Technology

I mean, he's not incorrect, but there's that saying about rocks and glass houses.

Oh no! One terrible corporation is saying the other terrible corporation is terrible!

Let me play a very sad tune on this really tiny violin I found.

Pot calls kettle black.

Projection is a thing Epic. Be less Republican.

Their crooked bullies.

Our strategic entrepreneurs.

I wholeheartedly believe google is breaking the law to maximize profits, but I also feel like this headline is designed to make it seem as though the people suing are just butthurt and that their primary complaint is that they don't like google personally and feel that their opinion as to whether google is kind and nice should be legally actionable.

You don't have to support Epic's ultimate goal of increasing their profit, to understand that the monopoly power this lawsuit is fighting is even worse. Apple and Google should not be able to gatekeep what kind of apps we get to use - any argument in favour of them basically boils down to "they let us avoid malicious apps" but you can have democratic orgs decide that instead of oligarchical cartels. And I don't necessarily mean the government, although government regulation would be a welcome move, I mean even more democratic:

In Finland, some of the largest grocery chains (think Walmart) are collectively, democratically owned - in other words, they operate in the same boring, stable, functional, and efficient manner as other grocery shops without being undemocratic(!). The average Finnish person has say in what products are being stocked, can be elected managers of stores, and the coop gives members 5% of their spending back (i.e. revenue sharing), among other things. [1] For reference, in the UK, we get a measly 1% back from grocery shop purchases, or from Amex with their cashback.

Sure, Epic won't give us this democratic org, but they do help us challenge the gatekeepers that are way more invested in working against giving us anything like this.

[1] https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2023/10/11/inside-the-walmart-of-finland/

Sure Timmy. Timmmmmmeeeeeyyyyyyy.

No shit Sherlock. Every company is. How they make stupid cash monies.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on Monday portrayed Google as a ruthless bully that resorts to shady tactics to protect a predatory payment system.

Sweeney’s more than two-hour stint on the witness stand in San Francisco came less than a week after Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended before the 10-member jury the way his company runs its Play Store for Android apps.

Much of Kravis’ his cross-examination appeared design to cast Sweeney as an executive primarily interested in bypassing a long-standing commission system to boost his video game company’s profits.

He attributed the disappointing response to Google machinations that made it a cumbersome process to do outside the Play Store and the use of pop-up “scare screens” warning of potential problems with the software.

Epic then filed antitrust lawsuits as part of what Sweeney framed as a crusade on behalf of all game makers as more play occurs on smartphones instead of consoles and PCs.

During his questioning of Sweeney, Google lawyer Kravis laid out the 30% commissions that Epic pays to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo for transactions on the PlayStation, Xbox and Switch consoles without complaint while still raking in billions of dollars in profit from those platforms.

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“Don’t be evil.”