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Comment by cedws | Hacker News Reader

You had the choice to buy another phone.

When you plug in a non-Apple USB cable to charge your iPhone, or use a third-party phone case, or use Anker power bank .. do you wish you had none of these choices, but only use whatever Apple branded cables, and phonecase and power banks existed?

If you want to buy Apple cables because you think it is better, sure - that's great. But preventing ugreen cables from working makes no sense.

You shouldnt say 'buy a different phone' if you want to use ugreen cables.

If you're a consumer, you should be on the side of more choice and more competition. If you're a Apple/Apple employee, you should 100% say what you just did :)

Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market. If you don’t like the charging options of an iPhone, don’t buy an iPhone. If you don’t like the OS of a Pixel, don’t buy a Pixel. If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants.

The nature of a free market is that someone wins the competition, and the winner is then happy to figure out ways to prevent anyone from competing at all (this kind of action doesn't require a complete winner either, but I'm focusing on a thought experiment here).

Ergo, if you care about maintaining a free market, then you care about limiting what kind of moves you can make in the free market, in order to preserve a free market. A truly free market with no rules has an end state where it is not a free market, more like a much more sophisticated version of the nobles of the land owning everything. So we declare many activities that make it difficult for others to compete that are not simply about manking a better product, "anti-competitive" and illegal.

Other than capital what prevents a new player entering the smartphone market? In the US Apple is at ~50% market share and Samsung ~30%. These are not colluding entities so there must be enough theoretical freedom to create a smartphone that claims significant market share.

Other than capital does a lot of work in that argument. Companies will not pop up and optimize much less micro optimize the tradeoffs. This isn’t a stock exchange; it’s a real capital intensive product.

Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have plenty of “capital” and they couldn’t create their own ecosystem for their own phone and convince software developers. The hardware is not really an issue. Any company with a few million can sell their own phone and get a Chinese ODM to customize it for them and white label it.

Outside of Apple and Samsung (only because they make a lot of their own parts), the phone market is a commodity race to the bottom

Amazon, Meta and Microsoft tried their hand at making competitive devices and enter the market, to varying degrees of effort but practically identical degrees of failure. All this to say, it takes a lot more than just capital.

Arbitrary software limitations such as apps not running on said phone.

The apple iPhone is a locked down system engineered in such a way to extract maximum value from consumers and developers. It is impossible to compete.

That's an incredibly naive take on economics and competition, because it ignores all of the forces that entrench existing participants and make new entrants basically impossible in many cases. You're coming off like a student of ECON100 who thinks they've got it all figured out.

"Free market" doesn't mean consumer rights go for toss. "Free market" also means a level playing field for everyone, which is why we have things like standardisation (e.g. USB-C) to make it easier for other businesses to compete. A monopoly or duopoly is not a "free market". Once a monopoly or duopoly emerges, it becomes an artificial moat to prevent competition and as "free market" has ceased to exist in such a situation, it is incumbent to change the rules to make sure a "free market" exists again and competition can thrive. (And ofcourse, all this has to be done without ignoring the rights of other stakeholders in the society).

> If the consumer is choosy and doesn’t like the options available then there is a market opportunity for new entrants.

And if new entrants can't enter the market because the existing monopolies make it impractical, then what?

This is the actual problem to be solved. The bureaucracy of forcing the hand of tech companies every time consumers scream loud enough is a shitty solution.

And that is exactly the problem that is being solved. It's not about "consumers screaming", but companies, consumers and governments realizing that anti-competitive behavior is harming everybody except the gatekeeper. The solution is competition. Since Apple is such a great and innovative company, they surely won't be afraid of competing on merit.

It just props up the monopoly. Appeased consumers have no reason to buy other products. There is no financial motive for Apple to do good because they can do bad until government forces their hand, and they have no reason to fear competition. It’s an admission we’re all at the mercy of Apple until daddy government steps in.

The fact that even a whiff of potential competition incentivized Apple to half their tax for specific cases shows that anti-trust regulation works and that it's the only thing that will ever force a gatekeeper to reconsider their anti-competitive business practices.

>It’s an admission we’re all at the mercy of Apple until daddy government steps in.

That has always been the case when market participants become too dominant e.g.

United States v. Paramount Pictures (1948)

United States v. AT&T (1984)

United States v. Microsoft (2001)

Anti-trust regulation would have dealt with Apple, Google and co by now if the lobbying weren't so out of control compared to previous times.

This is true of an idealized perfect free market with perfectly rational consumers, but not so much in the real world. The simple fact that profits on phones haven't been competed to zero is enough to show it's not a perfect free market. I don't think the average consumer spends much time considering the long-term health of the app ecosystem when they purchase a phone. Maybe the wisdom of the crowds is correct here and it's truly not important or beneficial, but to me it seems more likely that it's outside the bounded rationality of most consumers. Markets have blind-spots and they tend to be short sighted.

