7 ms·

The app store itself is a monopoly. Apple then leverages its monopoly in app stores on Apple's platform into other business (Apple Music, eBooks, digital video

The app store itself is a monopoly. Apple then leverages its monopoly in app stores on Apple's platform into other business (Apple Music, eBooks, digital video, etc). This is anti-competitive behaviour and illegal. Only legal gap is declaring Apple's app store on its platform a monopoly, the second that is done then everything else naturally falls into place and Apple receives antitrust violations.

st3v3r 10y ago
"The app store itself is a monopoly." No, it isn't. There is Google Play, Microsoft, Amazon, and a whole host of other app stores out there. Remember, the market is mobile devices altogether, not just iOS devices. "Only legal gap is declaring Apple's app store on its platform a monopoly, the second that is done then everything else naturally falls into place and Apple receives antitrust violations." Which will not happen, because you can't have a monopoly on your own platform.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  > No, it isn't. There is Google Play, Microsoft, Amazon, and a whole host of other app stores out there. Apple has banned all of those from iOS. It allows no third party app stores. > Remember, the market is mobile devices altogether, not just iOS devices. You cannot just tack on the word "remember" to make something an established fact. We don't know what the scope of future legal decisions will be until they're in fact made. > Which will not happen, because you can't have a monopoly on your own platform. You, nor I, have any way of knowing or proving that. This will likely go to SCOTUS in our lifetime, until that happens we won't know the scope of what is a monopolistic market.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    "Apple has banned all of those from iOS. It allows no third party app stores." Which is irrelevant, as Spotify can still sell apps through those stores. Remember, the market is mobile as a whole, not just iOS. "You cannot just tack on the word "remember" to make something an established fact. We don't know what the scope of future legal decisions will be until they're in fact made." It is currently an established fact. If that changes, then we will have to revisit. But as of now, it stands.
    - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
      > It is currently an established fact. If that changes, then we will have to revisit. But as of now, it stands. It hasn't been ruled on. So, no, it hasn't been established. > Remember, the market is mobile as a whole, not just iOS. Why are you copying and pasting? I won't reply to this again, you already posted this above.
      - st3v3r 10y ago
        "Why are you copying and pasting? I won't reply to this again, you already posted this above." Yet, you continue to say the same thing in every one of your comments, trying to define the market so as to ignore other mobile OSes. If you're going to post the same thing, then expect to get the same responses.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Why are you copying and pasting? Rephrasing the same thing, while refusing to understand terms with clear formal definitions, is not that different from copying and pasting.
        UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
        There is no formal definition for what we're discussing, that's the entire point. A market has no fixed definition, it is up to a court to define it. It was a copy/paste, they changed literally one word, and ignored my response to that same point above.
        st3v3r 10y ago
        That's not true at all. The market is very clearly all of mobile software. You do not need a court to define that.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    Anything stopping people from buying non-Apple smart phones?
    - teacup50 10y ago
      Yes. It's quite similar to what stops people from simply moving to a new city to escape a local monopoly.
      - zepto 10y ago
        What are you talking about? Android phones are sold everywhere that iPhones are sold.
        teacup50 10y ago
        Do they run your purchased iOS software? Play your purchased iTunes movies locked with Fairplay DRM? Read your purchased iBooks? Read your personal documents, passwords, and data locked into iCloud? Synchronize with your other Apple iCloud-only devices? At some point, product tying results in lock-in far more costly to escape than, say, a video game console with platform-only titles.
        zepto 10y ago
        This is standard practice and applies to Android too.
        Bombthecat 10y ago
        You can't read Google books on ios? TiL
  - 9935c101ab17a66 10y ago
    I wish you'd stop cluttering up these comment trees with your superficial and obviously misguided beliefs about what is and is not legal.
