That's why AppStore monopolize are such a chore. There is no independent judicial authority if something between Google and a App Provider goes wrong. Google playing legeslative, executive and judiciary in one entity.
There is a reason most people in democratic countries don't like it, if there country has all the powers in one hand. At the same time it seams to be accepted for cooperation, as long as there are big enough.
This isn't as much of a problem on Android because it allows installing apks. There's plenty of apps that couldn't possibly be allowed in Google Play that are distributed using alternative means.
It's a much more serious problem with iOS, where if Apple doesn't like your app, your service, your policies, or even your attitude, you just aren't getting your app out to your users, period. But we'll see where EU DMA takes this.
- Generic utility apps, the kind that you would search by what they do, like an audio player, an image converter, or a file manager — yes, it works for them like you say.
- Those free to play mobile games everyone knows and loves (no). They buy stupid amount of ads to get people to install them. They may get some installations thanks the app stores themselves, e.g. from the top charts, assuming they get high enough there. So app stores do play a role in their visibility, but a limited one. And this is where it ends.
- Apps for IRL services, like getting around (taxi/scooter rental/car sharing), or ordering food, or many other similar things. They get popular because people see their logos around them all the dang time, often together with QR codes with download links. They also often buy ads. Sometimes people recommend them to each other. App stores don't play any significant role for these.
- Apps for something you already use. Like your home utilities, or your bank, or some sort of "smart" device you got, or loyalty programs. Again, you don't discover these thanks to app stores, you usually install them because that company says "we have an app, get it here".
- Social/collaboration apps, the kind that are useless without people you know also using them. No one searches app stores for "social media" or "messaging" or "calls". People recommend them to each other. People see that their friends are on there and get on there too. Again, app stores don't do much here.
You're right that discoverability is not really the issue.
However, I still agree with the GP that if you are not on the Play Store, you lose most of your installations.
If someone has already discovered your app and can't find it on the Play Store, they are more likely to assume that it's not supported on their phone, unavailable in their region or whatever. Even if you explicitly tell them to just download the APK, most people will not do that. Keep in mind that the average user probably doesn't even know that you can install apps from outside the Play Store. Or even if they guess that it's probably possible, they might well perceive it as complicated and sketchy.
I don't understand how does one come to this conclusion. In my own experience, most people will do what you ask them to do as long as your instructions are clear enough. Downloading and installing an apk on an Android phone is no different than downloading and running an exe on a Windows PC, which is something people do all the time. No one perceives Play Store as inherently more trustworthy. I know many non-tech people who have and use sideloaded apps on their phones.
Edit: it might be different for younger generations who grew up with modern smartphones.
Epic Games can probably tell you exactly how many fewer people install an app that's not on the Play Store on their Android devices. That information might even be in public documents from their lawsuit against Google. That they were able to sue and win suggests it's large.
While people don't discover these apps on the play store, they will hear of the App, search on the App/Play Store and install it. If they can't find it by typing the app name into the search bar there, they won't install it.
I doubt most users will, even when given the link to an .apk, install it. Either because they are discouraged by the alarming prompts (in my opinion a tradeoff that is unfortunately worth it) or because they get lost.
> - Apps for IRL services, like getting around (taxi/scooter rental/car sharing), or ordering food, or many other similar things. They get popular because people see their logos around them all the dang time, often together with QR codes with download links. They also often buy ads. Sometimes people recommend them to each other. App stores don't play any significant role for these.
Except if let's say Uber quit the app store then users would still first search there and many of them will install the first result which will now be a competitior since Google is allergic to showing no results if there is no relevant answer.
For everything else there is the issue of trust. Google does everything they can to make installing apps outside the app store feel like you are doing something dangerous.
As someone who just started a business and released my first android app a few weeks ago, you couldn't be more right.
Not only is the fate of your app in the hands of the Play Store, but also in the hands of their testers. Just had a critical bug in an update release 5 days ago, affecting fresh installs. I immediately fixed it after a friend notified me, pushed the fixed update, only to wait till yesterday to get rejected due to a super minor ui issue. Then finally got approval this morning. Typically I waited 30 min for approval, 2 hrs the longest.
