Google v. Epic third party store injunction (US)

[vague crane]

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Trying to think of the ways I can be let down by the malicious reality, but so far kinda hyped about this and what can come from it over the next 3 years.

[charred garnet]

google is losing monopolistic tctics with this one🔥 🔥 🔥

jokes aside: i think google is gonna find otherways to be monopolistic. So the onky thing truly punishing them is an anti-trust and a monopoly lawsuit. and heavy ones at that.

[crystal axle]

For a moment I thought the epic in the title referred to the adjective and not the company

[vague crane]

As long as my roms and shit get full access to the stores this is a huge win

None of this attestation play API bullshit

[stone field]

please YES PLEASE

[vague crane]

Thought you would like

[dire valve]

This is confusing.

[vague crane]

How?

[dire valve]

Well, Google creates a product... from which they monopolize the product they made?

[vague crane]

The part that confused me is why they got in trouble but not apple when android was way more open. Turns out that was misleading as to why. The article articulated that

Also apple has it coming but for what the title actually says

[stone field]

monopolies are bad from any angles i look from

[dire valve]

I doubt it. It wouldnt make sense.

[vague crane]

Why wouldn't it?

[dire valve]

How so? If I come out with a unique product. I have a monopoly over it.

[vague crane]

The services are the issue here

[stone field]

when every other companies out there rely on that one product everyone is, it becomes an entanglement issue.

prices go up.
services quality goes down.
lack of control.
cold actions shutting down accouts
lack of proper moderations
malicious compliance
priorizing money and marketing over doing what helps society
shuts down all other smaller companies that try to compete by buying them out, stealing their shits, or patent sitting
and many more issues

[dire valve]

Well, I guess google is a bit different... only because they have their own phone AND contract samsung and other companies to use their stuff.

[dire valve]

The onus is on you who point the finger to prove the guilt of monoplization.

[stone field]

google is clamping down their ecosystem just like apple

[dire valve]

Thats present tense. They should've done that long ago.

I guess Google deserves that.

[stone field]

they shouldn't have done that long ago.

no companies should force an ecosystem

they often end up being like adobe and that's a huge pain in the ass when they do

you know how adobe got in business?

[dire valve]

No. Not really... How?

flash?

[stone field]

i might be mixing the story with another one so bear with me, but from what i remember, another company was offering something like illustrator, so adobe decided to give out their version for free (in education institutions), which could import their competitior's file formats (one way conversion(?)), so then all people going out of college/uni would be knowledgable in illustrator, and eventually that other company went out of business (i think)

[dire valve]

sounds about right in the sense of something theyd do

[stone field]

i'd love to give out a source for this (i suck at explaining that), but google isn't really helping

[dire valve]

i used to read up on tech history years ago. it sounds familiar

[stone field]

microsoft did the same with the office suite

(altho i think they bought out the company that made office?)

[dire valve]

but the issue is forcing a private company to give free service to another private company . ..

[stone field]

they are in a position of monopoly

one cannot compete

and by monopoly i mean, that olygopoly thing going on

[dire valve]

and apple? microsoft?

[stone field]

yea

the big players that literally go into every single markets out there

[dire valve]

until what point is it not a "poly"??

[stone field]

phones, computers, handheld devices, vr devices, softwares, etc

[dire valve]

4 of them? 9 of them? 20 of them?

[stone field]

my point is the disparity and control they have

[dire valve]

My issue is only with non compete clauses... that prevent competition..

Otherwise, may the best win.

[stone field]

vendors, tactics employed, dark patterns, free tiers or no userbase, etc... that's a loss value for consumers in my opinion

my ideas are idealistic and will never happen btw

so i'll skip ranting on the specifics

[dire valve]

Its the fact that these technologies are optional in peoples lives... Until businesses require it..

[stone field]

when i'm forced to use docusign is when i get angry

[dire valve]

Epic doesn't have to use Google. They want to.

[stone field]

the classic argument of "it's your choice to not use it" is super irritating to me when doing so means being excluded from society as a whole

[dire valve]

I agree.

[stone field]

ok, and what if epic makes a standalone thing and suddenly all playstores decide to lock out epic?

"you can only install through the official playstore"

then epic's thing wouldn't work

you aren't free to do what you want on a product that everyone is required to do

[dire valve]

Side load. Its already available.

[stone field]

it's a faction thing

[stone field]

doesn't seem guaranteed from my perspective

[dire valve]

I do it with ublock origin

[stone field]

non tech savy people don't do that

and epic probably is aware

[dire valve]

non tech savvy people will do what ever you want them to do when you push culture...

