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Comment by LordKeren | Hacker News Reader

It will be extremely interesting to see how this shapes android going forward.

Google didn’t just lose some point— they lost every point

> The jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. They decided Google has an illegal tie between its Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services, too.

This may wind up being an enormous shake up.

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Finally. I'm glad this caught up to them. I used to have a lot of warm fuzzies for Google, but they've become downright despicable in so many respects. The app store has leaned toward unfair for publishers (and users) for years, I hope something good comes of this.

Like I've been saying. We're not incentivizing the stewardship of open platforms. Apple will die before they open their garden.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731541#37732596

I don't want to be pithy and low-effort here. I'm confused on why Google lost while Apple won.

As other comments have said, Google's was a jury trial, Apple's not. And, even if neither were jury trials, as another another comment said, the justice system is not a hivemind: the way your case goes can and does depend on the judge/jury passing judgement.

That being said, Apple isn't stupid: they probably know as of now, even if they managed to believe it didn't before, that this monopoly on distribution has a shelf life. So I'm interested to see how they expand iOS app distribution to counter the claims of monopolistic behavior in the future, not unlike the way Microsoft supported other browsers financially for years to stop the FTC suing them into the dirt over Internet Explorer.

I'm generally an Apple fan, and to be totally honest, if there was another app distribution system on iOS, I doubt I would touch it. I appreciate the baseline level of quality and curation in the App Store and have no desire to leave it. I see the low-effort dreck of the Play store by comparison as undesirable. That being said, I don't grudge anyone for pointing out Apple's position in that space is uncompetitive. It is. I have no interest in alternatives but that doesn't mean alternatives shouldn't exist.

Thank you for the explanation. I'm also an Apple fan and would not leave the App Store easily, however I am unhappy that I am forever unable to do so.

I think rulings against these companies are warranted, but I want an end game where iPhone is closer to Android's best aspects, not where Android drops them to mimic iPhone's. Google could easily stop being as "anti-competitive" by not releasing another public update of Android again, launching a new "Pixel Play Store" available on Pixel, and putting all of their effort into this platform going forward. The world would be a worse place for this, and Google would likely make more services revenue. I have a feeling developers would abandon the other manufacturer's platforms in a microsecond. If Google's not allowed to have influence over the default search/apps installed on 3rd party android phones made by Samsung/HTC, why would Google even bother with the business? They only ran it to get more mobile search users into Google Search IMO.

I'm sure Google deserves to get smacked for the worst of their behavior but Apple walking away (for now) without a scratch is sending a stark message, at least to my eyes. You say Apple's time with this behavior is limited, and I can only hope you're right. Being positive, hopefully down the line, this case can be used as a wedge to peel Apple's grip open.

How is this not all true for Apple and its app store?

there is no sanction in the US for monopolies if the market chooses that, you just cant do anticompetitive things in the process or while you have one

so simply being in the exact same position is not enough, the details of exactly how you navigate it are more important

with that in mind, Apple is still vulnerable based on their behavior, but its not a slam dunk by mere nature of being in the same position

for example, revenue splits were always high in app stores, they didnt jack them up higher and in fact have come down periodically as if there was competition, and the market still chose to use them. app stores have always had heavy handed selective moderation approaches, it didnt get worse its gotten better in some regards. makes it very hard to prove antitrust just because the market kept subjecting itself to these

But they are not in the exact same position - Apple has a much tighter grip on their App Store than Google, and they don’t even need to: they make money selling the devices.

Apple’s app store policies product users. One thing Apple has done which is very good is regulate iPhone app decelopers.

I'm sure that's how Google feels! "Unfairly competing in the 'Android app distribution market'?? We are Android!!"

This is one of those legal situations I really can't wrap my head around, though. The point is the situations are different enough it would have to be a different legal framework for Apple's situation, and a different day in court.

I think a ruling like this is good. We need more checks on Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.

Well, it’s common law, not civil law. So lawyers, juries, judges and so on all heavily influenced the Epic Games v Apple outcome, as they did in Epic Games v Google.

The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent. But then again, Epic Games v Apple might be used as precedent in Google’s appeal.

EDIT/correction: Apparently, only appellate and higher courts can set precedent for case law. So it might take a bit longer for Epic Games v Google to set a precedent, while Epic Games v Apple has already been dealt by a higher court. The next time someone sues Apple, there might not yet be precedent set by Epic Games v Google.

In theory. I’m not an expert on this. But this doesn’t happen as often in civil law countries I lived in (EU), where the law doesn’t apply before it’s written, and when it’s written, it applies universally.

Things will even out in the US over time, I think. There will be case law for what’s allowed and what is not for everyone.

>The next time someone sues Apple for this, there will be precedent.

Trial courts don't set precedent, only an appellate court or higher can set a precedent, and that precedent is only binding on lower courts.

Since trial courts are the lowest courts, their decisions are not binding on any future trial and as a general matter do not set any kind of precedent.

Ah, thanks for the additional knowledge. I’ll edit my comment for clarification.

Epic Games v Google is going to appellate now, though, isn’t it?

It's kind of wild to see someone confidently posting legal analysis while obviously lacking an understanding of - uh - precedent.

I clearly stated “I’m not an expert on this” and publicly corrected my mistake to not mislead readers.

Don’t fulminate, my brother, see comment guidelines on HN for more info. There’s need to act like this and your comment doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion.

> There’s need to act like this and your comment doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion.

Does yours?

I mean that in earnest, not as a dig. You're posting legal analysis without even rudimentary legal knowledge, and I think that's worth noting and responding to.

It's also worth noting you only admitted you were not an expert once your initial post was debunked, and that in your corrigendum you manage somehow to add many additional substantive legal claims. Without any apparent additional legal knowledge.

