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I imagine that it's speculation but it's reasonable speculation, since maximizing profits is pretty much the sole goal of a publicly traded corporation at the end of the day.



I don't think that supports the speculation since as the GP stated, Google is actually doing the opposite of maximizing profits in this case.


The over $1 million crowd is 98% of their revenue. So in this case they're reducing revenue by about 1%... because they know if they don't, government regulations will take the other 98%.

It's still about maximizing profit, even when they appear to be reducing it.


It is exactly what you’d do if you maximise profits. The general argument against the Apple/Google tax is “think of the small businesses!” They use this argument because no politician wants to be against the small business owner.

Google and Apple understand this well. Since small businesses account for a small % of their revenue, they simply offer a better deal to those small businesses. Now Spotify/Epic Games/Candycrush people will have to argue “but think of the large businesses!” That doesn’t have the same ring to it somehow.

The majority of App/Play Store revenue is protected from government intervention, and profits are maximised. Make sense?


> Google is actually doing the opposite of maximizing profits in this case

You've chosen a difficult position to argue.


> maximizing profits is pretty much the sole goal of a publicly traded corporation

Would that extend to for-profit private companies? Employees? Sub 1m revenue app developers?




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