There is no monopoly. Apple doesn’t control the whole smartphone industry. They provide a service open to ANYONE (within reason) that wants to host an App on the store. They pay for the service, and thus charge a fee to use said service. End of story.
Dear DOJ, here are some more important tech issues that the average American cares more about. After all if the duopoly of Visa/MC gets a pass (yeah we have a bit of a choice) why would the Android/iOS duopoly be any different? So here is the list:
1) Ticketmaster, why had this stranglehold on venue tickets not been broken?
2) online criminality, which is a huge drag on the economy and often the elderly are victimized without recourse (ironically letting Alphabet and Apple secure their devices is the best way to fight it).
3) Youtube is pretty much it for long form video delivery and as a consumer the barrage of commercials hurts all of us (unless you pay for a subscription) and since they have no true competition the subscription can be exorbitant, a true monopoly.
4) Google for search, though I think AI assisted search will radically change this in the coming years.
5) Amazon Marketplace, though not a strict monopoly, they exploit third party sellers through price requirements, innumerable fees, etc. Not to mention that if any one has a product that takes off, Amazon will surely copy it and undercut the price, Sherlocking on an industrial scale.
6) The Meta and Alphabet ad markets have evidence of anticompetitive behavior, though this is too complex to review here.
7) I am ignoring real “meat space issues” like payday lending, airline price fixing, ISP choice etc etc.
What happens if a developer wants to use APIs from Apple and doesn’t have an app in the App Store? The DOJ is an oxymoronic joke, and they seem to be intent on creating a problem rather than dealing with bigger problems right in front of their eyes.
The main point to remember: the DOJ would be bringing court-based charges if they decided to proceed. This isn't like the EU where a legislative body is saying "let's change the laws BUT only for companies that exceed a certain market cap". What the EU is doing is basically admitting that they couldn't find much of anything that qualified as "anticompetitive" under the existing EU laws AND that they didn't want to apply the new "anticompetitive" definition to the entire market. So the DOJ has a much higher bar to clear than the EU legislative body. Plus, Apple already defeated Epic in U.S. federal court regarding Epic's primary antitrust claims AND you already have a prior U.S. federal court decision in Nintendo's favor that said 1st party hardware makers that controlled access to their OS by 3rd party software developers did not meet the standard of an antitrust violation.
The EU seems to run at a bureaucrats whim who make it up as they go along, the US Justice Department has a much higher bar to jump over in our system. Which easier to live with most but not all of the time.
I will never understand this. Apple has built the company around a walled garden strategy--it is a major reason that people CHOOSE to buy into the Apple ecosystem. And if you don't like the idea of that, whether you're an app user or developer, that's fine--there's a whole wide world of computing and devices other than Apple for you to CHOOSE. It is, in fact, a much bigger world than Apple's. So where is there a monopoly here? Where is there lack of choice? No one buying into the Apple ecosystem wants to see it broken open by government luddites. This isn't opening up the market to choice, this is destroying the choice that exists in the market.
The 'monopoly' is on competition (or lack of it).
No third party app stores are allowed to exist.
A walled garden might be fine if its ecosystem were encapsulated and all first party.
That isn't the case and the opposite is true. iPhone absolutely requires third party apps to make the product successful.
Once you touch the world outside your walled garden (third party app stores, payments, wifi, NFC...) things change.
For over a decade Apple has had its cake and eaten it. That's a good run. It's probably coming to an end.
The part where you say 'no one wants...' you miss the point.
For one, you can't possibly know. Secondly, it is irrelevant. This isn't about what consumers want (or don't want).
At the end of the day, whatever happens, you can opt not to use third app stores if they become reality.
Wow.
You can’t have a monopoly on your own product or service. That’s not how it works.
Apple has plenty of competition with android, Amazon, windows, tizen, Fitbit, etc.
Also, a store is a store. It’s not a place for other stores - unless you really want to - like a Sephora brand n kohls or a coffee shop in a bookstore. But usually you go to Nordstrom’s to get Nordstrom’s stuff. You go to Walmart to get brands that have a deal with Walmart. You go to Amazon to get stuff from Amazon. Amazon doesn’t also host other stores. You so t go to Walmart to buy a sweater and then cross shop with another store that sells that same sweater at a different price - within that same Walmart.
Nordstrom isnt going to let kohls post up in their store for free to compete for those customers. The Nate as brands choose who they will align with and pay a bit of profit to be the store they partner with. If they’d rather open their own store, they are free to do so, but Nordstrom isn’t obliged to let kohls take up floor space with their own store inside the nordstroms - while Nordstrom’s pays the bills to keep the lights on, pay the cashiers, pay the advertising, maintenance, stocking, etc. that’s just stupid and not fair to nordstroms.
That’s what these greedy companies are trying to force Apple to do - while an inept DOJ struggles to discern between north and south.
It’s a very bad, very unfair, and very dangerous thing that it’s even gone this far. Enough is enough. Let’s see it get shut down.
You don’t go into business to give competitors a leg up. You go into business to make a profit. To win. Apple has spect the time and resources in creating a highly desirable platform. Third parties want to have their wares available on that platform. Therefore, they pay a certain amount for access to Apple’s customers. Just like brands do to be in Walmart, publishers do to be in Barnes and noble, game developers do to be on Nintendo platforms, sellers to to be on Amazon, etc.
