It is a common mistake to assert that Apple’s iPhone prices are inflated. Taking into account all the functionality they fold together (saving the consumer from buying separate devices) they are value priced. The DoJ suit will fail on this basic premise - unless Apple hires completely incompetent lawyers.
Yeah, the EC also pulled out this talking point of how Apple's practices are raising prices. It's all bullshit. I don't think I've ever seen it where products or services get cheaper after anti-trust action. When there is a dominant or monopolistic company, they have aggregated the value in the market for themselves, and they get the biggest portion of the money. In order for this to happen, other parts of the product's economic ecosystem are commoditized. In other words, they are driven to be as cheap as possible and this is how the company can attain a dominant position. If you break this system up, the products get more expensive for consumers. The consumers were already getting the cheapest price with this type of market.
The costs of smartphones, the cost of software or apps on smartphones are the cheapest it has ever been. It's the safest it has ever been. This is because the supply is huge in an App Store, with competitors just a tap away. There isn't any scarcity for apps. This drives down prices. This is basically what happens on Amazon. If this is broken up, costs to consumers increases because scarcity increases. This is what developers want. If a gov't wants to do this, that's their purview. They control the rules of commerce. But it is galling to hear these bullshit talking points.
Spotify and the EC antisteering thing is galling. It's not possible for Spotify's pricing to consumers to be cheaper. They pay both Apple and Google zero dollars for App Store fees, have a dominant position in music streaming, even more so in the EU, yet, they continue to report losses. All but 2 quarters have been losses over 10+ years. They need to raise prices to become profitable or restructure their music rights contracts to be even more favorable to themselves. They have to be looking at AI generated music and audio streaming to minimize streaming human created music to reduce how much they pay for those expenses. Or raise prices, have more ads, etc, anything that reduces their cost centers and increase revenue.
The US DOJ's narrative is plain crazy. Here is the graphs regarding inflating prices:
13. While Apple’s anticompetitive conduct arguably has benefited its shareholders— to the tune of over $77 billion in stock buybacks in its 2023 fiscal year alone—it comes at a great cost to consumers. Some of those costs are immediate and obvious, and they directly affect Apple’s own customers: Apple inflates the price for buying and using iPhones while preventing the development of features like alternative app stores, innovative super apps, cloud-streaming games, and secure texting.
This is some batshit crazy here. Everything about this graph is wrong. There so many like this in the DOJ complaint. Alternative app stores, super apps, cloud-streaming all will increase costs to consumers. Secure texting? WTF? That's the gov't job, but under no circumstances will they allow E2EE encrypted texting to happen. The default, carrier based messaging will never be E2EE.
The FCC can simply mandate unencrypted RCS UP compatibility for all phones. "Texting" will then be more featured on all phones. RCS with E2EE? I do not believe any gov't from any country will allow that to happen.
In the case of the smartphone market? No, the USA should not be suing Apple.
I do think as Apple's iPhone marketshare goes up, they will have to change App Store rules, allow more types of apps, reduce App Store fees. What is equitable between Apple and developers changes depending Apple's position. People feel differently when Apple has 10%, 20%, 40%, 80% share. As Apple's share goes up, what was a fair deal to people and developers when they had 10% share will not feel equitable when Apple has 80%. There is an implied social contract between a company, its developers and customers as the company gets more and more dominant and monied. So, I think Apple needs to let more types of apps into the App Store, enable more types of use for smartphones, reduce fees, etc.
It's not a single marketshare number. It's a gradation. The more marketshare, the more flexible they have to be.
I'm frankly surprised Apple has achieved an estimated 50 to 60% share given Apple's pricing structure. It's like the cost of smartphone hardware and software is low enough, and payments plans have made it very tolerable, such that Apple's intangibles are an easy upsell to consumers.
The cost of a cell phone service is a rather large majority of a cell phone ownership. It's like $1200 per year, and it rises every year. So, if the monthly bill is $100/mo, customers are much more accepting of a 30mo phone payment plan at $20 to $30 a month. If the costs for a cellphone was upfront, I have a hard time believing Apple would have more than 20% share in the USA.
One thing I like to note is that Apple and Samsung are 80% of the units in the USA. A good portion of those Samsung phones are Galaxy S20/S21/S22 etc. I don't know about other folks, by those Samsung phones look more like iPhones than ever. They use the same industrial design. So, at minimum, that really tells you the power of Apple's brand.