During that time I reached out to their non-existent customer support, messaged their "help forum", called any number I could find, finally resorted to randomly messaging employees on LinkedIn out of desperation. Nothing. And when you try to get support through their help options, it's a gamble as to whether or not the help option you select is going to give you an error. Not to mention any number you call ends with "please visit support.google.com. thanks for calling".
In the meantime, I had ~300+ uninstalls out of the ~1200 I had, and risked my 4.8 rating tanking and sinking my chances of success before I even really started.
That's just my story. There are people who are facing even worse rn dealing with them and have been waiting for weeks.
For an app like this being on F-Droid gives more discoverability imo. In fact this is how I discovered this very app.
It's much more worthwhile being in a small catalog of quality privacy-preserving software than being in the cesspool of millions of ad- and spyware trash from Google.
I'm sure the mainstream users will find them easier on play but the real target audience will be on F-Droid.
Ps having said that, the ban is ridiculous of course
You can't show up in Android Auto unless you're distributed through the Play store (third party things like F-Droid and side loading means your app doesn't show in the car).
Good point, that makes a nontrivial difference for apps like organic maps. I know I have used it for offline navigation over CarPlay several times before.
Distribution is everything. Controlling distribution through defaults (play store already installed), barriers (pop ups warning you that installing other apps is risky), etc is monopolistic.
I'd argue it's still a problem on Android as google makes it more and more difficult to let alternative installation methods and makes it sound scary :/
On Android, there isn't really a scary warning. You have to allow whatever app you're installing the apk from to install apps form "unknown sources". That's it. You only have to do it once per source.
On iOS, I'm sure the EU regulators will demand that Apple at least tone down their warnings.
I didn't even read the warnings to install fortnite, but it seemed Apple tried to make it as confusing as possible. Click install, go to settings, white list the provider, go back to the browser, click back to try installing again ... and then finally, click "yes I am sure" then click "yes I am sure" like 3 more times.
Feels unrelated to me. The problem here is that the entity that owns Google Maps also owns the Google Play Store, and uses their ownership of the Google Play Store to favour Google Maps versus competitors.
Even without a monopoly, it should be illegal for the owner of a popular app store to promote their products like this.
They just need to get big fat fines when they do it. But of course, "it was an unfortunate mistake". Or we should just split them: Google Maps could be out of Google.
I don't think it's true that the Google Play Store favors Google-created apps. In fact, while it may have happened, I can't even remember a time that the Play Store recommended a Google app to me.
When app stores act in a way that puts their own interest ahead of the user it harms security, especially when there is no transparency.
If I want this app I am now being sent to download an APK, I lose all the protection of the app store. If they cry wolf enough people will get used to doing that. Then when something comes along that is harmful and they want to yank it genuinely to protect users, people will still download the apk.
In this case you don't have to find and sideload an .apk though, it's available in the main F-Droid repo.
I'd argue that it would be safer than the Play Store version because F-Droid builds are at least reproducible, while it's not clear what checks are actually done by the Play Store before publishing an update. Most of what Play Protect claims to do could be from a simple malware signature check.
Do you really want the government being deeply involved in how every company defines and enforces their own terms of use?
In this case I'm not sure why Google would pull Organic Maps. That doesn't mean we need the government playing a role in defining ever company's terms of service, deciding when they're broken, and enforcing the punishment. How would that even scale?
They already are. Most countries have consumer laws that limit terms and conditions. The same in many other areas (residential renting in many countries, exclusions for negligence that causes injuries or death,....).
Most countries have competition laws that also restrict what companies can do. That is the point here. We need need government intervention when the market lacks competition.
Maybe I misread the GP comment, but there is a big difference in governments defining guard rails for what isn't allowed in any T&Cs and governments being involved directly in every T&Cs.
Yes, but providing fair appeals does not require the government to be involved in evert T & C, just requiring things such as approvals be carried out impartially, and with some channel of appeal.
Something like an Ombudsman scheme for app stores would do it.
That seems reasonable enough. Down with governments and regulations and all that nonsense, but in reality I don't see a problem with governments setting reasonable guard rails for what any T&Cs can or must include.
