" before? Must be a regional or cultural thing.

It is a idiom, people who only use English in professional or otherwise technical context might have not heard it.

Duh! It was bound to happen, the payment models for Android and Apple are not sensible for apps whose job is to deliver paid content.

Like you allude to, there's more than one payment model on these platforms. Netflix worked it out and I'm guessing Amazon might be able to as well.

Netflix didn't work it out — you can't sign up for Netflix on a phone.

I thought that changed when they launched Games.

https://www.ubergizmo.com/2021/11/netflix-ios-subscribe-thro...

Netflix's stock appears to be doing significantly worse than the market, though, so it seems like maybe they're still figuring some stuff out?

For Samsung users, the Galaxy Store version of this app, at least for now, still allows purchases.

Amazon (after checking with Samsung) should publicize this, and stick it to Google just a little bit. While helping out their users, of course.

This is also happening with videos on Amazon Prime! Just recently, many videos have the Buy/Rent button replaced with a "How to watch this video" link that only pops up a box saying, "Visit Amazon.com." Very helpful!

I've opted out of several rentals already just from the stupidity of this.

Amazon's gotta be wishing they'd done a better job at making their own phone platform now. RIP Fire Phone :(

don't worry, you can always use your fire phone instead!

We really need more anti-trust action shaping the marketplace for things like mobile phone app stores. Apple and Google both demanding a 30% cut of all sales on their platforms is just awful. And they are literally a duopoly, there is no reasonable alternative.

Should that also be true for console makers?

I noticed this recently in the Amazon Shopping app. Yes, you can buy everything except digital books in the app.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31220553

Use this guide to jailbreak. Its easy, clean, takes like an hour total. I jailbroke my kindle 7th gen using this guide. Tonnes of features, dark mode, add your own fonts, read epub/cbr w/o converting from calibre. Its like my kindle had a Resurrection. Its awesome. Highly recommended.

KOreader is massively annoying. You have to set up every book individually, and there's no consistency in the UI.

Can Google's Store even handle the number of SKUs that Amazon has? Amazon has to have millions of titles.

Also seems to affect the Kindle app, not just the Amazon app, which is not mentioned in the article

Can you download the Amazon app through F-Droid and bypass Google's annoying Play Store entirely?

Sure, if Amazon decide to open source their app. But we all know that won't happen. Whatever tracking they do will be entirely lost. The data is worth more than the revenue itself.

Time to disable auto update and see how long it continues to work! Disappointing outcome though

Do they have a separate version they release through the amazon app store for android?

Time to hoist the jolly roger again.

Grabbing 30% of sales just to run a billing system is absurd.

Yep, that's absurd, but that's also not Google's or Apple's stance on the fee. Both companies argue that the 30% is the platform fee which happens to include the payment processing fee as a small portion of it.

Charging 30% of any and all transactions as an app store fee is also absurd, especially for content apps, but it's important that we talk about this issue in the terms that are actually being used in court. There was a lot of confusion about the implications of the Epic v. Apple decision because of misunderstandings like this.

From the article:

" That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation."

"But Google is currently cracking down on app developers skirting around its rules. Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules. "

Nowhere does that say that Google is charging 30% for their billing system. It says Google has started requiring people to use their billing system in order to use their app store.

That's how I read it. Okay, we just have a difference of opinion, its no big deal.

It's not a matter of opinion, there's been at least one court ruling on the subject. Have you read the court documents in the Epic cases? Apple and Google are both very explicit that the 30% fee is a platform fee. This is the reason why both of them are offering to remove around ~3% from the fee in countries where they're not allowed to force people to use their billing system. That number is their billing fee, not the 30%.

>That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation

>The billing system crackdown

>Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules.

>Oddly, in March, Google announced a pilot program to let app developers use their own billing systems. The pilot program includes Spotify but not Amazon.

The article says its the billing system, and mentions it multiple times. I'm not reading any court documents, as I am not a legal scholar to offer an opinion on them. I would invite you to write your own analysis, and I'm sure there will be people who would be interested in your scholarship.

