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Comment by timmg | Hacker News Reader

> There has been nothing in my life so disillusioning as working on a Web app for a company that is more or less required to play Google's game.

Have you built any iOS apps?

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While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

I hardly use Google, and I use the internet.

DDG/Kagi/ChatGPT/Reddit/HN/etc for searching. Fastmail/myriad order email providers. Openstreetmap/Apple for maps.

YouTube and Chrome Remote Desktop are what I use Google for, but those have alternatives too.

The concern is if you are developing for the web, how much time do you need to spend appeasing Google to show up in search results and be discoverable.

When I was at Amazon the majority of direct product traffic did not come internal search, it came from Google. In some areas they were competitors, Amazon was beholden to Google as the starting point for most customer’s browsing experience.

It’s not just monopoly it’s googles abuse. How many times have they been sued successfully and fined by the government for abusing the position as a large corporation, I’d say it’s legion. I wish the government was more vigilant in using their power to kill corporations outright after so many abuses of power

It’s odd how this is lost on people. Want to develop a game for PlayStation, Sony will need to approve. Want to develop a Facebook app, FB will gatekeep. If you wanted to make apps for the Danger Hiptop, you published through Danger. iOS is Apple’s consolized OS for their own hardware. It’s not a PC platform that anyone can put on whatever device they want. For better or worse.

I think there is a reasonable breaking point though, where the platform becomes so ingrained in society that you are left out of social groups if you don't join.

"iPhone Families" is a very real thing that Apple has gone out of it's way to solidify. Or try being an (American) 15 year old kid and get included in group chats with an android phone.

It's pretty gross when a mega-corp is so powerful that it can leverage your friends and family against you, forcing you into their walled prison err.. garden.

Personally, I think the breaking point is when the device transitions from "appliance" or niche device to general computer.

I think at a time a phone could be considered an appliance. But that's changed, and for many people their smartphone is their only general personal computer.

When you're a part of a duopoly on a product that is necessary for participating in the modern economy with as much friction as iOS has for switching to the only viable competitor... what makes it so fundamentally different from the web?

IMO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform. One or the other. Same goes for Android.

So if a business mode is successful, regardless of whether it’s actively thwarted competition or acted anticompetitively, it should be regulated?

It’s not the web. It’s not a PC. It’s a sandboxed console.

> MO they can either keep the duopoly and deal with regulation or they can keep full control of their platform.

Then they’ll keep they’re platform and not be regulated ;-) (I know what you meant).

> So if a business mode is successful, regardless of whether it’s actively thwarted competition or acted anticompetitively, it should be regulated?

Yes. If a product becomes essential for participation in the economy and lacks substantial competition, regulation is the only mechanism we have to protect the people. Why should it matter how it got there?

Just following this thought then the remedy will be forcing Apple to allow alternative OS and firmware on their devices, allowing consumers to choose what they do with the device hardware they purchased?

No, it would be buying an android phone

Buying a phone from another vendor is only viable if Apple/Google didn't try to lock you in. Of course we know that's not true - you can't just go elsewhere and that's by design.

Ownership and security are at odds. The only remedy would be forcing Apple to allow the owner of the device to run whatever they would like on it, unfortunately this does include malware.

This is a false dilemma thought.

The secure solution is to treat every app as malicious and put it in a sandbox where it can not cause harm. See also Android and ChromeOS.

In the broadest sense, an app that "can not cause harm" can't do anything useful. To the industry's dominant players, "causing harm" means empowering the user to venture outside their walled gardens... or even to see outside them.

So, no, sandboxing everything in sight isn't a useful solution. Your sandbox will just imprison us all.

I’m not a subscriber to the “if I choose to buy a product, I get to dictate product design decisions for the company” school of thought. Buy it or don’t. If you want X there is no right do demand Y turn into X.

"buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case.

> "buy it or don't" does not work with oligopolies. If you had a free market, I would agree, but you very much don't in this case.

Why do you believe there is no free market on mobile phones? I mean, what exactly forces you to pick an iPhone over anything?

That's not quite what the parent meant. There is a choice between very few phone manufacturers, and even less mobile operating systems.

Don't want to sign up to one multinational behemoth? Well, your choice is to sign up to one other multinational behemoth.

> There is a choice between very few phone manufacturers, and even less mobile operating systems.

I don't think that the manufacturer assertion is true at all. You can go to any random online store and get dozens of brands and manufacturers. It just so happens that popular demand focuses only on a hand full of manufacturers who are outcompeting everyone in the free market.

Take a look even to Android's market share. You have four manufacturers with double digit market shares, and a couple of dozen entriee. Is that what you call a monopoly?

https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers

The OS comment is even more badfling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mobile_operating...

Parent used the word oligopoly. Your comment and links seem to agree?

Why should they have to allow it? My smart TVs and video game consoles never allowed it, except that short lived Linux PlayStation. Nintendo is pretty hostile about reverse engineering the switch.

But those are gaming and entertainment devices, not general-purpose computing devices that everyone relies on for day-to-day work and life.

A good way to think about it is this: if Windows was as closed down as iOS, and took a 30% cut on every application purchase, would regulators have intervened?

What physical attributes make them not general purpose computers?

What physical attributes make a smart fridge not a general purpose computer? Or a car’s infotainment system? Or a Bluray disc player?

Those should allow it too. Them setting a bad precedent doesn't mean we should continue to abide by it, just that there's more work to be done undoing it.

I think that would be the right decision, to me that makes more sense than forcing Apple to allow any app to be installed on iOS or allowing alternate stores.

> While true and a fair point, iOS is Apple’s platform in a way that the web is most certainly not Google’s.

OP was whining over Google's role in Android. Pointing out Apple's control of iOS, and the fact that iPhone is by far the dominant platform for handhelds, does refute OP's personal assertion.

Ha, well said. Having both of these experiences makes one even more against the tyranny of monopolists.

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