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Comment by shortcake27 | Hacker News Reader

I really don’t understand why it’s taking so long to recognise Apple/Google as a monopoly.

I develop internal apps for small companies. Apple still forces each update - to an unlisted app - to go through a review process.

Google on the other hand have just told me they need to collect my address, phone number, and ID documents next year or they will delete my developer account.

I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, wait weeks for reviews, and have my personal data collected & sold, because I distribute private software to people who use one of the two vendors that make up 99.99% of the market.

“Ohh it’s not a monopoly because your clients could just carry around a lenovo running linux instead of a mobile phone”. How is this argument still passing the bar?

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> “Ohh it’s not a monopoly because your clients could just carry around a lenovo running linux instead of a mobile phone”. How is this argument still passing the bar?

This explains that they are a duopoly, not a monopoly. However I do agree they are both a monopoly:

You're making a 10$ app targeting Californian 10-20 yos. They have 95% Apple devices (I don't know, I'm completely spitballing, but you get the idea.). You develop the Apple app, everything is going good, you have 1M users, Apple decides to cut you off on a whim (not saying they are doing it, but they are allowed to since they are legally not a monopoly). What does this "free competition between Apple and Android" is going to do to you? Re-target your game to SWE who are more likely to have Androids?

The Unity ruling seem to be clear to me that that the US law doesn't consider it a monopoly, and I acknowledge that. I can understand where this comes from. But it feels like laws need to be updated to take this new kind of situation (a local per-person monopoly impacting multiple distinct markets) into consideration.

> What does this "free competition between Apple and Android" is going to do to you? Re-target your game to SWE who are more likely to have Androids?

It's worse than that. Suppose you have an app where neither of the platforms has a disproportionate share of the users -- they're evenly split. Now one of the platforms makes trouble for you. They want to ban you, or impose unreasonable restrictions, or charge high fees. Can you switch to the other one? Pit them against each other?

No, because the other one can't reach those users. It's not like having a Walmart and a Target across the street from each other, where any buyer can trivially switch to the other store if either of them stops carrying the seller's goods. It's like having a Walmart in Florida and a Target in California and if Target kicks you out, there is no other way to reach your customers in California because they're not going to move to Florida just to shop at Walmart.

Calling this "not a monopoly" because Walmart and Target are both operating in the United States is rather missing the issue.

When movie studios in the US were barred from owning theatres they had 17% of the theatres and 45% of the revenue. Among all the big studios at the time, Paramount, MGM, Fox, WB, RKO. Apple and Google have 99% of all smartphones and 99% of revenue.

It's pretty clear that they have an oversized influence and control over mobile app distribution too...

> I really don’t understand why it’s taking so long to recognise Apple/Google as a monopoly.

Monopolies, in and of themselves, are not illegal in the US.

Leveraging monopoly position to gain unfair advantage in markets outside the monopoly is illegal.

So for example, if you have a dominant position for phone operating systems, or a certain type of phone operating systems, and you want to exclude others from the market for app stores for those phones?

I don't really like slicing the market up that way. There's a compelling argument against broad-category monopolies, but the more specific it gets the closer it is to just "you have made a successful product". Apple naturally has a monopoly over Apple products, but that's not very helpful from an antitrust perspective.

The analogy that is persuasive to me for this particular case is that Apple / Google are excluding people from their app stores in the same way that Kroger is excluding people from its grocery store shelves.

The real question is if a given "Apple product" is a separate market. Is it fungible with a competitor?

If you ask this question about "Clorox bleach" the answer is obvious. Any other brand of bleach is a perfect substitute and the only reason Clorox can demand a premium is if customers value the brand as an indicia of quality, i.e. they're paying to get bleach they trust not to be watered down or contaminated in a bottle that doesn't leak, not because there is no other source to get bleach they can use with their washing machine.

For the iOS app store that is not the case. If you have an iOS device, you have to use the iOS app store. It would be as if you had a Kroger-brand washing machine that could only use bleach from Kroger, e.g. because they sell it in cartridges that authenticate with a microchip. At that point Kroger would have a monopoly on bleach for those washing machines, and that product would be its own market because there is no competing substitute.

For this not to be the case you would have to be able to install apps on iOS devices via Google Play or some other competitor with non-trivial market share. Because the relevant concern is whether there is a viable substitute that the same people can use for the same purpose.

And yes, this means that if you cordon off something that might otherwise have been part of a larger market by using DRM, you now have a monopoly on the thing you erected a fence around and should be subject to antitrust enforcement.

> How is this argument still passing the bar?

The answer is corruption. I believe it’s plain obvious by now.

Words have meanings. It's a monopoly if a single entity has complete (or almost-complete) control of a market.

"Apple/Google" isn't a single entity, neither has anything close to complete control of the US mobile-device market, and they do seem to actively be opposed to each other in many areas rather than being some sort of cartel.