If you did the same on a programming topic, there'd be an army of people ready to downvote you, because most of the wonderful folks here on HN are versed in programming, and could easily see through that. But this doesn't hold true for law, and you're in a position to mislead. Noting that contributes to the discussion by helping a reader discriminate signal from noise.

> It's also worth noting you only admitted you were not an expert once your initial post was debunked

No, that was in the original comment. I added only the paragraph prefixed with EDIT.

My friend, you are just picking a fight on the internet. You don’t actually know what the comment was and yet you say you do. Please do not.

Alternatively, please tell me how my comment is misleading now, if there truly exists an argument in your comment beyond an ad hominem. That would be more useful.

With respect, you seem to be the one struggling to let this one go. In two short comments you've accused me of: fulminating, not being constructive, posting against site rules, picking fights on the internet, posting ad hominem attacks, etc. All I've noted is that you're not legally trained, which you yourself admit.

My respectful advice is that if you're not legally trained, but wish to write legal analysis, (1) pause and consider how useful this actually is to others, and (2) if you must continue, preface (!) your statement with a disclaimer that you're not legally trained.

Lawyers are trained that with knowledge comes responsibility - people tend to rely on what lawyers say, often in unanticipated ways. Not only does this often lead people to go off half-cocked, but it can have legal consequences for the person giving the advice (there's such a thing as negligent advice). Generally these laws apply equally to lawyers and non-lawyers, and simply because you don't have any legal training doesn't mean you're not giving 'legal advice', it just makes your advice all the more dangerous. It seems reasonably unlikely you'd be sued for negligent advice for random comments online (not impossible!), but you should reflect on the ethics of confidently leading people on, from a position of relative legal ignorance.

I realise you may not be receptive to what I am saying to you - you appear to have become somewhat defensive and might be perceiving my words as further attacks - but I'm genuinely not here to diss you, and I'm absolutely not looking for a fight. Perhaps my initial comment was a little glib, but not knowing what precedent is and giving legal advice is rather like not knowing what a variable is but nonetheless giving confident programming advice. Generally best avoided.

Appellate courts set binding precedent, but district courts routinely look to eachother for guidance on how to rule on questions where there is no circuit/SCOTUS ruling.

Similarly, a judge in one circuit may look to the decision of a different circuit court when their own circuit has yet to rule on an issue, even though a different circuit’s opinion does not bind them.

In this case, however, the issue was ultimately put before a jury which doesn’t produce the kind of written decision that other judges would look to when deciding similar cases.

Be mindful that in practice there is very little difference between civil and common law systems: the ceremonies appear different but the spirit is the same: past decisions heavily impact future decisions since that's the only way to keep things fair, society changes decisions in a softly evolving jurisprudence in both systems, juries are consulted but not all powerful since they can be driven by revenge sentiment etc.

Like you I was born and raised in civil law (France) and now have been living for 10 years in common law (Hong Kong), and the difference is almost invisible: Judges obey parliamentary decisions in both, whether you call that laws or constitutional amendment or even political pressure. They also ensure consistency of decision when needed but are ready to launch a little revolution if they feel society has changed (gay marriage in Hong Kong is in the air, for instance)

Yes, ultimately our morals, culture, and sense of justice gets enshrined in law. But I did feel a big difference between living in a common law country and a civil law one.

There was a sense in business circles in the latter that what is not legally a crime, one cannot be punished for. So there was a bit of a drive to exploit that for profit. If something becomes forbidden by law, it’s “verboten”. It cannot take place, no matter how ethical it might be.

It’s much less clear in common law countries, where you could be tried and be unable to defend yourself for immoral things. Or you could break the laws but have such a strong moral argument for it, it is possible to defend. So generally, people and business are more considerate of each other, less stone cold bureaucratic. But that invites ambiguity in the legal process, even if the ultimate forces shaping it are similar to civil law. And you can get different outcomes in similar cases, like Epic Games v Apple and Epic Games v Google. These cases started out very similarly.

In civil law countries, if something was prohibited by a code, then it would be penalized, there wouldn’t be much debate in the courts. I think this is why the EU keeps fining these large tech companies all the time, it’s like a non-event, whereas it’s much more difficult in the us.

That is what I observed. Of course, what you say is also true.

> Things will even out in the US over time, I think.

Note, US Supreme Court recently overturned 50 years of precedent of Roe vs. Wade.

I think Madeofpalk’s comment explains the (possible) issue very well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38608075

Apple has always been “here’s the rules, follow or go away”. Google was “we’re open!” except they kept undermining that.

It doesn't matter for US legal system how their marketing call that. It's either legal or not.

Presumably there was a practical side to the difference in approach beyond marketing.

Right. Apple never undermined any competitive App Store, they just didn’t allow them.

That is legal according to the ruling on the Epic vs Apple trial.

It did matter to the jury, though.

Epic vs Apple was decided by a judge. (The judge suggested a trial by jury but both Epic and Apple declined.) Since the judge decided it there's a written record and rationale for the decisions. Epic's argument was "Apple has a monopoly on the Apple App Store market". Apple's argument was "we don't have a monopoly on the games market". The Judge's decision was: "Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the digital mobile gaming transaction market". This was later appealed and the ruling was upheld.

Epic vs Google was decided by a jury and God only knows what they were thinking. (All jury notes, doodles, etc are destroyed afterwards).

And the fact Epic lost so handily against Apple for the same thing is pretty chilling for the future of open devices. Lock down your platform tight as a drum and you may employ all manners of anticompetitive practices because you legally forbid the existence of competitors and you're "curating your experience" but open yourself up to any competition and your behavior becomes anticompetitive.

To be fair, that's literally called a video game console.

What is?

