But this is already about Google and Google already allows third party app stores. (I mean even Epic, which is a pretty well-known, high-profit company couldn't get very many people to download their store for Android.) The solution is to support legislation requiring companies to give specific details of what the problem is rather than allowing them to play these games of "bring me a rock."[0]
Google allows third party app stores, or just installing apps without any app stores at all. But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.
> But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.
That's due entirely to Google's aggressive anti-competitive business practices. Legislation that "allows third party stores" would also need to include rules preventing Google from, for example, blocking non-Google app installations unless users flip a switch buried in the settings app (which looks different on every phone), and then plastering the screen with scary technobabble about security vulnerabilities to scare the average consumer away.
Did you choose the Samsung App Store, or was it preloaded on the device by the phone manufacturer?
Consumer choice is restricted by those anti-competitive business practices I mentioned. Whatever deal Samsung has with Google for preloaded software is irrelevant. If you wanted to install the Epic Games Store, you'd have to go flip that switch[*]
[*] actually, Samsung allows Epic to distribute their store through the Galaxy store app. So that's a bad example lol, but EGS is the only major Android app store I could think of. If anything though, the fact that Samsung allows this is evidence that increased competition benefits consumers. Samsung doesn't have the market position Google does, so they need to make different decisions to compete. Making it easy to install a third-party store without Google's security theater bullshit is good for consumers.
Relative to almost anything else a consumer might want to choose in their purchasing lives, tapping a screen a couple of times doesn't seem to qualify as difficult. Definitely not as a restriction of consumer choice.
By “tapping a screen a couple of times” you’re referring to the process of enabling side-loading on Android?
Because if you don’t think that’s a problem, then you must be living in a bubble surrounded by techies.
Imagine you’re trying to start a competing app store. What does user acquisition look like for you on Android? Besides the regular ad spending to promote your app, you also need to figure out a way to guide consumers through the installation process.
Even if you manage to solve that problem effectively with some kick ass tutorial, your main competitor doesn’t have to worry about that. They will always be advantaged no matter how superior your product/service is.
And that’s just the side loading side of it. There are many other anti-competitive things Google does on Android to maintain their monopoly.
I have the consumer choice to buy any compatible car battery I want. That doesn't mean it's easy to install. Unless I'm living in an ivory tower with people who find app stores easier to install than car batteries.
Ease of installation (which, again, at least in my rarefied atmosphere of people who find tapping a screen under 10 times [0] easier than, say, going and buying a compatible battery, remove the old one, installing the new one, and disposing of the old one) still isn't particularly to do with choice. Android certainly has choice. It's Apple that doesn't.
Doesn't Verizon lock down all their phones against sideloading? Doesn't do much good for google to allow something if everyone else is still allowed to do the same. The user needs to be able to download from the web like any windows/linux/mac app. Security and curation are no excuse for preventing it.
Homebrew development has been a thing for as long as video game consoles have been around. I don't think it'd be reasonable to require Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft to provide the development toolchains/SDKs/software they've developed for free.
However, it would be good if they were required to allow third-party software installations with software written using third party toolchains (like the homebrew ones). Consoles like the PS5/Xbox really aren't all that different from PCs nowadays, even from the software library side. Most games are cross-platform, and even Sony has been bringing their exclusives to PC.
So really, a PS5/Xbox/Switch is just a gaming PC with arbitrary anti-consumer, anti-competitive restrictions. Even if these restrictions actually subsidize the price of the hardware, it's still harmful to consumers since they end up spending a lot more money on software over the lifetime of the console. Plus, that hardware is extremely locked down, so it's not like consumers are really benefiting from those supposed subsidies. They're just paying slightly less up front for a machine designed to take a lot of money from them.
