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Comment by hayksaakian | Hacker News Reader

That's the power of monopolizing a distribution channel

One can say that it's the power of creating a distribution channel where none has existed before.

It's not possible to create an alternative store for iOS or Roblox.

Theoretically, one could spend the requisite money and years to develop a competing device and software, like Apple and Google did to RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia.

How do I develop a new store inside Roblox?

You could develop a new game, like Roblox. You could also develop a new mobile operating system, like iOS. Both are quite hard.

Developing a game that competes with Roblox isn't close to the same magnitude of effort as developing a new mobile device and OS. The bigger the capital investment required to compete with someone, the lower the possible competition, and therefore it is more applicable to accuse them of anti-competitive practices. Economic effects are not scale-free.

How hard it is to do is not the determining factor. The question is whether the compan(ies) already in the space have created illegal roadblocks to your success.

I’d say creating a new mobile device is more easily possible today than at any time in the past, and in fact can be done on a relatively modest budget. [1]

Take for example Purism, maker of the line of Librem devices, which has raised a few million dollars over the years and has about $1 million in revenue.

[1] - https://medium.com/os-alternative/2020-will-be-the-year-of-a...

That argument did not work for Microsoft in the 90's whhen they dominated windows.

Do you know why that argument didn’t work for Microsoft?

It’s not because they dominated Windows. They owned Windows, they could do what they wanted on Windows, but for something very specific. In fact, it was a key element of the case that the government had to prove before they could proceed with proposing a remedy.

That's not the thing that got Microsoft into trouble.

>Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

It's the taking actions to crush threats to that monopoly part of the equation that got Microsoft into trouble.

You need both things. You need a monopoly in a market, and you need to be using your monopoly position to crush your competition.

The big difference there is someone can create a Roblox competitor if they want. No one can create an iOS App Store competitor.

No one sad a Roblox competitor. A Roblox store competitor. That seems the same situation as the ios app store.

You should try setting up a market stall inside your local Walmart and see how well that works out for you

I agree with you I was just stating their argument.

I've heard that the scripting capabilities are pretty solid in Roblox, are you not able to create your own currency?

Most Roblox games also have their own in game currency that you can earn or buy with Robux within the game. But you cannot buy/sell that currency for real world money.

Are there any technical measures preventing the creation of a market for those alternative currencies, or is it just a TOS thing?

I'm guessing it's partially a TOS thing, partially a lack of mechanism for transferring currencies between players, but also a lack of demand. Few games are popular enough in themselves to have a big enough market to make it profitable to run a competing alternate currency market.

With Robux you can buy 100 Robux for real money and then spend 20 Robux in one game, 15 in another, 40 for a skin you can use in all games and save the rest for use in some future game that you haven't discovered yet. This flexibility makes Robux much more 'desirable' than any single in game currency.

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