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Comment by veselin | Hacker News Reader

It is full of Apple (and other corporate) apologists. But I just want to point out that Google executives were saying some years ago that if Android was not part of Google, it would have been one of hottest startups in the valley.

Similarly, I am sure that if PASemi is spun off Apple, it may be the hottest CPU company in the world. I am sure that the Apple services will also do better outside the Apple hardware group. There are plenty of innovations and certainly there is the tendency to use them to raise the prices for consumers (which is illegal) as opposed to grow the market. I will refrain to say if Apple if guilty in this case, just saying that if hypothetically it is, this is not the end. In fact, many good things may happen in the long term by actually applying the anti-monopoly laws and breaking up a few companies instead of working around the laws.

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> I am sure that if PASemi is spun off Apple, it may be the hottest CPU company in the world.

This may be true, but it seems hard to make the case that Apple is using monopoly power to stifle innovation in the CPU market, of all things.

> I am sure that the Apple services will also do better outside the Apple hardware group.

Really? I'm not at all sure that Apple Music, for instance, would be competitive with Spotify if it wasn't bundled with iOS devices -- I can't think of any other unbundled music service that's competitive with them. (And how many of your Android-using friends are Apple Music subscribers? It's technically possible, right?) Likewise, would lots of people be lining up to use iCloud if Macs, iPhones and iPads started with what amounts to "click here to use iCloud?" iMessage, maybe? Eh, maybe, but.

> In fact, many good things may happen in the long term by actually applying the anti-monopoly laws and breaking up a few companies instead of working around the laws.

Sure, but I'm not convinced the problems with Apple's App Store policies are best addressed by forcing Apple to spin off "The App Store Company." They'd be much better addressed by forcing Apple to allow sideloading of apps (probably using the "Gatekeeper" technology they already have in place on Macs, which I naïvely thought would have come to iOS by now) and relaxing in-app purchase rules to the point where apps that don't -- or can't, like Amazon Kindle -- use Apple's in-app purchase framework can at least tell you how to buy content from it. Hell, as some HN nerds would tell you, you could get a huge chunk of the way there simply by forcing Apple to build full PWA support into WebKit. None of those things require Apple to be broken up in any material way.

Also, side note:

> Google executives were saying some years ago that if Android was not part of Google, it would have been one of hottest startups in the valley.

You know Android was one of the hottest startups in the Valley and that's why Google bought them, right? :) (Arguably hotter than PA Semi was when Apple bought them!)

Agreed for PASemi and Android. They were hot, certainly they won in the short-mid term by being part of the bigger organizations. But by now, I think it severely limits their possible impact.

All the big app stores that are also part of another purchase (e.g. hardware in this case) will almost inevitably have monopoly problems (nobody can compete with Apple on speed of devices so Apple can raise the "prices" of apps). You are talking about the technical aspect that sideloading should be allowed (i.e. some competition), but this is not enough - eventually this competition should have some form of an "equal" start, probably by allowing them to install the market from the App Store, which is what Telegram wanted in their case.

> It is full of Apple (and other corporate) apologists

Just because someone has a different opinion to yours doesn't make them an "apologist".

Especially given that your opinion that every company needs to spin off their internal units into seperate companies is frankly insane.

> Just because someone has a different opinion to yours doesn't make them an "apologist".

When people dismiss the harm caused by the 30% tax, the lack of other ways to install software, the draconian rules and enforcement, the pain of developing for two completely different platforms, and the erosion of web tech, it's hard to see them as empathetic colleagues.

We're being shaken down here. It hurts. And we're mad.

Yep. I like iOS, and the value of iPhones is excellent. But I have an enormous problem with the App Store being the sole means of installing software. Especially since it's curated in step with Apple's puritanical corporate moralism.

How many stories have we seen about social networking apps being suspended from the app store because it's possible to view nude images? That's not really any concern of Apple's. How about when they started kicking out apps for controlling vaping devices? I detest people smoking/vaping around me as much as anyone, but I don't think Apple should be able to wield their vendor lock-in inflict their views on others.

This isn't even about markets or Apple choosing what they want to sell or other fluff. Apple has made themselves the gatekeeper of an expensive device tightly integrated into peoples' day-to-day lives, and is actively abusing that position to control individuals and profiteer egregiously by controlling what software is allowed in. It's as if the company that made your car blocked you from listening to metal or rap inside it, and took 30% of the cost of every gallon of fuel.