> Lock down your platform tight as a drum and you may employ all manners of anticompetitive practices because you legally forbid the existence of competitors and you're "curating your experience"

That's what a video game console is, technically speaking. It's a completely locked down environment which is curated tightly.

> but open yourself up to any competition and your behavior becomes anticompetitive.

That's called the antitrust investigation into Microsoft Windows; or the complaints about Apple's "sherlocking."

Edit: I'm actually OK with this, even legally, because I view devices as being means to an end for an experience, which is also how I think most consumers view devices. When viewed that way, we really have three major "buckets" of devices if you will: "Computers", "Gaming", "Phones".

The "Computers" market is a race in most minds between Windows and Mac (and thus Windows gets hit with antitrust investigations). The "Phones" market is once again a 2-cart race between Android and iPhone (and this time, Android gets the antitrust investigations). The "Games" market is a 4-cart race between 3 console manufacturers and the PC, with 2 additional smaller carts called Cloud Gaming and the Smartphone (which, themselves have 3 and 2 carts respectively) - thus, no interest in investigating anyone there. However, if gaming didn't exist on the PC and was strictly Sony v. Nintendo, it would totally be investigated.

> or the complaints about Apple's "sherlocking."

And they get away with it because Apple isn't competing with anyone within their own ecosystem; it's not a market.

Really is a neat little bit of lawyering, iOS and all apps within aren't competing with each other hence the rule about too many apps with similar features, they're competing as a unit with other computing platforms.

If Microsoft discontinues Windows and stops partnering with all personal PC manufacturers to produce computers/laptops... while simultaneously pushing the xbox as 'more than a gaming console', introducing 'portable xbox' like laptops, etc. but keeps them otherwise extremely restricted... what happens? no antitrust?

They are never going to do this.

Doesn't matter, I ask because the industry will (and is actively) trending towards this. It won't be Microsoft, it'll be whoever replaces Microsoft in the long term. My question remains: what will happen in that case and what do we want to happen?

Problem is that Google tried to have it both ways. Android is technically much more open, but then they would make deals to squash any other competition. It’s exactly the un-openness that Google’s gotten in trouble for.

This article lists a bunch of the special deals Google made with various companies in order to prevent competition https://www.theverge.com/23959932/epic-v-google-trial-antitr...

> One Google Play exec boasted she got Riot to halt development on its own app store by promising the company $10M in marketing.

> Another Google exec suggested that sharing revenue with Samsung would be “better at disincentivizing other app stores from being preloaded.”

> Google wanted to offer a 16 percent Google Play revenue share to key Chinese OEMs to “secure Play exclusivity” — and wound up giving them 20 percent.

> A secret Google deal let Spotify completely bypass Android’s app store fees

Apple made significantly less of these deals - they have their rules that you can either follow or not participate. I do think that some of those rules limit competition and make worse products for consumers.

Do we know for a fact Apple made fewer deals like these? I don't think we do.

Apple makes a lot of deals. A lot. I'd expect them to be about even.

We know that Epic asked and were refused prior to the lawsuit.

Beyond that there’s no evidence one way or another that there are any sweetheart deals. None of the public documents from the trials showed that.

Anything beyond that is speculation.

There was a whole trial about this. If Apple had these deals, it would have come out. Google and Apple ran things differently.

or perhaps Apple just had a stronger policy to not create documentation around these

I mean a lot of it just doesn’t apply. Google was caught paying off Samsung to encourage them not to put alternate app stores on their devices. Squashing competition where it should exist.

Apple makes the devices, so they aren’t making others squash competition. They’re exactly what they say.

Apple made deals to set the default search engine and the default maps app, and rejected other app stores. As bad as Google is, Apple is even worse, setting worse terms for deals and rejecting other deals outright to favor their own products.

Your second sentence is not even remotely supported by the first.

Details on some of these came through in the Epic v Apple case, but they were very light https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/5/22421734/apple-epic-netfli...

Google just has more types of companies in the ecosystem to make deals with. Apple’s iOS OEM deals can’t be found anticompetitive because they don’t have those deals to begin with.

It’s interesting that none of the desperate arrangements were lower fees; the closest being ability to upsell preexisting subscribers (off apples platform)

Apple was pretty careful not to make deals. For instance Microsoft and Epic both publicly complained about not getting deals.

Supposedly, the 15%-after-first-year rule for subscriptions that they instituted was because they were trying to entice Netflix to continue to take in-app payment for subscriptions. Rather than a sweetheart deal, they rolled it out as a platform change.

There are areas which I think are more questionable, such as their Apple TV partnerships with Amazon and a few others.

Netflix reportedly had special terms for years before that policy change for everyone else. I don’t think they were the only ones.

I think Apple just did that because it was becoming clear that what they were saying wasn’t true/they were getting political pressure about charging 30% no matter what.

I don’t remember the exact timing on the change so my guess as to the cause may be wrong.

The way that the stock apps in AOSP are barebones and have been practically abandoned in favor of nicer closed Google-branded counterparts is also suggestive of them trying to have their cake and eat it too.

> significantly less

But even one deal is enough.

That does not refute the point. Google gives you a choice of A or B and then incentives you to choose A. And then Apple gives you one choice which is A. Now tell me which is worse.

Google didn’t incentivize you to choose A. They incentivized Samsung not to give you choice B at all so you’d have to install it yourself.

Apple didn't need to make as many deals as they're the only OEM. There's no real way to have a separate app store on Apple phones.

Smartphone makers need app store revenue to make the handsets competitively priced. It would really hurt Android market share if all non-Google Android phones were say 10-20% more expensive to compensate for that. Or alternatively if you had a fragmented ecosystem with a separate app store per OEM.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to share app store revenue with the OEM making the device.

Can't speak to the deals with particular app developers like Riot or Spotify

And is it possibly because Android has a global dominance in market share well apple does not?

