I think one reason is that given the stage in capitalism we’ve been living for some time now has completely fucked people’s understanding of what markets, competition, monopoly power, and so on are. Not people’s fault really. We live in this system, we observe and learn about it from what it claims about itself. We have to do extra work to have any different understanding. Most people don’t have extra time for unpaid work.
It explains a lot of commentary I see, framing it as “who the price setting is benefiting,” customer vs publisher vs dev, as if the storefront price fixing is a predestined thing already.
It’s not supposed to be that way.
But it makes sense if that’s all people see in big box chains, the App Store/Google Play, streaming services, Amazon, or wherever.
Yup. And platforms like Play/Amazon/etc. are even further away from markets than big box stores because people don’t all see the same items for sale to choose from, which is fundamental to the functioning of free markets.
BTW I’m not a fan of free markets, but for the limited set of economic use cases they serve well, at least they gotta function as such.
I think one reason is that given the stage in capitalism we’ve been living for some time now has completely fucked people’s understanding of what markets, competition, monopoly power, and so on are. Not people’s fault really. We live in this system, we observe and learn about it from what it claims about itself. We have to do extra work to have any different understanding. Most people don’t have extra time for unpaid work.
…That makes some sense.
It explains a lot of commentary I see, framing it as “who the price setting is benefiting,” customer vs publisher vs dev, as if the storefront price fixing is a predestined thing already.
It’s not supposed to be that way.
But it makes sense if that’s all people see in big box chains, the App Store/Google Play, streaming services, Amazon, or wherever.
Yup. And platforms like Play/Amazon/etc. are even further away from markets than big box stores because people don’t all see the same items for sale to choose from, which is fundamental to the functioning of free markets.
BTW I’m not a fan of free markets, but for the limited set of economic use cases they serve well, at least they gotta function as such.