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Epic Games Wins Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Play Store
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It is over as their Appeals have been denied.
To be frank, 30% is way too much for a platform, be it Google or Apple. Even 10% would be pushing it. This needs to be addressed. Both companies dug their own hole with their race to the bottom app pricing, which directly led to the proliferation of subscription services. And now we pay 10€ a month for a note taking app or a novelty photo filter app. Everything is 10€ a month.
I sometimes do wonder that myself. For example, I understand that the iPhone has close to 60% market share in the US now, but maybe enjoys a fair degree of popularity in other developed countries like Japan and Singapore, but continues to have only minority market share everywhere else.
Apple is worth 3 trillion dollars, and I won't be surprised if they grow to 4 trillion in another couple of years as they continue to release more hardware and services. They have a pretty small market share in their respective markets, yet commands the lion's share of profits by virtue of having aggregated the more lucrative user base in the world.
The only monopoly I can think of that applies to Apple is that it has a monopoly on iPhones. Anyone can make a smartphone, but only the iPhone is (legally) capable of running iOS (and all the unique features that come with it). But that's like saying Sony has a monopoly on the PS5, or that Coke having a monopoly on Coke because they are the only ones who can manufacture said product in that particular manner, so I am not sure it's something that can be used against them. There's plenty of other options when it comes to drinks and gaming options, and Android has the far greater market share compared to the iPhone.
So it's hard to make the case that Apple has a monopoly in anything that actually matters, precisely because there are alternatives. Like why is Nintendo allowed to have only their own App Store on the Switch but Apple should allow other app stores on their iOS devices?
Nah. They've got deep pockets and they want a piece of the pie. I'm all for breaking up monopolies/duopolies.
Yes, it was fine in a burgeoning market. Now it's a mainstream platform. You don't pay 30% to download apps from the internet. 30% is insane. I thought Americans hate taxes. Perhaps not when it helps their 401Ks.
Good Points. I guess one could argue that Apple's IOS marketshare as a whole is smaller than Android's but individually Apple has more marketshare than most Android OEMs individually.
According to this article
Smartphone Market Share Worldwide in 2024 [Updated Nov 2024]
As of October 2024, Apple has the biggest smartphone market share worldwide, with 28.38%. It is followed by Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, and Realme.
www.oberlo.com
Apple actually has the highest marketshare worldwide with nearly 30 percent with Samsung close 2nd with 24%. Meaning 3 out of 10 smartphones worldwide are iPhones.
Just for the sake of breaking them up because they are big? I am all about Choice and options but this "Fight the rich" mentality is so ridiculous.
Eight years ago (!) Spotify started sending emails to subscribers telling them to stop paying through the App Store and instead sign up through the website instead. This was to avoid paying App Store fees.
And just a few months ago Spotify stopped allowing App Store subscriptions altogether. So every Apple/iOS Spotify subscriber is now paying directly through the website.
I'd imagine Spotify will do the same for Google subscribers. Spotify would rather have them pay through their website anyway.
The big elephant in the room is this: streaming music is a terrible business.
Even if Spotify never had to pay an app store fee again... they barely make any money (despite being the largest music streaming service by a huge margin)
It's just not a good business.
That's why Spotify started exploring other things like audiobooks and podcasts (yet they're kinda failing in podcasts too)
Whoops...
😋
That's what Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo charge to download games for their consoles.
I mean, there technically is a fee to be associated with the App Store. It’s $99/yr. If you don’t pay that, you don’t get your app(s) listed.
So every company that makes mobile software should build their own phone platform? How would that work in the marketplace?
The issue isn't how high the fee is. The issue is that Google and Apple are each operating monopolies.
Although I'm a bit lost on how Google's Play Store is a monopoly... last I knew, you could install apps directly from the internet on Android, and those apps could themselves be alternative app stores, so there's nothing stopping Epic or Valve from creating ie, a Steam for Android.
And the Unreal Engine isn't a monopoly. There's several other game engines that could be used instead, and there's nothing stopping anyone from making yet another game engine.
The biggest question I think is whether the game stores on the game consoles are monopolies. I argue that the fact physical games can be bought from any physical store means that the online stores aren't monopolies (in contrast to for phone apps, where it's somewhere between impossible and fantastically uncommon to ever see them distributed on physical media.)