People used to not know how to use the play store.

[stone field]

people don't defy authority very often when what they get "does the job"

[dire valve]

Facts

[stone field]

i use a lot of alternative services, and people stay on abusive services and cry about it everyday.
yet the alternative is out there and unused, and they shut down or is lower quality because the userbase keeps using what works

we can't force people to use alternative services, but having a huge monopoly isn't helpful

[dire valve]

Yahoo, AOL, MSN existed before Google, no?

[stone field]

they did, and they stopped being overly greedy too

once you stop your game you're out

[dire valve]

Or they just couldnt do as good as Google or didnt know how

[stone field]

considering how much capital google, microsoft, apple, amazon and many others have, i doubt they will shutdowm anytime soon

if you are a moral company you can't succeed

[dire valve]

Depends. Apple seemed pretty okay to me before steve jobs passed

Its the whole Epic couldnt do better so they cried to mommy to get Google to let them play. PDA

[stone field]

i don't feel ok stripping a private company's right to do their own bidding to some degree, but when they are so big that they essentially become public services, that's a different story in my mind

i don't consider epic to be a "public service" level thing

[dire valve]

Its really not... But I am annoyed every website I go to asks for a google sso

[stone field]

but i do consider google search, youtube, amazon, most big phone lines to be public services

same for emails

[dire valve]

the thing about emails... now we get into ISPs

I cant host my own email server unless I do it in a round about way

[stone field]

agreed, and that's unfortunate

if you get a vps and host it from there, you'd still get in trouble receiving emails from big companies with filters

[dire valve]

right.

[stone field]

so then you risk losing important invoice emails and get in actual legal troubles

i'd be on my own email service if it wasn't the case

[dire valve]

Gmail solved a lot of spam problems that microsoft and yahoo had...

i dont get spam.

usually...

[stone field]

yea, and they also read those emails, which is another can of worms

lol

sucks that bad actors forced this kind of reaction to occur

[dire valve]

Right... But its a choice i can live with... nothing important there...

[dire valve]

Bad actors exactly. Reason why ISPs blocked p25 by default

[stone field]

ya.

i'm not allowed to host on 80/8080 too

i pay them to transact packets for me, not gatekeep me from using what i pay for lol

(or keeping me safe)

[dire valve]

So a company has a good product and because they exclude someone from playing tag. Grown ups say they're monopolizing their own product??

[stone field]

when it becomes the equivalent of a public service

[dire valve]

That is disturbing... Starting to be how I feel about Apple

[dire valve]

But is it really?
Which part?

[stone field]

focing people to go through hoops and loops to install things on their own device they paid for

and you NEED a phone to receive calls and use 2FA and much more

because that is what society forces you to do

[dire valve]

Okay, yes... But thats not Epics argument.. Is it?

epic wants to leverage Google without paying

Cant just use Google to advertise ...

Fees are involved. Cost of doing business with an other business.

Epic is pushing Google to be a public service when its not
..

[stone field]

i agree that putting something on the appstore should be a paid thing.
for the rest, google should allow devs to post alternate links to different platforms / payment systems / sideloading help, etc.
i also agree with the "can'ts"

[dire valve]

I put myself in Google's shoes. Epic is a customer. Don't play ball? Go elsewhere. We put YEARS of TIME and MANPOWER to build Google into what it is today. When Yahoo and others had a monopoly. We did it better.

[dire valve]

From the developer side, I agree.

[stone field]

i don't like how yahoo just flat out died lol

people are really acting like a big herd sometimes, and that's not something a regulation can "fix"

[dire valve]

When Yahoo got hacked. The said they fixed it. Then got hacked again.

[stone field]

ahhh

makes sense

[dire valve]

More than twice.

I lost trust in yahoo to have their shit in order.

[stone field]

fair enough, i'd have lost trust too

[dire valve]

I gave up my 2 yahoes and went to whore with gmail

[stone field]

xD

i regret going for gmail for my personal email, i should have gone with outlook

[dire valve]

least gmail protected me from spam

[dire valve]

Outlook? I cant even bulk send emails with outlook....

See my point . Google has a good product. Epic wants to eat for free

[stone field]

i don't send emails in bulk, i wouldn't use emails if all websites and services didn't require one

[dire valve]

I get it public service and honestly. Google deserves it. But... Android is Googles baby... Is it not?

