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15% is a lot. I'm not trying to say it isn't.
And they're annoying and often screw up the review process.
Google is always going to make money off any work they do. That's just business. They're not going to put more money towards better reviews without taking more money. And without the reviews, even as crappy as they are, a lot of really crappy software would be on the store. And a lot more would be actively malicious
And you were making like 7x as much as they were taking. Without them, you would even get noticed and you'd have made nothing.
We know this because almost nobody installs FDroid, and the other stores like Samsung make basically nothing for developers, even though they're preinstalled on so many devices.
Jesus Christ you can always count on HN for the most sycophantic, bootlicking comments sucking up to big tech imaginable.
It's an absolutely fair argument and it just doesn't show great intelligence to go straight to namecalling rather than bringing up counter arguments.
I do believe that while Google and Apple are evil gatekeepers they also made it easier for non-tech people to install their own app without always calling their kids or neighbours. That's already a big win.
It is not a win that we've given up our freedom and privacy to Google, Apple, Steam, etc. because people refused to learn how to click setup.exe.
It's not just business - it's basically a monopoly. Enough to extract rent while providing a minimal service.
Imagine if all streets were owned by two large companies who charged you enough to use them that you'd be paying as much in fees as you are in paying for gas. People would still use cars. The streets could be in horrible condition, the two companies would be making an insane amount of profit, but there would still be people out there saying that if it wasn't for those companies we wouldn't be getting anywhere and it's just business.
It's literally not. And your analogy is bad, because it describes inelastic demand, and not the platform effect.
How is the Play Store not a monopoly? It has been found such by multiple judges in multiple jurisdictions for a reason.
The app store is full of crappy and malicious software though. Why pay them for something they aren't doing anyway?
Customer support has gotten so terrible. Now that all big companies have terrible support, none of them are punished for it. You can still occasionally find people who give a shit in small business, but that is it. Google is probably one of the worst offenders of all. I don't know what the solution is, it seems like the only way to get any satisfaction on an issue at a big corp anymore is a social medial call-out like this one.
If you are here, thank you for Conversations, Daniel, it has been my go-to for years for communicating with friends and family.
That's because you the user are not the customer of Google and such services. You are actually the product being sold to the customer, namely advertising companies, by Google.
The farmer take care of his pigs but only to the point they get slaughtered.
This gotcha only works if you are a user of only their free services.
When Google charges me a monthly fee for storage, takes a percentage of my Play Store sales, or manufactures a Pixel that I purchase from their online store, I am absolutely their customer. I may also be providing data they will sell, but I am still paying them for goods or services and that makes me a customer.
The problem is that they continue treating their customers like livestock, and it seems they have little incentive to change.
The real problem here is that all those businesses are rounding errors on the balance sheet compared to ads, so the CEO doesn't care (or even know) about the issues and isn't motivated to improve anything.
Then have they repeatedly fought so hard legally to get to keep extracting three revenue? If they didn't care about it, they wouldn't do it in the first place.
The problem is that there's no pressure on them to act any differently. If they made 100x as much money from app purchases, they wouldn't suddenly treat app developers better just because of that. They might treat them better if the app developers had better alternatives, but that would also be enough to force Google to behave differently even with the current amount of revenue.
They can treat their customers like livestock because their customers are okay with it. Why is that?
My hypothesis: turkeys think the farm is an amazing life until the week before Thanksgiving. Nobody really groks that Google is shit until it's too late.
These pithy sayings are not adding to the dialog.
Please try to engage more deeply.
For example, connect your turkeys more explicitly to a point you are making about Google. When is Thanksgiving coming? What will it look like?
Except we read here stories of ad customers - their main buisness - here indicating they don't give a shit about them either.
They are just so big, they can afford not giving a shit at all.
You have to realise your idea that people use them for no reason is not very likely, don't you?
Are you sure you replied to my comment?
Yep! It appeared right underneath it.
So where exactly did I wrote anything like that?
"your idea that people use them for no reason"
I definitely know my reasons why I still use google despite knowing they don't care about me. That does not change the complaint.
Google has captured what really is a public utility and should be either state-owned or heavily regulated.
(Long) distance communications, just like public roads, breathable air, potable drinking water and so on do not fit into a "free market economy" paradigm.
They simply don't fulfill the basic requirements that make the "market" idea work.
Specifically, a free market needs goods from different suppliers to be easily interchangeable. You cannot sensibly build multiple roads parallel to each other, or have multiple water pipes installed and you have only one airway to breath through.
Nothing has been captured, any more than a company inventing anything has "captured" it.
And there are other companies: Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Tencent MyApp, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, K Telecom T-Store, Jio, MTN Play.
