The terrible support is really deeper than support. You literally stopped doing business here, because the lack of a feedback channel that allows Google to improve their business (i.e. realize they need a way to quickly correct stupid automated decisions) been Google's worst enemy and best friend. By ignoring support & feedback, the friction for internal decision making is low (no pesky customer demands, the product manager is king, management gets their way), but it leads to I think a lot of Google's products failing because they do not really understand their users, and the why behind the what they use.
I'm not sure being a monopoly alone explains Google's behavior here, but it could be as simple as that: who cares about one small customer... it's not like they have a viable alternative.
I'd like to support that this goes "both" ways for companies who destroy their customer service. Not only do they not know what their customers want/problems they're having, but they don't know what their customers wouldn't want/problems they're not having. Like you say, it "lowers the friction," so some dumb, destructive idea that somebody has gets implemented based on title and force of personality.
But that's a monopoly. Nothing they do is destructive, other than putting any more work in than is necessary. If the store went down for weeks at a time, they might have a problem. The problem would result from this personally irritating and inconveniencing a regulator/politician, judge, or major stockholder/owner.
The company's philosophy on the issue seems to be rooted in the hacker ethos of not giving repetitive work to humans if a machine could do it. When a machine can't do it, Google's thinking is to improve the machine. If the systems are good enough, nobody will need support.
The systems are not good enough, and that has been true for a long enough time that a reasonable company would have realized that a good support team is necessary until some far-future time.
I have not worked at Google, but rather at 4 different companies that built automation machinery (ie multi discipline execution between mechanical, electrical, and software engineers). In none of those cases was it ever “the hacker ethos”. It was mid to upper level management whose incentive loops tended to be associated more with either shareholder perception or HR head counts. All of the engineers were usually begging the company to do a better job (allocate resources) to last mile customer support. Engineers build things, and are usually more satisfied if the products they build are well received because of the “last mile” bit where someone helps a customer appreciate their creation.
Like, their pipeline has been broken for months. No way to contact them. There is a support page for the api, but they close all issues as "the api is working". Well, sure, you accept the street view so the api is technically working, but haven't processed any for months.. It's probably a different team, but no way they would bother talking to each other..
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> You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. If you alter or build upon our data, you may distribute the result only under the same license.
I've personally noticed this for edits I've made to obscure, completely out of the way areas.
You could have very easily chosen to be bitter, complain in an opaque manner, and do nothing, much like the siblings of this reply. You instead recognize that constructive action along with clear communication is the way.
The last line contradicts the first line. Being a monopoly means they don’t have to care. If Apple and Google were required to allow competing app stores as first-class citizens then they would have to provide better service or no one would use their stores and they’d lose out on all of the rents they’re collecting from app developers.
Say we do what you're suggesting. There's now three stores on Android devices when you take them out of the box: Google Play, Crumbt, and Dipple. Crumbt quickly gains a reputation for hosting sketchy software, with some diamonds in the rough, but users also regularly report getting malware on their phones. That said everything is free, which makes it the #1 stop for people who have to buy the down-market phones anyway because they can't afford apps either. Dipple, meanwhile, promises no AI features or content, and immediately gets a following with the more monied crowd that not only will pay for apps, but prefers to to avoid ads and spammy generative content.
The problem, as I see it, is we still have the old, bad experience from google, and we now have one other experience that lets anything in, so people are still getting malware, and we have still a third that's offering premium features to users with cash to spend and leaves everyone else out in the cold.
I know I'm being negative with my examples, but at the same time, the PROBLEM, as I see it, is power asymmetry: lack of oversight on the part of the platforms means nasty shit gets through, and lack of actionable routes to be remediated means the risk lands squarely on the user, who is disempowered already. Additional app markets solve none of that.
Like, sure, an app market could come along promising to be on the user's side: it will immediately not attract developers, because developers will (correctly) see that it's riskier there than elsewhere. And there's not really a monetary reason to make an ethical app store, whatever that happens to mean, because far more money is made being an unethical one that hangs it's users out to dry.
I just don't think these are problems yet more markets can solve, because fundamentally, what's broken about them is what makes them so wildly profitable. And I can't fathom another store not coming along and, even if not at first, doing the exact same thing again anyways that Play has already done, because it works. Because Play itself was immitating/innovating on the same axis as Apple's App Store.