Apple needs to open up its bootloader so that people can wipe it and put a different OS on it. If you own the phone then you should be allowed to wipe iOS from it.
In the case of the smartphone market? No, the USA should not be suing Apple.
I do think as Apple's iPhone marketshare goes up, they will have to change App Store rules, allow more types of apps, reduce App Store fees. What is equitable between Apple and developers changes depending Apple's position. People feel differently when Apple has 10%, 20%, 40%, 80% share. As Apple's share goes up, what was a fair deal to people and developers when they had 10% share will not feel equitable when Apple has 80%. There is an implied social contract between a company, its developers and customers as the company gets more and more dominant and monied. So, I think Apple needs to let more types of apps into the App Store, enable more types of use for smartphones, reduce fees, etc.
It's not a single marketshare number. It's a gradation. The more marketshare, the more flexible they have to be.
I'm frankly surprised Apple has achieved an estimated 50 to 60% share given Apple's pricing structure. It's like the cost of smartphone hardware and software is low enough, and payments plans have made it very tolerable, such that Apple's intangibles are an easy upsell to consumers.
The cost of a cell phone service is a rather large majority of a cell phone ownership. It's like $1200 per year, and it rises every year. So, if the monthly bill is $100/mo, customers are much more accepting of a 30mo phone payment plan at $20 to $30 a month. If the costs for a cellphone was upfront, I have a hard time believing Apple would have more than 20% share in the USA.
One thing I like to note is that Apple and Samsung are 80% of the units in the USA. A good portion of those Samsung phones are Galaxy S20/S21/S22 etc. I don't know about other folks, by those Samsung phones look more like iPhones than ever. They use the same industrial design. So, at minimum, that really tells you the power of Apple's brand.
At the very least, I think Apple should provide 3rd party developers equal level access to the API's in iOS / iPadOS as Apple's own engineers do. Beyond that, I don't think much different needs to be done.
It's very likely that Apple's iPhone, today's modern Android based on it, and the vibrant competition of ideas between Apple and all the major overseas phone makers would never have existed. We'd have a Google-branded, really cheap, Microsoft-designed, "carrier friendly, good enough" mobile phone option delivering the devoid innovation of the 90s commodity PC.
"
Love DED for his amazing conjectures built on alternative history, hence, never provable nor even assumable.
I always enjoy reading DED on the subject of Apple. His articles are informative and wide-ranging, putting Apples strategy within its broader context. This type of perspective feeds my interest in product development and design strategy.
This time, by venturing into the deeper waters of history and economics, DED has found himself thoroughly out of his depth. This laughable screed is the kind of potted historical/economic analysis you’d expect from a high schooler — who really “must try harder.”
Oops. I wrote "Writing about evolution is *hard*, even when you really do understand it." And sure enough I left out something that matters.
"Variation necessarily leads to selection" - not always. You can have variation in alleles that has no effect at all on fitness. In that case, you get "genetic drift", where the differences just sort of wander through the generations subject to chance, and not economic forces. This isn't very common, though it's probably not rare. AFAIK this isn't settled because a number of traits that were thought to be irrelevant to fitness and thus subject to genetic drift were eventually discovered to have fitness repercussions after all.
Oh, and also... none of this necessarily applies to humans any more. Natural selection on humans is at the moment overwhelmed by our intentional selection, and that trend will continue to accelerate sharply as long as society doesn't collapse. Though... such a collapse could be due to a strong selection event (say, meteor strike or plague), so the end of human evolutionary history isn't sealed yet.
I believe we can be pretty certain that NS is still a thing for humans. The human race is governed by 21000 genes that individually or in specific combinations and in specific circumstances code for proteins. That makes a lot of possibilities. And though some gene sequences are understood thanks to model organisms, we’re still in the infancy to understand let alone mire the consequences of intentional selection. Yes, we could solve muco in theory, but that’s because the disease is caused by the wrong coding of a single gene.
Fully agree with anthropomorphising. Most often used by people who don’t have a clue about how evolution and nature works. Like you wrote, it is often really hard to deduct which evolutionary patterns (most often a combination) are happening in a population. I write that we can be pretty certain that NS is happening, because it never stops. Even in a stabilized population, there will always be random genetic mutations.
