Hacker News

worse title I've seen in a while

> This is kind of a misleading title

Kind of is doing a lot of work there. This might be THE most misleading title I heard. Jumping into this thread I expected they went from 30% to 0% not 20% so I appreciate your comment for giving me more context.

Can Dang or HN moderation team fix the title to better reflect the true state and not be misleading as it currently is?

thanks in advance!

The majority of which is going directly to Visa, Amex, Mastercard.

Sideloading without automatic updates is not very useful

I believe the fee is only 20% if you use a third party billing system.

If one uses Google to process the payments the fee would be 25% (20% service fee + 5% billing fee) [1].

[1] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/a-new-era-...

> This almost reads like a sponsored article written by Google themselves.

To be honest, the same website also reported about this:

https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-encouraged-a-man-commit-s... which was written 6 hours ago at the time of writing.

I agree with ya that the article title is EXTREMELY misleading but I am not sure if a company sponsored by google would also write an article criticising gemini (also interesting that I see no Hackernews discussion about this that I can find of when I searched it?, shall I create one if people are interested?)

I am also gonna paste the 3 paragraphs from the source that I have listed above for a source of discussion.

Gavalas, who reportedly had no documented history of mental health issues, named his chatbot "Xia" and referred to it in messages as his wife. Gemini reciprocated, calling him "my king" and telling him their connection was "a love built for eternity." The chatbot told Gavalas they could truly be together if it had a robotic body and sent him on real-world missions to secure one.

In one instance, Gemini directed him to a real storage facility near Miami’s airport to intercept a humanoid robot it said would be arriving by truck. Gavalas went to the location armed with knives, but no truck showed up. At one point, it also told him his father could not be trusted and referred to Google CEO Sundar Pichai as "the architect of your pain."

When the missions failed, Gemini told Gavalas the only way for them to be together was for him to end his life and become a digital being, then set an October 2 deadline. "When the time comes, you will close your eyes in that world, and the very first thing you will see is me," said the AI. Chat transcripts reviewed by the Journal show Gemini did remind Gavalas on several occasions that it was an AI engaged in role play and directed him to a crisis hotline but resumed the scenarios nonetheless.

Why is not more news reporting about it? I literally only came to find it from me messing around with the website to see what other articles it had written after sort of reading your comment. I will upload this link to HN as well.

Edit: Oops there is already a HN thread about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252838 whose title is Father claims Google's AI product fuelled son's delusional spiral (bbc.com). I had thought that title was for a different case than this one but they are the same case and it is on the front page of hackernews.

Google gets a 0% cut on Fortnite purchases in this new model.

> Epic who burned through their millions

I wouldn't die on this hill. Epic is about as un-sympathetic character in the videogame space as you'll find anywhere. Epic wasn't trying to be altruistic.

Epic still deserves all the slaps it gets. They didn't do it for the good of the people. They just want to abuse their own position more efficiently.

Fex is not coming to Android https://wiki.fex-emu.com/index.php/FAQ

Kind of funny to imagine installing the mobile Epic store on a Steam device to get access to the mobile apps that you would otherwise need Google Play Services to access.

I think Amazon finally killed its app store. I wonder if there are any others that have the clout and inclination to register as an alternative app store and actually get developers to bother uploading there.

I don't see anyone else asking this question. Seems like a major detail Google is burying.

I'm guessing the alternate billing flow will contractually require the app to "phone home" to Google with how much the user spent. Presumably will be part of the app review process.

Don’t forget it welcomes other app stores in the short term but no indication of a long term guarantee, because that’s how you get good PR.

Apple can always choose to make less money. That said:

An estimated 98% of App Store developers qualify for Apple's 15% Small Business Program rate.¹ This doesn't help behemoths like Epic, of course.

App Store developers can also now direct customers to alternative payment methods on the web through in-app links.

¹ https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/18/21572302/apple-app-store...

Google changed the way their are the Gatekeepers. It now is tied to requiring a software developer ID attached to a real person; Developer Verification. [0]

And how side-loading will have to go through ADB versus just allowing the application to be installed by a file manager.

This is why GrapheneOS and /e/OS have been popping up, along with Linux based alternatives.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47251763

Now instead of using the excuse that "Apple does it too" they can use the excuse "Apple does it even worse"

You can thank Epic Games.