Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

Google is making app store agitators like Match look greedy.

Part of an internal Google email about how to handle developers worried Google Play Billing was making it too easy for users to cancel subscriptions:

he seems to be upset that we’re allowing our users to easily manager their subs vs. being locked into their product, which is not putting their users first.

Another Googler replied:

this is actually incredibly important to our business to respect user intent. We believes it yields better long term outcomes for developers as well when they allow their users choice when it comes to their products, even if that is leaving.

Here is part of that same 2018 email that Google did not try to highlight for the jury, for obvious reasons:

lastly, we then compute a 30% rev share on top of these numbers and we’re looking at a world of pain

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

The jury seems bored.

It’s been tough to get a read on the jury so far in this case, but I think it’s fair to say many of them don’t find Google Play Billing exceptions very riveting.

One yawned. I saw another looking down at his hands. Some were looking around the room, etc. Maybe they’re just hungry. We’re 23 minutes away from lunch.

The jurors have typically been extremely attentive. This is the first time in seven days I’ve noticed otherwise.

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

“We did not think having an app and a website was the same as buying a piece of content somewhere else and bringing it to the service.”

Google Play biz dev and developer partner Kirsten Rasanen, explaining how Google built some of its language around mandated Google Play Billing for in-app purchases and what did count as an exception. (Physical goods, for example.)

She claims fairness was another reason: it was a firm rule because Google didn’t want to disadvantage smaller developers.

There was also a suggestion that security was a reason, that Google wanted to be responsible since it was effectively selling the apps, but I don’t follow how that logic applies to mandating GPB. Maybe I missed it.

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

By the way, my colleague wrote about switching costs:

It’s not impossible to switch phones weekly!

I did it recently, and it did take a while to get my phone set up just the way I liked, but I had the essentials ready to go on Android (coming from iPhone) pretty fast. Same was true when I switched the other way in 2018.

I switch phones once a week — here’s how I manage the chaos

Allison Johnson

Jul 14

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

It’s Google’s turn: time to show its developer relations were fair after all.

Google is starting its cross-examination by being the friend Epic wasn’t. Rasanen explains that her job was to work with developers not only to “help adopt our products and features and hear their feedback” but to make sure “we can understand the developer’s perspective.” To make sure they were being heard, she says.

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

A massive spreadsheet has a “grand total”: 92.9 percent of Android users who got new phones were expected to stay on Android.

Epic asked if that was true, and Rasanen said yes, that’s what the spreadsheet shows.

Presenting her with all the numbers, Epic attorney Hueston asks: “The studies we’ve seen show that people buy phones for reasons that are primarily other than the App Store, right?”

She waffles. He presents a new slide titled “Top reasons for smartphone purchase,” a list with maybe a dozen reasons including these top four:

I liked the smartphone brand
My prior smartphone stopped working or slowed down
The price of the smartphone was afffordable
It was a good deal

“Nowhere in that list is the app store identified as a reason for purchasing the smartphone, right?” asks Hueston.

She answers: “The app store, no.”

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

94 percent of iPhone owners with an Apple Watch weren’t considering Android for their next phone, Google found.

If they had an iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, according to Google’s survey, 98 percent of them weren’t considering a switch.

I didn’t catch when this survey was from as we paged around quite a bit, but Epic showed us internal Google studies from both 2021 and 2020 to make its larger switching costs argument.

Epic v. Google: everything we learned in Fortnite court

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

Why are switching costs important? They cut at Google’s argument that it’s competing with the iPhone.

“While owners may consider the other OS, the intent to use another OS is incredibly low, potentially driven by high switching costs and/or loyalty to their existing OS,” reads part of an internal Google study from June 2020.

We’re getting a whirlwind tour of several studies now — depending on the date, they suggest that just 9 percent, 12 percent, or as low as 6 percent of surveyed Android users would switch. (Even fewer iOS users were switching to Android, they suggested, at 9 percent, 12 percent, and 6 percent, respectively.)

One study did show that “roughly one-fifth of iOS and Android are considering another operating system for their next purchase,” but Epic has already somewhat defused that counterargument:

“And you’ll agree with me that people say they’re considering lots of things they don’t end up doing, right?” asked Epic’s lawyer.

“Yes, I agree with that,” laughed Rasanen.

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

“Reasons people don’t switch.”

This is Epic’s argument, not an old Google document, as laid out for the jury in a “demonstrative” slide:

Cost
Time: people keep their phones 2.8 years on average
Switching phones = switching ecosystems
It feels a lot like learning a foreign language
Transfer and set up involves an average of 40 steps and 9 hours
There is no one place for help
A successful transfer of data does not equal a successful switch
Losing data
Apps/feature incompatibility
Phone spec inequality
Users are attached to key features
Users’ technical acumen
Committed to other devices in the ecosystem.

So far, Rasanen has only been able to argue with “time.” “There are reasons people don’t switch, but time isn’t a reason in and of itself,” she said.

Sean HollisterNov 15, 2023

Epic is building an argument around switching costs — that switching from Android to iPhone is too hard.

And it’s relying partially on an old internal Google study, prepared by Rasanen, if I heard correctly. Here’s the executive summary:

Switching phones = switching ecosystems
You not only have to learn how to use a new OS, but completely new platforms around it.
It feels a lot like learning a foreign language.
From iOS to Android; from App Store to Play Store; from iTunes to Play Music / Google Music / etc; from iOS coreApps to infinite choices.
It really IS NOT as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Transfer and set up involves an average of 40 steps and can take as long as 9 hours if you use the cloud.
There is no ONE place for help.
It needs to be clear and easy to find the right switching resources. We have 4 websites currently.
A successful transfer of data does not equal a successful switch.
Switching happens in 3 phases. Prep work, data transfer, and then adapting to the new phone.
It’s an individual experience.
Because what’s on our phone is unique to us, the process and what works/does not work is is also individual.

Sean Hollister

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