As an phone user, I don’t care about your app being available or not - there are three other alternatives and they all at equally good. I’m pretty sure the same situation holds for Android.

All your arguments apply equally to the US federal income tax. Try to sue the government on that and see where you end up. We all hate taxes as much as the next guy. Picking a stupid fight instead of focussing on your product will be detrimental to you and you will lose users. Just because you are part of a loud crowd doesn’t make you right or have the moral high ground.

"The erosion of web tech". LoL.

I'm sorry you can't simply sink into a comfortable Google browser monopoly because one company has managed to ship something other than Chrome. But that's no bad thing.

Google needs to be stripped of Chrome. But that's another debate.

Except Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of its markets. They don't have a monopoly in phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, music, TV, processors, none of their products dominate their market.

Of course you can try and distort the meaning of monopoly but that isn't going to get you very far.

Unlike the US, Europe doesn't require a monopoly for certain anticompetitive behaviours to be deemed illegal.

Nor does the US (if we're talking about the strictest definition of "monopoly", which rarely occurs in the private sector), but there are probably degrees of difference in what will set off regulators in the EU versus the US.

Apple Store is not a monopoly, but it is a monopsony and i really don't understand why people defends this. A monopsony is arguably worst than a monopoly.

Can you explain which market is a single buyer market (monopsony)?

Are you arguing app developers have to see their apps to Apple? Which then sells them to consumers (as a monopoly)?

They have a monopoly on iOS app stores. This is a different market than Android app stores because the set of customers is completely different.

It's like having a monopoly in California. "Just sell in New York instead" doesn't work, because you already sell in New York and not selling in California doesn't get the California customers to the New York store.

Compare this to stores that actually have competition, e.g. three grocers on the same street corner. If you don't want to sell to one of them, the customers who want your product just go across the street and buy it there. If you sell to all of them they each represent a third of your sales. If you don't want to sell to one of them, you don't actually lose all of those sales because the same customers can still buy your product from the other stores.

If you don't sell to Apple, none of those app sales go to Android because people don't replace their $1000 phone to buy a $1 app. That's what makes it a different market, which is what makes it a monopoly.

Is Mercedes a monopoly for Mercedes leather seating?

Mercedes doesn't stop you from replacing the leather, does it? Why do you need a flawed analogy to make a flawed argument? You can make a flawed argument as is.

> Is Mercedes a monopoly for Mercedes leather seating?

The key to understanding this is to realize that you're talking about two different markets, which makes your question ambiguous.

Are you asking, do they have a monopoly over the market for the Mercedes brand of leather seating? In that case the answer doesn't really matter, and I suspect this is the point you were trying to make, because the market for the Mercedes brand of leather seating is not a meaningful market definition, since there could be other seating brands that compete for the same customers.

But the analogous question to the one I'm asking is, do they have a monopoly over seating for Mercedes vehicles? That could very well be a sensible market definition, because if you need a new seat for your Mercedes, one designed for a Chevy may not fit. And then the answer depends entirely on whether they have any competitors in that market. If five different companies make seats you can put in a Mercedes, none of them have a monopoly. If Mercedes -- or another company which isn't Mercedes, if Mercedes itself doesn't make them anymore -- is the only one making seats that fit in a Mercedes, then they have a monopoly on that market.

The question is whether the customer who has a Mercedes and needs a seat can only buy it from one place.

No, you can replace the seats without violating any laws or licenses.

The way you have defined the word monopoly does not make legal or practical sense. Consider this, if Apple only ever made 100 smartphones and sold them to 100 people and had 0.00001% share of the smartphone market, no one in their right mind would consider them a monopoly or ever consider bringing an anti-trust case against them for the restrictions they impose on their own App Store.

But everything you said would still hold true:

"They have a monopoly on iOS app stores." "This is a different market than Android app stores because the set of customers is completely different."

So clearly this definition cannot be the correct way to define what is and isn't a monopoly.

>The way you have defined the word monopoly does not make legal or practical sense

Maybe not to you but it is how the anti-monopoly law work in lots of countries. Funny that you can just say "Doesn't work, NEXT!" as if you know better than Telegram's lawyers. Apple will be fined or settle.

