Linked List: August 13, 2020

Thursday, 13 August 2020

Epic Files Lawsuit Against Google, Too 

Similar opening statement to their suit against Apple, substituting “Don’t be evil” for “1984”:

In 1998, Google was founded as an exciting young company with a unique motto: “Don’t Be Evil”. Google’s Code of Conduct explained that this admonishment was about “how we serve our users” and “much more than that … it’s also about doing the right thing more generally”. Twenty-two years later, Google has relegated its motto to nearly an afterthought, and is using its size to do evil upon competitors, innovators, customers, and users in a slew of markets it has grown to monopolize. This case is about doing the right thing in one important area, the Android mobile ecosystem, where Google unlawfully maintains monopolies in multiple related markets, denying consumers the freedom to enjoy their mobile devices — freedom that Google always promised Android users would have.

Google Boots Fortnite From Play Store 

Google’s statement:

The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.

You can still sideload Fortnite via direct download from Epic, or install it from Samsung’s Galaxy Store (which only works with Samsung devices).

Dieter Bohn:

Given Epic’s outsized response to Apple’s ban — the lawsuit and the 1984 ad — it’s a sure bet that the company will have a response to Google as well. We’ll obviously let you know what that is when it happens.

Yeah, can’t wait for the slick Google ad parody that I’m sure Epic has already made and has been waiting all day to fire off. Holding my breath here.

Periodic Reminder That the Dow Jones Industrial Average Is Moronic 

Lu Wang and Vildana Hajric, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc.’s planned stock split will diminish its influence on the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the iPhone maker’s 100% surge since March lows nearly dragged the price-weighted measure back to an all-time high.

At its current price of $452 a share, Apple has the biggest weighting in the index at 11%. A 4-to-1 split now would drop its price tag to about $113 and send its ranking in the Dow Average down to 16th. Apple has rallied almost 55% in 2020, adding more than 1,100 points to a stock measure that’s fallen about 2% during that time. The split is scheduled to take effect Aug. 31. […]

The split, however, won’t affect Apple’s No. 1 position in the S&P 500, an index that’s weighted by market capitalization, rather than stock prices.

Bloomberg reports this as though the difference in how the DJIA and S&P 500 are weighted is equivalent. The S&P 500 makes sense: it values companies by what the companies are worth. The Dow makes no goddamn sense at all: it values companies by their share price.

A high-profile stock split like Apple’s should make the entire finance world snap out of its delusion and just abolish the Dow. A 4-for-1 stock split is exactly the same in principle as exchanging a dollar bill for 4 quarters. You still have one dollar. But according to the Dow, you go from 100 (the dollar bill) to 25 (the value of a single one of the post-split quarters).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is that stupid.

Update: See this classic 2013 episode of NPR’s Planet Money for more:

It’s no secret that we here at Planet Money think the Dow is a terrible economic indicator. We don’t like that it only looks at thirty companies. We don’t like the way it does its math. We think it does a bad job reflecting the overall economy. Honestly, we’re not sure why everyone is still talking about it.

CNBC: ‘Uber CEO Says Its Service Will Probably Shut Down Temporarily in California if It’s Forced to Classify Drivers as Employees’ 

Lauren Feiner, reporting for CNBC:

Uber would likely shut down temporarily for several months if a court does not overturn a recent ruling requiring it to classify its drivers as full-time employees, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview with Stephanie Ruhle Wednesday on MSNBC.

“If the court doesn’t reconsider, then in California, it’s hard to believe we’ll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly,” Khosrowshahi said.

Justin Wolfers:

Basically, an admission that Uber’s key innovation was to skirt labor law.

Noah Smith:

Whatever you think of the employee/contractor issue, it seems clear that if Uber can’t survive except by classifying drivers as contractors, it was never as valuable of a business as people thought.

These two things can both be true:

  1. Uber saw how terrible traditional U.S. taxi services were, and created a much better alternative that people love to use, entirely based on the key insight that ubiquitous smartphones could and should change the game. Hailing, mapping, location tracking, payment, driver/passenger rating — all of it enabled via phones.

  2. The idea that this business model was worth tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars was based almost entirely on exploiting a gray area in labor law, and thus the company’s workers.

  3. The founder was an enormous jackass.

OK, that’s three, but they’re still all true.