[stone field]

reminder - what i want doesn't align what is currently in place

[dire valve]

Don't get me wrong. Big tech has a lot of shit I don't like. But no ones better.

[stone field]

no one can be better till google falls off

[dire valve]

Nokia phones dont have smooth scrolling...

[stone field]

wat

[dire valve]

well... it breaks too fast

[stone field]

nokias... breaking??

[dire valve]

Its past the 3100 era. candy bars and the unbreakable are breakable...

[stone field]

[dire valve]

And with that I'm out.

[stone field]

yea fair enough xD

[dire valve]

Dammit google

[stone field]

how dare they do cool things!

[dire valve]

Yeah... Google totally deserves whats coming even though its unfair to business. Somethings had to give. Big techs pushed people into a corner for far too long.

[stone field]

ya

[dire valve]

I just hope it goes into the direction we want it to go.

In the mean time I need to go develop an app for android so i can make some money

[vague crane]

Google won this btw judge is giving them a few years minimum

[stone field]

wat

[vague crane]

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24271996/google-epic-lawsuit-play-third-party-app-store-changes-delayed-administrative-stay-granted

[stone field]

https://tenor.com/view/judge-judy-double-time-faster-hurry-gif-7566976

[charred garnet]

bruh

guess it makes sense since there are a lot kf gullible people. but thats not to say google isnt gonna exploit that for their monopoly

[dire valve]

what monopoly?

Also, seems there is a win. Google shall not lock down android devices to their play store sold by other companies?

[charred garnet]

google trying to keep itself as the number one in terms of how many people use it, only to then have enough data to sell to as many 3rd part ad companies as possible.

example of their monopoly is they pay companies to default to their products because of how most users use whats already there. Because "if it work, it works! Why bither changing it? whats wrong with it if it works?"

[dire valve]

I mean its their product.

[charred garnet]

yes. but US doesnt want only one Kingpin. They want at least 2 for competition. Otherwise, theyd have to chop google to bits

and when a company has no competition, shit will decrease in quality pretty badly over time

becaise no one does it better than them

[dire valve]

well... that part is anticompetitive.

[charred garnet]

which is part of the monopolistic behaviors

Microsoft is an example of potentially both

[dire valve]

we have apple ios, android, and nokia phones

[charred garnet]

they want to hook you onto their product, to them make you pay later when youre too deep into it, then kill it and make you use something that only benefits them

[charred garnet]

until we dont. because if theres one thing inknow for sure: If one does it without sufferring consequences, others will do. just like how it's Monkey see, monkey do type thing. and that is if one company manages to accel by both loweing others and pulling themselves up on the leaderboard, theyll do it.

[dire valve]

the only issue i had with google was the use of anti competitive practices such as dictating what app stores hardware companies could install on the android os when they sold the phone

if google sold their own phone. like apple. then its a different story.

The demise of OMGPOP may support your argument.

Even though sort of irrelevant to the topic category.

[charred garnet]

i agree and its the same here. but the thing is that i habe more reasons to hate google: Bloatware (least of my worries due to LineageOS existing due to AOSP), Disallowing other engines to prevail by paying others to default to them, disallowing other engines to be either grow, let alone be known

when they integrate shit to devices you purchase, without your consent, they are bloating it for one reason: Data Coollection and Marketting

and its where scammers can get your info - from hacked 3rd parties. and worst of all, you dont even know it happened to one of them because you dont know nor are aware kf that company in the first place

hell

they can even purchase your data off google or any other company that sells data

just so they can get you to engage more with your platform because thats where you find what you want

[dire valve]

Well a default search engine for google. thats fine. integrating it directly into the android OS. I do have some hard feelings about that

[charred garnet]

and when that happens, you stick to that platoform.

[charred garnet]

I agree. but the only thing they can do for me to turn a blind eye, is to let others not only select what "recommended" software they want to use, but also the "recommended" search engines and if they even want to in the first place (ie: making those decisions skippable)

and not just that

allow others to have a say if google can track others in the first place. i dont mean "Do not Traxk" slider. i mean allow users to disallow google's data collection to the point where it makes google browser and chrome become the Chromium equivalent to Tor

[dire valve]

i disagree.

chrome is an optional product. download firefox... or chromium if theres an issue.

[charred garnet]

it comes preinstalled on android devices

[dire valve]

i'll have a problem if chrome was preinstalled though

[charred garnet]

chrome books hve them preinstalled iirc

[dire valve]

oh... well.

[dire valve]

its called chrome books for a reason.