I can't speak for every country, but in the EU I think it's likely the case will be thrown out due to the inability to prove that Apple has "substantial market power" with 25% market share.

The Commission considers that low market shares are generally a good proxy for the absence of substantial market power. The Commission's experience suggests that dominance is not likely if the undertaking's market share is below 40 % in the relevant market.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A...

You keep using their share of the phone market when we're talking about the app market. Whether the iOS app market and the Android app market are the same market has nothing to do with what percentage of the market for phone hardware each platform has.

The two are inextricably linked. Which apps are available on a phone are part of the decision of which phone you might prefer to buy.

> But everything you said would still hold true

That's because it would still be true, because the market for apps for a particular type of phone that has its own type of apps is a separate market no matter what percentage of the market for phones that type of phone represents.

In practice if the market was that small then nobody would care. It takes a certain market size before it's worth the effort of bringing a case against the monopolist. But that's a different question than whether there is one or not.

Your argument is essentially that if a small town with a population of 100 has only a single retail store within two hours drive, that store doesn't have a local monopoly because not enough people live there. But they still do. Even if they're too small for anybody to do anything about it in practice.

Apple, of course, is not that small.

> That's because it would still be true, because the market for apps for a particular type of phone that has its own type of apps is a separate market no matter what percentage of the market for phones that type of phone represents.

That's incredibly tautological. Walmart has a monopoly on the distribution of products sold in Walmarts. Nintendo has a monopoly on the distribution of games on Nintendo products. Visa has a monopoly on Visa transactions.

These are not meaningful distinctions: the consumer has a choice not to shop at Walmart, not to buy a Nintendo product, and not to use a Visa card. Similarly, the consumer has a choice not to buy an Apple product.

The types of apps available on a particular phone are part of the purchasing decision of which phone to buy, just like which games are available for a gaming console might influence which console you buy.

> These are not meaningful distinctions: the consumer has a choice not to shop at Walmart, not to buy a Nintendo product, and not to use a Visa card. Similarly, the consumer has a choice not to buy an Apple product.

A better analogy would be having a person with you all the time and told you what products you can buy or not buy from any of these stores and took a 30% either from you or the producers everytime you did.

Walmart is only a monopoly on walmart branded products sold on Walmart, for everything else you have the option to buy them somewhere else. Apple has monopoly on every single app sold on their app store, you can't buy them somewhere else without depending on the developer making a different version and forgoing the iPhone you had already bought.

I was not actually trying to make an analogy here to the overall situation, only pointing out the absurdity of determining whether a company has a monopoly based on arbitrarily restricting the definition of the market. That is not how the courts determine those things. They look at factors like market share and whether or not the consumer has access to alternative products.

> Apple has monopoly on every single app sold on their app store, you can't buy them somewhere else without depending on the developer making a different version and forgoing the iPhone you had already bought.

As I said elsewhere, both the hardware and software are part of the purchasing decision you make when you buy a phone. If you don't like the software, you can choose to buy a different phone.

> That's incredibly tautological.

It's not, because markets are defined by economics and not brands. People keep asserting over and over again that a brand is not a market, but nobody is claiming that, they just happen to coincide in this case.

What defines a market is whether there are substitutes. If you have an iPhone and need an app, and you could install an Android app on your iPhone, then iPhone apps and Android apps would be the same market. But since you can't, they're not.

Notice how this doesn't apply to random Walmart products. There may be a Walmart brand of motor oil that only Walmart sells, but you can go to Amazon and buy a different brand of motor oil and still use it in the same car. The relevant market is "motor oil of the spec that works with your car" rather than "Walmart motor oil" and Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on that.

But for the market "apps of the spec that works with your iPhone" you can only buy through Apple, so they do have a monopoly.

"If you have an Xbox and need a game, and you could install a Nintendo game on your Xbox, then Xbox games and Nintendo games would be the same market. But since you can't, they're not."

Sorry, that makes no sense. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all compete in the market of video games. They are not competing in three separate markets of "video games for Xbox", "video games for Playstations", and "video games for Nintendos". Nintendo games are substitutes for Xbox games, even though you can't take a Nintendo game and directly plug it into an Xbox.

As another commenter put it, you're gerrymandering the definition of the market to suit your argument.

