Last month, the Senate across the ocean overwhelmingly passed the Open Market Act, which would require Apple and Google to allow software developers to use other payment systems on iOS and Android, and allow users to install third-party app stores.
Coincidentally, this month, South Korea's telecom regulator also passed an amendment bill to Apple and google the app store that would prohibit major app stores such as Apple and Google from forcing software developers to use their payment systems.
In the later stage of the mobile Internet, the digital competition under the closed system is intensifying, and various hardware manufacturers are relying on the control of the underlying system to establish a high "wall" to protect themselves, but this also makes the living environment of small and medium-sized software developers more and more difficult, suppressing market activity.
Therefore, "building walls" and "demolishing walls" are becoming the topics of global discussion.
In China, due to various reasons, Google services can not be deepened, so domestic mobile phone manufacturers retain the bottom layer of the Android system, while developing their own software functions, account system and application mall, such as MIUI, Flyme, EMUI and so on.
However, Android's inherently open nature makes it temporarily impossible for mobile phone manufacturers to completely close themselves off like iOS and levy an "Apple tax". Therefore, for Android manufacturers, who can control the software distribution channels can occupy the pricing power.
Despite fierce competition, countries around the world are pushing the Internet industry towards interconnection, promoting benign development, and avoiding monopolies. However, the wall of the software distribution market of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is getting stronger and stronger, like an iron plate, and it cannot be moved.
Walls are set up everywhere only for their own drainage
With the rapid development of the mobile Internet, the number of apps is also growing. By the end of 2021, the total number of domestic apps reached 2.52 million, and the total number of app store distributions reached 2,107.2 billion times. This has also directly contributed to the boom in the application distribution market.
However, the early application mall was not dominated by mobile phone manufacturers, but controlled by third-party channels, such as 91 mobile assistant, Android market, pea pod, application treasure, etc. Among them, the earlier 91 had a cumulative user of 127 million in 2012, while the number of smartphone users in that year was about 380 million, that is to say, 1 in 3 people had 91 assistant installed on their mobile phones, which also made 91 wireless sell Baidu for a sky-high price of 1.9 billion US dollars.
However, since then, with the gradual rise of domestic mobile phones, the application malls brought by mobile phone manufacturers have begun to firmly control the right to speak, and use the underlying operating system to dominate various user permissions and suppress the third-party application market. This approach has been accompanied by considerable controversy.
Recently, Photon Planet selected a number of brand mobile phones and tried to download software from non-manufacturer channels and third-party application malls, which were intercepted and diverted many times. At present, it is mainly divided into three situations:
First, most of the app stores that come with the phone do not include third-party app stores, and the third-party app store is downloaded through the browser's official website, and the phone will be blocked during the installation process.
We searched for app treasure, pea pod, taptap and Kuan in huawei, xiaomi, OPPO, vivo 4 mobile phone app stores, and found that the app store that came with the four mobile phones could not find the app treasure, pea pod, taptap, kuan can be installed in the app store that comes with Huawei, Xiaomi, oppo mobile phones, but this version of Kuan lacks the "download" function compared with the normal version.
Huawei mobile app market search third-party app store
OPPO Mobile Software Store Search third-party app stores
Vivo Mobile App Store searches for third-party app stores
Xiaomi Mobile App Store searches for third-party app stores
After that, we downloaded the application treasure, pea pod, taptap, and cool an on the official website of the app store through the mobile browser, and then installed them on the above 4 mobile phones, all of which saw different degrees of pop-up prompts, or forced security detection, or showed that they had not passed the official app store manual test, in short, in order to drain the flow to their own app store.
Huawei mobile phone normal mode download app treasure reminder
Xiaomi mobile phone download pea pod reminder
Vivo mobile phone download taptap reminder
OPPO mobile phone download cool ann reminder
Second, downloading and installing software through browsers, vibrato, and B stations will also be intercepted.
Xiaomi mobile phone downloads the song of the cloud city reminder through vibrato
Vivo mobile phone is reminded to download through the browser
Vivo mobile phone through bilibili download protosthetic reminders
Third, some mobile phones also have a "pure mode", once the user turns on this mode, all third-party applications after downloading, there are security prompts during the installation process, guiding the installation of the own app store, and need to enter a password.
Huawei mobile phone pure mode download iQiyi reminder through pea pods
Huawei phone pure mode through the browser to download tomato free novel reminder
In short, for most mobile phone brands, software that is not downloaded in the brand's app store is treated as software with potential risks. If the user wants to continue with the installation, they need to confirm several times and bypass the various buttons carefully set by the brand side to complete the installation.
Heavily impact developer innovation and hinder the user experience
According to Apple's first quarter of fiscal 2022, Apple's Internet service business revenue is 19.516 billion US dollars, the gross profit margin is as high as 72%, and the hardware revenue is 104.429 billion US dollars, with a gross profit margin of 38.4%. Relying on its own shipments and closed ecology, Apple has made huge profits from it.
Although due to the open nature of Android, it is impossible to form a profit from transactions to software omni-channels, but with Android's huge user base and number of Apps, controlling distribution is also a part of the process of manufacturers benchmarking "Apple", which is typical of games.
In 2014, OPPO, vivo, Huawei and other mobile phone manufacturers jointly established a "hardcore alliance", set a five-five share with game manufacturers, as the hardcore alliance of several brands shipped with each passing day, the right to speak also increased, five five points gradually became the mainstream of the market, the rest of the channel providers can only be followers.
Why is there such a huge influence? Mobile phone manufacturers are the biggest help by restricting the use of certain software through the built-in application market and system level. According to the 2019 Hardcore Alliance White Paper, the penetration rate of the Hardcore Alliance China mobile game market reached 65.7%.
