I work on an e-commerce app, we were rejected because one of our screeenshots depicts a Microsoft surface. Only Apple products are allowed to be shown...
As Tim Cook said it's not all about the bloody ROI.
For example, they could require that the models depicted in app store screenshots are visibly diverse in all locales.
They could require a certain level of screen reader or even color blindness affordances.
They could require that the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the software be listed on the app store page.
Disclose which companies' telemetry software ships in the SDKs of the apps. List their UBOs.
Require apps to disclose their in-app marketing budget. I guarantee you this would correlate strongly negatively with app quality.
Many radical ideas.
Doesn't this disadvantage smaller developers from countries less diverse than the United States?
I agree that diversity is a good thing, but it's important to remember that not every developer can afford to hire models to show diversity that doesn't exist in their country.
It could even be generated with a neural network so that you don't need to find or pay models, and you can configure what physical disabilities they might have.
This is satire, right?
pours another glass of whiskey
Require apps to disclose the average amount of in-app purchases per user.
Queue up the lobbyists.
They could make virtual currencies show the real price if they were bought with real money. They could require 'free' transactions with virtual currencies to go through the same payment authentication.
They could make subscription apps require an ongoing service or value being added, aside from fixing their own bugs or trying to improve their software to attract new customers.
There are a lot of overly zealous people in all companies.
I wonder if Sony will let me put a picture of an Xbox One on my PS4 game.
It’s almost like calling Tesla a monopoly power in the automotive industry because they have >90% of the luxury EV market: you’ve already sub-divided the market so many times that the idea is weakened.
In reality, most people use Android, and even in the US about half of them still use Android.
If iOS is a monopoly then so is Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The dynamics of that market are quite similar.
Microsoft had well over a 95% marketshare during their antitrust saga.
Doing stuff like blocking competitors from your platform, blacklisting people who do business with your competition would be examples of not competing normally.
What Apple is doing is more subtle though - in general they are not using their position against Google, they are using it to force arbitrary conditions on companies seeking to do business on iOS and increase their own profits, to the detriment of end users.
I believe the ultimate test for market abuse in the US is considered something like business practices that harm other companies without benefit to the end user. If the end user gets lower prices or better value Thanks to your practices, the free market is achieving its purpose. If they are not, but one company is getting better profits, than the market is being manipulated. As a side note, this is not the same test as in the EU for example, which makes price dumping (selling below cost of production) usually ok in the US, but not in the EU.
Apple hasn’t blocked competitors. For every service that Apple charges money for, there is a competitor.
Every platform owner and reseller forces conditions on third parties - console makers, set top box sellers, physical retail stores, etc.
If what you said was any kind of reality, Apple or any other company could be accused of being a “monopoly” if they had any type of margins. Saying Apple is a monopoly because users choose to spend more is about like saying Nike is a monopoly when other shoes are cheaper.
It is not anti competitive to have a differentiator where users choose to spend more on your product than competitors.
On the other hand, if the game maker needs funding and the platform owner is willing to fund them, shouldn’t the platform owner get something?
Another example, Apple funding independent game makers for Apple Arcade means that games can come to iOS that don’t depend on loot boxes, selling consumables or ads. That also means Apple takes on the risk.
The main point is not that Apple is a monopoly on the smartphone market, the issue is the monopoly Apple has on distributing apps for the iOS platform.
When building an app access to all users is key to success. Apple artificially limits access to the users of their platform by having you jump through a dozen of hoops and an intransparent review process.
Although iOS only has a market share of around 20% (globally? more in the US), the iOS platform has a large enough audience and market size to be very relevant for investigations.
> It’s almost like calling Tesla a monopoly power in the automotive industry because they have >90% of the luxury EV market
It's really not. I can't think of a general comparison off the top of my head, but lets use Spotify and the Apple dispute as an example.
To keep the Tesla example, the situation would be more comparable if, let's say Volkswagen, would have to sell their EVs through Tesla for the north american market.
The question of whether the iOS app distribution market is, in fact, separate and valid antitrust market is not something that can simply be assumed.
This is known as a "wholly derivative aftermarket" (as the market for iOS apps would not exist independently of the market for iPhones), and US courts generally disallow antitrust aftermarkets to be defined in the context of a single brand's product unless specific criteria are met. [1]
One of the key criteria is whether or not the consumer knowingly and voluntarily agreed to the aftermarket restriction when they made their initial purchase. If they knew about the aftermarket restriction and could have bought an alternate product without such restrictions, but went ahead and bought the restricted product anyway, then the market power deriving from that restriction is not considered a valid basis for an antitrust claim.
In other words, if when consumers bought an iPhone, they knew they would be limited to installing apps from the App Store, and they went ahead and bought the iPhone anyway, it is rather unlikely that a US court would consider the "monopoly Apple has on distributing apps for the iOS platform" to be a valid antitrust market.
[1] The criteria are explained in Newcal Industries, Inc. v. IKON Office Solution (https://casetext.com/case/newcal-industries-v-ikon-office-so...). Most of the cases where single-brand aftermarkets were permitted by the court involve situations where the consumer did not know about the restriction at the time of purchase, because the company changed a policy or modified existing agreements after the purchase.
The thing to notice about this is that you're talking about the wrong market.
Suppose I want to use an unnecessarily specific product, like the 2015 Ford Focus SE Flex Fuel with 5-Speed manual transmission, and talk about the market for fuel for that vehicle. Well actually it can take regular 87 octane gasoline, which you can get at any gas station anywhere, so nobody has a monopoly on fuel for that vehicle, no matter how specific we get about the vehicle. It's totally irrelevant whether it has power windows or cruise control because they don't affect what kind of fuel you can put in it. We can specify any of those things and it doesn't help anybody to show a fuel monopoly unless the thing being specified is relevant, which most of those kind of details aren't.
Now we want to talk about apps and phones. If you have a "phone" -- the broad product definition you want to use -- then do you have competition for app stores? Now you've got a problem. You can't actually answer the question, because the answer actually does depend on what kind of phone you have. The details are relevant. That's how you know "phones" is too broad of a product definition -- it doesn't actually allow you to answer the question about app stores without being more specific about what kind of phone it is, because different phones use different app stores.
When we're talking about app stores, the relevant market is the set of customers that can use the same set of app stores as one another. And then you know it's a monopoly if the set has only one entry.
> If iOS is a monopoly then so is Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The dynamics of that market are quite similar.
The strongest argument that this isn't the case is that it's common for people to buy multiple different consoles at once, so if the customer can't get a game on one console, they could still get the same game on another one because they actually own multiple consoles at the same time. I'm not sure if I actually buy this, because a lot of people don't actually own multiple consoles, and to that extent they do have a monopoly.
But for sure hardly anybody carries multiple brands of phone in their pocket.
