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Comment by granzymes | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft got in trouble for tying its monopoly in operating systems to OEMs preinstalling Internet Explorer. Essentially, they told OEMs that they would not sell them Windows unless they agreed to help Microsoft kill Netscape. That's a very different kind of antitrust complaint than what the article describes, which is Apple building seamless connections between its hardware and services while offering second-tier connections for competitors.

Also, Microsoft won that case on appeal and then settled with a much friendlier administration.

Of course, this is all being filtered to us from rumors told to journalists who are not subject matter experts. We can better assess any similarities when the actual complaint is filed.

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I feel like you really didn't address what I said at all.

These are two cases of OS dictating which software comes on their platform. To make it worse, the microsoft case was just about defaults, you could still install whatever the heck you wanted. Whereas in IOS you can't, period.

So just imagine if microsoft windows never allowed you to install any other web-browsers without breaking the OS.

Not even remotely the same with the biggest difference being that MS was telling other business to shut out competitors or lose access to Windows, which at the time was pretty much required for computing. If MS had its own hardware, they would have been free to do what they wanted with it.

In fact, Apple will like argue (and has successfully already in the Epic case) that it's the entire ecosystem that the courts have to look at and not any single feature. And at an ecosystem level there is a huge competitor in Android. Apple forcing webkit for example is Apple's choice as they control the entire platform. If they licensed iOS, then it would become harder to make that claim.

You're talking past the issue.

When Microsoft tells OEMs -- someone not Microsoft, "we won't license you Windows unless you include and set as default Internet Explorer" that's anticompetitive.

It's the act of using your pull of needing to buy Windows get another business to do something unrelated.

MS could absolutely not allow you to have any other browser without it being anticompetitive, to wit this is what happens on Xbox.

This is why Apple won and Google lost their case with Epic. Google tried to have an open platform but then used their pull with gapps to force OEMs to privilege the Play store. The mere act of privileging your own products and services on your own platform isn't anticompetitive.

You may have a point with regards to Webkit, however even that is potentially tenuous. The difference that you are missing, and that was addressed is how Microsoft levereged their market postion in the OS market (>85% in the late 1990's) to stop vendors and OEM pre-packaging an alternative browser; USA vs Microsoft was never about IE being bundled - that came later and that was the EU - it was always about how they killed the main competitor to their browser with threats.

* Edited for spelling

They did address it by explaining why it's not only not worse, but different.

Microsoft to OEMs: you can only put our OS on the devices you sell if you make IE the default.

Without Windows, PC makers knew they had no market to sell to because there was no viable alternative OS being demanded by consumers (hence the asserted monopoly position of Microsoft). They were restraining other business from engaging alternatives from competing browser makers.

Apple: we build our messaging product, in our OS, on our devices

There are no other businesses involved between Apple and end users, who can use competing device makers, OS makers and contrary to what you stated, messaging services like Telegram, Signal, Matrix etc etc.

> There are no other businesses involved between Apple and end users, who can use competing device makers, OS makers

How do you install Android or some other OS competitor on an iPhone, or install iOS on a Samsung or Google device?

> and contrary to what you stated, messaging services like Telegram, Signal, Matrix etc etc.

Only with Apple's blessing, which they then deny for competing payment systems, browser engines, app stores etc. And iMessage is still the default.

> How do you install Android or some other OS competitor on an iPhone, or install iOS on a Samsung or Google device?

You don’t, you either choose to buy an Android or an iPhone.

This is like asking why I can’t go to Princeton but have my favorite Stanford professor come teach my class, or why I can’t play CS:GO inside Mario Party.

Life is full of tradeoffs. You can’t have your cake and eat it too all the time.

> This is like asking why I can’t go to Princeton but have my favorite Stanford professor come teach my class

You can do that. You just convince them to teach the class at Princeton. Professors move from one school to another all the time. You can also go take a class at one school while attending another if you want to do that, and the other school will not only not stand in your way, you'll generally get transfer credit.

> or why I can’t play CS:GO inside Mario Party.

These are two different games. The example you're looking for is that you can't play Mario Party on a PlayStation. But that's barely even an analogy, it's just the same situation -- why shouldn't you be able to play Mario Party on a PlayStation except for nefarious anticompetitive BS?

This is distinct from technical capability. If you can't play Mario Party on a Sega Genesis because it only has 64KB of RAM, too bad. But if you can't play it on <whatever device> even though you paid for it solely because of some anti-competitive lock-in even if the hardware is capable and you're willing to e.g. create a compatibility layer, that's something else.

Apple owns what they create. Why do you feel entitled to demand things from them?

They sold what they created to someone else. Now the someone else owns it, but Apple still wants to control it.

You either get the money or you keep the stuff. You don't get to take the money and retain ownership control of the stuff.

You didn't buy a full license to their software. You bought a phone that is a complete package. What entitles you to try to install their software on stuff they don't want it on or didn't build it to supprt?

Do you want them to spend money developing iOS for other devices, just so you can take that for free and install it on an Android?

You knew the rules before you pulled out your wallet.

For iMessage - they run a service that costs money. Why should they just give it out for free? Sure, they give it to their customers for free, but why does that mean you get it too?

It would be like sneaking into a complimentary hotel breakfast. Sure, you managed to grab someone's keycard - you technically can get past the restrictions. Still eating food someone else paid for. Just because you have friends eating already and you want to join them doesn't make it right.

> You didn't buy a full license to their software.

You bought a copy of their software. Now that copy is yours and not theirs. Why shouldn't you be able to transfer your copy of it to whatever you want or use it however you want? You paid for it.

Licensing is for granting additional rights you don't otherwise get with a copy, e.g. a volume license allows you to reproduce additional copies for multiple devices at once, or the GPL allows you to reproduce and distribute copies to other people under certain terms. Taking away rights via license is inconsistent with the first sale doctrine.

> Do you want them to spend money developing iOS for other devices, just so you can take that for free and install it on an Android?

Why would it have to be free? You don't get Windows for free. But you can install it on a Dell in addition to a Surface, and so can Dell.

> You knew the rules before you pulled out your wallet.

Saying "you knew the rules" is not how you establish someone's authority to create rules.

> For iMessage - they run a service that costs money.

This is a fig leaf. Messaging services cost a negligible amount of money to operate and if anybody actually cared about this, no one is demanding for them to operate it themselves anyway rather than using or creating a protocol that supports federation.

Notice that substantially all of the other popular messaging services are just as free to everyone, including the ones not limited to any particular platform.

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