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So, if Apple had 85% market share this would have been not fine then? At what marketshare do we decide it is fine for them to not do this? We can always ask the user to look for an alternative.

Honestly, this whole think has stunk for a long time. iOS is a platform and it is dominant. It severely reeks of monopolistic behaviour when they use their leverage on one platform to gain advantage in a new one. Apple Music doesn't have to pay the 30% tax while also getting free product placement from Apple as compared to something like Spotify.

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There's no requirement in law that all technology businesses need to hew to any particular philosophy or ideology of computing; no one has to be "open". This has always chafed a lot of tech people because Apple is successful while being "closed".

The only thing that would change this is if Apple was found to be "dominant" or have "monopoly power" in a "relevant market" as held by a court.

But aren't they a dominant power already. Android can have 80% market share but the app store revenue reality is 2:1 in the favour of iOS.[1]

Isn't it anti competitive for a new service like a movie streaming app to be at a competitive disadvantage financially than if Apple decides to launch their own.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21121558/google-80-billion...

>But aren't they a dominant power already. Android can have 80% market share but the revenue reality is 2:1 in the favour of iOS.

A regulator/prosecutor will certainly try to argue they're dominant! But market power is measured by market share, not share of revenue. That'd basically find anyone that sells high-end products in any category as a monopolist.

>Isn't it anti competitive for a new service like a movie streaming app to be at a competitive disadvantage financially than if Apple decides to launch their own.

Apple is not barred from competing with anyone in the App Store, just as Walmart isn't banned from competing with any of the vendors they stock in their stores.

> But market power is measured by market share, not share of revenue.

Actually market share is routinely defined as share of revenue. It often makes more sense than number of units.

> That'd basically find anyone that sells high-end products in any category as a monopolist.

High-end products have high margins but low volume. High end producers are rarely dominating their market by share of revenue.

Care to name a case in the last 40 years where “a monopoly” was defined by revenue?

As dominant position is clearly defined using market share with market share being understood as both unit market shares and revenue market share, I will go with all of them.

So you can’t....

I think I should reword my comment. How is App store revenue example of app being "high end". It just shows it is more profitable for a developer to be on iOS as they probably get 2/3 of their revenue from it.

That argument is going to be a winning one. Apple achieved market dominance by charging three times as much for the same product - those bastards. It’s not Apple’s fault that the entire Android ecosystem is a commoditized race to the bottom.

I didn't quote the revenue of iPhones, I quoted the revenue of app developers from the respective stores being 2:1 in favour of iOS.

So now that evil monopolist not only convinced people to pay three times as much now they convinced those poor more affluent consumers to give developers twice as much.

Cry me a river....

Actually yes. Instead of thinking that you're buying an iPhone, you're buying an ecosystem that includes the app store, iMessage, iCloud, etc... If you don't like that option, there is Android.

Consumers go in knowing that is the ecosystem they are buying into. Developers also go in knowing the same. Neither are forced, and have other options that are relatively comparable.

Well, Apple also benefited from those apps being there, it is not like only the app developers benefited. The biggest complaint against Windows Phone used to be the app ecosystem and eventually that's what killed it as well.

Phone market being essentially a duopoly, I don't want a independent service developer to be financially disadvantaged to compete and eventually the platforms owning all the big money making services.

Yes. Users have choices. You don’t have to have the nanny state to protect you from buying devices that don’t meet your needs.

Apple Music doesn't have to pay the 30% tax while also getting free product placement from Apple as compared to something like Spotify.

Spotify hasn’t allowed in app payments for years and don’t pay the 30% “tax” either.

Are you also against every grocery store having store brands and “slotting fees”?

What about scarface74’s new fancy music app with negligible market share and no legal team? Will Apple show any mercy and not collect their duties?

You mean like Tidal?

Yeah, exactly the kind of thing he was talking about.

Tidal had the backing of Jay-Z and several other artists.

"Are you also against every grocery store having store brands and “slotting fees”?"

I don't have any insider knowledge of the industry, but since COVID has been a thing, I've noticed that there are brands appearing that are local or regional, that look way better that what I'm used to, and so I'm asking myself if maybe there was something messed up or even corrupt about the distribution system before. If these brands can step in in a crisis, why didn't the store carry them before?

I don't have a really well-formed point, just a vague sense of vindication that yeah, markets (like an app store) are run by people, and maybe they're not run in the best manner and it isn't obvious. I think markets are valuable, just like computers, as tools to solve optimization problems. But like computers, they can fail to solve your specific problem, or have uncompetitive performance. Like computers, they're complex and you can easily be snowed about how well they're functioning if you're not immersed in details.

Well, Spotify doesn't allow it to so that it doesn't have to pay the tax. Everyone wants to make the signup flow as easy as they can, do you think they would not want to increase their userbase.

If we didn't have nanny state to protect us probably Microsoft's dominance would have went unchallenged and you won't have the plethora of different services that we see.

Right because after the ruling , Microsoft became a shell of its former self, lost its position as one of the five most valuable companies in the US and lost its dominance in the desktop operating system and office productivity market.....

I guess it made more of an impression on me when Apple surpassed Microsoft in market cap.

I could be off, but I feel like there was a time when the valuation of Microsoft was something like 100 times that of Apple, and Apple wasn't even leveraged like we expect companies to be now. I remember when it seemed like every story about Apple in the WSJ called them "beleaguered" or something similar.

And then, to have them some back and surpass Microsoft, while it was a triumph for Steve Jobs, it also did kind of seem like Microsoft had been hobbled. Especially because while Apple had broken out of its rut, Microsoft's stock price was stuck going nowhere for a very long time, post 2000.

Now Microsoft is having its own renaissance, but a lot of people thought it had lost its way.

Microsoft wasn’t hobbled by the government it was poor execution first in the media player market and then in the mobile market. Nothing forced MS to come out with the failed Plays4Sure initiative and then the Zune.

It just becomes speculative now but many would argue that did help the other big companies in that group you talked about to grow. https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/9/6/17827042/anti...

Google was dominant way before Chrome existed. Apple never did gain significant market share on the desktop and became profitable first with music and then mobile - MS tried to compete in both. Facebook success had nothing to do with the anti trust trial and neither did Amazon.

A similar ruling did work to increase browser diversity in Europe with the ballot. I wouldn't argue that the US's wrist slap is evidence that anti-trust is worthless. Consider if Standard Oil, company towns, or child labor were still common in the US. Without regulation it's possible we'd still live in that nightmare once called 'normal'.

That was a Pyrrhic victory. “Browser diversity” paved the way for dozens of profitable companies releasing profitable competing products.

In the real world, Microsoft and almost everyone else threw in the towel and just used Chromium because they realized there was no point in trying to make a browser engine.

Firefox is only barely hanging on while most of its revenue comes from a competitor (Google) and Apple just went its own way after supporting Safari on Windows for awhile.

The legislators - as usual ignorant of tech - didn’t do anything to curb MS’s power or control over operating systems and office productivity apps. Where they made and continue to make much of their money.

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