This distinction between payment fee and platform fee (ignored in this article) is relevant even to non-legal-scholars bc. if you ignore it you get results like this (yes, this is based on real rulings):

> Apple plans to charge developers of dating apps a 27 percent commission on any in-app purchases made via alternative payment systems in the Netherlands, the company has announced. The change comes in response to an order from Dutch competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which has demanded that Apple allow dating app developers — and only dating app developers — to use alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system in the country. Twenty-seven percent represents a reduction of only 3 percentage points compared to the 30 percent commission Apple typically charges for developers using its own payment system.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/4/22917582/apple-netherlands...

Believing that all that's being provided is a "billing system" is equally absurd.

No, in this case that is the full extent of what they are providing. The digital goods make no use of any of the software platforms Google provides. Google is not hosting the goods or footing any bandwidth bill for their delivery. Google does not review the goods individually for approval into the store. The only thing Google is providing in this transaction is billing, and access to a captive market that they have no moral right to act as the gatekeeper for.

From the article:

" That’s because, while Google expected apps to use Google’s own billing system for purchasing digital goods, it rarely actually enforced the expectation."

"But Google is currently cracking down on app developers skirting around its rules. Starting June 1st, Google said it would remove apps that didn’t comply with its billing system rules. "

Something to think about:

It is traditional for landlords operating malls to enforce "percentage leases," where the tenant business pays a flat fee plus a percentage of sales, or a percentage of fees with a certain minimum rent.

Structurally, Apple and Google are doing the exact same thing. If you want to operate a store in their digital mall, their terms require you to pay a percentage of sales.

This is not a monopoly position any more than saying a mall has a monopoly position on its customers. There are other malls, there are locations not in a mall, there is mail order, their is web-based online selling.

If you don't like the lease terms, don't run your business there. The fact that Apple and Google have very large malls that are highly valuable places to run a business is irrelevant: Both platforms run web browsers where customers can buy whatever they like, and you can use a "computer" to shop online to your heart's content.

This isn't a welcome argument for those of us who are inconvenienced by the fact that when we visit Apple or Google's mall, some vendors choose to promote their products there without selling their products there.

This isn't a welcome argument for those of us who want to sell our products there but dictate to the landlord the terms of the lease.

But at the end of the day, I believe this is why we have to put the open web first. Making applications on other people's platforms always has been and always will be digital sharecropping.

There are lots of malls but realistically only one app store per Android or iPhone.

Not as long as those platforms have web browsers that haven't been crippled in some way. If I can buy the tee shirt I'm wearing from ebbetts.com on my iPad, there is more than one store I can shop at on my iPad, it's just that the one Apple provides is marvellously convenient.

Ironically, Apple is also in the payments business these days, and again they make it marvellously convenient to "Buy with Apple Pay" in a web browser. But they don't force anyone to offer Apple Pay on a web site, if vendors choose to do so, that's just market forces at work.

p.s. And it's an awesome tee shirt! https://www.ebbets.com/collections/negro-leagues/products/mo...

There are lots of malls, but if we're talking about the kind that houses >100 business (rather than small strip malls), any given consumer has at most 1-2 that can be reached comfortably. Others are available, but require more work to get to, especially for people without a car.

I strongly dislike Apple's and Google's business practices, but I think the analogy OP draws is fair: there are other ways of reaching your customers that require more work on your part and theirs. If it's still worth it to position yourself in the high-traffic mall, that's a valid business decision.

but malls compete with other retail options too. There might only be a couple mega malls available, but if they're too expensive people will go to the stores in the strip mall or on main street or what have you instead. If I want an app on my iPhone there is only one choice.

> there are other ways of reaching your customers that require more work on your part and theirs.

Which, if in the case of iOS, it's throw away thousands of dollars of computing equipment and previous software licenses so they can buy your $1 app offered on a competing app store.

Or offer a web app, or a desktop app, or a custom device.

I'm not saying I like Apple's game, but I don't think it's as obviously illegal as some do. Should it be? Probably. But it's not obvious to me that courts should rule against them with current laws.

> Or offer a web app, or a desktop app, or a custom device.

Only one of these is essentially not "throw away your iOS device and buy something else" for iOS users, and even then its still 100% controlled by Apple because the only real browser on iOS is Safari. So you're still pretty much in the same boat, but in a worse position trying to reach the large iOS market.

> This is not a monopoly position [...] there are other malls.