> The way you have defined the word monopoly does not make legal or practical sense... if Apple only ever made 100 smartphones ...

That is precisely the point. iPhone has a market share of 45% in the US. Therefore Apple has absolute control on 45% of the US population's app provision, they are precisely a monopoly (etymology: single - provider) for that market. If 45% of the roads in the US was built by Apple and they had absolute control what cars run on it, they would still be a monopoly for all intents and purposes of why a monopoly is harmful and extractive.

Before we think "but users can buy Android too", iOS and Android are not completely fungible operating systems nor the hardware they come with. Even if they were, at best it would mean we had a duopoly instead.

I don't disagree with you here. iOS and Android definitely constitute a duopoly worldwide, and Apple's market share in the US may be high enough for anti-trust concerns to apply. The key point is the percentage market share is an important consideration in determining whether a company has a monopoly or not.

I'm only taking exception with claim that "Apple has a monopoly on iOS app stores" based on reasoning that ignores market share, because that reasoning is tautological.

Also, Telegram's complaint was filed in the EU where Apple only has 25% market share and likely would not be considered to have a monopoly.

> Before we think "but users can buy Android too", iOS and Android are not completely fungible operating systems nor the hardware they come with.

Competitors do not need to be 100% identical to be considered alternative products to each other. Xboxes, Playstations, and Nintendos have different hardware and software but they are all competing in the gaming console market.

Yes only Apple can sell it’s own products. That’s not how monopolies work.

Once sold, an Apple device is no longer the property of Apple. Maintaining exclusive access to the primary (and I'd argue only) means of purchasing software for a device they do not own is a monopoly, even if it might not have been classically considered as such.

I hope the investigation ends in telegrams favor.

Do you feel the same way about consoles? But the question remains, why buy a device that doesn’t meet your needs if there are alternatives?

Perhaps they bought the device based on the primary metric of security and privacy. But with the banning of Telegram, it turns out the potential for secure chat is insufficient on iOS. Therefore, Apple is falsely advertising themselves as a privacy-focused platform. [0]

Therefore, the legal options available to Apple are either 1) open up their platform, 2) permit Telegram to be sold on the App Store, or 3) rescind their false advertising. The ball is in the EU court.

[0] https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/14/privacy-thats-iph...

Telegram was not banned.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/telegram-messenger/id686449807

> Maintaining exclusive access to the primary (and I'd argue only) means of purchasing software for a device they do not own is a monopoly

The device is yours, the operating system is not, it has its own license and you even get regular updates of its terms. If you don't agree with them, you are free to jailbreak your device and use it at your own discretion & expense.

"There are plenty of innovations and certainly there is the tendency to use them to raise the prices for consumers (which is illegal) as opposed to grow the market."

Ouf, no, every company developers or buys technologies, which gives them competitive advantage and hence some margin.

This is not 'illegal' this is just normal business.

The App Store, however, is a different thing altogether, and there may be anti-trust issues there.

Finally - if Android was not part of Google, it's possibly they never would have seen the light of day. Android is not special. That it was free, backed by a massive company, chock full of all sorts of other services and 100's of millions in app development and R&D, promoted by the biggest software distributor in the world - is what made it 'special'. Danger was just a way for Google to move quickly into the space.

Without 'free Android' eating away at the bottom end of BlackBerry while the iPhone ate away at the top end ... we might be using iPhones and BlackBerries today.

The anti-trust case against Apple is legit, but it's also not perfectly straight forward. I hope Telegram wins, because if the EU requires Apps out of the App Store even just in Europe, I feel it would probably roil into the rest of thew world quickly enough and we can be free of that walled garden.

> Similarly, I am sure that if PASemi is spun off Apple, it may be the hottest CPU company in the world.

Who would buy their processor? Nobody.

Those people could leave now and build that startup. The valley is not known for its loyalty. Instead, ever more VLSI designers are parking themselves in the established companies.

There is a reason there have been almost no VLSI startups for 15+ years (what was the last "successful" one--Atheros?). It's a brutal business and takes multiple chunks of $100 million to succeed.

If Android were not part of Google, it wouldn't have gotten distribution just like Firefox OS. If this story is true, it amazes me that Google executives still don't understand why Android worked. It wasn't because of Andy Rubin's bumbling executive leadership.

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