Apple has global dominance on market profits

The government does not (and legally cannot) give a darn on "dominance in market profits." If it isn't hurting consumers or illegally propping up market share, that's just called good business. As it should be, otherwise you end up with very bad incentives.

For example, what's stopping Samsung then from using the world's most inefficient and old manufacturing techniques, and then complaining Apple's more efficient (but expensive to research) techniques are propping up their profits? Nothing. It would even be easier for Samsung to do that, and then use their competitor's own cost-cutting innovations to take them down.

Ok but apple is hurting consumers with their 30% fee. I would not have bought an iPhone if I knew about that. Now Im locked in.

A. That's not exactly secret information, so your ignorance is not an excuse when you could have easily found that information if you cared. It's not a secret contract.

B. Android also charges 30%. Developers making under $1M per year pay only 15% (initially announced by Apple, copied by Google). You can't argue you'd save a penny going to Android.

C. You can always sell your iPhone, if it matters to you now, and buy an Android.

D. It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.

> D. It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.

I could not disagree more.

> B. Android also charges 30%. It's actually better on iPhone, because developers making under $1M per year pay only 15%. On Android, everyone pays 30%. So you'd be paying more to Google on Android than on iPhone.

Android is bad too but at least you can get an app store without the fee.

> C. You can always sell your iPhone, if it matters to you now, and buy an Android.

Will I get refunded for the apps I bought? What about the macbook I bought because I entered the apple ecosystem?

> A. That's not exactly secret information, so your ignorance is not an excuse when you could have easily found that information if you cared. It's not a secret contract.

How could I have known to look this up before it became a story?

> I could not disagree more.

Well, we can agree to disagree, but call it a prediction - in three years, prices will be exactly the same as they are now. No business, especially in this economy, gets an opportunity like this to raise margins without affecting sales.

> Android is bad too but at least you can get an app store without the fee.

Yes, and literally nobody will install it. And the few app stores that are available - Aurora will get your Google account banned, while F-Droid re-signs all apps with itself, meaning you are opening your device to serious security risks. A middleman in F-Droid would mean every app you install from them could be compromised with fake developer signatures. Fun.

> How could I have known to look this up before it became a story?

How about paying attention since the 30% commission was announced at the iPhone App Store launch in 2008, literally by Steve Jobs on stage when iPhoneOS 2.0 was announced? There's no legal requirement to advertise every possible detail to cover every possible person's perspective - especially when it's old hat announced a decade and a half ago with fanfare.

https://youtu.be/WUrzjLjP4UQ?t=217

Edit for the comment below about iPhone being anti-competitive (because I'm "posting too fast"):

Well, here's the problem with trying to investigate the iPhone.

Remember how I showed that announcement in 2008? iPhone market share, at the time, was less than 5%. Almost the entire smartphone market was split between BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

Now look at where iPhone is now, despite the fee. That demonstrates, to a regulator, that it is a competitive product, and the market preferred it, despite the fee which was implemented at the beginning. Apple didn't build the iPhone to where it is now and then lock it down - developers signed up right when it was beginning and didn't care then, so they can't care now that it's a success.

Apple has basically an ironclad argument for competitiveness. If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored. This came up in the argument with Epic - Apple argued, successfully, that the market chose them and their "anti-competitive practices" despite them having almost no clout, which can only be the result of market support for being a competitive product.

Edit 2 (same issue, thanks @dang):

> What makes you say that? A product being anti competitive has little to do with whether consumers will buy it. You dont see how you can have the best product on the market and also stifle competition?

The iPhone took off because of third-party support, any market analyst will tell you that. If it didn't have third-party support from the App Store, it would have died.

Why was that third-party support there? Previously, on almost all other cellphones, every carrier had their own App Store. With their own policies. And a 50/50 split at best. Some only gave the developer 30% with the carrier taking 70%. With the developer paying for your own credit card fees and hosting fees. Many carriers had severe upfront costs of tens of thousands of dollars to get a half-functioning SDK. The 70/30 deal with one App Store was revolutionarily competitive for the time. Developers flooded Apple's scene because it was, by far, the cheapest and most profitable App Store available at the time. They can't claim, high on the success that Apple gave them, that Apple's the problem now when Apple did not even change the deal that they initially signed for. At least, not legally easily.

Or maybe I can just assume that the government will enforce anti competitive laws and not waste all my time trying to sus out whether a product has some anti competitive trick going on.

> If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored.

What makes you say that? A product being anti competitive has little to do with whether consumers will buy it. You dont see how you can have the best product on the market and also stifle competition?

I also think youre mixing up your markets here. The app store is not the same thing as the iPhone. The iPhone was a very competitive product that has an anti competitive market in it and some consumers are willing to look past that. Doesnt make it acceptable.

F-Droid is strictly more secure than the Apple App Store. The same MITM attack works on Apple, but since the App Store doesn't have reproducible builds, you have no way to detect it. The App Store is the least secure of the mobile app stores that most HNers use. You've been sold a bill of goods.

Aurora isn't an app store. It is an unauthorized client for the Play Store.

I don't disagree with your overall point, I don't think, but having reproducible builds doesn't -- alone -- make a distribution method more secure. I can publish an app with a bunch of security holes and maybe even some obfuscated malicious behavior, but if the F-Droid maintainers don't notice, it doesn't matter one bit that a user could reproduce the build they made.

Of course, I don't know if we can say that Apple's app store approval process filters out more or fewer security issues or malicious apps than F-Droid's vetting process does.

> If it was anti-competitive, the iPhone would've died at birth. Nobody would have supported an anti-competitive product if they actually cared at a time when it could have easily been ignored.

