Isn't a better analogy that car dealerships deserve revenue for selling Toyota's cars? Running an app store and providing a safe platform for users isn't free right?
That depends. Is the car dealership making it impossible for me, as a buyer, to buy from different car dealerships, and forcing me to only buy it from them?
That would be a more similar analogy.
Epic would likely not have any problem at all, if it was possible to easily install the epic app store on the iPhone. But its not. Because Apple makes it almost impossible for competitors to install other app stores on the iPhone.
You can switch to Android, and in fact Android holds the global majority of smartphone users (yes yes, iOS is the majority in the US by a small margin).
I think we need to rethink the whole vertical integration thing entirely, instead of trying to reason about vertically integrated platforms in terms of non-vertically-integrated platforms. It doesn't seem to work.
No, not really. I am pretty sure that it is perfectly legal for other people to buy and then resell teslas.
I do not believe that Tesla is suing people who resell Teslas.
> the global majority of smartphone users
In the USA, the Iphone has about 50% of the smart phone market. And when it comes to US anti-trust law, thats all that matters.
We're not talking about reselling — we're talking about people selling brand-new product. Most people don't buy a Toyota new from Toyota directly; they go to a local Toyota dealership. But you can't buy a new Tesla through a dealership, because Tesla doesn't allow it. You can only buy a new Tesla through Tesla directly.
> In the USA, the Iphone has about 50% of the smart phone market. And when it comes to US anti-trust law, thats all that matters.
You missed my point. I was saying that Android is a viable alternative to iOS, as shown by the fact that most people in the world (and many people in the US) use Android instead of iOS. If the policies of iOS are not to your liking, you can choose to not support the platform.
And tesla does not prevent someone from buying a Tesla that is brand new, and selling it.
> because Tesla doesn't allow it.
False. it would be perfectly legal to immediately sell a new tesla that you just purchased. That would be a brand new tesla.
Thats brand new, that would be no different than buying from tesla.
> I was saying that Android is a viable alternative to iOS,
Apple has ~50% of the market share in the US. Anti trust law does not require a literal, singular monopoly, in order for certain anti-competitive behavior to be illegal. Instead, 50% of the market, is within the realm of when certain behavior can become illegal.
> If the policies of iOS are not to your liking
If the policies are anti-competitive, then Apple can be sued for having illegal policies, due to their market share. 50% of the market, is wihin the realm where anti-competitive practices become illegal.
In some states its illegal for the car manufacturer to directly sale to the consumer, they have to go through car dealerships.
The local dealerships are small businesses incorporated in the states so they can be subject to more political pressure and local control.
It has been eroded over the years but originally the dealerships protected consumers from the sort of bad behavior you see from Telsa and Apple.
Not that I love the dealership model but there is real competition at the local level on car repair in a way that there doesn't appear to be with Telsa.
Since the extra cost between selling 1 copy and 1 million copies is not the same as between selling 1 car and 1 million cars.