Re:Google: “Any harm Epic has suffered is not irreparable an...
by emn13 on Saturday October 03, 2020 @07:16AM
(#24671222)
Supermarkets aren't nearly as monopolistic as app stores. A supermarket "user" is free not just in theory but also in practice to use competing stores (and many people really do). Not just that: in most places, there are competing stores, quite a few of them, not to mention alternatives like online deliveries. If a goods producer can mass produce products for a supermarket, they're likely also capable of paying for super-market independent marketing; i.e. they have independant channels of communication with the consumer, and can use tools like MSRP to suggest reasonable prices to avoid price-gouging by the supermarkets, and the difference in customer access to ads by the store or by the manufacturer isn't huge. Additionally, a supermarket provides a valuable service to the producer beyond merely locked-in network effects: transporting tons of goods that last mile and distributing them to individuals requires quite a bit of work.
Compare that to app stores: users are in practice not free to pick another app store, even on android - network effects make using alternatives quite tricky and even risky, and the device/OS maker don't make it easy to pick reputable alternative stores. App stores additionally leverage their monopoly on that user to hide their costs from them; e.g. in apples it's not even allowed to mention the cut apple takes and where you might be able to buy more cheaply - and not just in the store, but even in the app itself, even indirectly! There's no MSRP by which to note that that 30% cut is extortionate. Finally whereas last-mile logistics are tricky for real-world goods, app store checkouts are not; almost the entire value provided is in network effects: i.e. the value is provided by the users of the app store, not the app store itself.
All of these disparate factors mean that app stores clearly are not a competitive market, whereas supermarkets aren't quite as bad. But let's not forget: just because supermarkets are "less bad" than app stores doesn't mean there's no potential for market manipulation; we should be vigilant there too - just that the kind of manipulations supermarkets can pull off aren't going to be quite as impactful.
TL;DR: not only are app stores much, much worse than supermarkets when it comes to harmful market manipulation, flaws in one market do not excuse flaws in another anyhow.
Compare that to app stores: users are in practice not free to pick another app store, even on android - network effects make using alternatives quite tricky and even risky, and the device/OS maker don't make it easy to pick reputable alternative stores. App stores additionally leverage their monopoly on that user to hide their costs from them; e.g. in apples it's not even allowed to mention the cut apple takes and where you might be able to buy more cheaply - and not just in the store, but even in the app itself, even indirectly! There's no MSRP by which to note that that 30% cut is extortionate. Finally whereas last-mile logistics are tricky for real-world goods, app store checkouts are not; almost the entire value provided is in network effects: i.e. the value is provided by the users of the app store, not the app store itself.
All of these disparate factors mean that app stores clearly are not a competitive market, whereas supermarkets aren't quite as bad. But let's not forget: just because supermarkets are "less bad" than app stores doesn't mean there's no potential for market manipulation; we should be vigilant there too - just that the kind of manipulations supermarkets can pull off aren't going to be quite as impactful.
TL;DR: not only are app stores much, much worse than supermarkets when it comes to harmful market manipulation, flaws in one market do not excuse flaws in another anyhow.