I don't really get this point. Internet service providers are all anti-competitive, but they're doing quite well, because there are no alternatives. When the iPhone was released, so so so many people immediately saw it as completely in another class above all previous phones, and there were no alternatives in the same class. (Obviously there were trade offs: I personally know quite a few Blackberry people who scoffed at the iPhones lack of physical keyboard.) Even barring all that, the Jobsian Reality Distortion Field was still going strong at that point. The iPhone was cool. (And at that point, there wasn't even an App Store, and no SDK for third parties to build apps.)

Most people don't realize that they're negatively impacted by anti-competitive behavior until it's too late. They've already bought into the ecosystem. Sometimes they don't even know things could be more innovative or cheaper or whatever, because they have nothing to compare it to. To revisit my ISP example, a simple reason I'm mad at Comcast's anti-competitive behavior is because I know it can be so much better, based on people I know who live in other places and have an order of magnitude faster internet connection for a fraction of the price. If I had no other examples that suggested that 1200/35 for $90/mo was a bad deal, I might think that was just how it had to be in order to provide the service.

> It is no secret that the 30% fee has nothing to do with consumers, but will instead be used to increase the developer's profit margins. Expect to pay the exact same after the fees are lifted.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. I agree that developers are unlikely to lower prices if the 30% fee is eliminated or reduced. But it seems reasonably likely that the next time they look into raising prices, they may raise them less, or decide not to raise them at all.

I do agree with the underlying point: prices are not set based on cost, but are set in line with what the market will pay. If the market will pay $10 when the developer has to pay a 30% fee, the market will still pay $10 if that fee disappears.

But still, consider that for many apps there's going to be a tension between what the market will pay, and the minimum the developer needs to keep the lights on. The developer might settle for a lower per-sale profit if they get a bunch more users that more than offsets the lower per-user revenue.

Let's say a developer sells at a $10 price point, which nets the developer $7 (after Apple's 30% cut), and that they need $6 to keep paying their other costs; they'll get $1 in profit after all is said and done. But maybe they can only make 100,000 sales at that price point, or $100,000. Kill the 30% fee, and they make $4 per sale, or $400,000. Great! Instant 4x profit! But maybe they'll be able to make 150,000 sales if the price were $9, which would give them $450,000 in profit. That's a compelling reason to drop prices. Or at least not raise them even when their other costs go up from $6 to $7.

Obviously these numbers are made up; maybe dropping the price to $9 only nets them an additional 5,000 sales, so it's not worth it. But we can't just flat-out say that no developer will do the math and decide that dropping prices can actually help them.

> But it seems reasonably likely that the next time they look into raising prices, they may raise them less, or decide not to raise them at all.

What absolute unsubstantiated nonsense.

No more or less unsubstantiated than what the person I replied to said.

At any rate, maybe try for some productive discussion rather than shallow dismissals?

Hurting consumers? Apps are dirt cheap.

If anything, they’re hurting developers, but even that may be hard to argue. Developers still flock to the platform.

Even if those developers can’t make a living doing that (and many likely can’t), that’s not an argument for Apple’s fee being too high. There’s no right to be able to make a living in the way you want.

Yes, they are hurting consumers by banning competing app stores. Just because they offer an acceptable product doesnt mean they can hamstring competitors. There is a right to be allowed to compete.

> There is a right to be allowed to compete.

You can always build your own phone and setup your own app store. Samsung does.

How is this different from telling people to move to a different town when their town bans walmart? I've invested considerably money into the apple ecosystem. I have a bunch of media on their cloud. Switching is a pain in the ass, why cant the gov just enforce anti competitive laws?

If you want Walmart products, you better follow Walmart.

> How is this different from telling people to move to a different town when their town bans walmart?

I generally agree with your point, but this is a weird argument: towns can and do ban big-box stores, and yes, "move to a different town" is exactly the only remedy people have, if they want to live close to those kinds of stores. And frankly we generally see that as a good thing! Big-box stores tend to kill downtowns.

> I've invested considerably money into the apple ecosystem.

This confuses your Walmart analogy quite a bit, because there's no such thing as "investing money into the Walmart ecosystem". Walmart doesn't have an ecosystem. If your Walmart closes down and other stores pop up to replace it, you just start shopping at those other stores, and likely don't really notice much of a difference.

And that's precisely the point of the issue with Apple. If I've been an iOS user for years and years, and suddenly Apple changes the terms to something I really don't like, it'll cost me a lot to switch to another platform.

Im investing the money and time into my house which you are now forcing me to sell.

No one is forcing you to sell. There are lots of people that are perfectly happy in the Walmart free town. There are people that are coming because it has no Walmart. And there were no contract signed that there would be a Walmart in the vicinity.

No I'm not. In the smartphone case, you've bought your iPhone, but you're only allowed to "furnish" it with items from the Apple App Store. If you don't like the Apple App Store, you're screwed. You have to sell or ditch your iPhone, and everything you've bought for it becomes worthless.

In the Walmart case, you've bought your house. Presumably up until now you've mostly relied on Walmart to furnish it, and to buy groceries, etc., etc. Walmart disappears. Your existing furnishings are fine and still work. You can buy more furnishings at other stores, and they will work just fine in your existing house, with your existing furnishings. You can buy groceries at another store, and consume that food just fine in your existing house. Also consider that Walmart has online ordering and ships things; if you really want to continue to get some items from Walmart, you can still do so.

Sure, if you're unwilling to take the entirely reasonable step of finding alternatives to Walmart, I guess you'd have to sell your house and move to a town that still has a Walmart. But that's... a pretty ridiculous course of action to take, honestly.

Locked in? You can't buy another phone? Would you have been able to buy the apps you use without Google taking 30% as well?

Sure, they can buy an Android phone, and then have to re-buy all those apps again, probably at considerable expense.