Apple's argument, which I tend to agree with, is that the user does have a choice of app store, which they make by buying an iPhone instead of an Android phone (or a Xiaomi phone, or a Kindle, or whatever).
The reason I agree with this is that, for me, the App Store and how it's handled is one of the big draws of the iPhone; I've heard a lot fewer stories about malicious software, re-uploaded software with malware installed, software that walks you through the process of enabling sideloading or enabling adb connections so that you can install this one thing one time, all of which users might have to deal with without necessarily understanding the repercussions of what they're doing.
So once you've purchased an iPhone you don't have a choice of App Store, but you do make that choice, arguably, when you purchase your phone. The biggest argument against this is that if you've already invested a lot into apps on the App Store, then there's not a lot of option to switch app stores, but there is still a choice that users can make.
> The strongest argument that this isn't the case is that it's common for people to buy multiple different consoles at once, so if the customer can't get a game on one console, they could still get the same game on another one because they actually own multiple consoles at the same time.
I'm not sure this is actually the case for most people. I don't think the typical person is going to spend, for example, $600 on a Playstation 5, and then decide that they don't like how Sony handles their store so they go and buy an XBox Series X for another $600 so that they can get the best of both worlds, or get access to a different store with different policies.
The problem with this is that then you have to make the choice of app store together with the choice of the entire platform including the hardware and operating system and everything. Moreover, once you make the choice, it's hard to change because there are significant transition costs, even if the apps available in the stores change.
Suppose I bought an iPhone two months ago and today I want to install Fortnite. When I bought the iPhone it was available, but how does that help me now?
Or suppose I want an iPhone exclusively so that I'm not giving my data to Google and for no other reason. Then my choice of app store is being constrained by my choice of platforms -- basically the definition of an anti-competitive restraint.
> I'm not sure this is actually the case for most people.
So then you're making the case that they do have a monopoly.
This is no different than buying an Xbox or a Playstation or Switch knowing that you will only have access to certain games on each platform. Yes, once you've bought the Xbox you're limited to Xbox-compatible games and it will cost a lot of money to switch to a Switch. But it doesn't mean you didn't have a choice.
> Or suppose I want an iPhone exclusively so that I'm not giving my data to Google and for no other reason. Then my choice of app store is being constrained by my choice of platforms -- basically the definition of an anti-competitive restraint.
Your choice being constrained by your personal preference is well outside the scope of antitrust law.
Except, as previously mentioned, you don't switch to a Switch. If you have an Xbox and then go out and buy a Switch, you still have an Xbox. At which point the stores actually have to compete with one another because you could buy a game for either one.
That isn't what people do with phones. They're not going to carry two phones around all the time, but having only one destroys the competition between stores when a given phone can only use one store.
Also notice that the cost of a game (typically $50) is a lot closer to the cost of a console (<$500) than the cost of an app (typically $1) is to the cost of the average iPhone ($800).
> Your choice being constrained by your personal preference is well outside the scope of antitrust law.
How is this not like saying that a monopoly on gasoline is fine because you're only being constrained by your "personal preference" to drive a car instead of riding a horse?
It seems to me, when you make the choice of what gaming console to buy, you take the entire ecosystem into account. When you make the choice of what phone to buy, you do the same thing. That's not an unreasonable thing to do in either case.
You're framing it as if you had no choice of what phone to buy and now you're somehow stuck with an iPhone with all these restrictions you don't like. But you did have a choice when you made the original purchase!
> Also notice that the cost of a game (typically $50) is a lot closer to the cost of a console (<$500) than the cost of an app (typically $1) is to the cost of the average iPhone ($800).
Again, not sure why this is relevant. The vast majority of apps are free anyway (in which case there is no cost to switch) and other apps may come with you because your account is separate from the app itself (Netflix, etc).
> How is this not like saying that a monopoly on gasoline is fine because you're only being constrained by your "personal preference" to drive a car instead of riding a horse?
A horse is not a "reasonably interchangeable substitute" for a car. An Xbox is a "reasonably interchangeable substitute" for a Playstation.
"We're a Duopoly, not a Monopoly" isn't a winning argument.
But that isn't true if they reject apps for arbitrary reasons, because then there are apps you can't get. Moreover, even if all the apps were available on both, the fact that they don't have to compete after device purchase means they can each charge a higher percentage as a fee, which in some cases will be passed on to the customer as higher prices and in other cases reduce the quality or quantity of available apps by starving developers of resources.
I guess Apple would argue that their policy to reject apps doesn’t hurt consumers, because, if it did increase prices and/or decrease quality and/or decrease availability of apps on iOS, why do so many consumers still buy iPhones? Maybe because having only one, vetted, store has value to them, too?
(Just to make sure: I’m not sure whether I would buy that argument, but I also don’t think it is a slam-dunk that Apple’s behavior hurts consumers, and that consumers have no choice to accept that (there’s nothing against companies giving their customers a bad deal, as long as they’re free to walk away))
Google is removing the ability to side-load apps for anybody but developers who have developer mode on.
Not only that, but side-loaded apps can't automatically upgrade, install in the background or install alongside other applications at the same time. Third party app store can't implement these features, either.
At best, Apple and Google have a duopoly on mobile application publishing and distribution, and they engage in anti-competitive behavior in that market and adjacent ones.
Besides, your argument is a red herring. From the FTC[1]:
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
Apple doesn’t have 50%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
You're right, according to your source, Apple has 52.4%. Apple also has the majority of mobile app purchases in the US, as well.
Even if they had less, companies have lost antitrust lawsuits with much less than 50% of market share.
Further more, both Apple and Google have a duopoly and are guilty of engaging in anti-competitive behavior.
Android, however, still holds the largest share of the United States smartphone operating systems’ market and has done for many years. Vendors Samsung, Motorola, and LG have all adopted Android as their mobile OS and sales of their devices make up around 50 percent of all smartphones sold in the United States. Sales of Samsung smartphones alone account for 28 percent of the sales market and this could rise in the future with studies showing their Galaxy series of devices rank highly for customer satisfaction among Americans.
Care to cite cases in the modern era? Every time someone tries to find citations, it’s always multiple companies colluding - which is always illegal.
Someone else already addressed side loading, but notice that this wouldn't be true even if Android had actual competition between stores, because it still wouldn't have every app. For example, if everyone in my family uses iMessage, I can't get it for Android, and not because Google rejected it. If I need an iPhone for iMessage, I'm stuck with Apple's store.
> I guess Apple would argue that their policy to reject apps doesn’t hurt consumers, because, if it did increase prices and/or decrease quality and/or decrease availability of apps on iOS, why do so many consumers still buy iPhones? Maybe because having only one, vetted, store has value to them, too?