Agreed.
Kind of sad. There was a time Google really was the champion of open source and the Internet.
What do you know? Contrary to popular opinion in the early 2010s, looks like Apple made the right call all along. Closed ecosystem, differentiated experience made possible by control over hardware, software and services, and more importantly, the willingness to sacrifice market share for profits.
This is good for what it is and I’m all in on the Apple ecosystem, but I do still want to see someone supporting open platforms. Otherwise everything stagnates and it’s not good for anyone.
Fantastic news. We're one step closer to getting Fortnite back on mobile and Mac. Makes you wonder if they opted for a jury for their case against Apple if they would've won.
They do focus on making a good product. They literally just released a Lego survival crafting game that has taken everyone by storm, even crashing the servers because of the sheer amount of people who logged in to play it. It now gets more players than the Battle Royale does.
They do focus on making a good product. They literally just released a Lego survival crafting game that has taken everyone by storm, even crashing the servers because of the sheer amount of people who logged in to play it. It now gets more players than the Battle Royale does.
iOS has no ability for alternative app stores hence Apple is more restrictive than google in that sense.
You don’t think there’s a risk now that The justices will see this jury decision re: google and possibly overturn the lower courts? If google is a monopoly over its App Store then certainly Apple is one as well.
Or perhaps a higher court will overturn the decision vs google.
But for google to be found to be a monopoly when it offers the ability to install alternative app stores while Apple does not allow alternative app stores (yet) and Apple has been found to not be a monopoly is an inconsistent result. The law has not been applied equally to both companies.
the end is at hand my friend.. the sun is setting on your walled garden.
The problem isn't the number of stores... the problem is the fees.
It doesn't matter if you buy an XBox game from Walmart, or Target, or from the online Microsoft store.
Microsoft still gets 30% from the developer. Same for Sony and Nintendo, and Google and Apple.
And that's what the developers are hoping to eliminate. Will they be successful? Stay tuned! Things are gonna get wild!
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Apple was first.
Yes... Google does allow things like alternative app stores and sideloading.
And Epic did let people download Fortnite from those other places on Android.
But guess what... it was a colossal failure! Within a year Epic put Fortnite back in the Google Play Store!
And then Epic sued Google! You can't make this stuff up!
🤣
I don't think so, I think the jury saw a "monopoly" because of the secret deals that took place behind closed doors so while Google promoted a open Playstore it was a rigged one to benefit Google. Now unless Apple has some secret deals (which none appeared last time) the Apple Store (that we know) is fair in the sense of everyone paying the same 15-30% depending how big of a developer you are.
This isn't about the Play Store and more about Google's abuse of Play Services. For those in the Apple-verse who don't know about such things Google Play Services is an underlying framework that OEMs must use on their devices if they want to include the Play Store. It powers all Gapps as well as things like GMaps which other apps (eg Uber) use as a back end.
Android itself is still open source and anyone can use it to build their own fork but if you want Play Store access you need GPServices. Google have leveraged this by using it to keep other storefronts at bay and offered exclusive deals to bigger companies, for example a 0% commission on Spotify IAPs.
The reason Apple escaped without a ruling was because Google had to defend in front of a jury whereas Apple did not (I wonder why.....)
Epic couldn't give two hoots about Apple and Google though. They barely paid any fees to them when Fortnite was on their storefronts compared to the humungous amounts it pays to Sony and Microsoft. If I were them I would be worried because what Epic has really been after all along is the Epic Store on PlayStation and Xbox.
Android itself is still open source and anyone can use it to build their own fork but if you want Play Store access you need GPServices. Google have leveraged this by using it to keep other storefronts at bay and offered exclusive deals to bigger companies, for example a 0% commission on Spotify IAPs.
The reason Apple escaped without a ruling was because Google had to defend in front of a jury whereas Apple did not (I wonder why.....)
Epic couldn't give two hoots about Apple and Google though. They barely paid any fees to them when Fortnite was on their storefronts compared to the humungous amounts it pays to Sony and Microsoft. If I were them I would be worried because what Epic has really been after all along is the Epic Store on PlayStation and Xbox.