> ... anticompetitive behavior on android by paying off companies to not produce third party app stores

What if they didn't just pay off, but forcefully forbid it, wouldn't it be anticompetitive? Basically, as Apple does on iOS.

Read the complaint against Microsoft from back in the day - https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-us-v-microsoft-corp

Consider how many of those items apply to Google's behavior and how many apply to Apple's.

That Apple is the only way to get the hardware or software for their products (compare to getting Google software licensed on Samsung) is a very important distinction.

I don't see why the Microsoft case is all that relevant; it's not like Microsoft is the archetypal definition of monopoly behavior in hardware/software, and only companies that do things the Microsoft way should be punished.

I personally don't think the distinction you point out should actually be important at all. The end result is an anti-competitive platform, and that's all that should matter.

If we go by the oft-used test of consumer harm, consumers get harmed in exactly the same way on both platforms, with higher prices (due to percentage fees that you can't opt out of) than if the market were more open.

At some point in time, the only way to get a phone hardware was Bell Telephone Company. That did constitute a monopoly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

User safety seems like a much more compelling justification for anti-competitive behavior than money.

There's no extra "safety". It's money in both cases.

I don’t claim to understand their actual reasoning, and I’m 100% willing to believe that Apple actually is not being honest and could handle alternative stores. But, by not opening up for any amount of money, they at least have remained consistent with their claim.

The non-US world overwhelmingly uses Android more than iOS, and yet everyone's personal security has not crumbled into dust. I will absolutely agree that Android's security posture (both in the OS itself and its app ecosystem) is worse than Apple's, but that doesn't seem to make all that much of a practical difference, does it?

I think my comment was maybe ambiguous.

I have no idea if iOS or Android is better (or maybe if iOS is actually worse on some basic level, but they can rely on the single store to reach parity).

But, their justification is at least plausible. Do I think they actually telling the truth? I think it at least is a case of financially motivated reasoning. But they haven’t completely given it away.

Google has by being willing to open up as long as some financial requirements are met.

If other manufacturers were licensing the OS. Like Microsoft and Internet Explorer back in the day

The mental gymnastics outplay here are wild.

Google is anticompetitive because they allowed users to install third party apps, but paid big players not to develop app stores.

But if they had just done what Apple does, and just ban third party installs all together, that'd be what? Hyper competitive and fair?

It absolutely pains me to see Google essentially punished for having the only phone platform that allows users to install their own apps.

> The mental gymnastics outplay here are wild.

Sure was nice of you to jump in with your own. I guess it just wasnt wild enough without your own luke warm mental gymnastics.

Couldn't agree more. It's bizarre to think that one company should be punished because they theoretically had a competitive platform, but did some shady business deals to keep it noncompetitive; but another company is completely in the clear making a platform that is noncompetitive by design, with technical measures in place to ensure it can't be.

I kinda get how it plays out that way in a legal sense, but it still baffles me that so many people can simultaneously support this ruling against Google and continue to praise Apple's practices. Cognitive dissonance (and the Jobsian RDF) is a thing.