Or maybe because of iMessage, or because Apple makes faster processors than Qualcomm, or because they do like Apple's store even if they would prefer to have other stores available too, or because they want iOS over Android, or because an iPhone is a status symbol with signaling value in certain business contexts, or because they originally chose an iPhone before it came out that Apple was making all these capricious app rejections and by then were already locked in to the platform, and so on.
That's the problem. When all your choices are merged into one, you can't say no to something you don't want without also saying no to two other things you actually want, which forces you to say yes to things you want to say no to.
I see this excuse all the time. So what if X, Y and Z are a monopoly? The problem isn't monopolies. You are stuck on a word that makes no difference. It is abusing your market position that is the problem. That is what got Microsoft punished and it is what Apple is doing now.
Apparently the walled garden is hugely attractive to the best customers.
Companies with a combined <50% of the marketplace have been found to violate antitrust laws as a result of price fixing (including Apple itself).
And yes, you are allowed to put pictures of competing consoles in your game and even refer to the fact that they exist. They just don't want them in the digital listing. (In contrast: Apple forbids this, and in the past has rejected apps for even mentioning that Android versions exist.)
In 1904, Standard controlled 91 percent of production and 85 percent of final sales.
Because of competition from other firms, their market share had gradually eroded to 70 percent by 1906 which was the year when the antitrust case was filed against Standard, and down to 64 percent by 1911 when Standard was ordered broken up.
I had my facts wrong though, I didn't realize that it took another 21 years after that for Standard oil to actually be broken up. That said, my point is largely more about the label of monopoly by the government than whether or not the company was broken up, so I think the argument still stands.
> the investigation has confirmed that Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all abusing their market power to the detriment of consumers
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/26/antitrust-investigation...
Windows, as a desktop OS, generally allows you to do whatever you want with it, and does not "abuse" its position to prevent competitors from being install on the computer, for example.
If windows only allowed you to buy from certain app stores, that would be illegal.
Microsoft got nailed for bundling Internet Explorer in with Windows and not allowing licensees (OEMs) to preinstall Netscape, even though nothing prevented users from installing the software after the fact.
> If windows only allowed you to buy from certain app stores, that would be illegal.
Isn't this the case for Windows RT, or is that dead already?
IDK about RT but IIRC this is the main distinguishing factor of 10S
This was actually overturned during the appeal. Whether the act of bundling IE with Windows would have been itself an antitrust violation was ultimately never decided by the courts. (The OEM stuff and other actions by Microsoft were ruled to be antitrust violations, however.)
Umm, yeah, but Apple has this policy on their phones permanently, and I haven’t seen any regulation against that yet.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. "
Are you straight up denying the government link that I posted to you?.
> Maybe HN posters aren’t lawyers?
I have posted direct links to government information here.
If you are going to claim that the FTC website is lying to everyone, then I am not sure what to tell you. You are too far lost to ever be convinced of anything.
This is the FTC website. They are the government. They are the experts. They decide what is right or wrong. They are the primary source here!
The only opinion that matters here is the government's, as they are the ones who enforce the law!
I think that I am going to listen to the opinion of the government lawyers, over the opinion of someone who is straight up denying the government approved information that I posted.
It is your opinion that the FTC summary of the law applies to Apple or a case like Apple’s unless you can find another actual real world case where a similar situation resulted in government action.
No, an antitrust case where two players collided isn’t the same thing.
It is my opinion that you seem to be dismissing well accepted information about the law, that is available on government websites, and that is uncontroversial among the experts.
The information that is well accepted, and available, from the government, is that you do not need to be a literal singular firm, in order to be subject to section 2 of the sherman anti-trust act.
Instead, only having significant market power is enough to be subject to it.
This is an uncontroversial statement.
Please do not rephase my argument to be anything other than what I just said here.
> No, an antitrust case where two players collided isn’t the same thing.
The government link that I posted, is in reference to section 2 of the sherman anti-trust act, which is regarding market power that a company has.
I am not really sure what to tell you, if you are going to deny the well accepted, and completely uncontroversial opinion among experts, and the government, that is that you do not need to be a singular, literal monopoly, in order for section 2 of the sherman anti-trust act to apply.
If it were that easy, why wasn’t Apple or any of the console makers convicted decades ago?
Would you say someone was an expert developer based on citation from w3schools?
If it is not “controversial” where is the case law?
Can you find one relevant case where an actual judge or jury interpreted the law as you said?
Where did you get your law degree from? Where did you argue your case in court?
If you can find where a lawyer actually won a case in court based on your interpretation, I have nothing left to say.
Let me quote you again.
"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. "
So, to be 100% perfectly clear, are you denying the truth of this statement that was released by the government?
I can't help you, if you are going to say that this statement, that is released by the government is false.
> based on your interpretation
The only thing that I am doing at this point is quoting the information released by the freaking US government, which it kind of seems like you are denying? Which is absolutely insane.
Would you trust a summary of internet protocols when implementing the standard to make sure you are compliant or would you go to the actual RFC?
Do you think actual “lawyers” try to argue a case based on a summary and not cite the actual law, relevant precedent, etc?
If that were the case, we wouldn’t need silly things like “trials”,”lawyers”,”judgements”, etc
As long as you do not deny the truth of the following statement: "Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors."
Which was the original point of all of this that I was making, then thats awesome! I am glad that you don't deny the truth of it.
As long as you are not denying the truth of that statement, then that is good enough for me!
I wish people would stop conflating Apple as a monopoly - their have their own platform (one of many widely available) and many people choose to use it.
Do I agree with all their App Store behaviours? Obviously not, but it doesn't make them a monopoly. They're not 'abusing' their power - the App Store has always been this way. It's a way of delivering sand boxed apps that fit guidelines.
Apple aren't going to stop you downloading an app off the internet and running it on your mac anytime soon.
In my view, phones are general purpose computers. Apple also takes this view, which is the reason they have opened up a software marketplace on their devices.
Just like with Amazon, there are thousands of companies whose revenue depends almost exclusively on their ability to compete in the marketplace set up by Apple. In this scenario, both Apple and Amazon are notorious for abusing their control of the marketplace to disadvantage third-party sellers in favor of first-party products / hardware / software.
If a phone is NOT a general purpose computer, then Apple should disband the app store and only allow first-party apps to run. If a phone IS a general purpose computer, then Apple has an obligation to treat participants in the marketplace fairly, either by relaxing the app review process, or by allowing third-party marketplaces. They cannot have it both ways.
Legally speaking, Apple may not need to change anything. However, I'm talking about how things SHOULD be, not how they ARE.
Apple doesn't seem to care, because they get their 30% regardless of how the other 70% of the revenue is distributed.
But I have made a very good contracting rate and very high salaries for iOS development directly because of that $35B. Your own app company doesn’t have to be a winner, when the winners need a massive number of developers and have such a fountain of cash to pay them with.
