“During the hearing, representatives from companies like Spotify, Match Group, and Tinder called Apple's power monopolistic.” what’s the significance of this? Show me the proportion of the developer & customer base that agree.
What this means, Apple has market power from its user base, they got the users more or less locked in, the cost to change it high and it’s easy for Apple to convert users from other products into their own.
The competition does not like this fact since they have not figured how to compete and keep customers. I think everyone would agree Apple does not always have the best solution but good enough.
It used to be the other way around. At least it was for a while, between 2007 and 2013, when they sold me on their superior product and developer ethos. They’re not the same company anymore. Today’s Apple is more like Microsoft.
As you said: “not the best, but good enough”. But it’s not in isolation: When you have massive power and influence (via money), being “good enough” can be a really low bar, so long as they buy/push others out of business, or no one else even tries to do better. Apple was once major competition for the rest of the computer industry to respond to with improvement. Now they’re just another toxic player in an ever worsening industry. They all aim for that low bar of competency because profits are higher that way.
Excellent. Tech companies have way too much power and abuse their monopolies for the detriment of the consumer
Nothing meaningful will get through a democratic Congress controlled by Tech Companies. Zuck is probably lining up his Forward.US allies to block this.
I had the same thought. Seems odd. At least one of those bills hurts smaller companies (at least their shareholders/owners) by preventing them from being acquired by larger rivals.
You’re demonstrating the problem with our economy: you’ve characterized a lack of shareholder supremacy (or the obstruction of shareholder greed) as “harm to a smaller company”. From the angle of a customer, shareholders are irrelevant, yet they end up driving all company behavior, which almost always is to worsen product and services for greater share price and profit. The point of a company isn’t “to get hooks into the market and then sell it off to a bigger competitor for a quick cash-out of the Wall Street gambling den tokens”.
“...the bill could affect Amazon, which operates an online marketplace but also sells first-party products on the platform.”
1. Amazon did this to themselves. It was a good store for customers before Amazon got greedy and turned it into a “marketplace”. It should never have BEEN “a marketplace”. It’s a cesspool now. Where do we turn now that Amazon is a den of scammers and thieves that we have to gamble our time & money on, if we choose to buy something that’s not “ships and sold by Amazon”? Oops, Amazon seems to have slaughtered the competition, like physical retail locations. Government acted long after the fact.
2. This should apply to grocery stores and the like, not just be used to specifically target Amazon. The anticompetitive behavior of grocery stores in displacing product from shelves in order to stock their own branded products is a very real problem. All the same risks and losses for customers are present: once the non-store brands have been undercut and driven out, the store can raise prices and lower the quality of their branded goods. Seen it in action countless times. Government will probably act long after the fact here as well.
These are all problems with laissez-faire capitalism, not one industry exploiting those flaws. By the time the corporatist lawmakers have gotten some grasp of just how much damage their corporatism has done, it’s too late. They write some weird “laws”, corporations change them to suit their own interests, and lawmakers self-congratulate as “job done!”
The real problem is the economic theory, which is held as religion in this country. It’s literally destroying our ability to live and thrive on this planet.
I'm not sure how many readers here remember pre-divesture AT&T. The real AT&T. That provided the most reliable phone service, built the best telecom equipment and supported the most important research lab in the world....Bell Labs. Arguably Bell Labs is responsible for almost every innovation that makes up the digital world we live in today. All their discoveries and innovation were were part of the public domain and this was done in exchange for allowing AT&T to have a monopoly on telecom services. An arrangement that was ruined by the US Congress. And now the anything but brilliant elected officials that destroyed Bell Labs, tried to destroy Microsoft, want to destroy our most globally competitive companies.
This is not just the usual total incompetence and corruption, its economic suicide, its the Fall of the Roman Empire Part 2 as if that wasn't already happening fast enough. If you want to talk monopolies why is no one mentioning the monopoly on power of the DNC and RNC? If you want to talk about illegal activities, misuse of personal data and surveillance, I'll leave you with one name....Edward Snowden.....and you can decide for yourself where the real abuse is coming from.
dysamoria said: 2. This should apply to grocery stores and the like, not just be used to specifically target Amazon. The anticompetitive behavior of grocery stores in displacing product from shelves in order to stock their own branded products is a very real problem. All the same risks and losses for customers are present: once the non-store brands have been undercut and driven out, the store can raise prices and lower the quality of their branded goods. Seen it in action countless times. Government will probably act long after the fact here as well.
