[bko]

Bandcamp is using their own billing system, bypassing Google's cut. Every app could do this and cut Google out all together. An app could just let you download the app, pay some amount when you're in the app which would unlock the functionality. I don't think its unreasonable for Google to have a problem with this. They want to get the reach of the app store, and make money off it, without paying a cut to the host like everyone else. What am I missing here?

[amelius]

In the 80s and 90s you could buy software running on Windows, where the vendor of the software didn't pay anything to Microsoft; in fact, I'm sure Microsoft was happy with them supporting and increasing the strength of their platform.

Why does this have to change now? Why does the platform need a cut?

[mattmcknight]

When you bought software at a retail store, the vendor didn't get the full retail price. It's not the platform getting a cut, it's the store. What we need to ensure is that platforms can't force you into their store.

[chongli]

As far back as the 80’s there were means of distributing software without paying a retailer a commission on every sale. Shareware [1] was one such model. The software was distributed by users copying it from floppy to floppy, handing it out at user group meetings, conferences, even on the school playground. It was later included in large CD-ROM collections packaged with computer magazines.

The point is that you could distribute your software any way you wanted to without permission or license fees paid to the maker of the computer or its operating system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware

[Arainach]

You as the Shareware author were paying for the creation of those discs and their distribution. If you had an FTP server, you paid for the bandwidth.

Epic isn't doing that. Epic wants access to Google's customers, with Google paying all the bills, without paying Google anything. Despite the fact that Android allows them to run their own app store or sideload apps.

[IIsi50MHz]

Shareware disks _could_ be written and paid for by the shareware author, but user-to-user distribution, at the _user's_ cost was [seemingly] more common.

[hakfoo]

I recall my local independent PC shop in the mid-90s had a big assortment of shareware on 5.25" floppies, priced per disc. Similar offerings existed in mail-order catalogs. The disc provider made a small margin per disc, presumably, and it created a different distribution network for the shareware copies, in an era pre-ubiquitous Internet.

A few years later, there were shops that specialized in burned or pressed CDs of Linux/BSD distributions back when dialup was the standard and fetching a few gigs of Debian was out of reach.

[drdeca]

I think this might be more compelling if Epic were the ones hosting the download, and Google were just like, listing the download in their listings, where the download button would go to Epic's servers.

[withinboredom]

And we might ask ourselves: why can’t Google do that? They just need to sign the binary, Google doesn’t have to host it.

[drdeca]

Oh, for sure, I didn't mean what I said as a dismissal. It seems like it could be a reasonable state of affairs for Google to just link to (and sign?) it, but not host it.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

The ship has already sailed on that long ago.

If there's a new store on the iPhone, virtually no one will use it.

The default is good enough, it's already installed on ~1Bn devices, and most of those devices use it somewhat regularly already.

[pjmlp]

The software vendor instead payed for magazine ads, placement on shop shelves, had their own payment and distribution infrastructure.

[bobviolier]

Because back then you paid a lot of money for Windows and they also sold you on Office and the likes. Google's business model with android is exactly this, give the OS for cheap but earn money on the apps.

Not saying 10 or 30 is the correct amount. It's just different now.

[adrian_b]

During most of the time since Windows exists, the majority of its users have not paid for Windows separately, but as a part of the purchase price of a new computer.

Android could also be paid as a part of the purchase price of a smartphone and maybe it already is, but of course a one-time payment would be much less profitable for Google than a continuous stream of revenue from the apps.

[tester756]

majority of the world never paid a single cent for windows

[josh2600]

It was built into the cost of the computer.

[belltaco]

And cost of Android isn't or can't be?

They make most of their money from user data and search anyway.

[oauea]

Same for Android. Google charges a licensing fee from manufacturers.

[oauea]

I think you meant ads instead of apps.

[zyemuzu]

Not to mention that device makers pay licence fees to Google for the privelege to run the Play Store (and other closed source benefits).

[robonerd]

> Why does the platform need a cut?

To meet shareholder expectations of continuous growth.

[alasdair_]

Exactly. Epic have their own store for games. Would they be fine with each AAA game releasing on the store for “free” but required a credit card to be entered once it was run, with 100% of the money going to the publisher?