I don't like any of the options but still need a phone, now what?

That's pretty unfortunately but if you articulate some of your issues with the options, I'm sure I can find an Android option for you that works. Despite Google's attempts, Android is still quite open and many phones allow you to do whatever you want with them.

Or if you only want to use iPhones then it seems like the downsides of the locked down app store aren't worth switching in which case it seems like you've already made your choice.

Android itself is fine, but in most of the world you need Android with Google services, otherwise banking apps, contactless payments, some games, etc, don't work.

The app sideloading changes they're about to introduce[0]? Affects their Pixels, Samsungs, OnePlus, Sony, etc, old and new. It can't be disabled. The work around is to use ADB to install apks.

So while you have more choice of hardware, Android skins with more or less features, different long term support, prices, etc, in practice you're stuck with what Google wants. Your options are Apple or Google.

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[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-si...

Whose fault is it if banks, etc require Google services? There's a line somewhere, where punishing a company for providing a great product that everyone chooses to use is blatantly unfair

>I don't like any of the options but still need a phone, now what?

I've always used this method: work out what are the most benefits, with the fewest annoying 'features', between various manufacturers that have items within your budget, and choose something. In my country we call it 'shopping'.

"the free market is the solution!" you say while defending monopolistic practices

> Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market.

An unregulated market leads to monopoly and anti-competitive practices.

Capitalism is one of the best models we've discovered, but its markets must be appropriately regulated.

Capitalism should be difficult. An eternal treadmill. You shouldn't be able to wedge yourself into a market as a quarter-century long hegemon.

You shouldn't be able to capture the key touch point of all consumers to their digital life and then tax it for eternity. It's putting incredible strain on innovation and all other market participants.

Companies should die and be replaced by younger startups regularly. It's a renewing forest fire that de-ossifies technology.

Rewarding startups puts the capital rewards in the hands of innovation capital rather than large institutions. Large companies do everything they can to minimize labor costs. Venture funds are even hurting in that the monopolies put a cap on the number of startups that can reach decacorn or centacorn status.

And before I field any complaints that consumers don't care about this - most consumers are laypeople and do not understand what is happening to them. They can't articulate these points. This is why we require regulators to police the system.

I’m not convinced the solution to anything is government picking winners, nor telling other people what they, the government themselves, are going to do with their, the people / companies, money.

And how to I get support for the products I just bought when your government regulators terminate the existing of the product developer / manufacturer.

What other mechanism can there exist that would have the power to change the behaviour of these giant corporations, except government?

> government picking winners

Government trimming the weeds using prescribed rules and tests.

Get rid of monoclonal overgrowth to increase ecosystem diversity and health. Make the ecology better at exploring all the nooks and crannies.

>Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market.

You're saying, companies should be able to do whatever they want, even if it's bad for the consumer. How can you describe that position as "being on the side of the consumer"?

I personally think this is a reasonable argument in theory, though in practice it's not a free market when governments and large mandatory institutions (like banks) put in place things that force your hand (Digital ID on your attested device, banking apps that require attestation, etc). It also falls down when you realize the barriers of entry are absolutely enormous. Even Amazon and Microsoft couldn't get through them, so what chance do new entrants have?

> Being on the side of the consumer means being on the side of the free market.

What makes you think the "free market" always produces the best outcome for consumers?

Or, instead of that, the consumer will have the choice to do whatever they want with their own phone and you won't be able to stop them. The free market wins if you give the freedom to the user to control their own phones.

What if im on the consumer's side but I dont like britbongs

I did not have a choice to buy another equivalent phone because patents legally forbid other companies from producing equivalent phones.

If Apple wants to take that defence, they should be required to have abandoned every patent they own on iPhones prior to my purchase of the device.

I don't think you're entitled to an equivalent phone. If we're talking patents on essential things like a cryptographic algorithm required for banking or a technology required to implement 5G, sure, the patent holder should be required to license the patent to anyone at a reasonable price. But not licensing patents on non-essential features like Face ID or health monitors are OK. And all of that is independent of whether or not you can install your own software.

What matters is the competitive situation. Given that you're practically required to have either a Google or Apple device to participate normally in modern society, Apple and Google should be precluded from forcing customers and suppliers[0] to use their other services, like payment services, app stores, delivery networks, ad networks, etc.

But if Apple were the 4th biggest phone platform with at most 10% of the market, Apple would definitely be entitled to remain a walled garden. Even if their phones had features no-one else can implement due to patents.[1]

0: E.g. app developers

1: I'd claim this is the only position that is consistent with being in favor of patents. But I'm mildly anti-patent, so YMMV.

I don't think I'm entitled to an equivalent phone either. I merely think I'm entitled to either (at Apple's option) an equivalent phone OR apple not using it's monopoly on producing equivalent phones to extract further money from me after patent rights are exhausted at the time of the purchase of the phone from Apple.

