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Comment by ApolloFortyNine | Hacker News Reader

You can only install apps on 50+% of phones in America that are approved by Apple, and they also have to grant 30% of all revenue to Apple for the privilege. Including subscriptions or even digital stores (ebooks).

Imo going after for Google for antitrust is like cracking down on jwalking and ignoring the murders taking place downtown.

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Google have already been found guilty of using their position to undermine competition against their play store. It was a pretty smoking gun at that so it’s pretty fair to use that to follow other abuses of power.

And besides, apple are already under investigation by the DOJ anyway.

It's embarrassing that this was the case when Google actually allows alternate app stores, and the major competitor (with higher marketshare in the country in question) does not. And doesn't even allow individual app installations.

And therefore Apple doesn’t undermine any competing stores because they don’t exist.

It’s really that simple. Any feelings to the contrary have no legal precedence to go off of. The EU had to pass an entire new regulation to allow alternate stores and even they don’t say it’s anticompetitive to have no competition , unless you’re above a certain user count.

> Imo going after for Google for antitrust is like cracking down on jwalking and ignoring the murders taking place downtown

That’s an awful analogy. Google is clearly a monopoly on many fronts. Sure, apple aren’t great either but you have to start somewhere, and this is clearly not like going after petty crimes compared to murder.

"Starting somewhere" and then waiting years to follow up with the rest of the market is essentially picking winners and losers in this domain.

At the pace these things move by the time the DOJ looked at Apple the damage to competition on mobile would be irreversible.

Apollo’s complaint in their comment was that what apple is doing compared to what google is doing is like murder vs jaywalking. That’s obviously not true.

Sure let's be pedantic about the analogy without actually addressing your main claim.

I didn’t say this in my comment but my angle is that the critics here seem to be making this an apple v google thing, which is tired thing that I have no interest in, and neither should anyone else.

This is really about big tech vs the people, so who cares which big tech company lines up first.

How is it good for the people if they’re all herded into Apple's walled garden because that’s all that’s left?

Google activates in more than one market. While they are second fiddle in the US mobile space, they are by far the biggest company in the world in ads, web search, web browsing, dwarfing Apple by 100:1 or more in those spaces.

The U.S government should obviously be looking out for U.S consumers.

Apple being worse doesn’t make Google better.

Google controls information and the wider marketplace, Apple controls hardware and a smaller marketplace, imo they're going after the right one first.

No but Android is the only competition Apple has and is already losing ground.

If you knock Google out of that market you're just going to cement Apple's dominance, in the US where DOJ has jurisdiction, of the most important computing platform for a generation. And mobile is too hard for any newcomers to enter now.

Maybe, but I don't think the DOJ makes decisions this way. They'll evaluate and deal with Apple separately which I think makes sense. They can't really make the decision that yes Google is a monopoly but they'll allow it to stave off another monopoly, this is private-sector thinking.

Android spun-out as an independent company might actually be a good thing for the platform allowing it operate and compete on its merits.

Even with all of Google's backing Android is already falling behind in the US. How exactly is Android without Google behind it supposed to do better?

It's still dominant worldwide and gaining marketshare, maybe it could do better by embracing what makes it the more open, flexible, mobile platform and decoupling itself from Google Services.

Who are these consumers that are today not buying Android phones because it’s too closed and inflexible? What are they buying instead?

One leads to many.

Yeah, but Apple didn't start with a "Do no evil" slogan - Google both identified what it means to be evil in its industry and then became it.

I think punishment is in order for something like that.

You watch too many Marvel movies it seems

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