In fact, in this game, mobile phone manufacturers play the role of both athletes and referees, and third-party application distribution software and developers are doomed to win from the beginning.
Some people believe that application distribution led by mobile phone manufacturers may be conducive to building a healthy Android ecosystem. But when app distribution is monopolized by mobile phone manufacturers, the pros and cons cannot be summed up. For example, third-party distribution channels are unable to maintain operations, small and medium-sized developers have reduced their income and difficulty in profitability, software developers and vendors have intensified conflicts, and users have chosen to reduce their experience.
If you look closely at the current "Krypton" trend of mobile games, the high channel sharing is also one of the reasons.
Games are usually divided into three stages, research and development, operation and channels, of which the first two are often in the heavy investment stage, and the channel plays a role in promotion. When the channel fee is too high to cover the cost, how to let the player "kryptonite" become an important part of the game design.
Some mobile game practitioners have told Photon Planet that finding "trust" in operations to stimulate heavy krypton players, and even forming a team to focus on serving such players, is almost an open secret in the industry. Limited resources serve players who are more willing to pay, while players who are unwilling to pay become "tools" for their entertainment, which will inevitably make most user experiences decline.
In addition, the same game has the problem of not being able to switch servers in different channels, which is the so-called "channel service". When players switch mobile phone brands, there may be a situation where game coins and props cannot be migrated, which also increases the replacement cost of some users and provides a guarantee for the sales of next-generation hardware facilities of mobile phone manufacturers.
Mihayou's "Original God", Ali's "Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition", and Lilith's "Awakening of All Nations" have all chosen the mode of independent publicity, the reason is that they still do not want to hand over the lifeblood to the hands of hardware manufacturers.
Article 17 of the Convention on Self-Discipline of Application Software Distribution Services for Mobile Intelligent Terminals, which was formulated and issued by the Internet Society of China on November 7, 2017, clearly advocated that when downloading, installing, upgrading, using, or uninstalling application software, enterprises must not carry out the following acts: abusing their own advantages to interfere with or obstruct the distribution of other application software; abusing user prompts to interfere with or obstruct other application software distribution services.
The "safety tips" born to build a healthy Android ecosystem should not become a talisman, a command gun, or even a fig leaf for mobile phone manufacturers.
Mobile phone manufacturers are suspected of monopoly
In fact, mobile phone manufacturers intercept external applications in order to make users give up resistance and use the manufacturer's own app store, which may have been suspected of monopoly.
According to article 12, paragraph 2(2) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, these manufacturers have been suspected of "misleading, deceiving, or forcing users to modify, shut down, or uninstall network products or services legally provided by other business operators."
According to photonic planet, such a situation is not a problem in the post-mobile Internet era, and the contradiction between third-party application distribution software and manufacturers is almost accompanied by the development of the entire smartphone.
In December 2016, AZ Market filed a lawsuit with Haidian District, Beijing because it believed that Huawei's mobile phone had maliciously interfered with the download of "Azien Market" and game applications; in January 2017, Vivo was ordered to stop the aforementioned acts by repeated pop-up prompts and setting countdown readings to cancel the installation by default in the process of installing the software; in May of the same year, OPPO was also ordered to stop similar acts due to similar incidents.
Mobile phone manufacturers control the distribution channels of the application, so that they have higher bargaining power when negotiating with software developers, thus forming an unequal trading relationship. From Apple's "tax" of up to 30% to the hardcore alliance's 55%, developers are miserable. Blocking other app distributions doesn't seem to quite stand for security reasons. On the contrary, the protection of privacy and security of software such as app treasure and pea pod is no less than that of domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
The trend of openness is unstoppable
2021 can be called the "first year of Internet anti-monopoly", from the beginning of the year Ali was issued a sky-high fine of 18.228 billion yuan for "choosing one of the two", to Tencent, Didi, Meituan, Huya, Douyu and other Internet companies have been punished to varying degrees.
The large market share of enterprises is not the "original sin", but some enterprises rely on their huge volume, in the name of security, monopoly, inhibit orderly competition in the market, reduce market vitality.
In the context of regulatory advocacy of fair competition and interconnection, we have seen that the events of interconnection between giants have also begun to be exposed, Tencent has opened up Mini Programs, Ali App has begun to access WeChat Pay, WeChat has canceled some external link restrictions, although interconnection is not achieved overnight, but the market is gradually moving closer to a fair and orderly competitive environment.
Recently coincided with 315, "mobile phone interception of third-party APP downloads by user complaints" has also appeared on Weibo hot search, as of press time, the number of reads has reached 28.719 million.
Many netizens have responded that when installing mobile phone applications, they have encountered the situation of being intercepted by mobile phones and downloaded from other channels. Especially when the brand's app store does not have this app, this method is particularly inconvenient.
Lawyer Deng Xueping, director of Shanghai Quandian Law Firm, pointed out that the interception of third-party app malls and other apps by mobile phone manufacturers is an act of unfair competition, and other app stores and apps can invoke the Anti-Unfair Competition Law to pursue the relevant responsibilities of mobile phone manufacturers. At the same time, from the consumer level, such behavior also deprives consumers of the right to choose.
It can be predicted that the exclusive behavior of mobile phone manufacturers with system and hardware advantages will eventually come to an end.
The tide of openness is unstoppable, just as the Berlin Wall, which hindered German communication, was inevitably torn down in 1989. Artificially creating an invisible wall and enclosing oneself in it can only eventually lead to a state of chaos and disorder as entropy increases.