Hacker News Reader

Comment by cedws | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

---

[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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com