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The settlement between Google and Epic that aimed to put to rest the companies’ long-running antitrust battle is being withdrawn, and that means third-party app stores are coming to the Play Store.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.
And how does Google’s forthcoming lockdown play into all that?
They want to verify apps from other stores too, starting with six other stores in select countries on Sept 30 and globally for all apps in 2027.
Perhaps one can hope that the courts have to say something about that too.
That’s the important question to ask
So we can just install F-droid from the app store?
It costs 5000 dollars and you get to pay more up the ass for the privilege. This isn’t f-droid repos this is just providing an alternative for only entities like Epic Games to idfk sell you indie games like with the regular store they have.
The court has allowed Google to charge reasonable fees to cover its security and compliance review of third-party stores, which will be $5,000 per year.
Wake me up when Valve has an app store on Android that leverages the FEX translation layer to run my Steam library. Gamehub and Gamenative are not my favorite.
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No, that’s a different issue. But both are revenue streams, and losing control of one affects control over the other.
How is it this works for android, but not for Apple?
iPhone is opened for third party app stores in Brazil, Japan and in the EU. Source
I wouldn’t call it open. It’s still painful to install/maintain it with all the bullshit Apple came up with.
And will be similarly painful for android
Google arent really opening anything up (not in a meaningful way), so its happening for neither.
If anything this is closing things down further. You can already use 3rd party app stores that you can just install from an apk, but this change along with the upcoming changes in September will coerce people towards using the play store even if it’s just to download another app store first