I agree that the walled garden tends to create a few huge winners among App Store developers, and mostly losers among the other App Store developers. I don't think this situation is healthy, even if the few winners need a lot of engineers.
But you see the same distribution in music, books, podcasts, etc.
The App Store being only open to apples approval is what makes the platform what it is.
In an ideal world we’d be able to side load apps natively, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me - I can always jailbreak.
App Stores on phones should be held to different standards to those on PCs, I feel.
It's not a monopoly, it's an abuse of market power, which does not require monopoly status but which is still forbidden by antitrust laws. It doesn't matter that they've always done it this way, because the antitrust laws have existed for longer than Apple has.
And many of Apple's arbitrary decisions have no basis in security or ensuring family-friendly products. They exist simply to maintain or bolster Apple's market position.
Of course these decisions are made to bolster Apples market position - however, the important point here is that they do it through making great products. That’s always been the Apple priority. They’ve been making top of the line products consistently for two decades. These decisions bolster the products and ergo bolster market conditions.
Making products the consumer is satisfied with is not anti consumer behaviour. What else can you ask for from a purchase?
The app store is just another version of the gig economy, and Apple is stomping around it like a typical tyrannical boss.
Of course that is anti-consumer behaviour. It means Apple lacks a professional and credible relationship with its developers, and that clearly lowers the quality, the variety, and the accessibility of the apps for sale in the store.
??? That's some powerful kool-aid. The issue is not that Apple makes shiny-looking products that many people like, and the quality of Apple's physical products is not a defense to their actions in other markets.
The issue is that Apple is abusing it's market position derived from the sale of those shiny products to bolster its market position in other markets like mobile apps, SaaS (see, e.g., Spotify vs Apple Music). That is what is illegal.
Apple make the best in class devices within its markets, the iPod, then the iPhone & iPad and of course the Mac.
Yes - the Mac is subjective & anyone who uses anything else - props to you, I don’t have any beef with people who choose Linux or Windows.
But the reason I choose Apple is because their product and software ecosystem the one I love the most out of any big player.
BSD foundation, unix terminal, fantastic video, photo and especially audio drivers on macOS, and I like the iOS ecosystem.
You can sync the first ever iPod to the same music library, using the same interface on either a 2007 iMac or a brand new MacBook as a brand new iPod touch. Supporting a product for that long, at such quality is not anti consumer. Try that with a zune on windows 10. Apple cares about the quality of its products (hardware and software) in so many ways that benefit an end user.
Let’s not forget (in terms of Spotify vs Apple) that Apple revolutionised the music industry with iPod and iTunes - I believe that Apple wants to release software, devices and services that benefit the consumer.
You may disagree, but that’s ok. Telling me I’m drinking kook-aid isn’t constructive. And to be honest, we’d probably agree on 90% of your pain with Apple. But this trend of other major and super dubious companies trying to paint them as a ‘bag guy’ in the industry is absolutely ridiculous. Microsoft? Google? Facebook? Epic?
That’s three hefty anti consumer companies there; tracking, ads, micro transactions, pc exclusives - I wonder why they’d be challenging a super profitable competitor that’s about to start shipping it’s own CPUs on the Mac, essentially challenging the PCs hardware ecosystem on performance as well as the software. Especially one who is implementing user opt-out for data harvesting on its next mobile OS.
Sounds like you’re a bit conflicted. I also chose an Apple phone and tablet because they seemed like the best choice available at the time, despite being part of the Apple “ecosystem” which prevents these devices from interoperating with my non-Apple devices.
I wish people would stop trying to defend Apple without getting the facts right. If something "has always been this way" that doesn't make it right, especially if you are engaging in anti-competitive behaviour which the App Store is a perfect example (Apple is the Judge, Jury and Executioner).
We are lucky Apple was near bankruptcy (although my personal belief is that we were not lucky enough since it still exists) when the Internet was growing, otherwise I have no doubt we would today have "select" websites which Apple approves and takes it's mafia tax. Want to show your blog over Safari to iOS users? Give us 30% or otherwise GTFO.
Why not?
An app might be crossplatform and the screenshot might be featuring these capabilities with Android or Windows.
The problem is not one of monopolies - the problem is that a set of private companies - including Apple - control critical digital infrastructure. This digital infrastructure is required by almost all other companies and people to function, yet it is in private hands, and they can do with it as they please.
Imagine if all roads were owned by a small number of private companies, and you would need their permission to use the roads. That is what is happening in the digital world right now.
A firm being a "monopoly" is not a requirement under US antitrust law. A concentration of market power is, and Apple + Google absolutely have it.
The same can't be said about Google or Amazon.
Anti-competitive behavior is to assault as a monopoly is to murder. One often leads to the other, but they are both harmful. We don't generally let people run around assaulting people and say "well they aren't murdering people, so let's leave them alone".
Apple is clearly exhibiting Anti-competitive behavior, and in a way that distorts the market. The whole reason we have laws about monopolies is because we identified the Anti-competitive behavior and labeled that specific type as a monopoly. A monopoly is only a problem in that it can easily affect the market as a whole through Anti-competitive actions. Apple can do so even though they aren't a monopoly as we've defined it. Why shouldn't we legislate to reduce the harms they are committing as well?
I see this desire here to apply existing terms to the situation - but I feel they are not applicable. Apple and Google are not exhibiting anti-competitive behavior when they moderate the marketplace. They are not competing. What Apple product is competing with a random app they reject on the marketplace for a random reason?
It is not a question of competition. The problem is that Apple and Google are in control and gatekeep the marketplace in the first place. They control the critical digital infrastructure that other companies build their products on, and if they decide that they don't like you you are out of luck and might as well give up your business. That is where the harm comes from.
Private companies should not control critical digital infrastructure, just like private companies should not control critical physical infrastructure.
It's not the moderation, it's the moderation combined with effectively gating the ability to run a competing marketplace.
Apple does this through linking all the components of the stack, their store requires their OS which requires their hardware, and their hardware requires their OS which requires their store. You can't compete on any single level because the whole paltform is a monolith.
Google does it slightly differently, but almost as effectively. They don't really care about the hardware, but they've moved portions of the OS to things that are distributed through their store. You can't completely remove the Play store without crippling a lot of OS features.
> They are not competing. What Apple product is competing with a random app they reject on the marketplace for a random reason?
Anti0copetitive behavior doesn't require they compete specifically, just that they prevent competition. But if you want a simple example, a web browser. You can't ship a competitive web browser because you're forced to use their core, for multiple reasons (can't JIT because of memory restrictions, but at a more fundamental level because you can't release an interpreter, which JavaScript engines are).
> It is not a question of competition. ... if they decide that they don't like you you are out of luck and might as well give up your business. That is where the harm comes from.
