I’m betting some people will argue that “It’s their store, they can do what they want with it”
Behaving as though predicting a response is a counter to it is bad faith.
For me, I think the open question is can they deny 3rd party app stores or side-loading apps. Then, we get into the "Microsoft installing IE by default" fight. How can a 3rd party app store compete? (I don't have an answer)
The European Union's Digital Markets Act finds that pretty easy.
The DMA will let them charge 100% fees if they want, it just won't allow them to be the only store on the platform to force people to pay that fee.
This is somewhat the basis of the lawsuit that actually brought this out.
The accusation is (iirc): Google has backroom deals with OEMs to prevent them from having any market installed by default except for Google Play. This is what stopped Epic from continuing with their own mobile market idea, as no OEMs would agree due to this.
If they are a monopoly or duopoly or cartel it is very easy to argue against that.
If Play Store decided to ban or restrict, say, Uber or Netflix, that's just billions of dollars of economic damage on a flick of a finger.
They hold more power than banks. It's surprising they aren't tightly regulated like banks would be.
No. Stop doing this.
When someone has a monopoly, the solution is not to keep the monopoly and try to regulate it. It's to break the monopoly.
Also not all monopolies are dangerous or evil, e.g. Steam.
Banks aren't dangerous because they're a monopoly, they're dangerous because you're entrusting them with your money.
Platform app stores are dangerous because they're a monopoly.
> Also not all monopolies are dangerous or evil, e.g. Steam.
Steam is still taking a 30% cut. Only monopolists can get away with that, and they should all be smashed.
You need aggressive internal competition to prepare your industries for aggressive external competition.
Korea used an alternate approach where the country was run by a dictator who put the CEOs in prison if they didn't export enough.
Now that's industrial policy!
When you have a large vertically integrated bureaucracy, the integration ossifies. Your cars are heavy so they need big engines and use a lot of fuel. Your big engines wouldn't fit in a smaller car. A smaller engine wouldn't be powerful enough to accelerate your heavy cars. So if gas prices suddenly go up, you have to throw everything out and start over from scratch.
Which you can't do overnight, even if someone is threatening to put you in jail. So now Toyota is bigger than Ford, GM and Chrysler put together.
However, since these markets are so dominant, I'd like any discounts to be transparent and offered to everyone at the same terms. Apple's public discount program works like this, although who knows what secret deals they have.
Related: are utility companies in various jurisdictions allowed to strike deals like this?
Apple is the Nintendo of gaming. Through advanced psychology tricks, they aren't held to the same standards.
I do think there's a strong argument to be made about forcing Apple and Google to facilitate the ability to install a different OS if the user wishes.
They don't have any, we know because of Epic testimony.
I once tried installing the Amazon app store to see if I could get a version of Kindle that allowed in-app purchases. It didn't exist.
I’m still scratching my head trying to understand why this is okay but Microsoft bundling internet explorer wasn’t.