[coldtea]

>How is this legal that if I want to publish an Android app on Play Market and charge for subscriptions, I must use Google Play Billing and pay 30% to Google? This is insane

It's bad for the developer, sure, but what exactly is "insane" or "illegal" about it? They have created a product marketplace, and they let you sell there, and you must abide by their rules.

If you want to sell on Gumroad or similar services you also need to use their payment processor of choice, and give them a cut. If you want to sell on Ebay, you also need to use their payment processors of choice (and originally, iirc, you only had the option to use PayPal) and give them a cut.

And of course check the rules for selling your console game. They are 10x more restrive, and have been since forever. Not only you have to use the console markers marketplace, billing system, and pay a cut, for many wont even be able to do that, unless they accept your game.

The thing is, you don't "have" to sell in Play Market - even if it was the only marketplace for Android, it would still not be some basic necessity of life that you sell apps for Android. You could always find another trade, or sell PC software, or whatever. In other words, a marketplace for a mobile OS is not exactly a public utility.

[bearjaws]

> It's bad for the developer, sure, but what exactly is "insane" or "illegal" about it?

Anti-trust made it pretty clear you can't be the railroad company and the oil company that uses the railroad to harm competition.

Play store is the rail road, apps are the oil.

> The thing is, you don't "have" to sell in Play Market - even if it was the only marketplace for Android, it would still not be some basic necessity of life that you sell apps for Android. You could always find another trade, or sell PC software, or whatever. In other words, a marketplace for a mobile OS is not exactly a public utility.

1. The Play Stores's massive user base makes it a crucial marketplace for developers wanting to reach the widest Android audience, and opting out will limit market exposure and revenue significantly.

2. Mobile app development requires distinct skills, tools, and strategies compared to PC software, making transitioning between these fields challenging and resource-intensive.

3. While the Play Market isn't a basic life necessity, its dominance in the app economy raises significant concerns about market fairness and competition, as it acts as a gatekeeper to digital distribution. You're essentially arguing the same shit that we would hear in the 90s "you don't need a refrigerator", sure you don't but life sure sucks without it...

[darklion]

> Anti-trust made it pretty clear you can't be the railroad company and the oil company that uses the railroad to harm competition.

Your analogy is flawed.

This is a private railroad company, who built their own private national railroad system, saying that if you want to use their railroads, you have to use their infrastruture (signals, switching, yards, etc.) and to do that, you have to pay a per-trip fee.

Your argument really is, “How is it legal that I am not allowed to use their private railroad track system unless I also use their switches/signals/yards/etc. that carry fees?”

[coldtea]

>Anti-trust made it pretty clear you can't be the railroad company and the oil company that uses the railroad to harm competition.

No, but you can own the railroad and dictate that anybody putting their trains there and selling tickets have to do it by your rules and pay you a cut.

[ensignavenger]

Ebay originally had no preffered payment processor, you could use whatever system you wanted to. PayPal became the vast favorite among buyers and sellers, ebay bought PayPal, but for a long time at least, you could opt for an alternative. I'm not sure that ebay ever required PayPal payments. Ebay eventually jettisoned paypal and integrated their own seperate payment processing.

[lxgr]

> In other words, a marketplace for a mobile OS is not exactly a public utility.

Some jurisdictions would disagree on that, most notably the EU.

[Qwertious]

>Some jurisdictions would on that, most notably the EU.

You accidentally a word.

[zamadatix]

It's not the presence of a marketplace with rules that's the root problem it's the bundling of said marketplace which forces its dominance. It has nothing to do with whether these things are public utilities either, not sure why it would as that seems like an odd criteria for a business practice to be either insane or illegal. "Everyone just start using an alternative on March 3rd" is an unrealistic way to break the cycle that everyone already has Play as their main store when they get a phone and all the apps are already in Play so neither users nor developers can easily leave play (though it is possible to do successfully if you're larger, see Fortnite).

I.e. it's not that people are choosing only 2 app stores because they've got the best policies they are stuck with whatever policies the 2 app stores give them until some separation between device and marketplace is made. Going between Ebay and Etsy is easy, everyone has to go to the URL bar and choose to type "Ebay" or "Etsy". If every browser shipped with the starting page of Ebay, browser integrations into Ebay, and popup warnings about using Etsy then I'd bet the same problem would exist there.

The situation on consoles is no better but that's not reasoning the situation everywhere else should be like consoles it's a reason console rules probably need to be updated these days too.

[coldtea]

>It's not the presence of a marketplace with rules that's the root problem it's the bundling of said marketplace which forces its dominance.

They're bundling with their own OS, though.

Not to mention Android already supports sideloading and other marketplaces.

[beeboobaa]

They created a phone and bully users into only using their one officially blessed store. Apple is the worst offender, Google is a little better in that they only warn you a million times when side-loading. But that is still far, far too much fear mongering. And it's obvious they do it so they can get that juicy 30%. It's just a shitty form of rent seeking.

[coldtea]

>They created a phone and bully users into only using their one officially blessed store

Well, they did create their own phone platform (OS, libs for app creation and so on), not some public open infrastructure.