They do indeed:

monopoly | məˈnɒpəli | noun (plural monopolies) 1 the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service: the state's monopoly of radio and television broadcasting. • a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service: passenger services were largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies | France's electricity monopoly, EDF.

In case it's not clear from the definition, notice the first example's deliberate pluralisation; "largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies".

Your definition is both wrong, and I suspect made in bad faith anyway.

> In case it's not clear from the definition, notice the first example's deliberate pluralisation; "largely in the hands of state-owned monopolies".

The example is, presumably, referring to a single entity that provided “passenger services” between two destinations, and no other entity provided passenger services between those destinations. But since there could be multiple sets of destinations that single entities provided all passenger services for, then there would be multiple monopolies.

Which does not contradict kemayo’s post.

There is no reason to use monopoly (in this context) when more accurate vocabulary exists, such as duopoly or oligopoly.

> But since there could be multiple sets of destinations that single entities provided all passenger services for, then there would be multiple monopolies.

Which is precisely the point. Take as "destinations" the two parties to any given transaction, i.e. a particular software developer and a particular user. If the user has an iPhone, they can't use the Play Store, or Samsung or Amazon or anyone but Apple. The developer has no choice in this, even though they're the one paying the fee and being subjected to opaque and arbitrary rules.

Yes, I was referring to the smartphone market itself.

Within each smartphone operating system, Apple has a monopoly on software sold for their devices.

But for Android, I thought it is trivial for end users to avoid the Play store for any software they want? If so, I would not describe that as a monopoly.

> But for Android, I thought it is trivial for end users to avoid the Play store for any software they want? If so, I would not describe that as a monopoly.

It's possible but not trivial. In particular, the stores have a network effect where users won't install them if they've never heard of them (remember you have to give your payment info to a store), and developers have no use for a store without users. Google also makes a lot of features dependent on Google Play, which makes it hard for OEMs not to include it with their phone, which might otherwise have allowed the store they did include to reach a critical mass. So Google Play still has >90% market share on Android, even if the alternatives aren't explicitly prohibited.

I should have been explicit with the pluralisation I was referring to (emphasis mine):

> passenger services were largely in the hands of state-owned _monopolies_

I think my use of the word “monopoly” is causing people to miss the forest for the trees.

My clients have employees who essentially have two ecosystem options when buying a smartphone - Apple or Google.

I, as a developer, then have to bend to the will of both of these corporations which, no matter how they compete on other things, are just as bad as each other when it comes to developer treatment.

Monopoly, duopoly, whatever - it’s crazy. Why am I uploading my fucking ID to Google, giving them my phone number, which they say “they may contact periodically to ensure the account is still active”, because I distribute private software to a private organisation?

Because the barrier to entry for this specific product (smartphone) is incredibly high. Kind of like, if you want to buy a passenger plane, you have to go to Boeing or Airbus.

Does Boeing/Airbus force contractors employed by the airlines who own their planes to jump through crazy hoops and provide all their PII?

If I had an airline as a client and I wanted to change the upholstery on a plane, I don’t think I’d need to have the changes approved by Boeing/Airbus in addition to having my personal data (home address, phone, and ID) sold and used to target me with advertising.

Maybe it is only because Boeing/Airbus cannot figure out how to do that for upholstery. But for software, it is easier to control the changes and hence charge for them.

I'll grant that it's a bit of a pedantic response, though I do genuinely think that it's better not to misuse terms. It also affects what you appear to be calling for as a response -- just because Apple-and-Google are the two major players in a market doesn't mean that antitrust/monopoly laws are the right things to use.

Re: Google, given that you're privately distributing software to a private organization, couldn't you just sideload it onto the Android devices in question? It seems reasonable enough to for them to want you to have a developer account if you're using their infrastructure to distribute these things. But my (minimally informed) understanding is that, unlike Apple, Google doesn't force you to have a signing certificate from them or anything for the software to even run on a device.

Well, the word "mono" generally means, "one".

Apple/Google are a duopoly, and at least in the US, being a duopoly is legally fine so long as you don't collude on pricing.

Maybe we should change that law.

Depends how you view them. If you consider them to be each rather separate ecosystems with limited exchange between them, they could perhaps be two monopolies?

I'm unconvinced by the argument that "iPhone apps" and "Android apps" are the relevant categories, rather than just "smartphone apps". It seems like it leads to a slippery slope where every company that's not selling in a completely-generic category holds a monopoly over its own products. Ford holding a monopoly over F-150 pickup trucks, etc.

The argument Apple has a monopoly on "iPhone apps" was already considered in Epic v. Apple and the judge rejected it.

That should set a precedent for Apple in the US, but it has no bearing on Europe's verdict.

Apple has a total monopoly of iphone's apps. The devices and the marketplace inside the devices are two different markets

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