I don’t see Mario or Zelda games on PlayStation, gears of war on Nintendo, ford mustangs being originally sold from Chevy dealers, etc.
game and app devs get to be on iOS devices as it is. They’re not locked out. But they do pay a sum to be on the platform, just like any vendor does in literally every business model.
Just because it’s apple and apple is successful doesn’t mean it’s up to some corrupt politicians or greedy game devs to gice out “free” rides on Apple’s dime. That’s called theft.
I will never understand this. Apple has built the company around a walled garden strategy--it is a major reason that people CHOOSE to buy into the Apple ecosystem. And if you don't like the idea of that, whether you're an app user or developer, that's fine--there's a whole wide world of computing and devices other than Apple for you to CHOOSE. It is, in fact, a much bigger world than Apple's. So where is there a monopoly here? Where is there lack of choice? No one buying into the Apple ecosystem wants to see it broken open by government luddites. This isn't opening up the market to choice, this is destroying the choice that exists in the market.
The 'monopoly' is on competition (or lack of it).
No third party app stores are allowed to exist.
A walled garden might be fine if its ecosystem were encapsulated and all first party.
That isn't the case and the opposite is true. iPhone absolutely requires third party apps to make the product successful.
Once you touch the world outside your walled garden (third party app stores, payments, wifi, NFC...) things change.
For over a decade Apple has had its cake and eaten it. That's a good run. It's probably coming to an end.
The part where you say 'no one wants...' you miss the point.
For one, you can't possibly know. Secondly, it is irrelevant. This isn't about what consumers want (or don't want).
At the end of the day, whatever happens, you can opt not to use third app stores if they become reality.
Wow.
You can’t have a monopoly on your own product or service. That’s not how it works.
Apple has plenty of competition with android, Amazon, windows, tizen, Fitbit, etc.
Also, a store is a store. It’s not a place for other stores - unless you really want to - like a Sephora brand n kohls or a coffee shop in a bookstore. But usually you go to Nordstrom’s to get Nordstrom’s stuff. You go to Walmart to get brands that have a deal with Walmart. You go to Amazon to get stuff from Amazon. Amazon doesn’t also host other stores. You so t go to Walmart to buy a sweater and then cross shop with another store that sells that same sweater at a different price - within that same Walmart.
Nordstrom isnt going to let kohls post up in their store for free to compete for those customers. The Nate as brands choose who they will align with and pay a bit of profit to be the store they partner with. If they’d rather open their own store, they are free to do so, but Nordstrom isn’t obliged to let kohls take up floor space with their own store inside the nordstroms - while Nordstrom’s pays the bills to keep the lights on, pay the cashiers, pay the advertising, maintenance, stocking, etc. that’s just stupid and not fair to nordstroms.
That’s what these greedy companies are trying to force Apple to do - while an inept DOJ struggles to discern between north and south.
It’s a very bad, very unfair, and very dangerous thing that it’s even gone this far. Enough is enough. Let’s see it get shut down.
You don’t go into business to give competitors a leg up. You go into business to make a profit. To win. Apple has spect the time and resources in creating a highly desirable platform. Third parties want to have their wares available on that platform. Therefore, they pay a certain amount for access to Apple’s customers. Just like brands do to be in Walmart, publishers do to be in Barnes and noble, game developers do to be on Nintendo platforms, sellers to to be on Amazon, etc.
I don’t see Mario or Zelda games on PlayStation, gears of war on Nintendo, ford mustangs being originally sold from Chevy dealers, etc.
game and app devs get to be on iOS devices as it is. They’re not locked out. But they do pay a sum to be on the platform, just like any vendor does in literally every business model.
Just because it’s apple and apple is successful doesn’t mean it’s up to some corrupt politicians or greedy game devs to gice out “free” rides on Apple’s dime. That’s called theft.
3) Youtube is pretty much it for long form video delivery and as a consumer the barrage of commercials hurts all of us (unless you pay for a subscription) and since they have no true competition the subscription can be exorbitant, a
AdGuard + Safari help with that.
P.S. Once you edit a quote there’s no way (on mobile) to get back into the body of the message.
Comments
1) Ticketmaster, why had this stranglehold on venue tickets not been broken?
2) online criminality, which is a huge drag on the economy and often the elderly are victimized without recourse (ironically letting Alphabet and Apple secure their devices is the best way to fight it).
3) Youtube is pretty much it for long form video delivery and as a consumer the barrage of commercials hurts all of us (unless you pay for a subscription) and since they have no true competition the subscription can be exorbitant, a true monopoly.
4) Google for search, though I think AI assisted search will radically change this in the coming years.
5) Amazon Marketplace, though not a strict monopoly, they exploit third party sellers through price requirements, innumerable fees, etc. Not to mention that if any one has a product that takes off, Amazon will surely copy it and undercut the price, Sherlocking on an industrial scale.
6) The Meta and Alphabet ad markets have evidence of anticompetitive behavior, though this is too complex to review here.
7) I am ignoring real “meat space issues” like payday lending, airline price fixing, ISP choice etc etc.
I don’t see Mario or Zelda games on PlayStation, gears of war on Nintendo, ford mustangs being originally sold from Chevy dealers, etc.
game and app devs get to be on iOS devices as it is. They’re not locked out. But they do pay a sum to be on the platform, just like any vendor does in literally every business model.
DoJ's Apple App Store probe is 'firing on all cylinders'