[bentice]

To exist on the internet you need to pay Google. Google is essentially the government of the open web. The problem is that government like monopolies do arise especially when there are network effects.

We need to regulate search and app stores like it is a public utility. Pricing should be dutch auction or something provably fair. 20-30% for in-app purchases is obviously insane when credit cards do 1.5-3.5%.

I worry that the government will not do sensible regulations and instead play investment banker and try to create spin off companies.

[jonhohle]

Credit card companies do one thing - process payments. What cut do VOD or music hosting sites take? Bandcamp takes 15%. eBay takes 15% on things they never physically touch. It’s hard finding hard data, but it seems like YouTube, on average charges $15CPM and pays $5CPM to the highest paid YouTubers. What is the value of download hosting and store platform?

[bentice]

If the app is free they still have to maintain the app store. I have a free app apple checks it. Running an app store is part of the cost of the phone. No one would buy the phone if they couldn't download apps.

If they must charge 20% why don't they also let apps take credit cards? 20% is for the payment, its a tax. Why should Spotify have to pay 20% and Apple music effectively doesn't.

[serial_dev]

Let's figure it out?

Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us. Currently, we need to trust these quasi-monopolies that there is no way they can make it cheaper (and for some strange reason still, they don't want to open things up).

[aembleton]

> Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us.

Whats stopping that now on Android? I have a second app store on my phone.

[Workaccount2]

The question then becomes: Are users going to be willing to pay google (or whatever search) now instead?

I don't think the vast majority of the internet understands how the business model of the internet works.

[lmpdev]

Not OP but as a public utility it would be paid for through both taxes and usage

The actual computational resources required to provide search would be a fraction of Google’s operating costs

Added benefit would be pitting private providers against each other so they’re incentivised to provide better outcomes, as opposed to the current decoupling of utility and market position

The current situation is immensely wasteful of everyone’s time and resources (Alphabet shareholders aside)

It really is a Standard Oil situation, but as it’s just inflaming - but not halting -the global economy, it’s been flying under regulators’ radar until a few years ago

No moat is too wide for the flick of sufficiently powerful pens, business models be damned

[bentice]

Let them make profit. We probably should have to pay for traffic and advertisement on the web. But regulate it so that there cannot be price gouging. For instance there are maximum interest chargeable on loans. You should be able to loan money at interest but there is a point where you are just using your power to economically exploit others. Especially if there is no option.

[thehappypm]

What are you even talking about? you actually do not need to pay Google a dime to be on the Internet, if you have good SEO you can be on the top of the page

[bentice]

Why does anyone pay google to advertise? Most people don't have adblocker they get a paid for link often.

There are also a range of topics google will not return the best ranked information. There are a ton of political issues (due to advertiser pressure) where the different results are huge when you search in duckduckgo vs google. This is monopoly power to decide what gets seen and what doesn't get seen.