The 600 billion market cap is the key and also possibly the Achilles heel of the whole thing. Essentially Congress is saying that certain activities will only be considered anticompetitive if they're being done by companies with that high of a cap. Will that hold up in court? Can activities that are deemed legal by grocery stores that don't have 600 billion market caps be considered illegal by tech companies due to market valuation? In a way, it seems like a cop out where Congress is essentially admitting that what companies like Spotify and Epic are complaining about isn't really unusual in the business world and doesn't rise to the level of illegal behavior. They're saying it's going to become illegal due to market valuation. It's a way of avoiding relitigating how much of the business world already works.
“…make it illegal for tech companies to operate a line of business that creates a conflict of interest. For example, the bill could affect Amazon, which operates an online marketplace but also sells first-party products on the platform.”
Would Target, Walgreens, and grocery retailers have to stop selling in-house brands? Shutdown their in-house bakeries? These are store-owned and compete with vendors, which is exactly the same thing.
“...the bill could affect Amazon, which operates an online marketplace but also sells first-party products on the platform.”
1. Amazon did this to themselves. It was a good store for customers before Amazon got greedy and turned it into a “marketplace”. It should never have BEEN “a marketplace”. It’s a cesspool now. Where do we turn now that Amazon is a den of scammers and thieves that we have to gamble our time & money on, if we choose to buy something that’s not “ships and sold by Amazon”? Oops, Amazon seems to have slaughtered the competition, like physical retail locations. Government acted long after the fact.
2. This should apply to grocery stores and the like, not just be used to specifically target Amazon. The anticompetitive behavior of grocery stores in displacing product from shelves in order to stock their own branded products is a very real problem. All the same risks and losses for customers are present: once the non-store brands have been undercut and driven out, the store can raise prices and lower the quality of their branded goods. Seen it in action countless times. Government will probably act long after the fact here as well.
1. Dunno, I like having a marketplace of stuff from lots of vendors and one purchase system and history. It offers value to me.
2. It’s a very real problem? How? For who? I like cheaper products, don’t you? This has been going on for decades, when are the grocers going to flip the switch and screw us? Will you go after in-house bakeries next? Why or why not?
Excellent. Tech companies have way too much power and abuse their monopolies for the detriment of the consumer
Nothing meaningful will get through a democratic Congress controlled by Tech Companies. Zuck is probably lining up his Forward.US allies to block this.
@k2kw. Whilst I share your views about the financial influence of big business on politicians I am not so sure you are correct in this case. The tech industry has really annoyed many Republicans who may be looking for some pay back after such events as Trump getting banned from twitter etc. In the culture wars tech companies are on the left but financially they are really old fashioned corporate operators focused on profit. Amazon etc are not liked by the economic left of the Democrats. We may see some odd alliances formed on this issue - interesting times.
Excellent. Tech companies have way too much power and abuse their monopolies for the detriment of the consumer
Nothing meaningful will get through a democratic Congress controlled by Tech Companies. Zuck is probably lining up his Forward.US allies to block this.
I had the same thought. Seems odd. At least one of those bills hurts smaller companies (at least their shareholders/owners) by preventing them from being acquired by larger rivals.
Considering this is why a lot of these companies are built in the first place. Take an idea to a certain level with venture capital and cash out when you have built enough value. This will kill the motivation for these companies to start in some cases and others will get out soon because their exit strategy is being eliminated.
This will also mean that we as Apple owners will be stuck with inadequate solutions because Apple is not allowed to improve our experience by improving the platform. That also means that thousands of companies that benefit from Apple’s investments will no longer have solutions to support and make accessories for.
Excellent. Tech companies have way too much power and abuse their monopolies for the detriment of the consumer
Nothing meaningful will get through a democratic Congress controlled by Tech Companies. Zuck is probably lining up his Forward.US allies to block this.
