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Comment by cccc4alll | Hacker News Reader

The US government investigated and sued Microsoft for anti-trust violations many year ago. The anti-trust legal issues hampered Microsoft enough, so that smaller competitors, like Apple and Google, were able to gain traction in online and mobile space.

If that didn't happen, you would most likely be a Microsoft serf speaking into a Microsoft Windows Pocket PC Phone consumer edition.

Apple and Google has much tighter control over the platforms now than Microsoft ever dreamed of in wildest monopoly fantasies.

Government can use the same anti-trust regulations to break up Apple and Google and monopoly control over mobile app stores.

It's governments duty to keep fair competition in the marketplace, so innovation and free trade can happen for benefit of consumers.

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In retrospect that whole case was a wash and wasn’t a good use of the Government’s time nor an appropriate use of its powers.

Apple and Google were legitimately more competitive in digital music and web search/web advertising respectively without government intervention. They would also both go on to wreck Microsoft’s WinCE business under all of its various names and guises on both the high end and the low end. SanDisk and Yahoo were their biggest competitors in music and web services during this time. Microsoft’s attempts to purchase Yahoo were rebuffed by Yahoo management’s overvaluation of themselves.

Your premise for this alternate history is flawed.

I stand by my statement: this isn’t the government’s problem, any government’s problem, and especially not any American government’s problem.

I recommend looking into history.

Apple was failing as computer company. Apple only survived because Microsoft threw them a lifeline, licensing Office suite in Macs and investing in Apple. Microsoft wanted to show anti-trust regulators that there was software competition in PC market. If there was no anti-trust suit against Microsoft, Apple would have likely went bankrupt.

Microsoft was on the way to owning Desktop and web space, by tightly integrating IE into Windows. Left on own, Microsoft would have routed all default browser traffic to Microsoft search engine on MSN. Google would have remained some student research prototype into an algorithm about backlinks.

Microsoft invested in Apple in 1997. The DOJ filed suit in 1998.

It was a tactic to deflect a DOJ suit, unsuccessfully, but again, this was likely not an appropriate use of the government’s authority. For the sake of argument, even if it were, that does not mean it would be today. Present circumstances are not a mirror of the past. If you want to make a good case for government intervention in the market, your best argument is not that the United States once sued Microsoft and now it is Apple’s turn.

Mind the DOJ has sued Apple (and publishers) once using antitrust law relating to the iBooks Store. The result further cemented Amazon’s market dominance in ebooks and increased ebook prices.

The argument is the same as before. Apple and Google are using monopoly control of mobile app stores to stifle competition. Existing anti-trust rules are enough to sue and get ruling to break up Apple and Google control of app stores.

More innovation and competition are good things. When mobile app stores are freed, new baby Apple and baby Google type companies can be free to build new services and features.

> More innovation and competition are good things.

I agree. That’s why this isn’t the government’s problem. Rather than trying to wrench away someone else’s golden goose, find your own.

I would be pleased if Apple just opened up side-loading, but not so pleased if that came about from the business end of a gun wielded by a tyrannical and envious mob or a career climbing prosecutor claiming to wield such a gun for their sake.

And then Microsoft had to stop forcing OEMs to bundle crapware. And, no surprise, crapware from OEMs is still a thing. Bundling a browser into my OS is the least of my worries.

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