That's preventing others from competing. That's exactly the problem. Competition is a core attribute of our economic model, and preventing it causes that model to not work correctly. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, they're bad because they allow anti-competitive behavior to be exerted easily. Anti-trust laws exist not because we don't like companies making deals with each other, but because when those deals are anti-competitive, it goes against the economic model we have in place, and the public is harmed.
> Private companies should not control critical digital infrastructure, just like private companies should not control critical physical infrastructure.
That's true, and that doesn't require a monopoly to have happen. I think it's a weaker case though, since I don't think Apple or Android are really providing critical digital infrastructure, and if you do think of a mobile device (and software delivery on it) as critical infrastructure, then there is choice (that is, the complete failure of one allows a different systems to be used). I think of consumer harm a bit differently when considering critical paths, as that assumes a whole new platform/stack might be required depending on where the break is. That's not a strong conviction though, so maybe you're convince me otherwise.
> Apple does this through linking all the components of the stack, their store requires their OS which requires their hardware, and their hardware requires their OS which requires their store. You can't compete on any single level because the whole paltform is a monolith.
I think this focus on Apple is missing the forest for the trees. For all but multi-billion dollar companies, Android is effectively no different from Apple, and they allow everything that Apple does not in this regard.
If Apple enables third party stores on iOS after this lawsuit, nothing will change for any of the small app store developers. The App Store will remain the place where >95% of the people get their apps. The same exact situation will apply: either get on the App store, or don't earn any money from your app and your business is doomed.
The only ones that will benefit from this change are the multi-billion dollar companies that have enough brand recognition to start a competing store. Then people will begrudgingly download the "Facebook store" to download the "Facebook app", and they will download the "Epic store" to download "Fortnite. For anything else, they will stick to the App Store.
The core problem is that most users do not want to use different digital stores. This is evident on other platforms where users have total freedom in choosing which store to use, yet they still end up flocking to the same store. For PC gaming, for example, everybody effectively uses Steam, and most people simply don't buy games that are not on Steam. The exception to this are large companies that have the brand-recognition to start their own store (Epic, Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, etc...). All smaller companies still rely on a single private company (Valve) to allow them on their store, or suffer a huge penalty in their income.
I think regulating the App/Play/etc stores themselves would be more beneficial, preferably modifying them to be based on open protocols without having an unnecessary middle-man take a 30% cut. I would like to see all these closed platforms opened up. That would be beneficial to all developers and all consumers.
I fear that if the result of this lawsuit is only that competing stores will be allowed on iOS nothing meaningful will change. It will be beneficial only to large multi-billion dollar companies, while effectively changing nothing for small developers and having a small negative effect for consumers.
I don't think so. A lot of very major name apps will likely immediately jump ship to a new store, or even band together to create the new store. If there's a different store you have to install to get Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Movies/Music, etc, that has much more favorable rates, then some developers will jump to it. Not all business models can even survive if Apple takes 30%. If Apple lowered its fees eventually because of that, which I think they would, then you're seeing exactly what harm their behavior was causing.
> The core problem is that most users do not want to use different digital stores.
That's yet to be seen on mobile, since users effectively don't have a choice.
> For PC gaming, for example, everybody effectively uses Steam, and most people simply don't buy games that are not on Steam.
This is rapidly changing with (surprise) the Epic Games Store. They're giving much better cuts of sales, and also heavily subsidizing/advertising to get people in (there's a free game every week). IIRC, they also have some (timed?) exclusives that aren't Epic developed. The weight behind Steam is great, and I don't necessarily want another place to look for games I've bought (I also have a bunch in GOG), but I think the competition is very healthy. It actually caused Steam to change the revenue cut from a flat 30% to 25% after the first $10 million, and 20% after $50 million. Epic Games Store charges 12%.
> All smaller companies still rely on a single private company (Valve) to allow them on their store, or suffer a huge penalty in their income.
Less true as every month goes on. There's a lot of independent sellers on the Epic Games Store now. Keep in mind, if you play Fortnite, you have the Epic Games Store. At 250 million players across all platforms, that's a large player base of both PC and mobile users. It's obvious why they're pushing a store, and that's because they are in the somewhat unique position to immediately be able to capitalize on it. If they offered the same 12% cut they do on PC to Apple's 30%, I could see a lot of game developers jumping platforms. Especially the developers that already have PC games so have a relationship.
> I think regulating the App/Play/etc stores themselves would be more beneficial, preferably modifying them to be based on open protocols without having an unnecessary middle-man take a 30% cut. I would like to see all these closed platforms opened up. That would be beneficial to all developers and all consumers.
Someone has to run the platform these are discoverable and distributed through, and they're going to want money to do so. A store vetting what is sold has real benefit. Just look at how crappy a job Amazon has been doing because they held the position that they weren't responsible for what was sold. That's likely to change real quick now that Amazon is required to handle returns for products sold through misinformation (just like every other physical department store).
> I fear that if the result of this lawsuit is only that competing stores will be allowed on iOS nothing meaningful will change. It will be beneficial only to large multi-billion dollar companies, while effectively changing nothing for small developers and having a small negative effect for consumers.
Even if it's large multi-billion dollar companies, that can mean real and immediate change for users and developers. Competition means that they'll naturally try to draw more customers (as that's one of the way they make their millions), so they'll do what they can to draw inventory and people.
Put another way, do you really think Walmart and Target would be quite as cheap as they are if they didn't have to compete with each other, and operated in a vacuum? They'd only have to be a slightly cheaper that the local department stores while being more convenient because they have more stuff. Instead, Target has to compete with Walmart, which is usually really low.
And you don’t even charge monthly rent, instead you ask for a 30% share of sales. That never stopped any retailer, all the best sign up in droves. Your location/strategy is so successful you become the highest grossing mall in the country, and your retailers make substantially more in your mall than any other. Retailers grumble about the 30%, but still spend more building their stores in your mall than anywhere else and you have more tenants than any other mall. They very rarely leave because it’s so profitable being your tenant.
But after over a decade of being the best place in retail for retailers, you discover some of your retailers are taking customer orders in the mall, but delivering to their homes and billing online, so they don’t have to pay you 30%, or contribute anything for maintenance, security, or the value of being in your mall.
So you shut down anyone you catch, and kick them out. Now they claim that being held to their leases is “anti-competitive“, and demand a portion of the mall be set aside for direct sales with no revenue share to give customers a choice. Those direct sales will benefit from the experience you built, but again will contribute zero to maintain it. In fact they will bring in retailers that will actively undercut its security and make the purchasing experience worse.
So what aspects of this are truly anticompetitive?
The aspects of Apple's behavior are that they use their control of a large percentage of the US market to take actions against competitors.
Your example that you gave, would not be illegally anti-competitive, because a single mall is a small market.
If, instead, in the example you gave, the mall owner, owned half of all retail space, within a 100 mile radius (and a singular other competitor controlled the other half of all retail space within 100 miles), then the courts would absolutely call the behavior anti-competitive.
