Re:More than 30 states sue Google over 'extravagant' fees in...
by tehjoker on Thursday July 08, 2021 @12:34AM
(#27768518)
Why would consumers care? Maybe for an indie developer they think is getting screwed, but if an app costs a dollar, the consumer's price point is a dollar. They know that if the developer makes more money they aren't going to decrease the price of the app.
Market forces produced consolidation, as they always do. Consolidation and capture of distribution, which happens in most industries, sets the pricing of products using cartel and gangster tactics. App stores aren't any different from the railroads of the 1800s or Walmart or Amazon inflicting all kinds of pricing tricks on suppliers.
The question we should be asking is: Why should the owner of a distribution network get to retain all that power to themselves? Distribution networks should be highly regulated, price controlled, or state owned. All else just yields completely unaccountable power to an unelected private entity that gets to control the material state of the world.
Market forces produced consolidation, as they always do. Consolidation and capture of distribution, which happens in most industries, sets the pricing of products using cartel and gangster tactics. App stores aren't any different from the railroads of the 1800s or Walmart or Amazon inflicting all kinds of pricing tricks on suppliers.
The question we should be asking is: Why should the owner of a distribution network get to retain all that power to themselves? Distribution networks should be highly regulated, price controlled, or state owned. All else just yields completely unaccountable power to an unelected private entity that gets to control the material state of the world.