I had the same thought. Seems odd. At least one of those bills hurts smaller companies (at least their shareholders/owners) by preventing them from being acquired by larger rivals.
You’re demonstrating the problem with our economy: you’ve characterized a lack of shareholder supremacy (or the obstruction of shareholder greed) as “harm to a smaller company”. From the angle of a customer, shareholders are irrelevant, yet they end up driving all company behavior, which almost always is to worsen product and services for greater share price and profit. The point of a company isn’t “to get hooks into the market and then sell it off to a bigger competitor for a quick cash-out of the Wall Street gambling den tokens”.
It’s a broken “economic theory”.
@dysmoria. You are absolutely correct. It really feels like we are at the end of a set of economic theories. For good or ill it feels like we are going through similar times to the late 1970s/early 1980s when the economic system fundamentally changed championed by Thatcher and Reagan. Not sure what will happened next - modern monetary theorists seem to have quite a bit of influence in Washington these days.
Apple should response to these companies creating this situation that want to remove Apple’s income while demanding access to their work. Their response could be to pause share buy back for a few years and invest billions and billions into a duplicate App Store Spinoff that makes of the lost income from their App Store and selling them on the Competitors platforms. For Microsoft, demand access to sell games on XBOX Spotify run ads to signup for Apple Music on Android with spatial Sound for 3 years free.
In each case spin off a division that specifically competes with companies like Epic on other platforms and fund the crap out of it to win. This will ensure they are in a position to recoup any damages caused by their greed.
Comments
It used to be the other way around. At least it was for a while, between 2007 and 2013, when they sold me on their superior product and developer ethos. They’re not the same company anymore. Today’s Apple is more like Microsoft.
As you said: “not the best, but good enough”. But it’s not in isolation: When you have massive power and influence (via money), being “good enough” can be a really low bar, so long as they buy/push others out of business, or no one else even tries to do better. Apple was once major competition for the rest of the computer industry to respond to with improvement. Now they’re just another toxic player in an ever worsening industry. They all aim for that low bar of competency because profits are higher that way.
You’re demonstrating the problem with our economy: you’ve characterized a lack of shareholder supremacy (or the obstruction of shareholder greed) as “harm to a smaller company”. From the angle of a customer, shareholders are irrelevant, yet they end up driving all company behavior, which almost always is to worsen product and services for greater share price and profit. The point of a company isn’t “to get hooks into the market and then sell it off to a bigger competitor for a quick cash-out of the Wall Street gambling den tokens”.
It’s a broken “economic theory”.
1. Amazon did this to themselves. It was a good store for customers before Amazon got greedy and turned it into a “marketplace”. It should never have BEEN “a marketplace”. It’s a cesspool now. Where do we turn now that Amazon is a den of scammers and thieves that we have to gamble our time & money on, if we choose to buy something that’s not “ships and sold by Amazon”? Oops, Amazon seems to have slaughtered the competition, like physical retail locations. Government acted long after the fact.
2. This should apply to grocery stores and the like, not just be used to specifically target Amazon. The anticompetitive behavior of grocery stores in displacing product from shelves in order to stock their own branded products is a very real problem. All the same risks and losses for customers are present: once the non-store brands have been undercut and driven out, the store can raise prices and lower the quality of their branded goods. Seen it in action countless times. Government will probably act long after the fact here as well.
These are all problems with laissez-faire capitalism, not one industry exploiting those flaws. By the time the corporatist lawmakers have gotten some grasp of just how much damage their corporatism has done, it’s too late. They write some weird “laws”, corporations change them to suit their own interests, and lawmakers self-congratulate as “job done!”
The real problem is the economic theory, which is held as religion in this country. It’s literally destroying our ability to live and thrive on this planet.
Would Target, Walgreens, and grocery retailers have to stop selling in-house brands? Shutdown their in-house bakeries? These are store-owned and compete with vendors, which is exactly the same thing.
2. It’s a very real problem? How? For who? I like cheaper products, don’t you? This has been going on for decades, when are the grocers going to flip the switch and screw us? Will you go after in-house bakeries next? Why or why not?