[bubblethink]

That's because the law was stupid and apparently everybody who cheered for it missed a business 101 class. Why do people expect google or apple to roll over and die when faced with half assed laws ? They way SK or any country can meaningfully change the balance is by attacking the source of the problem. Google prohibits vendors from bundling other stores, which is the first issue. Second, robust privacy laws should prohibit google from being privy to any transaction data between the user and a vendor. So google doesn't get to intercept what the payment amount should be. Third, even if alternative stores are allowed, they still won't be popular. So for that, the government can heavily tax play store etc. to level the playing field with alternate local stores.

[smegger001]

>Google prohibits vendors from bundling other stores,

they do? then why does my phone have a uninstallable 'galaxy store' app that Samsung decide to fill my limited storage with.

[bubblethink]

That's because google and samsung need each other. So samsung gets a pass. They don't allow other manufacturers.

[izacus]

Huawei ships with their own app store on devices with Play Services as well. There's no restrictions for other manufacturers.

What other manufacturers can't do is fragment the ecosystem and prevent people from also using Play Store.

[bubblethink]

The epic lawsuit has quite a few details about google preventing manufacturers from installing epic software/epic store on devices.

[cryptonym]

This still is a walled garden. Store from os or manufacturer. If you try to install a third-party you may end up with poor user experience from the os.

Time to split app distribution from OS. Making it mandatory to allow other stores, with first class user experience, and not set their as default one.

[smegger001]

I installed the amazon app store on my android phone and it worked fine same with installing FDroid. all i had to do was check a box when prompted.

[cryptonym]

Sure but it's only you, already knowing about alternative stores, and with your specific device.

[emodendroket]

Step four, Korea now has a totally balkanized app system different from the entire rest of the world, it's a headache to deal with, and it encourages dangerous user behavior. Well, I guess they've been down this road with SEED/ActiveX already.