[charred garnet]

microsoft does that too with their edge browser. and youd have to, technically, modify your system or its installer to remove it

[dire valve]

well microsoft is a different category.

not to the same standard. as history would dictate.

[charred garnet]

microsoft has the same (if not, similar) behaviour. butbthey fail against google. in terms of who does it best or better

[dire valve]

and microsoft requires a whole other conversation beyond what google is trying to do

[charred garnet]

bundleing shit into an OS is straight up bloatware. Microskft is now bakin recall into File Explorer. and I am now on the mission to replace file explorer and Windows' Desktop Environment with my fake version, to only then have each feature disected into their own software

If you dont want file explorer, kill it. but be aware: it also has the Grapgical User Interface. "OH NO! I CANT ACCESS MY START MENU AND MY DESKTOP IS GONE WITH MY TASK BAR! OH NO!"

[dire valve]

Just go for linux

[charred garnet]

thats' a solution. but remember that not everyone iz willing to do that, be it actively or passively

[dire valve]

Sounds like a personal problem to me

[charred garnet]

another solution is replace eberything about windkws (except for kernel)

[dire valve]

Hopefully kernel isnt copyrighted

[charred garnet]

then let them have it their way, when they realize scammers and bad actors know moew about them than themselves and their parents combined. THEN theyll get ABSOLUTELY schizophrenic.

[charred garnet]

no need for that. because even decompiling it is a legal issue

recreating the features and functions is another yet legal way to do things

[dire valve]

Somebody just released to propublica IRS tax information that was supposed to be confidential.

Well 3 years ago...

[charred garnet]

thats a different sphere of things

thats taxes and legality

not product

[dire valve]

Its the whole idea about 'bad actors' ... 'knowing'

[charred garnet]

im not sure. im not well versed into that kinda stuff

[dire valve]

My point is privacy doesn't exist.

However, I would like to browse to my liking without some company trying to "tailor" my "search results" to whatever god given farfanuhen phenomenal freaking fckery they "think" i like...

Youtube is a perfect example. I do ONE search of a video and I see that video forever in every search result.

Go back 10 years. Search was better.

[charred garnet]

that is until you delete them, thanks to GDPR or whatever your country has

[dire valve]

'Upon request' unfortunately.

[charred garnet]

i paused every history and deleted them, too.

[dire valve]

Doesn't mean you actually deleted it.

[charred garnet]

you can make it an instinct/reflex on opting out

[vague crane]

It does

Just maybe not comprehensively enough

[dire valve]

Exactly.

Privacy does not exist.

Just don't tell me you're watching me.

[vague crane]

What I mean by that is you can't have it in queryable logs but it can remain in logs*

[vague crane]

If this was really a concern why are you on discord?

[charred garnet]

ik. its why you use alternatives. like GrayJay and DuckDuckGo (or what i like to call "DuckDuckGoFuckFuckGoogleUpUptheAss")

[vague crane]

They sell to Google btw

[dire valve]

Its not a concern.

[charred garnet]

when youre using their ! function

[vague crane]

Ew

[charred garnet]

i have measures to mitigate collection of my data and invasion of my privacy while still using the service.

[dire valve]

The whole issue is with Google overdoing it. I need not know a voyeur is watching me.

Google literally is doing just that.

👀

Then I start seeing Google everywhere.

Staring. Blatantly. Weirdly.

Then I hear my wife tell me.

"Google is coming over for dinner and staying the night and in our bedroom but not to sleep, but to stare."

[charred garnet]

cuckolding lmao

[dire valve]

Yeah. Honestly, I am pro business. But Google needs to get ransacked.

[charred garnet]

unfortunately for us and everyone else, governments are too fucking lazy to get their ass off their office chairs.

The only savior is EU doing the job for the other governments in the world, to only then be copy-pasted and then modified accordingly. but even that is too much work for them

[dire valve]

because they make money off of it.

[charred garnet]

and so do companies.

the only verdict are the ones being done dirty

but only if we jump at once can we get the ground to shake, making their base feel unstabke, reminding them about their futile existance against the eternal community spirit. (that sounds... philosophically schizophrenic. because when tf will that be the case lmao)

[dire valve]

Nah. Ill just be realistic. Google isnt breaking up. But they are going to be ordered to stop trying to coerce others using anti competitive practices

[charred garnet]

the volcals are coming from a minority. we can only fight fire with fire as a community or even as an organization (Framework and System76 intensifies ig)

[dire valve]

Seems pretty radical.

[charred garnet]

ik

its a method. but maybe not a reliable one at that