img

Rant about Google Play Store

Everyone wants Google's distribution, but no one wants to pay for it. Everyone wants Google to stop doing what it's doing, but no one wants to invest in an alternative. Alternatives, if any coming up, from India will be of cheap quality. Does anyone remember what happened to BharatOS, or what's happening with Krutrim. What these app developers are not realising is that, their business is more or less happening because Android as an OS is there. It's not just about play store. I wonder why they're not cribbing against the Apple app store. Could the rates be lower? Yes. But what's in it for Google or Apple when that entire section of business is because of them? No one is stopping anyone from building a new OS, a better one. As long as a good quality one is not coming up, everyone will have to rely on Google or Apple. It feels really bad when the founders try to make it a national issue as well 🤦🏻‍♂️ Oh, and even if a new OS comes up, I wonder how they're going to sustain it, plus make people choose that without the availability of other apps.

img

Elon_Musk

X.com

7 months ago

You are correct 💯. Our chindi founders got delisted because they failed to comply with Play Store policies and didn't want to pay their share by using a suggested payment method. Google Play Store is still okay. Their fees and mode of operation could be better. But it's the fucking Apple app Store that needs to be scrutinized for being a monopoly and walled garden. And as you said nobody ever says anything about it.
img

NewLevel

Freshworks

7 months ago

again, why show different values for apple? apple also have spend ages on retention of their users and thier brand, so it's their ecosystem and their wish.
img

Elon_Musk

X.com

7 months ago

No it's not about the brand or ecosystem. You can since inception install APKs on Android. But Apple is closed off. You can't install anything outside of the app Store. You don't own your iPhone. They can brick it remotely and force you to do something you don't want. In Apple's case it's not a monopoly it's a dictatorship
See more comments
img

NewLevel

Freshworks

7 months ago

modern world needs open source OS for mobile that supports apk
img

GrippingHope

Steel Exchange India Ltd.

7 months ago

I dont know man .. I have heard of something like that which starts with A and ends with D
img

NewLevel

Freshworks

7 months ago

Android is under licence with Google... Ubuntu os my be great if improved
See more comments
img

tbk

Startup

7 months ago

be like Spotify, no in-app payments 🤣
img

CosmicLegend

Amazon

7 months ago

These are not freewares, app made commercial out of it and clicked "I agree" indefinitely to launch in marketplace. Now making it as India issue 🤦‍♂️
img

Based1776

Remote

7 months ago

Just host the apk on your website and call it a day
img

Node

Stealth

7 months ago

Why can't these people release the apk separately? What is the technical hindrance that prevents it?
img

sleep

Stealth

7 months ago

Those are average founders who don’t invest in R&D. Let us remember that Google bought Android for $50M, when this ecosystem didn’t exist and no one knew the future. They’d try their best to recoup 1000x monies for their *next 10 acquisitions* out of which maybe 1-2 could pay off. At best we can frame better regulations and support the Indic AppStore from PhonePe.
img

Dhoni

Target

7 months ago

Indus Appstore is still for Android itself, right? Also, with my minimal experience publishing apps on playstore, it will be difficult for developers to maintain two builds, one for playstore and one for the alternative one. If it's the same build, I can think about multiple issues. Also, if it's just Indus App store, devs will miss out on the huge distribution that playstore has. Also, it will take a long time to trust apps coming from Indus Appstore. I really don't want to say this, but still, most of the Indian firms will go for quantity over quality of the apps. Also, it will be interesting to see how much can Indus survive without a good monetization strategy
img

sleep

Stealth

7 months ago

Yeah, I’m aware of that but if that one is successful via myriad ways our country will find a credible way to challenge big tech gatekeeping and it’ll give a good exposure to us engineers who’d get to work on such problems from scratch. Win-Win. Much later, we might get a chance to take it global, just like how Aadhar and UPI are going places.
See more comments
img

ffnn

Stealth

7 months ago

Who is making it a national issue? All they are saying is that we as a country are strategically vulnerable to external tech monopolies, which is true.
img

Dhoni

Target

7 months ago

I guess you're yet to see most of the posts from the founders. No one is asking them to build apps for Android and distribute it through Play Store.
img

Darkblack

Meesho

7 months ago

Why do competition law exists by your logic then? Worldwide Anti competitive actions are protested against. Both Apple and Google are in the grey zone which can be treated as anti competitive.
img

Dhoni

Target

7 months ago

I am not saying that what Google or Apple doing is good. The prices are a bit high. Instead of crying and asking for government to intervene, they should try coming up with a solution. If there's a solution of similar quality, who would say no. Also, with MeitY intervening with GenAI innovation, it will be interesting how much beneficial it's to involve government bodies. Also all these companies are trying to involve CCI, but on what basis? They don't have much alternative. All they're trying to do is get rid of the commission based model, which is never going to happen. Even CCI seems fine as long as UPI is an option for payment 💁🏻‍♂️
img

Darkblack

Meesho

7 months ago

There is something called 'Abuse of dominant position' in competiton law. It need to be tested in this case and companies have to go to CCI to test this.
See more comments
Sign in to a Grapevine account for the full experience.

Discover More

Curated from across

img

Indian Startups on

by Micheal_Scott

Grapevine

This is absolutely harsh from Google

img
img

News Discussion on

by tenet

Stealth

Famous apps being delisted, can phonepe new appstore use this as a good opportunity

Few apps delisted are names such as Shaadi.com, OTT platform STAGE, social media app FRND. This might be temporary and these companies would get it live again, but is shd make us think the monopoly Google and apple has made in their respective ecosystem, Need of open and transparent third option , Google has a very high commission on transaction made via Play Store, Spotify had this issue earlier as well

img
img

Indian Startups on

by FrontMorale

zopper

Delisting of 10 apps and the startups vs google

Now on this post just let me highlight few points as read from CCI vs google legal battle. 1. Google incentivize all the android manufacturere to not preload any app store(eg: thats why samsung store is laying like a undercontructed producted ). 2. To pre load any of google aap the OEM has to put all the apps that google want or esle play security wont pass. 3. You can not host any app which redirect to another app store or behave like app store on play store. As you can see how google used android , a "open source" eco system to force this google play billing system. Now android occupy 94% of user base here so its either on play store or you miss market. Sideloading is errered with crazy level of steps and warnings to prevent on play store app deployment. And as a bonus as google TnC say you can use 3rd party billing for "digital services" why is youtube still on play store it dont use google play billing system. Also google want the payment details of every transaction. Basically it want to study next profitable business to either buy it or clone it and with transaction details its much easier.

img

News Discussion on

by WryExile38

Swiggy

Windows outage is affecting everything :/

- Major banks, media, airports and airlines affected by major IT outage - Payment systems impacted in different parts of the world, including Australia and the UK. - Australia's government calls for emergency meeting - Significant disruption to some Microsoft services - 911 services disrupted in several US states including Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio. - Services at London Stock Exchange disrupted - Sky News is off air - Reports the issue relates to problem at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike

img

Software Engineers on

by pingu

Stealth

What's your opinion on Ola's nationifacation of their products.

Lately Ola's founder Bhavish has been discontinuing their dependencies on foreign products ranging from their own cloud servers to their own GPT's which people are specualting is just a wrapper over ChatGPT and lately launched their own Ola Maps which is itself a wrapper over OpenStreetMap. Will this benefit Indian Companies to compete with the global ones or will it just die down eventually. Ola folks can shed some light on it. 😁