And before you say it, yes Apple is not a literal monopoly, but that does not matter. Apple is 1 half of a duopoly in the US, and that is bad enough, that their anti-competitive behavior should be regulated.
In the US, if a company has a large amount of market power, even if they are not a literal monopoly, then certain anti-competitive behavior becomes illegal.
And Google doesn’t control 100% of Android, there are alternate app stores available. So your analogy fails at multiple levels.
The Apple Mall succeeded because it’s a better customer experience, why should that be illegal, and why shouldn’t Apple benefit from their foresight and efforts?
The App Store is so big because Apple made it the best App Store. Every attribute of their walled garden contributes to its value, not just for Apple, but for developers and customers.
Apple has about 15% of phone sales. It’s developers make more than half the entire mobile app market revenues. How is Apples behavior hurting them?
I never said that getting 50% of the market, on its own, is anti-competitive.
Instead, what is anti-competive, is once you have a large amount of market power, such as 50%, it now becomes illegal to use anti-competitive practices to keep out competitors.
> No way a successful mall ..... merely for being successful.
I never said this. Instead, what I am saying is that using large amounts of market power, to keep out competitors, is anti-competitive.
> The App Store is so big because Apple made it the best App Store.
It doesn't matter if you got to 50% of the market through being good. It is still illegal to use large amounts of market power to keep out competitors.
> Apple has about 15% of phone sales.
Apple has 50% of the market in the USA. And the lawsuits are happening in the USA, so thats all that matters.
> How is Apples behavior hurting them?
It is hurting competing app stores from entering the market, because of Apple's actions that make it very difficult for competing app stores to be installed.
> why shouldn’t Apple benefit from their foresight and efforts?
They can benefit. They just shouldn't be allowed to use their large amount of market power to keep out competitors, because that is anti-competitive.
In this case it’s clearly not anticompetitive when forcing them to allow alternate app stores would be both anti-consumer and anti-developer.
Well, that is a pretty anti-competitive practice. So, actually, it seems like they might have an obligation to do this.
> It’s never been a feature they promised customer
It doesn't matter. It is still anti-competitive. And in the USA anti-competitive practices are illegal in the US, if a company with a large amount of market share is engaging in them.
> It’s not anticompetitive to refuse to build access to your property for new competitors.
It actually is! The courts have already proved this to be the case. Microsoft lost their court case because of a very similar situation.
I would really recommend that you go read up on similar anti competitive case, such as the Microsoft one, to learn the court justifications for this stuff. It is pretty enlightening.
> it’s not wanted by most app developers.
"Customers don't want competition" is not an argument that any court would accept. It is assumed to be true, automatically, that competition is a good thing.
And the judge residing over this case, actually made similar statements, in the preliminary hearing that I listened to, where she talked about how competition is a good thing, as a justification that the courts use.
Microsoft Windows had over 90% of the entire personal computer operating system market, which was clearly a de facto monopoly position. The antitrust element was them leveraging that monopoly to give them an ostensibly unfair advantage in the browser market. There was no "gatekeeping" aspect involved; it was about whether bundling application software with the OS to undermine commercial competition was fair.
Apple's case is very different. They have much less than 90% of the mobile phone operating system market, but they control access to 100% of the application market for iOS devices. This isn't about bundling, like Microsoft's case was, nor did Microsoft act as a gatekeeper for Windows. The closest precedents are game consoles, but those don't seem to offer a lot of guidance here in terms of case law -- although Apple's very likely to draw the comparison, e.g., Sony has a "monopoly" on downloadable applications for all PlayStations. Consumers know that limitation when they buy either a PlayStation or an iPhone, and see it as a feature, not a bug. In a lot of ways, the ultimate argument here is whether a device manufacturer can or should be legally forced to treat their devices more like general purpose computing devices than like consoles. And that's not like Microsoft at all. This is a fundamentally different question.
(The sort of ironic footnote in drawing a comparison to the Microsoft case is that while bundling IE with Windows killed Netscape's commercial prospects and it was certainly done with malice aforethought, it was also fundamentally the right call. Applications that achieve such amazing runaway success that their functionality quickly becomes essential to everyone are almost certain to be bundled into either the operating system or a suite that everyone has.)
There are whole industries built on iOS now, which was also true then, but due to the much more limited hardware landscape and single means of installing software, this now plays differently with competition than just browser bundling.
I don't think whether Apple is using monopoly power is the appropriate focus here; they can be anti-competitive without being a monopoly, and due to the fact that they control >1 billion users and control their hardware, there's a fair question to ask about this anti-competitive behavior.
It's also worth noting this was never actually ruled to be illegal. The appeals court remanded the question back to the district court for further analysis under the rule of reason, but that never actually happened as the case was eventually settled. Under the rule of reason, Microsoft would have been able to argue that it had legitimate justification for bundling a browser with Windows, and then it would have been up to the DOJ to argue that the anticompetitive effect of the bundling outweighed the justification given. I think Microsoft would have had a relatively strong argument there, as an operating system that shipped without a web browser (or media player, for that matter) would have been, in fact, less useful to the consumer.
Customers want the best possible products, forcing Apple to make their product worse, with worse security, a worse purchase experience, robs customers of an important choice.
Judges do make terrible rulings all the time. Like the Apple e-books case, where trying to ensure a level playing field was deemed “anti-competitive”, leading to Amazon to significantly grow market share and establishing an unassailable monopoly position since the ruling.
The difference is that in the real world, there is more property.
In the digital world, there isn't, unless you count Android -- and the problem with that is you run into the "Well why don't the company men just leave the company town, then?" It's the "let them eat cake!" argument and it doesn't go over well.
Once again, the government does not require a literal monopoly for behavior to be anti-competitive. 50% of a market in the US could absolutely be enough to count as significant market power.
The situations are pretty similar, because your argument about 90% is not what the courts care about. The courts care about market power, not necessarily a literal monopoly.
> Judges do make terrible rulings all the time
I mean, if you don't care about the courts system or the law, then I don't know what to tell you. Your opinion on it doesn't particularly matter, because the courts are the ones in charge of this, and the courts are the ones who make the decision here.
> Like the Apple e-books case
Well, too bad for Apple. The law is the law, and the court system is the court system.
Personally, I only talk about what the courts do. I don't really care about someone's opinion if the courts disagree with them. Because the courts and the judges are the ones that make the decision here. They decide.
And everything that I have said is within this context of what courts and judges have done in the past.
To be clear, whether the court cares about monopoly power or not depends on what type of claim you are making.
Section 1 of the Sherman Act deals with conspiracy and unreasonable restraints of trade and may not require establishing any market power at all. Some actions such as price fixing and bid rigging are considered per se illegal regardless of market power. Other actions (such as tying) require an analysis of market power, but not necessarily monopoly power.