Not even close to a captured utility. And if it were, which state on the planet should own it?
Tell me about the different OSes each of Samsung, Huawei, Tencent MyApp, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor etc. run then that we can choose from.
It's like saying Windows doesn't have a monopoly in the PC space because HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS.
Except OEMS don't ship Windows forks with their own SDKs, UI frameworks, custom L&F, alternative stores.
Contrary to Google, Microsoft has a clear position on what OEMs are allowed to do with Windows.
Google lets these forks do anything they want except things that take away money from Google.
Android OEMs largely don't do that either except for some specific markets where Google isn't a thing. Google does have rules for when you want to be certified and have Google Play and Google services on board, which you mostly do in the West and so OEMs comply.
Sure, they may ship a Samsung skin or preload some of their own junk, same as on Windows. That doesn't make what they ship a different OS.
The one exception would be HarmonyOS, but that's somewhat China specific.
You're deluding yourself.
Pretending, some other company could come stroll along and take over Google's turf, completely ignores the underlying reality.
People don't talk on two phones at once, they only use one search engine regularly and they even only use one browser to surf the internet.
That bottleneck leads to market capture due to inevitable logical reasons, not because I say so.
If you want autonomous states, each one has to control their own infrastructure. Just don't forget to question your assumptions.
With such a perversion of definitions why not call the stock holders the true customers? Services can have multiple classes of users. Some YouTube users can be content creators. Some users can watch Shorts. Some can watch long term videos. Some can pay to run ad campaigns. This idea that there is only one true kind of "customer" is not how people think of these services.
Receiving 1000 euros without having any real work or accountability is the epitome of free profit. No wonder these platform gatekeepers are fighting so hard to maintain it (at the cost of you, the consumer).
And yet people (in general) just dont care, because they don't truly feel the pain until it's too late - issues like privacy and such are like that.
It makes sense to leave, but it also seems like the overall sentiment would be more positive given the “it paid my rent for many years” part.
You rarely leave with a positive sentiment when you felt trapped and abused in the relationship.
Slavery: one party makes you pick cotton or you aren't allowed to eat or sleep.
Not slavery: one party makes you supply widgets or you aren't allowed to eat or sleep. Another party gives you widgets for picking cotton.
We should all be happy to participate in the not slavery society, right? We should all feel great because we aren't slaves.
"Fortunately, I’m no longer economically dependent on Google Play Store revenue. Google doesn’t deserve me and my money anymore. I’m done. Fuck the gatekeepers."
+1.
Yeah that "there is no way to talk to a human at Google" is one of the reasons I never recommend a Google solution at current workplace... Or to family.
Our app has 17,000+ users and has never paid a cent to Google :) With a little out of box thinking, you can avoid Google tax.
How do you do it?
They push the user to their website where subscriptions are.
Very easy: offer them a long trial (numbers will show that your revenue is hurt, but don't care). Eventually the trail runs out, and they search how to renew or they ask support. The first result appears: your payment subscription page.
If a customer has used your product already for long time 20 days+, extra steps to set up payment one time, especially when you do not auto charge short trials, the customer is happy.
It's not a tax. It's you being parasitic on someone else's infra.
Good thing the companies that participate in the current AI craze would never ever behave in any way parasitic.
Whataboutism is just so pointless.
it's actually Google being parasitic on all the apps' infra. I paid for the app store infra when I bought my phone, and every time I open it and see ads, and with my tracking data for the NSA. They don't need to be allowed to quadruple dip.
How do you know that?
Money was deducted from my bank account.
I recommend the book “sacred economics” regarding this play.
Free to read online - https://charleseisenstein.org/books/sacred-economics/
I think it bothers OP less that they take a 15% tax than the fact that google provides terrible support for their own play store. If they would take that tax and provide good feedback and speedy version reviews, nobody would ever complain - it is expected to pay something since the play store doesn't run on good thoughts and prayers. But because they're a monopoly (or a duopoly if you count apple, which is a different platform altogether) they can afford to act this way.
people hate taxation without representation. That's why this model has to be unsustainable, but the legislation has not caught up at all.
This isn't taxation. It's just a silly name for a fee. Fees are what make things sustainable.
At the level of customer service they provide (ie ~none), Google Play would be "sustainable" at a 1% cut. Everything above that is pure profit. Which is exactly why they're doing everything they can to lock people into Google Play and lock people out of distributing/accessing apps outside of it. This isn't some kind service Google is providing at cost out of the goodness of their hearts, it's their attempt to corner the market and extract a massive amount of economic value without doing any meaningful work.
The revenue funds more than just support, it funds the development of an entire OS and various SDKs to support the apps that it distributes from the store.