It's exactly how it works. If some behaviour is anti-competitive, it is the role of the government to correct it.
> In this case I'm not sure why Google would pull Organic Maps.
Exactly. Someone competent should decide whether that is an anti-competitive move or not. Noting that a "mistake" may be anti-competitive and may deserve a fine.
I may have just misunderstood the GP. I read it as wanting the government to directly work on defining and enforcing Google's terms of service rather than this being an anticompetitive concern.
My point is why should the government regulate a private marketplace? If its not working for you go sell your stuff somewhere else. Google pays to keep the Play Store lights on. They should have every right to decide who sells on their platform.
People saying that Google shouldn't be allowed to decide who can or can't sell on their platform is like saying someone should have every right to sell their wares from your front porch; even though you're the owner of the property, you pay for living there, and don't want them selling their stuff on your land.
The public marketplace is a different story. If Google prevents you from selling somewhere else then the government needs to get involved because this is anti competitive behavior.
But Google has a de facto Monopoly on android. For monopolies there's different rules. Very similar to how Microsoft and Google have been hit before eg with the browser and search selection screens. The free market doesn't really work if there's only one player.
What monopoly? Android belongs to them. They spent billions of dollars building it. A monopoly would be if they owned the only means of creating and running a cellphone operating system and prevented others from doing the same.
Goes back to my analogy of a random person selling stuff on my porch. I paid for this house and I pay the taxes on the land. If I don't want you selling your stuff here then you need to get out.
> What monopoly? Android belongs to them. They spent billions of dollars building it.
It's funny because you seem to use the last two sentences to explain how it is not a monopoly, where it is actually usually a precondition to getting into a monopoly position.
> A monopoly would be if they owned the only means of creating and running a cellphone operating system and prevented others from doing the same.
This reminds me of this french movie (OSS 117) where the main character genuinely doesn't understand what a dictatorship is. And he says: "A dictatorship is when people are communists, cold, with gray hats and zippered shoes."
Right. I guess we just fundamentally disagree on what "anti-competitive" means.
The problem in this case is not that Google should be forced to "sell" stuff they don't want to sell. The problem is that Google takes advantage of the fact that they are in practice the only marketplace to sell their own goods (here Google Maps or Waze) and prevent competitors from reaching an audience (here Organic Maps).
And your comparison is very limited anyway, because Google is not selling stuff on their front porch. They are distributing software to billions of devices. It's a very different situation.
But the infrastructure and software to do any of these things (Android for example) belongs to them. They pay for it and maintain it.
Imagine you wrote an application and you choose who you want to partner with. You agree on what that partner can and can't do. Now, someone else comes along and says you must partner with them and they should be allowed to do whatever they want in your app. Are you saying you have to comply? Even if you're the one absorbing all of the cost and you don't agree with the content?
If so, please let me know where you live so I can come set up my business from your house. It's going to save me so much money since you have to take all the financial risk of paying for my utility usage, plumbing, internet, etc. And I can tap into all the connections you've made over the years living there.
Edit: Google does not have a monopoly on cellphone OSes or app marketplaces. There are numerous others and anyone is free to create their own. You just have to spend the billions of dollars they spent to make yours as popular.
Again, I believe you fundamentally misunderstand antitrust. You compare it to going to the bakery next door and forcing it to sell your bread.
> You just have to spend the billions of dollars
That's exactly what makes a de facto monopoly. Your arguments sound like this to me: "This is not a dictatorship, because you are not forced to obey the power in place. You could just overtake the government and take the power yourself."
Just so I understand. Are you saying we should punish anyone who spends their own money to build something because they want to restrict how/who can use what they've built?
What's preventing you (or someone with capital they want to risk) from building a mobile OS?
How would you see that scaling? Are you talking about governments defining what can't be in any terms of service? Or would you prefer to see governments directly working to both define Google's rules, determining when an app breaks them, and having the government decide when to pull an app?
There is a reason most people in democratic countries don't like it, if there country has all the powers in one hand. At the same time it seams to be accepted for cooperation, as long as there are big enough.