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How Apple is not hit by anti-trust cases across the world on a range of topics is baffling!
by skynetv2 10y ago
How Apple is not hit by anti-trust cases across the world on a range of topics is baffling!
- kartD 10y agoBecause they aren't a monopoly, they have like 15-20% of the smartphone market. Only Google would have to worry about anti-trust cases
- digi_owl 10y agoTo hell with this "monopoly" crap. The term do not apply to the topic at all, and never has. All it matters is that a company, or groups of companies, are big enough to distort customer choice to their benefit. This either directly in said market, or by being large in a related market that they can use as leverage.
- JohnTHaller 10y agoThe way the laws are written, you can be insanely anti-consumer and anti-competitive all you want if you aren't a monopoly. Apple is a distant number 2 to Android in the phone space. So they can dictate things like: our app store and our app store alone, you can't even manually install apps from anywhere else, you can only use our browser engine and no competing engines, etc. Microsoft, for instance, couldn't pull these kinds of things with Windows because it is more of a monopoly on the desktop due to it having >90% user share.
- digi_owl 10y agoMS could be below 50% and still be in trouble if they were still the big dog of the pack.
- coldtea 10y agoHow is all that different to a rule like, e.g. "when you come sit at our restaurant', buy OUR food, don't bring outside food".
- JohnTHaller 10y agoIt's more like you bought takeout food but had to sign a licensing agreement that you would not be permitted to add your own seasonings when you got it home. Unless they were certified seasonings purchased at our restaurant. Using our branded credit card. And they sue anyone that attempts to market seasonings for their restaurant without paying them 30% of the sales price.
- coldtea 10y agoYes, but you're sitting there eating that takeout food at a place (platform) that somebody else created. And even the sale of takeout food happened through that same platform.
- JohnTHaller 10y agoNope. I bought that takeout food and brought it home. I'm not using my iPhone in an Apple store. I'm using it in my apartment. If we're making a clumsy (and inaccurate) analogy to the physical world, this is how far you take it to demonstrate the absurdity of it.
- coldtea 10y ago>Nope. I bought that takeout food and brought it home. I'm not using my iPhone in an Apple store. The "restaurant" is the iOS, not the Apple store. I only used the physical location (a restaurant) as an analogy. You're using the App in an environment Apple created.
- JohnTHaller 10y agoThe restaurant as iOS is a flawed analogy, though. It's my phone that I purchased and now own in which Apple's "restaurant" exists and dictates rules to me, the owner?
- 10y ago
- wvenable 10y agoDon't all businesses do that? Walmart? Costco? Verizon? AT&T? Bestbuy? The consequence here is that you are saying a company should not be able to control what they sell in their own stores. That seems pretty extreme.
- digi_owl 10y agoThe tricky bit there is that apple both sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products and services. In the end though, someone has to file a complaint with a relevant regulator for anything to happen. And i suspect few wants to go through the years of court rigamarole opposite Apple's legal team.
- wvenable 10y agoThere are plenty of companies that sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products. Even in that situation, I don't believe there is any legal or moral requirement that they stock competing products (unless in a monopoly scenario). It might seem like a crappy thing to do but the alternative is completely unsustainable.
- coldtea 10y ago>The tricky bit there is that apple both sell their own products and services alongside being a retailer for third party products and services. And Costco etc don't do that?
- snowwrestler 10y agoThis is true of any large grocery or drug store chain, at least in the U.S. I can go into CVS and buy Allegra allergy medicine, or--sitting right next to it on the shelf, also in a purple box--the CVS generic brand with the same amount of the same active ingredient, for less. Allegra could pull their product from CVS shelves if they wanted to. But it seems that having access to CVS customers is worth more to them than the sales they lose to CVS generics.
- TarpitCarnivore 10y ago
- baddox 10y agoHow can you "distort customer choice" if you're only at 15% market share? I thought that's the whole point of using antitrust mechanisms against monopolies, but customers in monopolized markets literally don't have another choice. If Apple is only at 15% market share, it's pretty clear that people using Apple products are doing so because they prefer them to the (much more popular) main competitor.
- tluyben2 10y agoIf there is enough choice for the consumer then why does it matter what a company distorts? The market will crush the company if it goes too far right? You can always not buy Apple and buy Android (outside Google Play Store). Why would they go after Apple for this?
- coldtea 10y ago>All it matters is that a company, or groups of companies, are big enough to distort customer choice to their benefit. That's what all companies are supposed to do.
- WayneBro 10y agoIn the US it's more like 40 to 50%
- itsdrewmiller 10y agoDepends on what market you are looking at. They have 2/3 of the mobile app market by revenue...
- coldtea 10y agoRevenue has never been a monopoly factor. If I sell a single phone for $1 trillion and somebody buys is, I don't have a "monopoly by revenue".
- wvenable 10y agoHow does this work in brick & mortar businesses? Is there precedent for forcing a retailer to stock a particular product?
- digi_owl 10y agoThings may get hairy if said retailer have their own brand of products that they present front and center. Or in some way play favorites with the brands they carry. But there are not really any hard and fast rules for this, similarly to how there are not hard and fast rules regarding corruption.
- scarface74 10y agoRetailers always play favorites with brands based on how much companies are willing to pay them. This is nothing new, hidden, nor is there anything illegal about it.
- digi_owl 10y agoBecause no entity has filed a complaint...
- JohnTHaller 10y agoBecause outside of silicon valley, Apple is a much smaller #2 to Android. Same with their laptop/desktop business. This is why Apple gets to engage in behavior Microsoft never even dreamed of with Windows. Can you imagine the hubbub if Windows on the desktop only had the Microsoft app store and didn't permit any other app store? Or only allowed Internet Explorer and didn't allow any other browsers unless they were just UIs and skins on top of IE? Or locked Windows down so you couldn't even install an app unless it was through their app store? Apple gets away with all of this on iOS because they're not a monopoly, so they can engage in all kinds of anti-competitive behavior as long as their customers don't mind and leave for Android. So far, they don't.
- edko 10y agoThere is a rule that forbids OS X app developers from selling an app that is in the app store at a lesser price somewhere else. I am really surprised that this is not considered anti-competitive price fixing.