[mdoms]

Yes, the Epic store enables this exact scenario. Lots of free games on Epic make all of their month through micro transactions billed entirely through their own systems. See Rocket League for one example, but there are many.

[SXX]

I really unsure about EGS monetization model, but Psyonix (developer of Rocket League) are subsidiary of Epic.

UPD: At least while ago in 2019 Epic claimed to give a choice of payment processor to use for games on their store: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-12-06-epic-games...

[mdoms]

As I said there are lots of free games on Epic which use their own store fronts for transactions.

[oauea]

Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed? Once the user has installed the app the transaction has been finalized. And if that app is given away for free, and Google has a problem with that, they should ban all free apps and require charging a fee.

[lolinder]

> Google is running an app store. Why should they have any right to involvement whatsoever after the app has been installed?

Running a store means deciding what goes on the shelves. The only features that Google could use to decide whether they want to sell an app are the features that are apparent after installation. Your argument would suggest that they shouldn't be allowed to curate their content at all.

[zyemuzu]

Google use licensing models for many of their products. I'm sure they could devise a model whereby a company such as Epic pay a fee per client download of their software. It could be negotiable. That way everyone wins, and customers get user friendly access to the content they want.

[bombcar]

Should you (or Disney, but costs always end up at the customer eventually) have to pay a fee for every single device you sign into Disney+ on? It’s bad enough you can’t use it on an Xbox without Gold Live or whatever it is.

[hansvm]

It's one thing for Google to have a problem with something and quite another to anti-competitively leverage their other market positions as the solution.

Other comments describe a few specific examples of that abuse (like also thwarting Epic's attempts to be preloaded by OEMs), but I think it's more interesting to look at how money is changing hands as evidence of market power being abused.

In particular, consider that Google in theory should be fine accepting payments as low as their hosting costs (and probably much less since their app store helps attract phone purchasers to fuel their ad network, since they also take a cut from OEMs, etc). Compare that to each individual developer on the store who in theory is able to afford at most some large fraction of revenue for the privilege of being on the store. Note that the latter number is (usually) much greater than the former and that the latter is what's actually being paid. If there were any real competition for something as trivial to build as an app store then you wouldn't expect Google to be able to successfully price discriminate across so many orders of magnitude of prices and extract nearly all of the surplus value from the end user purchasing an app. The fact that they're able to do so and are doing so should serve by itself as a strong indication that something suspiciously anti-competitive is happening. My $20 app wasn't 20x harder for Google to host than your $1 app, so why are my fees 20x higher? Because they can get away with charging that much because they stomp on any competition.

That isn't any kind of nail-in-the-coffin proof mind you, but it serves as a useful heuristic for spotting abuses of market power in many markets. Throwing that same idea at the right to repair movement, the amount paid to John Deere for tractor repairs is many times greater than what people have been able to achieve on their own (when they've been able to do so), and the only barrier is DRM that was added to prevent unauthorized repairs. If John Deere were really that much better at repairing their tractors than third parties then they wouldn't have to artificially exclude everyone else from attempting it to retain market share and command those prices.

Nobody's saying that Google or John Deere shouldn't be allowed to profit from the things they make, but using existing power to hamper competition and seek greater rents isn't good for society as a whole.

[novok]

Google also makes google chrome and doesn't get a single cent off of transactions done on that web browser too.

[ydlr]

A horrible injustice that will one day be corrected. It just takes a couple generations to change expectations.

[colechristensen]

That Google’s cut of payments is very high which points to market position abuse

[lolinder]

High compared to what? It's the same as Apple's, so you're not comparing to other app stores. Amazon charges the same percentage on Kindle for eBooks.

When people claim that the app store fees are excessively large they're usually comparing to payment processor fees, but neither major app store functions solely as a payment processor. So if not that, what are we comparing to when we say the fee is high?

[withinboredom]

The fee could be lower. They (the App Store owner) only needs to sign a blob. They (Google/Apple/Amazon) choose to host the blobs, and then charge the developer for it. They claim “marketing” too, but as far as I can tell, that usually involves a sale and the app owner has no choice but to sell their app for less without their consent. I think Apple sometimes has “curated” lists, but it’s questionable how “effective” that is since they don’t release much numbers. What is the ROI of getting randomly chosen to be on that list? Is it worth 30%? We will never know.