It's taxation when it's imposed by a monopoly over users who have no choice except walking away.
This definition doesn't work, because my only choice when buying a burger at Dairy Queen is to pay the burger's price or walk away too, but it's not taxation.
you have the choice not to purchase burgers from dairy queens, but from macdonalds, or five guys, or wataburger.
You don't have a real choice in an app store on android (except recently, and even then, the alternative stores don't behave well for google-based apps).
That's why it's not a tax when you choose to buy DQ burgers, but a tax when you choose to deploy an app to google app store.
If there's no other burger joint in the small town it's the only place I can get burgers.
I agree Google is using a tax here but the rule you suggested doesn't work
You do, and you also can pick iPhone. Or not a smartphone. Or not use apps.
Google provides planetscale services like Google Maps for free and you want to build apps that use their services but not pay them 15% for their store, and still complain they don't work perfectly? You seem to be outsourcing a lot to Google but expect to give them nothing in return.
How do you define taxation?
Of course people would complain, it's unrealistic to expect everyone to have the same expectation of what a fair fee is that somehow exactly matches the current fee (even if the service is great)
Author here: Indeed, 15% is fine. They do provide some services. They provide the CDN for downloading the APK. They handle sales taxes in the various countries, which would be a PITA to handle yourself. Similar-ish services like Patreon charge a fee too. The 30% they charged a couple of years back was bad. But I could live with 15% if the support were anything other than zero.
The problem is that it ISN'T a fee for services as it should be. Their platform power means that they can levy a tax, and they don't feel the need to do anything on exchange for that.
It is rent extraction which always feels like bullshit because it is. Competition is supposed to be the counterbalancing force but it barely exists here.
It doesn't exist because it can't:
The basic services Google provides can effectively only be consumed by humans individually, creating an inevitable bottleneck.
Such bottlenecks impede interchangeability of goods, as you can't reasonably entertain multiple suppliers simultaneously there. And that means, you cannot have a free market, because you can't really have meaningful competition.
Google has captured services that really are public utilities. Them being "new" doesn't play a role.
Yep, I'd hypothetically economically gladly build an alternative app store charging "only" 5% on app revenue. The blocker would be that Google has a hold on what store is installed by default on Android. Apple even more so. This is hardly a fair market.
That would work because someone else "Google" is doing all the development of Android etc etc. Of course you can create a parasitic service for less.
And that's my problem with such business practises in general. Take an example of Claude. Not only, at this point, their models might be just marginally better than the open weight competition, they also also makes it entirely impossible for you to reach human support in case of an issue (and I am talking about real money related issues). You just can't do it. Yes, there's an email but that is also handled by the same bot.
I just don't understand how these companies can get away with that. These are the aspects of life that tells very clearly how most Govts are not chosen and ran for "the people" but the few, not the conspiratorial spirals. These are the smaller, but harsh Kafkaesque realities of life that says we lost this to the power of the "rich" - and it's an abstract power, it's not fixed, and if someone from the "masses" manages to become part of it they also reap the benefit but by the design of things that number has to be really small.
Okay, it deviated. The point is
Something like this is so abhorrent and yet is it normal and I didn't even start at how they can just charge 15 and 33% for of the incomes.
Conversations is pretty nice for self hosted xmpp. Wish there was an iOS client!
I know this is a stupid question even before I ask it, but is there any chance at this point of seeing something out of the scope of Apple and Google for mobile?? Will the bank apps ever allow people out of these two players
Motorola is planning to release phones with GrapheneOS. So far only expensive models have been confirmed, but I assume cheapos should follow.
Of course they're not doing this out of good heart. My theory is that China wants to have a popular smartphone that is completely independent from US companies. But hey, once upon a time Google were "the good guys" too, so enjoy the party while it lasts.
An interesting point is that it's important to have powerful China around because they're a capitalist competition to the US.
Semi-capitalist at best. They're good for cloning things invented in the West, but the problem is that that is much cheaper than inventing, so things get commoditised and the places that can do expensive R&D have to find other ways to make money all the time.
Isn't graphene completely dependent on what Google ships though? Ok they may be able to support Motorola devices longer than Googles releases facilitate supporting Google devices, but it's still ultimately android, which is still ultimately controlled by Google.
I'm not saying it isn't an improvement but this feels like choosing centos because you don't like the direction fedora is taking.
If you are referring to banking apps, I just don't use banking apps that don't work on my degoogled phone thus granting them the low fraud risk they so strive for with forcing locked devices.
You're free to make one, and bank apps are often less locked down than you think - try them yourself instead of accepting possible FUD. Also your bank 100% has a checkbox on your account they can click to disable any phone hardware requirements on your account.