> and we have still a third that's offering premium features to users with cash to spend and leaves everyone else out in the cold
(this is putting aside wetter we should even need 'appstores')
> fuck barrel? How about we just not have it?
Google is a crazy town, data driven by cherry picked post-hoc rationalizations driven by perf. The user never enters the equation.
The basic services Google provides can effectively only be consumed by humans individually, creating an inevitable bottleneck.
Such bottlenecks impede interchangeability of goods, as you can't reasonably entertain multiple suppliers simultaneously there. And that means, you cannot have a free market, because you can't really have meaningful competition.
Google has captured services that really are public utilities. Them being "new" doesn't play a role.
The speed of government is slow, incredibly slow. It's measured in election cycles. It takes government eight, twelve years to simply turn around and notice. But once it does, it's a juggernaut.
Nothing can stop it. Nothing can avert it. Nothing can prevent it. And as everybody from Facebook to Microsoft knows, once it starts moving, you're screwed.
In the US, the oil companies thought they were too big. Then the telco companies thought they were too big. What really happens is eventually people just get pissed off, and then it's too late.
Google is fast approaching that. They almost had chrome and other things ripped away from them, and now they've got requirements to have alternate play stores. If they don't turn course, and turn course blazingly fast, they're going to have their entire empire wrenched away from them.
Oh well.
Unfortunately, that's no longer the case with the app store monopolies. While Apple is under some partial enforcement on parts of their app store policies, Google managed to play the game of regulatory brinksmanship better and largely avoided that for their app store. So the regulatory powers (such as they are) have already taken their best shot and this is where we are.
Juggernauts do not have to be fast. And the judge has seen Google being intractable and sneaky with alternate app stores too:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/979852/that-is-not-acceptabl...
There is now a record of this. The next action against Google, will see people pointing out each step they took to avoid compliance.
A case a year down the road about AI, will see stubborn attempts to comply like the above cited.
Google, with the gold plated shovel, digging a hole for itself. Put another way, breaking up a company typically comes after other methods don't work. Such as being sneaky and making them not work.
Or even because the required competition didn't occur, regardless of fault.
It's not over. It's a step taken, with a positive outcome, and a judge who is making sure there's follow through. Next step will be more stark.
Like you don't want to have fundamentals and pronciples change hardly ever. So you might take a long time to create or destroy say the FDA, but the FDA could be responsible for being on top of time-sensitive FDA things.
Maybe there could even be a body whos job is only to decide if something is time -sensitive or not, allowing other bodies to move as they need to, yet not just have no limits or accountability at all even within their own domains. So a rapid action can be done, then shortly after determined it was a bad idea and undone, or partly wrong and needs adjustment, and have that all be justified by a seperate independant process that judged or agreed "this is something that needed rapid action".
I don't think we have anything so organized yet. We do have some things where a body is responsible for a domain and can act more quickly within their scope, but we also have a lot of things where we get both forms of bad, making big changes on immediate whims, and being unable to make clearly needed even small changes simply because "government is slow".
We do have some examples of a reasonable organization and heirarchy and layers, and a whole lot of not, all together at the same time.
If they didn't develop Android they'd be paying $10s of billions annually for the prime positioning their apps and services and search enjoy too, so even if you buy their accounting tricks the development is paying for itself many times over.
But if the court allowed, Google would be paying that company $10s of billions for the prime real estate their software, search and services enjoy and it would then be a very weak argument that only IAP funds its development. Just like it is when Google earns $100s of billions in revenue from Android now.
it is parasitic to try and prohibit competing app stores and then leverage your monopoly by charging monopoly prices.
everything google is trying to do to discourage graphene, newpipe, competing app stores, etc. is parasitic and it's right that they are being fined by the EU for this behavior.
I think a more honest way to say this might be: Android OS development is massively funded by Google, and the Play Store feeds into this hugely. No other store does this, so it shouldn't be surprising that they can charge a lower fee. They're just doing the easy bit.
Now that they have, they are also turning around on bits of that too.
Sure, but they also won't generally bother if the fees are the same as the installed-on-every-device Play Store
https://stripe.com/managed-payments
This is what Apple said about it:
> Stripe and Paddle are leading full-service, turnkey payment processing, and merchant-of-record providers handling all the services necessary for link-out, including payment processing, tax compliance, fraud detection, and customer service. Across the top apps, the mean implied processing and merchant-of-record fee based on Stripe’s and Paddle’s rack rates (which few, if any, large developers actually pay because they negotiate discounts or provision in-house) is 8.1% using Stripe rates, or 7.8% using Paddle rates.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...