If we imagine that the only goal of free markets is to deliver cheap products, we are ignoring the incredible power of genetics to deliver life forms that aren't just efficient, they are wondrous, and usher in new worlds of possibility that wouldn't exist if life decided at some point that there should be no exciting future, just an increasingly efficient status quo.
UNQUOTE
What a formidable phrase this is.
1) Linking free markets to genetics.
2) life forms that are efficient. Efficient? In what respect? 3) life forms that are wondrous. Wondrous? To whom?
4) if life decided. Decided? Decided???? Life doesn't decide anything. Life is not even "aware" of life.
5) exciting future. Life knows what an exciting future would look like?
If anything, this kind of phrases proves that genetics is best kept to itself. Without understanding biology and the laws it abides to (not forgetting thermodynamics), one can better leave it alone at the risk of seeming hopelessly ridiculous.
Comments
The costs of smartphones, the cost of software or apps on smartphones are the cheapest it has ever been. It's the safest it has ever been. This is because the supply is huge in an App Store, with competitors just a tap away. There isn't any scarcity for apps. This drives down prices. This is basically what happens on Amazon. If this is broken up, costs to consumers increases because scarcity increases. This is what developers want. If a gov't wants to do this, that's their purview. They control the rules of commerce. But it is galling to hear these bullshit talking points.
Spotify and the EC antisteering thing is galling. It's not possible for Spotify's pricing to consumers to be cheaper. They pay both Apple and Google zero dollars for App Store fees, have a dominant position in music streaming, even more so in the EU, yet, they continue to report losses. All but 2 quarters have been losses over 10+ years. They need to raise prices to become profitable or restructure their music rights contracts to be even more favorable to themselves. They have to be looking at AI generated music and audio streaming to minimize streaming human created music to reduce how much they pay for those expenses. Or raise prices, have more ads, etc, anything that reduces their cost centers and increase revenue.
The US DOJ's narrative is plain crazy. Here is the graphs regarding inflating prices:
This is some batshit crazy here. Everything about this graph is wrong. There so many like this in the DOJ complaint. Alternative app stores, super apps, cloud-streaming all will increase costs to consumers. Secure texting? WTF? That's the gov't job, but under no circumstances will they allow E2EE encrypted texting to happen. The default, carrier based messaging will never be E2EE.
The FCC can simply mandate unencrypted RCS UP compatibility for all phones. "Texting" will then be more featured on all phones. RCS with E2EE? I do not believe any gov't from any country will allow that to happen.
I do think as Apple's iPhone marketshare goes up, they will have to change App Store rules, allow more types of apps, reduce App Store fees. What is equitable between Apple and developers changes depending Apple's position. People feel differently when Apple has 10%, 20%, 40%, 80% share. As Apple's share goes up, what was a fair deal to people and developers when they had 10% share will not feel equitable when Apple has 80%. There is an implied social contract between a company, its developers and customers as the company gets more and more dominant and monied. So, I think Apple needs to let more types of apps into the App Store, enable more types of use for smartphones, reduce fees, etc.
It's not a single marketshare number. It's a gradation. The more marketshare, the more flexible they have to be.
I'm frankly surprised Apple has achieved an estimated 50 to 60% share given Apple's pricing structure. It's like the cost of smartphone hardware and software is low enough, and payments plans have made it very tolerable, such that Apple's intangibles are an easy upsell to consumers.
The cost of a cell phone service is a rather large majority of a cell phone ownership. It's like $1200 per year, and it rises every year. So, if the monthly bill is $100/mo, customers are much more accepting of a 30mo phone payment plan at $20 to $30 a month. If the costs for a cellphone was upfront, I have a hard time believing Apple would have more than 20% share in the USA.
One thing I like to note is that Apple and Samsung are 80% of the units in the USA. A good portion of those Samsung phones are Galaxy S20/S21/S22 etc. I don't know about other folks, by those Samsung phones look more like iPhones than ever. They use the same industrial design. So, at minimum, that really tells you the power of Apple's brand.
The fight to SAVE the iPhone — Apple vs America (youtube.com)
Fully agree with anthropomorphising. Most often used by people who don’t have a clue about how evolution and nature works. Like you wrote, it is often really hard to deduct which evolutionary patterns (most often a combination) are happening in a population. I write that we can be pretty certain that NS is happening, because it never stops. Even in a stabilized population, there will always be random genetic mutations.
What a formidable phrase this is.
3) life forms that are wondrous. Wondrous? To whom?