Big changes are coming to Android apps, but they’re not the changes Google wanted. The settlement between Google and Epic that aimed to put to rest the companies’ long-running antitrust battle is being withdrawn, and that means third-party app stores are coming to the Play Store. Google has confirmed that it will begin distributing rival app stores next week, setting the stage for competing platforms to take a bite out of Google’s Android revenue stream.
This case has the potential to upend software distribution on Android, and it’s all because of V-Bucks. In 2020, Epic Games was frustrated that it had to pay a 30 percent cut to Apple and Google every time someone bought a bundle of V-Bucks in a mobile version of Fortnite. The publisher added a direct purchase option to the game in violation of both Apple’s and Google’s rules. Naturally, Fortnite was pulled from the App Store and Google Play, kicking off the antitrust lawsuit that is only now reaching its conclusion.
While Apple suffered little penalty in its Epic case, Google was tripped up by its anti-competitive management of the supposedly open Android ecosystem. Google used its market position to discourage device makers from promoting or pre-loading non-Google app stores and attempted to hide that conduct. The remedies set by Judge James Donato included lower fees, mirroring Google Play apps in other stores, and most vitally, placement of alternative app stores in Google Play.
This is the best possible outcome for Google: providing alternative application stores through the Play Store. So any application, including alternative application stores, are subject to universal app verification rules: allowing it to fully kill “sideloading” (as in: installing an APK from the web); while technically providing alternatives, gatekept by Google. The latter will likely just result in Play Store mirrors, that hardly provide any real competitive advantage over upstream. A purely symbolic, absolute joke of a court case.
Seems to be a recurring theme for court cases involving Google. Google should have been broken up by Judge Mehta for monopoly on search. I want them to get more than a slap on the wrist next time with the ongoing ad monopoly case, but I don’t have high hopes. Highly recommend people to degoogle. I haven’t touched anything they put out in years. I block them where I can and use alternatives or just don’t use their platforms.