There are two malls, both of which enforce the same rule. Within a single platform, there is one mall. That is what makes it a monopoly position. Everything else in your post has nothing to do with whether it is actually a monopoly position.

You can make anything sound like a monopoly if you define the market small enough. Inside a mall there's only one mall too. Android and iOS are not the only places where digital goods are sold and consumed.

They're not the only mobile video game platforms -- there's also the switch, steam decks, and laptops, and they're certainly not the only video game platforms.

They're not the only place to buy and read digital books, Kindle and their competitors are fine.

They're not the only place to buy software -- macOS, Windows, Linux, Chromebooks exist.

They're not the only place to buy and listen to consume media content -- Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Plex, Blu-Ray, Bandcamp, iTunes, Soundcloud, and a billion Spotify Connect devices are all out there.

The fact that lots of people shop there and don't shop other places is an argument that their real-estate is valuable, not that they have a monopoly.

"Define the market small enough"? A quick Google suggests the market for mobile phones is a trillion dollars a year, which is mostly run by two OSes.

Fortunately, this has been litigated in a real court of law in the Epic vs. Apple case and the judge specifically said that Apple is not a monopoly.

The judge said Epic failed to prove Apple had a monopoly, not that they do not have a monopoly.

If Epic couldn’t prove it in a court of law with high priced lawyers, discovery, etc. in front of a judge, maybe random HN posters are wrong?

Judges can also be wrong. That's what appeal courts are for. That case in front of that judge is not the be-all-end-all of what is correct. Do you think OJ Simpson didn't do it because he was found not guilty? There's a reason criminal verdict are phrased as 'not guilty', not 'innocent'.

So now the judges are wrong and not random people on HN?

It is a possibility. Should I accept a judge's decision because it's a judge's decision? Or should I use my own critical thinking about a topic to decide?

And in this case the judge's decision was that Epic didn't prove it was a monopoly, not that it wasn't. So therefore "it is a monopoly" doesn't contradict that, and both can be correct. So neither are wrong.

When it comes to a law, yes you should accept a judges decision where a case was unsuccessful argued by high priced experts in the law.

> They're not the only place to buy and listen to consume media content -- Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Plex, Blu-Ray, Bandcamp, iTunes, Soundcloud, and a billion Spotify Connect devices are all out there.

Yeah, let me try and consume ebooks on the go with my Roku or Chromecast. Definitely feels like the same market as Android/iOS...

If only Amazon sold a dedicated ebook reader…

Structurally, in modern society, it is becoming increasingly difficult to thrive without a smartphone on either iOS or Android.

You can exist, but it's a much higher burden than most going through life even with the cheapest Android smartphone. (Luckily there ARE lots of fairly cheap options)

I wouldn't call it as foundational as water, power, heating, fire protection, or healthcare...but the analogy to phoneline connectivity becomes more and more appropriate.

This is not the fault of Apple or Google, but it is a reality. Arguably they don't actually want it because what comes next will not be favourable to them. If mobile OS access is as required as a phone line in the modern world, then you can't treat them like Shopping Malls, but rather Bridges across a river that divides a town. You don't want private companies deciding on the tolls and policies for crossing that bridge.

We either shift more towards the open web as you suggested, or we regulate Apple/Google.

I live entirely without a smartphone. I hardly ever even carry my Alcatel phone. It's a lot easier than you would think.

Great, let's keep giving these multi billion dollar international corporations the benefit of the doubt as they make it impossible for competition to grow. We definitely can't update any of our existing laws or definitions, because they were definitely designed with the internet in mind.

At no time do I give them the benefit of the doubt, what I did was point out that their behaviour is functionally identical to the behaviour we allow with another class of huge, predatory corporations.

If someone were to say, "Hey, now that I think about it, mall landlords shouldn't be in the business of extorting a percentage of their tenants' revenue either," I'd agree.

>This is not a monopoly position

To avoid getting hung up on pedantry and the fact that technically I could, given sufficient time, a cave, and a box of scraps, make my own phone, let's just ditch the term and go with anti-competitive. Surely you'd agree with that characterization?

You don’t have to. There are literally dozens of companies that take the open source version of Android and make their own phones. You can source the parts needed from a variety of vendors and put the Amazon App Store on it.

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