Section 2 of the Sherman Act deals with monopolization and claims made under section 2 will require establishing monopoly power (or likelihood of achieving monopoly power, for attempted monopolization claims).
In the context of the Microsoft case, the 90% market share was indeed relevant to the court because several of the claims were brought under section 2, specifically having to do with Microsoft's unlawful attempts to maintain their operating system monopoly.
"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power"
This is what I mean by that.
This applies to Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and the link that I posted mentions this. I do not mean what you are trying to say, which is that one section does not require a literal monopoly, and another does.
Instead, I am saying, that explicitly, for Section 2 of the Sherman Act, "monopoly" does not mean a singular firm, and the colloquial definition of that, is incorrect.
Instead, it only requires significant market power.
> will require establishing monopoly power
"Monopoly power" can absolutely exist in the case of a company having 50% of the market. This is what that government statement means.
iPhones currently have around 45% market share in the US: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236550/percentage-of-us-...
Whether monopoly power will be found in this situation will be up to a court and it's far from a slam dunk.
For a more detailed examination of the factors involved in determining monopoly power please see this article: https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
Yes... But it is very much not true that a court requires a literal monopoly in order for them to find behaviors to be anti-competitive. All that needs to happen is for a company to have significant market power.
So it is not a literal monopoly. Instead, it it having significant market power. And in the US, as of last month, if you are keeping up with the most recent data regarding market share, Apple has about 50% of the US market.
> iPhones currently have around 45%
Your data is about 6 months out of date. it is now around 50%. It is very much a defendable argument, that has a reasonable chance of standing up in court, that Apple, who has about half the market, in what is effectively a 2 player duopoly, could have significant market power.
That is a pretty reasonable argument, that has a real, non-negligible, possibility of standing up in court.
If by literal monopoly you mean a single firm that controls 100% of the market, then we don't disagree, as I never suggested that was required. However, proving a section 2 monopolization claim does require proving the existence of monopoly power.
A company is considered to have monopoly power when it has a significant degree of market power. A literal monopoly is not required, however courts have typically not found monopoly power when market share is below 50% either.
> And in the US, as of last month, if you are keeping up with the most recent data regarding market share, Apple has about 50% of the US market.
Can you cite a specific source? I've seen all sorts of different numbers but some seem to be based on web browser usage or device shipments which is not quite the same as active users.
> That is a pretty reasonable argument, that has a real, non-negligible, possibility of standing up in court.
While I certainly think it's possible, the case becomes a lot easier if the company has 90% market share (as Microsoft did) compared to 50% market share.
In other words, I find the comparison to the Microsoft case lacking because with 90% market share it was more or less accepted by both sides that Microsoft held monopoly power in the operating system market, whereas in this situation it's much more debatable. To quote from my previous link:
In determining whether a competitor possesses monopoly power in a relevant market, courts typically begin by looking at the firm's market share.(18) Although the courts "have not yet identified a precise level at which monopoly power will be inferred,"(19) they have demanded a dominant market share. Discussions of the requisite market share for monopoly power commonly begin with Judge Hand's statement in United States v. Aluminum Co. of America that a market share of ninety percent "is enough to constitute a monopoly; it is doubtful whether sixty or sixty-four percent would be enough; and certainly thirty-three per cent is not."(20) The Supreme Court quickly endorsed Judge Hand's approach in American Tobacco Co. v. United States.(21)
Following Alcoa and American Tobacco, courts typically have required a dominant market share before inferring the existence of monopoly power. The Fifth Circuit observed that "monopolization is rarely found when the defendant's share of the relevant market is below 70%."(22) Similarly, the Tenth Circuit noted that to establish "monopoly power, lower courts generally require a minimum market share of between 70% and 80%."(23) Likewise, the Third Circuit stated that "a share significantly larger than 55% has been required to establish prima facie market power"(24) and held that a market share between seventy-five percent and eighty percent of sales is "more than adequate to establish a prima facie case of power."(25)
It is also important to consider the share levels that have been held insufficient to allow courts to conclude that a defendant possesses monopoly power. The Eleventh Circuit held that a "market share at or less than 50% is inadequate as a matter of law to constitute monopoly power."(26) The Seventh Circuit observed that "[f]ifty percent is below any accepted benchmark for inferring monopoly power from market share."(27) A treatise agrees, contending that "it would be rare indeed to find that a firm with half of a market could individually control price over any significant period."(28)
In other words, 50% is near the bottom of the range, and is going to be hotly contested.
And the courts have yet to interpret what is illegal in the same manner that HN “lawyers” do....
In similar cases, they absolutely have talking about what is illegal, regarding anti-competitive behavior.
I would encourage you to read up on similar cases, in order to see what courts have said on the matter.
And the courts have said that it does not require a literal, singular monopoly in order for anti-competitive behavior to be illegal.
All that has to happen is for a company to have significant market share, for anti-competitive behavior to be illegal.
There is a reason why HN lawyers get all hand wavy when asked to come up with similar examples.
Yet and still console makers have been doing just this for 30 years.
Yes physical games still have to be approved by the console makers and the practice has not been eliminated.
Which is more likely, companies have been breaking the law for years or HNs understanding of the law is flawed?
It is well accepted in anti-competition law, that the size of the market and market share matters greatly in determining whether certain behavior is illegal.
The larger the market share that a company has, and the larger the market, the more likely the anti-competitive behavior is to be illegal.
So, in the case of consoles, consoles have a smaller market and market share than Apple does.
Apple is now a 2 trillion dollar company, and has about 50% of the phone market share, in the US, as of last month.
They have significantly more control over a significantly larger market than consoles. Thus their behavior is much worse and much more likely to be illegal than that of consoles.
> Which is more likely, companies have been breaking the law for years or HNs understanding of the law is flawed?
Whats more likely is that you have not read any actual court cases or judicial decisions on the matter, to be frank.
The stuff that I states is pretty well accepted among the experts.
And it seems like none of the “experts” have won anymore cases in court where one company that didn’t have overwhelming share was convicted of anti trust than anyone posting on HN.
Then the Apple mall is taking 30% and someone says they want to set up their own mall somewhere else. It's a completely separate "mall" -- apps hosted on different servers with different payment processing etc. But then Apple says not only that nobody who shops in their mall can go shop in any other mall too, but also that nobody who lives in a house they built can either. How is that not anti-competitive?
And it has a great mall that helps Apple keep the village secure. The merchants make a great deal of money, which ensures you don’t lack for choice and quality. And you are happy to shop there because Apple vets the merchants, and handles the purchase system, so it’s easy for you to get refunds and deal with subscriptions.
There are other malls, but not on Apple Village property,they are really hard to get to and Apple doesn’t help you get there. But you knew this because it hadn’t changed for 13 years.