2. Android comes bundled with chrome (and thus google search) as default. Google pays Apple $20B+ a year to keep Google search the default on Safari. That should tell you how valuable controlling Android is for Google's margins.
Like no-one at google seriously thinks they need to take a 15% play store cut to justify funding Android.
Given that, I think the world would be improved by reduction of such “development”.
And we know they are not spending $30 billion on their SDKs.
You don't have a real choice in an app store on android (except recently, and even then, the alternative stores don't behave well for google-based apps).
That's why it's not a tax when you choose to buy DQ burgers, but a tax when you choose to deploy an app to google app store.
I agree Google is using a tax here but the rule you suggested doesn't work
Because burger meat is commonly sold in the smallest of grocery stores, and is not technically dependent on what buns, sauces, tomatoes, lettuce … or other ingredients you pair them.
And you can grow your own veggies, and bake your own bread.
It is an entirely componentized market. No gatekeepers.
Even single groceries in tiny towns continue having to compete with larger stores in bigger towns. Because they carry small selections most people make the drive to load up their larder regularly.”
You need to find an example that matches the point you are trying to make.
TLDR: Analysis reveals burger markets are nearly perfect economic opposites of centralized app store markets.
This is getting confused. Just find an example that does make your point.
You do, and you also can pick iPhone. Or not a smartphone. Or not use apps.
> (except recently, and even then, the alternative stores don't behave well for google-based apps).
Google provides planetscale services like Google Maps for free and you want to build apps that use their services but not pay them 15% for their store, and still complain they don't work perfectly? You seem to be outsourcing a lot to Google but expect to give them nothing in return.
"Reee!! It's not a monopoly!!! It's a duopoly!!!!" screeched the pedant.
> Or not a smartphone. Or not use apps.
"Submit to the duopoly or else you're not allowed to develop for the most common consumer computing device on the planet"
There are numerous examples of people needing a smartphone to do things in their daily lives. I’ve read compelling stories of people who ran into trouble after ditching their smartphone.
There are lots of parallels to the railroad monopolies. Choice is not as available as you say it is.
How so?
> I’ve read compelling stories of people who ran into trouble after ditching their smartphone.
It'd be helpful if you mentioned them instead of just saying everyone should trust that you were compelled by stories.
I thought it’s self evident that products like Gmail, Search, Maps and others aren’t free because Google is aiming to do charity but because your personal data allows them to build a digital model of you and charge other businesses for access to that knowledge.
Around me I can’t think of a bank that allows any remote operation without a TAN only available on iOS or Android. That’s the root of a lot of future problems, not the least of which being that the bank charges you more for in person operations.
Having the “valuable” apps like Maps only in their store is just another way to cement that authority.
I'd agree you have a choice with 3rd party stores but they're working on limiting/killing those tiny markets, already.
some smart alec would then point out that because even the cheapest, shittiest beef isnt free that this price is justified.
#mmt bay-beeee!
See what I did there?
Your local monopoly of water provider charges a fee not a tax (although many collect taxes on behalf of the state that sanctions the monopoly)
Platform apps stores tend to be a monopoly (specially in iOS case) and that decreases incentive to provide a decent service/product to their customers who hate that fact - not because customer have no representation.
I never submitted an app to play store but knowing how Google handles app customers (or any customer of their services/products) its believable that app devs are shafted too. I personally wonder if there's any differentiated service level between an app that results in revenue for Google vs one that is 100% free. I'd be pissed if my 15% fee is not buying me priority over the latest adware filled flashlight app
We don't need better support. We need a way to fire Google via a robust market full of alternatives.
I just don't understand how these companies can get away with that. These are the aspects of life that tells very clearly how most Govts are not chosen and ran for "the people" but the few, not the conspiratorial spirals. These are the smaller, but harsh Kafkaesque realities of life that says we lost this to the power of the "rich" - and it's an abstract power, it's not fixed, and if someone from the "masses" manages to become part of it they also reap the benefit but by the design of things that number has to be really small.
Okay, it deviated. The point is
> provides terrible support for their own play store.
Something like this is so abhorrent and yet is it normal and I didn't even start at how they can just charge 15 and 33% for of the incomes.