So by enabling dozens of hardware companies to literally exist and make a ton of money, they are a monopoly? So they're being punished for being open and sharing their OS with others?
IIRC, manufacturers are required to install Play Services on either all of their devices or none of them. That's a pretty important anti-competitive bit.
Somebody else could pay them to put their store on? I don't understand. The fact that you get to make a deal for money seems strictly more free-market than the alternative.
As someone living in a third world country and seeing that happening in many sectors, it's the second quickest way to market degeneration (the first is straight up threats of violence).
You really do not want people paying to block competition from arising.
Google pays for the OEM to pre-install the Google Play store, not for them to disallow alternative stores. "Paying for it to be non-optional" is a bit misleading. Users always have the option.
Epic agreed to no jury trial in the Apple case. They requested one for this Google case. I imagine they knew the battle against Apple was a much bigger hill given the lack of any evidence of direct harm to Epic, besides in the payment processors argument (which Epic won).
No, I think your reasons would be motivators for Epic to have insisted on a jury trial against Apple. I think the real reason is Epic’s lawyers thought the average American jury member would be more sympathetic to Apple than to Google.
Apple: no sideloading
Google: yes sideloading
Apple: no alternate app stores
Google: OS-native APIs for facilitating third-party app stores
Apple: no monopoly
Google: yes monopoly
Just wondering if I have this straight.
Edit-
> And it was all decided by a jury, unlike the Apple ruling.
Oh, OK.
Google will take this to SCOTUS, and their record there (The Author's Guild, Oracle) is pretty good. This is far from over.