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Comment by fuzzylightbulb | Hacker News Reader

Apple isnt being sued because they make nice hardware that people like to buy. They're being sued because they use their position in the marketplace to stifle competition, restrict developer choices, and lock customers into their ecosystem.

The DOJ wrote up their exact rationale for the suit, so it would be nice if people would take the time to understand the actual situation instead of arguing against their prefered strawman.

I will never understand why people are out there falling over each other to be the white knight for a company with a 2.6 trillion dollar market cap.

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It makes people uncomfortable to think that maybe massive, powerful companies do bad things, especially if they are either employed by one or hope to start one of their own. It's not fun being on the other side of the wealth divide in this country, and people will fight tooth and nail to prevent it from happening to themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the more precarious life gets, the harder people will fight. It's not looking good out there.

> I will never understand why people are out there falling over each other to be the white knight for a company

Because a company is giving us awesome products and services which we willingly spend our hard-earned money for.

It's also creating (well paid) jobs which we can choose to take and platforms where other businesses thrive and build even more jobs.

Finally, as investors, it's allowing us to participate in and benefit from its success.

On the other side we see politicians - bureaucrats that never built anything in their lives. Parasites living off our work. Greedier and greedier every year they forcefully confiscate more and more of our sweat and blood while "giving" us crappier and crappier services in exchange. Finally, when a psychopathic leader inevitably takes over - they literally send us to die in their sick wars or attack others for their enrichment.

> On the other side we see politicians - bureaucrats that never built anything in their lives. Parasites living off our work. Greedier and greedier every year they forcefully confiscate more and more of our sweat and blood while "giving" us crappier and crappier services in exchange.

Slow down there, John Galt.

How is discouraging monopolistic practices going to line the pockets of these parasitic bureaucrats? If Apple has enough control of the marketplace that nobody can meaningfully compete with them, do you think that's better or worse for "us"?

> How is discouraging monopolistic practices going to line the pockets

Three easy ways come to mind:

1) Play the stock market using the insider info on decisions and regulations politicians know well in advance.

2) Regulations and laws once enacted have to be implemented. So many compliance chief or consultant positions suddenly opening up at multinational corporations.

3) Cheap populism moves work wonders on economically-ignorant voters. "I smacked Apple/Microsoft/Google" guarantees years of sucking from the public teat

The bitter irony is that the only effective way to deal with monopolies is though free market competition. And regulation is the polar opposite of that: regulation discourages startups and favors the incumbents.

So, yes, heavily regulated markets guarantee less competition which is worse for "us".

So you think that if you wanted to start a business to compete with Apple in any of the spaces talked about in this lawsuit (hardware, web browsing, messaging etc) your greatest challenge to competing in that market would be regulation? Not Apple?

I wouldn't even consider starting a business in a heavily regulated field. I can (and I did) fight any competitors, no matter how big they are, using my ideas, creativity, network and hard work. It's not easy, but it's doable - there are lots of startups started every day in giant-dominated fields. And you also get lots of help along the way, because it's fun and because there are lot of gains to be had on the tiny chance you make it.

But I can't fight the government. I wouldn't even try. It's an immovable object. There is nothing to win there. It's all dead. Better to just get a cushy job at some gov agency. Just like most of Europe's best and brightest currently do - leading to a continent left behind, while the US high tech (both startups and giants) are soaring.

Because this is the government (or bureaucrats on a power trip) picking winners/losers?

Law Prof from Madrid:

https://twitter.com/laz_radic/status/1771152693291057439

> The DOJ complaint against Apple filed yesterday has led me to think, once again, about the increasing chasm that exists between antitrust theory and basic common sense & logic. I think this dissonance is getting worse and worse, to the point of mutual exclusion.

> Here's where I'm coming from: what I have always viewed as a modest tool for correcting blatant anticompetitive conduct is increasingly being wielded as a weapon to redraw minute product design choices, redesign markets, and pistol whip companies for political gain.

> What worries me aren't a couple of contrived cases brought by unhinged regulators at either side of the Atlantic, but that this marks a much broader move towards a centrally-administered economy where choices are made by anointed regulators, rather than by consumers.

> And, to be clear, I am aware that the DOJ is saying that Apple is maintaining its iPhone market position thanks to anticompetitive practices but, quite frankly, discounting the possibility that users simply PREFER the iPhone in this day & age is ludicrous to me.

> But in the real world, there exists no legal obligation to be productive or to use one's resources efficiently. People aren't punished for being idle. Yet a private company harms us when it doesn't design its products the way public authorities thinks is BEST?

> Would X be better if the length of all tweets was uncapped? Would McDonald's be better if it also sold BK's most popular products - like the Whopper? Would the Playstation be better if it also had XboX, Nintendo and PC games? I don't know, maybe. Does it matter?

> The magic of antitrust, of course, is that if one can somehow connect these theoretical shortcomings to market power — no matter how tenuously — all of a sudden, one has a blockbuster case against an evil monopolist & is on the right side of history.

> But this puts the cart before the horse. Competition authorities need to stop pinning contrived market failures on companies they dislike, and go back to pinning companies on market failures. Ultimately, we're fighting the latter, not the former.

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