So why should Apple be forced to build an expressway on their property to make it easy for you to shop at these other malls? They never promised you that yet you moved to Apple Village all the same.
And they have good reasons not to. Not only does it reduce safety and security for Apple Village residents, they just got easier to scam. Potential new Apple Village residents will be less likely to move in. Apples best merchant partners will lose customers and money.
"If you don't like it then leave." Is that supposed to be a real solution? What if you have just as many issues with the other remaining superpower?
Competition is supposed to be constraining abuse. That doesn't work if to compete on apps you have to be able to develop your own phone platform and convince your entire app customer base to switch to it.
If you don’t like it, buy something else. Don’t expect the platform to be made worse to fit your specific needs, when they clearly don’t match up to the overwhelming choices of customers.
If you want Apple hardware or iOS but not their app store, it's not available. If your whole family uses iMessage then you need an iPhone even if you don't want any of the rest of it. The fact that many people then buy an iPhone and use the App Store regardless is not evidence that they want it this way, it's the harm that forcing it to be this way is inflicting on them.
It doesn't even prove that there are enough such people to fill a single telephone booth. They could make a billion sales and every one of them could be people who don't want to be tied to Apple's store but grin and bear it because they want iOS or Apple hardware more, or because they think Google is worse.
When they don't have the choice to get one without the other, people buying both doesn't prove that they want both, only that the thing they actually want isn't a choice they have. To prove what they actually want you'd have to give them the option to have that.
> Why should they be deprived of the benefits of the walled garden just because you don’t like it?
Why should the people who don't want it have it forced on them?
If you want Apple hardware with iOS and to buy all your apps from Apple's store, why can't you choose that without forcing all the people who don't want that into an all or nothing choice between every one of those things and not a single one of them?
Allowing the residents of "Apple Village" to go to another mall to shop does not in any way affect the other residents.
Nobody is arguing for Apple to be "forced to build an expressway", but for them to not put up fences locking their resident in unless they decide to move away entirely.
When one ends up arguing in favour of authoritarianism, albeit fictional, to defend Apple's behaviour, it really drives things home.
None of what you said is anti-competitive since you left out the anti-competitive part of the story.
The only mall that is allowed is that one single mall. You are not allowed to start your own mall and since there are no other malls you cannot move to another one. You are basically stuck putting your store in that mall or not having a store at all.
While it is possible to move to another city people have grown accustomed to the city they live in. There could be certain amenities that are not available in that other city (imessage being the biggest one. Some people get less messages since they have a different color bubble if they are not on imessage.).
People may want to vote for different / changed restrictions on malls but they realize the city they moved to is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship. The person who owns the mall also makes all the laws and they won't allow you to start your own mall since it would cut into their profits. They make the claim it is about your security. If somebody starts their own mall they won't be able to ensure you won't get mugged. Instead of letting you take a chance in a new mall they just ban their competitors outright.
> But after over a decade of being the best place in retail for retailers, you discover some of your retailers are taking customer orders in the mall, but delivering to their homes and billing online, so they don’t have to pay you 30%, or contribute anything for maintenance, security, or the value of being in your mall.
Apple can do whatever they want in their mall. This is about them preventing people from going to other malls. Let them enforce whatever they want for the retailers thatn want in their mall, as long as the same customers cane be served elsewhere.
Apple's doing the whole company store in the company town trick, except they've figured out that if the town is also separated by a hundred miles of company road that they can control, that makes it even harder for people to get out of the trap. You can argue all you want that it's okay that Apple takes 30% of the profit on any picks sold, and that the benefits they provide to keep their people safe is just that worth it, and that they've worked hard to provide a save environment by keeping everyone else a hundred miles away through their private roads, but we've seen this story before.
What makes Apple different in this case? Because people can just move to Android? Company town workers could have just left for different companies too.
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/average-percentage-commercial-...
What do you think a call to write legislation is for?
> We need to stop looking at what the courts decide
The purpose of courts is to interpret the legislation passed by our representatives. The purpose of legislation is to enact the will of the people as interpreted by their representatives and the existing constitution.
If we didn't didn't follow this path, there would be no such thing as anti-trust law - it didn't come from the founders, the harm of anti-competitive behavior was identified and legislated against in the late 1800's - so why shouldn't we identify new forms of anti-competitive behavior that causes harm and do the same?
The purpose of the legislation is to enact the will of the states. The Senate doesn’t represent the “people”. It represents the states. Each state regardless of population has 2 senators. Meaning that 46% of the Senators represent less than 25% of the population.
A powerful government can do much more harm than a corporation. There isn’t a single corporation in America that has the coercive power if the government.
Senators are elected by the people of those states.
> Each state regardless of population has 2 senators. Meaning that 46% of the Senators represent less than 25% of the population.
It's not a direct proportional representation. That's what congress is.
> The purpose of the legislation is to enact the will of the states.
Congress also makes legislation.
> A powerful government can do much more harm than a corporation. There isn’t a single corporation in America that has the coercive power if the government.
Thankfully.
How did that whole impeachment thing work earlier this year? Wasn’t it stopped because a disproportionate number of Senators to the population stopped it?
How often have Presidents used military force when the majority of the people weren’t in favor of it?
Judicial, Cabinet, and Committee are all decided by the Senate.
States are fictions; there is only people. The Senate represents the people, just rather unequally and, in the original form, indirectly (as the President still does.)
And the Senate can't legislate on its own, only together with the House and/or President (recognizing that treaties that have the force of law are a kind of legislation.)
Apple does not have a monopoly on smart phone apps but does have a monopoly on iPhone apps. From what I understand it's debatable which market should apply here. You seem awfully sure about your position so maybe there's a court or legislative decision you know of that makes this a settled point.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
Honestly I would say it's pretty lazy to provide screenshots depicting a device where the app can't even run.
Nonetheless, showing a product you can buy in the app
There are countless e-commerce apps (Amazon, eBay etc) available for iOS that will happily let you purchase competitors' products.
Also worth noting that you can get Microsoft apps in the iOS App Store and that some of these apps compete with Apple's own apps.
Out of all the issues with the app stores, this is not one IMO.
How long did it take them to approve you after you properly communicated your enthusiasm for Apple products?
I know everyone reads the problem stories, but for the large majority of cases the App store rejection/fix cycle is detailed and easy. For us, it's usually a doh! on our part, fix and resend.
The worrying position would be if Apple demanded special features for the iOS version of the app, or if they asked you to get rid of the Microsoft version altogether. If we got to a point where stories/rumors like that started to emerge, that's when everyone would be in trouble.
Come on....
It wasn't a picture of the app running on a Surface. It was a Surface depicted within the app itself.
(At least sometimes, sometimes they do good. Through always in a way which is especially profitable in one way or another for then.)