And yeah, Google taking 30% as well also sucks. Just because Google does it, it doesn't mean it's fine Apple does too.

Which isn't really "a thing" legally. The fact that there's so much money to be made on iOS for 3rd party app developers and more than Android is evidence of a competitive market in a broader sense. A company employing anticompetitive practices would drive those profits to zero.

> The fact that there's so much money to be made on iOS for 3rd party app developers and more than Android is evidence of a competitive market

No, the opposite, it is evidence that Apple is a monopoly, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten away with taking 30% with no repercussions. It should have driven their profits to 0 in the appstore market since why would users pay such a massive markup for everything? But it didn't due to their anti-competitive measures.

> A company employing anticompetitive practices would drive those profits to zero

No, that isn't how it works, they weren't anti competitive towards other apps, just towards other app stores. Their massive tax on those apps is the result, you can still be profitable even with a massive tax.

No, this was not a court case about if Google has a phone OS monopoly. This was about if Google has a monopoly within the android ecosystem when it comes to app distribution. The jury ruled that they have a monopoly within android, and that they used this monopoly to stifle competition. They cited that Google used its influence as the makers of android to get phone manufacturers to not preinstall third party app stores, and paid off companies to not compete with Google Play

um but does Apple not have a monopoly on the iOS distribution system? if anything, Android is open to competition against Google. I'm baffled

Google lost this lawsuit because they were engaging in anticompetitive behavior on android by paying off companies to not produce third party app stores (like Riot) and paying phone manufacturers to not ship third party stores

Google, as evidenced by their own internal docs and company deals, had no interest in having any real competition for the Google Play store.

It’s really hard to see these deals when Google is the arbiter of android and anything but extremely anti competitive

> ... anticompetitive behavior on android by paying off companies to not produce third party app stores

What if they didn't just pay off, but forcefully forbid it, wouldn't it be anticompetitive? Basically, as Apple does on iOS.

If other manufacturers were licensing the OS. Like Microsoft and Internet Explorer back in the day

User safety seems like a much more compelling justification for anti-competitive behavior than money.

There's no extra "safety". It's money in both cases.

I don’t claim to understand their actual reasoning, and I’m 100% willing to believe that Apple actually is not being honest and could handle alternative stores. But, by not opening up for any amount of money, they at least have remained consistent with their claim.

The non-US world overwhelmingly uses Android more than iOS, and yet everyone's personal security has not crumbled into dust. I will absolutely agree that Android's security posture (both in the OS itself and its app ecosystem) is worse than Apple's, but that doesn't seem to make all that much of a practical difference, does it?

I think my comment was maybe ambiguous.

I have no idea if iOS or Android is better (or maybe if iOS is actually worse on some basic level, but they can rely on the single store to reach parity).

But, their justification is at least plausible. Do I think they actually telling the truth? I think it at least is a case of financially motivated reasoning. But they haven’t completely given it away.

Google has by being willing to open up as long as some financial requirements are met.

Read the complaint against Microsoft from back in the day - https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-us-v-microsoft-corp

Consider how many of those items apply to Google's behavior and how many apply to Apple's.

That Apple is the only way to get the hardware or software for their products (compare to getting Google software licensed on Samsung) is a very important distinction.

I don't see why the Microsoft case is all that relevant; it's not like Microsoft is the archetypal definition of monopoly behavior in hardware/software, and only companies that do things the Microsoft way should be punished.

I personally don't think the distinction you point out should actually be important at all. The end result is an anti-competitive platform, and that's all that should matter.

If we go by the oft-used test of consumer harm, consumers get harmed in exactly the same way on both platforms, with higher prices (due to percentage fees that you can't opt out of) than if the market were more open.

At some point in time, the only way to get a phone hardware was Bell Telephone Company. That did constitute a monopoly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

The mental gymnastics outplay here are wild.

Google is anticompetitive because they allowed users to install third party apps, but paid big players not to develop app stores.

But if they had just done what Apple does, and just ban third party installs all together, that'd be what? Hyper competitive and fair?

It absolutely pains me to see Google essentially punished for having the only phone platform that allows users to install their own apps.

Couldn't agree more. It's bizarre to think that one company should be punished because they theoretically had a competitive platform, but did some shady business deals to keep it noncompetitive; but another company is completely in the clear making a platform that is noncompetitive by design, with technical measures in place to ensure it can't be.

I kinda get how it plays out that way in a legal sense, but it still baffles me that so many people can simultaneously support this ruling against Google and continue to praise Apple's practices. Cognitive dissonance (and the Jobsian RDF) is a thing.

The difference being that Apple isn't strong arming other companies into using their App Store. Google opens itself up to scrutiny because they both offer the ability to compete but then actively use their influence to try to stop that competition.

> The difference being that Apple isn't strong arming other companies into using their App Store.

They do. It's either Apple store or you go out of business, if you are developing a mobile app.

> They do. It's either Apple store or you go out of business, if you are developing a mobile app.

They don't. Apple is selling both the services and the hardware. They're not asking anyone to develop apps for them and no one is entitled to build an app store for their hardware.

But if I'm an Android phone manufacturer and Epic wanted to build an app stores for my devices, but I refused for no other reason than Google's money or pressure, there's a case for anti-competition. If Apple licensed iOS to other manufacturers, the same case would apply.

> They're not asking anyone to develop apps for them and no one is entitled to build an app store for their hardware.

You are clearly missing the point on purpose. Imagine that all roads in the US belonged to Apple and you had to pay 30% of the cost of your goods to Apple for the privilege of transporting them.

This would be OK, because you'll still be able to walk or maybe even use rail transport.

Apple's ecosystem is _unavoidable_ if you are making mobile applications (not games). You HAVE to support iOS, or you'll go out of business. No alternatives.

