Hacker News Reader

Comment by bhnmmhmd | Hacker News Reader

Given that Apple - as a private company - is the owner of iOS, no one can blame them for what they wish to include/exclude from their ecosystem. A mistake many people make these days is they think just because some services are so prevalent and worldwide, they ought to be under control of the law and government. The same thing happens when people complain about Google/Amazon/Facebook for their policies. They're private companies! If you don't like them, fine, quit using their services, simple as that.

The day we give a person the right to sue a private company over their policies, we will essentially kill the free market.

View on HN

Google was fined for $2 billions in Europe for promoting their own services in search results. You could argue that Google search is theirs and they can do whatever they want with it, but luckily since they are a big player (close to being the only one in search) there are antitrust laws that prevent that.

Apple is in a similar positon. A lot customers depend on iOS devices and I am not sure Apple should be allowed to exclude competitors from the App Store at its discretion.

In the last century, the deciding factor about a company's freedom to do whatever it wants has always been strongly influenced by national security concerns and by monopolistic concerns.

The degree to which iOS is or isn't a "monopoly" has a lot to do with how much freedom Apple has to make decisions like this.

The same arguments were made back during the Microsoft anti-trust era.

The fact is once a company reaches a certain size different rules do apply. Here Apple is definitely abusing their control over the ecosystem to lock out a competitor. The question is is this control great enough to prevent anyone from truly competing with Apple, which is what anti-trust law is designed to protect against.

Given a company has a dominant market position the point of anti-trust and monopoly is that everybody should blame them if they abuse that position.

> If you don't like them, fine, quit using their services

Which, again, for companies with a dominant market position is an entirely unreasonable proposition. Hence, laws.

Hopefully we are still free to discuss what effects a company's perfectly legal choices could have on us as a society and as an industry? Or is that also now verboten in the name of fairness to the free market?

> Given that Apple - as a private company - is the owner of iOS, no one can blame them for what they wish to include/exclude from their ecosystem.

Apple may own their property, but iOS-device owners own their devices, and Apple have no right to prevent them from running the software they wish to run on the devices they own.

Sure, but the argument there is that Apple should allow iOS to run binaries signed by entities other than themselves (or not signed at all).

The App Store is a service owned, operated and paid for by Apple, so they should certainly get to decide what they allow on it.

Well, they are totally free to exit markets located in jurisdictions they don't intend to abide.

I refer you to read Apple's Software License Agreements carefully. They're here: https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/

Specifically it states: " The software (including Boot ROM code, embedded software and third party software), documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data that came with your iOS Device (“Original iOS Software”), as may be updated or replaced by feature enhancements, software updates or system restore software provided by Apple (“iOS Software Updates”), whether in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (the Original iOS Software and iOS Software Updates are collectively referred to as the “iOS Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and its licensors retain ownership of the iOS Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you."

If a person has agreed to these terms, I don't see how they can complain about Apple's policies in the future. The same software that isn't owned by the person, but is Apple's, now refuses to run Steam Link. The person who agreed to such terms had it coming, you can't blame Apple for that.

Would you agree to those terms if you had a realistic alternative?

Is this contract written in a way that provides equitable consideration to the user for the provisions that solely benefit Apple?

Doesn't seem like it.

The ability of Apple to include those take-it-or-leave-it terms suggests a dominant market position (strong market power) held by Apple, regardless of other mobile device platforms.

The license is a "Contract of Adhesion" "where the terms and conditions of the contract are set by one of the parties, and the other party has little or no ability to negotiate more favorable terms and is thus placed in a "take it or leave it" position.

While these types of contracts are not illegal per se, there exists a very real possibility for unconscionability." (Wikipedia)

with unconscionability being "a doctrine in contract law that describes terms that are so extremely unjust, or overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of the party who has the superior bargaining power, that they are contrary to good conscience. Typically, an unconscionable contract is held to be unenforceable because no reasonable or informed person would otherwise agree to it. The perpetrator of the conduct is not allowed to benefit, because the consideration offered is lacking, or is so obviously inadequate, that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract."

> Would you agree to those terms if you had a realistic alternative?

What do you mean? If one doesn't want to agree with such terms, there are quite many android alternatives, some of which even better than iPhone/iPad in certain aspects.

Sometimes you may be required to use iOS by an employer, client, or for a particular app.

Take it or leave it...

Of course, it all may well depend on whether such terms are reasonable and legal. There are plenty of consumer protection laws that nullify all sorts of 'agreed' terms.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com