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Google is about to pull off one of the most outrageous moves in modern business history and hardly anyone knows about it.
The Android operating system that powers pretty much every single non-Apple smartphone on the planet is owned by Google. Up until now that has been fine, whilst not open source, Google have happily given the APIs to anyone who wants to program an app for a smartphone. The manufacturers were on board with this because it meant that they didn't have to implement their own operating systems. This was advantageous because no cooperation was needed with competitors, and of course it means that if you are Samsung or Nokia, or whoever, you have a chance at stealing your competitors' customers in a seamless way. Whereas your own operating system might mean that a user who is used to another system won't buy your tech (just ask Apple customers why they hate Android).
But this is all coming to an end next year, Google are changing things so that all developers have to put their apps on the Play Store. Their excuse is some blah-blah, safety, blah-blah customer satisfaction, and on the face of it, it's a real so-what moment for most people. However, this move kills any kind of fastlane app developer business, because not only will you have to put your app on the Play Store, you will not be able to offer that app anywhere else, even on your own website!!
Wait, what???
That's right folks, Google is killing the C in CENTS, when it comes to mobile app development. We all know that in order to truly have control over your product and therefore your business, you need to be able to sell it without anyone getting in your way. If you develop an app, you put it on the Play Store and other app stores, and you make it available for download on your own site that you control. That way, if Google decide to change their rules and just yank your app from the store with zero explanation (something they regularly do), you always have some recourse.
But surely they can't dictate where a user downloads their apps from?
Erm, yes they can. I'm assuming they'll just update whatever version of Android is running at the time and make sure that unless the app is tagged with some kind of Play Store signature, it simply won't download onto the phone.
In one fell swoop, they have killed all competition, no matter how big or small.
Imagine if Amazon somehow made it illegal to sell your goods anywhere else other than on their site, this is essentially what Google are doing.
It doesn't just stop there either, they have changed their YouTube algo so that it only counts non-adblocked views. The creators don't care at the moment because their revenues haven't gone down, but Google aren't stupid. They know that channel sponsors use views as a metric, less views = less channel sponsors. The big channels probably won't suffer as they already have sponsorship deals and they will be able to tell that despite the drop in numbers, the returns haven't changed. For smaller channels hoping to bag a juicy sponsorship, forget it, especially if their audience are big adblock users.
When I was growing up, this sort of thing was stopped by monopolies commissions, it was generally accepted that one company running everything was bad for competition and bad for consumers--like when Microsoft was broken up. Nowadays in this bizarre feudalistic, neo-oligarchy we live in, anything goes.
Anyway, I didn't want to just rant, I'm wondering if there's anything that can/will be done about this? I'm making apps at the moment and it's a bit depressing to think that I won't be able to offer them anywhere else but Google. Of course I'm still making them available for Apple and as far as I know they haven't done similar, yet.
Are we all just going to end up as Google employees?
Thoughts?
The Android operating system that powers pretty much every single non-Apple smartphone on the planet is owned by Google. Up until now that has been fine, whilst not open source, Google have happily given the APIs to anyone who wants to program an app for a smartphone. The manufacturers were on board with this because it meant that they didn't have to implement their own operating systems. This was advantageous because no cooperation was needed with competitors, and of course it means that if you are Samsung or Nokia, or whoever, you have a chance at stealing your competitors' customers in a seamless way. Whereas your own operating system might mean that a user who is used to another system won't buy your tech (just ask Apple customers why they hate Android).
But this is all coming to an end next year, Google are changing things so that all developers have to put their apps on the Play Store. Their excuse is some blah-blah, safety, blah-blah customer satisfaction, and on the face of it, it's a real so-what moment for most people. However, this move kills any kind of fastlane app developer business, because not only will you have to put your app on the Play Store, you will not be able to offer that app anywhere else, even on your own website!!
Wait, what???
That's right folks, Google is killing the C in CENTS, when it comes to mobile app development. We all know that in order to truly have control over your product and therefore your business, you need to be able to sell it without anyone getting in your way. If you develop an app, you put it on the Play Store and other app stores, and you make it available for download on your own site that you control. That way, if Google decide to change their rules and just yank your app from the store with zero explanation (something they regularly do), you always have some recourse.
But surely they can't dictate where a user downloads their apps from?
Erm, yes they can. I'm assuming they'll just update whatever version of Android is running at the time and make sure that unless the app is tagged with some kind of Play Store signature, it simply won't download onto the phone.
In one fell swoop, they have killed all competition, no matter how big or small.
Imagine if Amazon somehow made it illegal to sell your goods anywhere else other than on their site, this is essentially what Google are doing.
It doesn't just stop there either, they have changed their YouTube algo so that it only counts non-adblocked views. The creators don't care at the moment because their revenues haven't gone down, but Google aren't stupid. They know that channel sponsors use views as a metric, less views = less channel sponsors. The big channels probably won't suffer as they already have sponsorship deals and they will be able to tell that despite the drop in numbers, the returns haven't changed. For smaller channels hoping to bag a juicy sponsorship, forget it, especially if their audience are big adblock users.
When I was growing up, this sort of thing was stopped by monopolies commissions, it was generally accepted that one company running everything was bad for competition and bad for consumers--like when Microsoft was broken up. Nowadays in this bizarre feudalistic, neo-oligarchy we live in, anything goes.
Anyway, I didn't want to just rant, I'm wondering if there's anything that can/will be done about this? I'm making apps at the moment and it's a bit depressing to think that I won't be able to offer them anywhere else but Google. Of course I'm still making them available for Apple and as far as I know they haven't done similar, yet.
Are we all just going to end up as Google employees?
Thoughts?
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