And before someone tries to refute this part of your argument: sure, Android is an alternative... if you have a very niche app that somehow only caters to Android users, and somehow caters to the comparatively small percentage of Android users who are willing to actually pay for apps.

Ultimately if you're a sizeable company that wants to operate in the US, and a mobile app is something you need to offer, you have to build one for iOS. If you don't, you'll fail.

I would say these days you aren't going to do quite as well if you don't also build an Android app, but you can probably get away with it in quite a few markets if you really didn't want to.

Heh, I remember when Instagram was iOS-only, and that was the case for... at least a year? More?

> Imagine that all roads in the US belonged to Apple

If you go this route, not all roads would have belonged to Apple. People would use Apple's roads because they're well built, the majority of cars are nice ones and drivers drive well because enforcement is harsh. Maintenance is usually done on schedule and if people want hassle free travel, it's the best choice even if they're boring and uniform.

There exists other roads for every (start, destination) pairs. But only the new ones are maintained. Drivers do whatever they want and even enforcement wants to stop at every turn. Sometimes you're not even sure what exactly are alongside you on the road.

Here you come trying to create a taxi service (But you did not build any road yourself) and both companies ask you for the same fee. But you know you can probably get your cars on Google's road and bypass the fee with some hassle. But Apple's won't let you do that. People has paid a high fee to get access to these road and they don't want random cars on it. But you know these people has money and you want some of it.

I could go on and on with this.

> Apple's ecosystem is _unavoidable_ if you are making mobile applications (not games).

If you're a business, why would you care for 30%? Apple is providing the whole SDK for free, and your users' platform is getting updates for free. You are not doing any of that. the 99$ yearly fee is peanut.

If you're building things for yourself, Apple has never advertise that iOS was something to tinker with.

> If you go this route, not all roads would have belonged to Apple.

Yes, some backwoods roads would belong to Android. Maybe around 30%.

> If you're a business, why would you care for 30%?

Because it's a lot. Apple is triple-dipping:

1. You have to pay for Apple computers.

2. You have to pay for the SDKs.

3. You have to give the MAFIA shakedown 30%.

> Yes, some backwoods roads would belong to Android.

There are good manufacturers for Android. But they're still unmatched in terms of services. In the above analogy, nice road, worse travel experience.

> Because it's a lot.

It's the cost of doing business with Apple, made clear to you since you begin. You just factor it in your offering.

> 1. You have to pay for Apple computers.

Because it's the tool for the job. No ones expect you to build a Windows App without a computer running Windows. The tools Apple provides only run on MacOS which only runs on Macs.

> 2. You have to pay for the SDKs

You don't. You're paying only for access to the distribution channel (base fee).

> You have to give the MAFIA shakedown 30%

Remember the tools and services above? If you're making business with Apple customers through Apple services, you're paying for it on a transaction basis.

> There are good manufacturers for Android. But they're still unmatched in terms of services. In the above analogy, nice road, worse travel experience.

Again, it doesn't matter if roads are nice. Or if your mafia thugs give you a handkerchief after they beat you bloody.

> It's the cost of doing business with Apple, made clear to you since you begin. You just factor it in your offering.

Just like mafia.

> No ones expect you to build a Windows App without a computer running Windows.

Can I buy macOS to run on my PC? No?

> You don't. You're paying only for access to the distribution channel (base fee).

Since you mentioned Windows, I can compile and distribute as many Windows applications as I want. Without paying a cent to MS.

> Remember the tools and services above? If you're making business with Apple customers through Apple services, you're paying for it on a transaction basis.

Again, like with mafia. But now on iPhone!

To give you another example: imagine if cable Internet companies decided to require you to pay 30% of your gross income to them if you use Internet for work-from-home.

After all, without their generous service, you wouldn't be able to earn money. Right? What's that puny 30% of your income to you? It's really nothing!

> They're not asking anyone to develop apps for them

Building a mobile app SDK and an app store is very much asking a lot of people to develop apps for them.

But as a mobile app developer, I don't have to sell my app on the Apple app store.

If you want to build a successful, growing business in the US, yes, you absolutely do.

Certainly the definition of "success" differs depending on who you ask, but if we're talking about a player like Epic, they absolutely have to sell their app on the Apple app store. They absolutely should also sell on the Google Play Store, but it's still table stakes (at least in the US) to have an iOS app.

Google created the opportunity for "markets" of android alternative app stores and alternative in-app payments, but then leveraged their control of other areas (such as OEM distribution of android and play services, revenue sharing, marketing) to squash competition in these areas.

Apple on the other hand has tried very hard to make sure such perceptions of markets do not exist; for instance, the requirements they gave to Microsoft for shipping a game subscription service on iOS is that the games themselves had to be in Apple's App Store, pass App Store review, and take payments for DLC or currency via in-app purchase.

This is also IMO why Apple will never actually lock down macOS so that things are only available in the Mac App Store. Whether or not it is a good idea, they can't defend it legally.

I agree that Apple does have that monopoly. I guess the difference is that Google actually does technically allow third-party app stores, but used their monopoly position to squash them, at least in the realm of pre-installs?

I'm not sure why this should matter, though. I don't see why it's somehow better to use technical means to refuse to allow there to be a competitive market, than to use shady business deals to ensure a competitive market doesn't grow.

I think it is pretty easy to review google’s deals with phone manufacturers to stop them from shipping third party app stores presintalled and quickly come to the conclusion that Google was using its market position to prevent competition between the Google play store and others on android.

Google, as evidenced by their own internal documents put into record in this trial, was not interested in creating a platform where they had any real completion with the Google play store

The message I got is that everything is corrupt. I hope Google execs and shareholders also got that message.