I.e. I'm entitled to anti-trust protection. Or I'm entitled to patent-misuse protection. I don't really care which set of laws you put it under.

Even if Apple were 10% of the phone market they would still have 100% of the distributing software to devices with Apple's patented technology market, and that should be enough for anti trust protection to kick in.

(I'm also mildly anti patent, but I've been carefully selecting only arguments in this thread that I believe are entirely consistent with a pro patent belief system. E.g. if Apple treated their phones like their laptops - where they also have patents - all the positions and arguments I've taken would not have an issue with their behavior)

Equivalent in what way? A Samsung, a Xiaomi, a Google phone have all of the necessary capabilities to live a modern life.

Equivalent in the way of having the numerous features small and large that Apple has patents on. Whether that's being a rectangle with rounded corners (yes they have a patent on that, or at least did, and successfully defended it in court. Not sure what's happened in the meantime), or whatever random patents Apple has on making blood oxygen sensor technology just that little bit better.

If Apple believes their portfolio of patents protecting the iPhone is worthless, they should abandon them. That they haven't precludes the argument that they are.

You seem to be confusing Masimo's patent infringement case against Apple over Apple Watch with the notion that Apple has some kind of a patented blood oxygen sensor in the iPhone.

I don't think that supports your case that Apple's patent keeps other phones from being equivalent given that the sensor isn't in the iPhone and it's not even Apple's patent.

For what it's worth, I'm typing this on a Pixel which is also a rounded rectangle, so I'm skeptical that patent is really holding other phones back, either

You're typing that on a Pixel with a bump sticking out the back, which would mean it doesn't violate the design patent.

I wasn't specifically thinking of that case, though it's likely why my mind chose that sensor as an example. Apple has patents on blood oxygen sensors, of course, because Apple has patents on basically everything they do. Here's a recent example that I just picked off of Google https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2024216430B2/en?q=(Oxyge...

I'm not seeing how other phones are being held back by any of this. Google and Samsung have design patents, too, and my Pixel Watch also has a blood oxygen sensor.

All phones aren't equivalent, we agree on that right? Apple has legitimate hardware advantages in places. Faster more energy efficient chips. Better earbuds. Various camera components with various advantages. So on and so forth. All of the minor improvements Apple has made will have patents behind them. All of these patents hold all other phone manufactuers back.

Yes, all the other phone manufacturers also have patents. Yes, these also all hold Apple back. That's the deal we make with patents, you invent something, you get a monopoly on producing that thing.

All the other phone manufacturers are basically respecting that deal. Apple is not - they're taking that monopoly and extending it to a monopoly on distribution of software which just happens to run on the device with the thing. This is what anti-trust law, the doctrine of patent misuse, etc should prevent. Either they don't get a monopoly on the things they invented (and all the other phones get better) or they don't get to abuse that monopoly to extract money from people who already purchased the device - i.e. after the patent rights are exhausted.

It sounds like your problem is with the patent system then. The point of patents is to grant exclusive rights to a technology in exchange for sharing information.

I'm not taking any issue with patents existing here. I'm taking issue with anti-competitive behavior that Apple is executing on top of the patent system. If Apple merely wanted to use their monopoly on features of devices to sell devices with those features I would have no issue. My issue is only when they leverage that monopoly to get a monopoly on the distribution of software to those devices and then leverages their monopoly on the distribution of software to those devices to extract fees for doing so.

Edit: I don't, for instance, have issues with how they use patents with macbooks. There they don't abuse their monopoly on certain hardware features to get and extract money from a secondary monopoly on software.

> Equivalent in what way?

Equivalent as in a literal exact copy of an iPhone. Lots of factories can produce those, seeing as Apple contracts out production. If we get rid of those patents and give free choice to those factories and consumers, well they would be glad to produce a modified "Open" iPhone.

Lets make a free market by stopping this government intervention of the patent system that supports monopolies.

Google has successfully boiled the frog and implemented all of the App Store's same fees and its most draconian features and policies.

A duopoly is not a choice.

This (1) ignores the extremely strong network effects purposely engendered by Apple's chronic refusal to implement interoperable standards in any of their products and (2) this is as much about app developers as it is about app consumers, and developers clearly have no choice but to meet their users where they are, which is on Apple devices. The other choice is going out of business.

Since Google is also moving to this direction can I ask you which phone can I buy that is not part of this cartel and works with banks and public services?

There are two phones on the market. Android and iPhone.

The Government needs to break up this duopoly.

Mobile should have hundreds of choices, three or four OS options, and free web-based installs without a gatekeeper or taxation.

Mobile providers shouldn't be able tyrannically set defaults for search, payments, or anything else either.

And Apple now have the choice to change their business practices.

As a developer, you have to offer your app on both phones otherwise your business won't get anywhere. There's no choice there.

We also have the choice to make different laws.

not really. I have two options: android or ios. And android is following ios lockstep with practices like the recent changes to play integrity.

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