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Comment by candiddevmike | Hacker News Reader

Wonder how someone could get this ruling applied to Google Play...

In other news, I spent some time this month implementing monthly billing subscriptions. Stripe was easy and I could rapidly test almost every scenario (cancellations, deferments, non payment,el etc). Apple and Google? Good luck, you basically have to test in production to figure out all the corner cases for your users.

As a solo dev, being able to choose my payment processor would let me focus on delivering real features and value instead of app store toil.

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The big difference here is that Android doesn't mandate the use of the Play Store. You could as well serve an apk from your own website with no rules whatsoever. You could completely ignore the existence of Google if you so desire.

That's disingenuous - 99.99% of Anrdoid users have no idea what an "APK" is. Sideloading might as well not exist - nobody but a tiny subset of nerds would even notice.

I think you're wrong here. A reasonable chunk of android users seem to have at least one sideloaded app. Usually thats something like a "free spotify without ads" or "hacked snapchat so you can save screenshots".

And it's also when iOS users find out that they can't install arbitrary apps on their devices, not without jailbreaking.

One might not know that's it's called an apk, but among non-tech people around me, it's a well-known fact that you can download Android apps through the browser and install them.

Also:

- The "Files by Google" app on my Pixel has the "apps" category, that opens a screen with 2 tabs, one of them is "app install files (APKs)"

- The "my files" app on my Galaxy S9 has the "installation files" category that says "APK" on the icon

So it's not like anyone is hiding the existence of apks from Android users.

Doesn't DJI force you to sideload? And for a time Fortnite did too so that's a huge chunk of people.

I don't see what your point here is. Apple forces developers to do something. Google does not.

Information on alternative Android app stores is trivial to come across. They're just not very popular or worthwhile because Google isn't a crazed overbearing dictatorship like Apple. You can go implement whatever payment/notification/clone-of-stock-app/browser app you want and no one will stop you. IIRC, you don't even need to pay Google a yearly fee to be a developer, unlike Apple's greedy rent seeking.

They have already done that in South Korea, in response to a new law, but in a way that I'd bet you're not happy with:

https://developers-kr.googleblog.com/2021/11/enabling-altern...

It seems likely that Apple will apply a similar strategy.

Seems like they still require Google Play billing as an option, so I wouldn't see any benefit here as I'd have to support all of the processors still.

Though if they're going to do that, at least let the devs show the prices to the user (e.g. I can charge ~12-27% less using Stripe). People can then "vote with their wallets" on which method is more convenient.

That's the thing: it would not be 12-27% less. Using another payment provider only chops off 4% points from Google's cut, the remaining 11-26% is considered a "service fee" unrelated to payments processing, and still has to be paid.

And it's what Apple will do as well.

Ah, I missed that at the bottom. That's quite the cut to distribute my 9MB APK.

> Google Play’s service fee covers more than simply payment processing

According to Google's blog post, the "service" fee helps to pay for the whole Android ecosystem, including core Android development, developer tools, the Google Play store, etc..

It makes sense they'd tax IAP since so many mobile games are "free to play" and otherwise Google would make much less money from Google Play (which is presumably its main revenue source for Android.)

It's similar to the "platform licensor" business model of game consoles, except that there are multiple hardware vendors.

Don't underestimate the value of having hundreds of millions of users using their apps and services for data collection/profiling purposes. Then there are the ads. And the constant nag screens/dialogs pushing their various paid services. I suspect they'd be doing just fine without the store revenue.

It's not like they got into the mobile business to collect fees from running an app store. That's just a nice bonus for them that's also been quite profitable.

The wording in the announcement is not very straightforward. So meaning, if I use Stripe, I will pay Stripe fee and also (reduced) Google Play fee?

Yes, google will charge a service fee for the use of their platform by taking a cut of every transaction, even ones not processed by them.

If we get a lawsuit that says “you can’t take a cut of every transaction” they’ll just charge a percentage of total revenue and audit developers, or find some other way of getting their cut. It is highly unlikely a path through lawmakers or courts is going to bring down apple and google’s cut. They’re running a platform and they’ve determined a price to be on that platform. They just happened to get that price through IAP, but they have many alternatives.

Laws can mandate a very rigid pricing structure for some services in many countries.

One example would be access to last mile internet cables and some insurances where profits are tightly regulated.

Lawmakers and regulartors could explicitly tell them what to charge (e.g. "at most x€ per gigabyte downloaded from the app store, at most x€ per store listing,..., No additional charges are allowed")

However, it's a very heavy handed measure and I'm not sure it will happen with mobile phone plattforms.

In my region last mile access for ADSL operators is enshrined in law, as well as how much the network owner can charge them for that last mile access, and in practice what they charge them is around 30%.

I am pessimistic of a legal path to reducing the 30% take. You would have to get a court or lawmaker agree it is onerous, and I think reasonable people can disagree on whether that cut is indeed onerous.

This sounds like what Apple would have written.

https://m.etnews.com/20211109000278

Apple explicitly refused to change their policy (with Tim Cook saying their board that Apple shouldn't lose out to the new law) and insisted that they're already complying the new law. Which is a blatant challenge to the government of course.

Does allowing side loading app stores avoid this?

I thought Google allows to link to other payment systems already?

I use revenuecat, makes it a lot easier

oh my god yes, IAP on Apple and GPlay are atrociously painful to implement.

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