Now finally some big guys are getting a sense of the issue with centralization. There can only be one government-ordained winner and it's not the one who plays fair and square who wins. It's usually the biggest political manipulator.

Google is in a weak position now due to the perceived risk of AI disrupting its business. When you show any weakness at all, the law starts working against you in the most blatant ways and it becomes self-fulfilling.

Are you suggesting that Google lost this lawsuit because the government decided they don’t matter anymore because they don’t have good enough AI on the market?

No. I'm suggesting that Apple won theirs because they are more important in the eyes of the corrupt government and that's what it takes to win. There can only be one winner. Second place is a loser.

Just wait 10 or 20 years. Watch the system concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands and people blame everything under the sun except the design of the system. I think the winner will probably be either Microsoft or Oracle because they are the most corrupt.

Seriously, does Microsoft or Oracle do anything useful these days? No, they just extort money from the government via overpriced proprietary software licenses, lock-ins and contracts obtained through corrupt practices. That's what winners do.

How exactly does this work, in your opinion? Does "The Government" (one entity) somehow decide on something like this and forces a specific judge to rule in a certain way? If something like this was uncovered, it'd be way bigger than this lawsuit.

And while you have a bit of a point about Oracle being stagnant... Microsoft? They own and develop tons of things. Microsoft isn't just Windows and Office.

It's just moneyed interests manipulating things behind the scenes. They can influence which judge will be assigned to a case, they can lobby politicians to add special loopholes to new legislation which suits them preferentially. Big companies have hundreds or sometimes thousands of lawyers with plenty of time to oversee every small detail of every case they're involved in and every law that affects them. They will offer loyal politicians and judges fancy jobs after they finish office.

I don't think this will be uncovered because you need money to have a voice in this system and as this serves the bigger moneyed interests, anyone who has an incentive to cry foul will find that their cries fall on deaf ears. Also, PR firms will manufacture narratives to spin things to make the people who are complaining seem like a lunatics. They will also gaslight individuals who raise alarms to lower their confidence. In many cases, they can dig up dirt on whistleblowers and have them jailed. In some cases they can manufacture dirt on whilsleblowers (e.g. Julian Assange) to have them jailed to send a message to future whistleblowers. So they can hold the fort for a very long time.

Google has already appealed this.

I imagine the Supreme Court will probably rule on this case. I’m not looking forward to whatever boneheaded precedent they’ll set in the process.

The current Supreme Court is primarily concerned with constitutionality and clearing "legal debt" (decisions outside the scope of the Court as chartered) from previous courts. I would be surprised if they take this one up.

The “legal debt” argument is absurd. They’ve been expanding their charter as much as they’ve been contracting it.

The majority is also openly corrupt, and will throw whatever they want out the window the second they are paid to do so.

Edit: Also, this idea that they should clear legal debt is a massive expansion of their charter. The system works as follows:

- Congress writes laws

- If they are vague, the courts set precedents that are irreversible except in the case of dire errors.

- If congress doesn’t like a precedent they clarify the law.

The current court is violating separation of powers by retroactively going against the actions taken by the last 50-100 years of legislators.

For instance, congress had decades to amend the constitution to say the fourth amendment doesn’t imply a right to privacy or women’s reproductive health care (including abortion) as Roe v. Wade established.

The current court greatly overstepped their authority when they ruled there is no right to privacy or reproductive health care.

This isn’t a minor oversight that congress forgot to consider. This is the justices deciding they have been elected dictators for life.

Your point about Roe v Wade is precisely my point. The right to abortion is simply not in the Constitution. If Congress wants to pass that law, they may, and that would be legal according to the Supreme Court. Any honest legal scholar will tell you that Roe v Wade is a ridiculous Supreme Court decision, simply because it is sua sponte law.

The current court is not violating separation of power by overturning older laws. Your point about the court only overturning vague laws is completely false. The court exists as a check on Congress and the executive to hold them accountable to the texts which charter them. It is designed this way because overturning laws is far less harmful than upholding them. Government should do less, not more, and that is in our DNA as a country. The Supreme Court is acting as designed.

Most likely outcome is probably a consent decree like Microsoft's. Google agrees to publicly document all APIs for Android app store capabilities, and to refrain from certain kinds of business deals, and some mechanism of enforcement, perhaps embedded monitors at Goog or an onerous reporting regime.

Then, with a level playing field we see if Google's Play Store can compete with other app stores, and whether Google can give Android a great app store management experience to end users.

>>"Android and Google Play provide more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform." —— Wilson White, VP, Government Affairs & Public Policy

That's the most he can say? Pretty damn low bar to beat Apple's walled garden at 'openness'. Sheesh

With losing on EVERY point, there may not be a lot of room to appeal, as appeals rarely overturn findings of fact. But it will create delay.

Maybe we'll ultimately get some relief.

Someone needs to go after Amazon for their monopoly in the Amazon Prime Video distribution market.

> The jury

These cases always goes like this. Jury awards 1 billion dollars etc. It always gets revised by the judge later on. Is this any different?

The judge cannot override the jury's ruling, so unless Google's appeal succeeds, the ruling stays.

The Court technically can if Google asked for JMOL prior the case going to the jury.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_50

A judgement notwithstanding the verdict allows a judge to throw out a jury verdict.

Epic didn’t sue for damages. They sued to get the rules changed. The jury did not award Epic any money. The judge will be deciding how Google must remedy the situation

Yes, as your own comment points out. Juries determine questions of fact. That can't (for the most part, there are of course exceptions) be revised by a judge. The applied penalty is a very different thing, and can be and usually is revised by the judge.

Usually what happens is a point of law gets appealed and one of the chances of action gets thrown out and the penalty that was tied to it.

The jury was only finding guilt, penalty has not happened yet so we don’t know what kind of fines or whatever Google will have to deal with.

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