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  It's way more complicated than that. Antitrust law doesn't care about "the market", it cares about "the relevant market", where "relevant" is a legal term of art that may or may not have anything to do actual markets. There were 6 factors considered in establishing the relevant market in the Microsoft case (paraphrasing Court's Findings of Fact, §2)[0]. A) Servers were not cost-effective replacements for consumer hardware and were excluded from the relevant market. It's not clear whether the discrimination also goes the opposite way (e.g. instead of "smartphones" we compare "flagship smartphones"). If so, that kind of market definition would really make iOS look gigantic. B) PowerPC and other non-Intel-compatibles were excluded from the relevant market since consumers could not install the competing OS on their hardware (that's right, "the relevant market" was constructed so as to exclude Apple, MS's only serious competitor). It is an interesting question whether the fact that you can't run Android on your iPhone for non-ISA reasons would be viewed similarly to an ISA difference in the hardware, but the way I read the ruling, it seems likely to be viewed similarly, or perhaps much worse. The reasoning all stems from whether consumers have choices to install their own OS, nothing to do with ISAs per se. C) Various "borderline formfactors" were excluded from the relevant market. In the 90s this was e.g. WebTV, thin clients and game consoles. Today this might be things like tablets, VR platforms, chromebooks, etc. These are (today) all Android form factors, and excluding them to focus on "traditional" formfactors makes iOS look a bit larger than it does in Netcraft surveys. D) The court observed that market conditions create a feedback loop, e.g. more people write apps for the dominant platform, that make the dominant platform more attractive to write apps for, round and round it goes, etc. This is obviously true for the smartphone market. E) The court was concerned that nobody could realistically enter the market and "in less than a few years, present a significant percentage of consumers with a viable alternative to incumbents." This seems probable for the smartphone market, based on Mozilla and Canonical's misadventures, RIM and Nokia's inability to make a comeback, and even Windows Phone. F) There was also a discussion about why "portals" (like today's cloud computing and/or webapps, basically) are not an effective substitute for doing computing locally and should not be in the relevant market, as well as a discussion of why Java is not a substitute for Windows (obvious to us, but not to lawyers) All of this to say, it is really not so obvious from a legal POV why Apple are not a monopoly or are in any way different fro the Microsoft case. The real reason is probably nobody wants to sue them; I have seen estimates of the Microsoft case that suggests MS spent more than $500M defending it, and the taxpayers (with much cheaper lawyers) spent more or less $100M to prosecute it and didn't get much for their money. Then there is the question of who gains by spending that money: Apple is well-loved by their customers so it doesn't have the election appeal for politicians that the Microsoft case did. Google would prefer to implement Apple-like policies in their store and don't want them found to be illegal. That leaves bit players like Canonical or Mozilla, and for them the legal costs are likely prohibitive. [0] https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#ii https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...
coldtea 10y ago
>The app store itself is a monopoly. Not in the legal sense of the word, so no. To put it simply, monopoly is not "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of their own marketplace/platform". It's "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of the general market".
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  > Not in the legal sense of the word, so no. Since that hasn't been ruled on, we won't know that until it has. > It's "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of the general market". That's a strange definition, but even taking it, the market has yet to be defined by a court. As I've said elsewhere courts have already expanded competition law into securities, they literally declared it a market allowing them to use anti-monopoly controls.
- vivekd 10y ago
  I wonder about that, because the Sherman anti-trust act says 1. "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." which is, extremely vague. I think you are right, intuitively, creating a mobile platform on which only your approved vendors may sell is not breaking anti-trust because you created that platform and there was conspiracy or anti-trade sentiment involved in just the platform getting popular. Certainly we can agree it would not be a monopoly if the iphone only had a market of a few thousand people and apple controlled the app store. At the same time, the law is so vague that it could easily be applied to Apple. All the Sherman anti-trust act seems to require is some kind of interstate or foreign trade (to bring it under Federal Jurisdiction) and a large control of any kind of Trade, which it seems to me could be applied against Apple on the whim of the Feds. The question a judge would ask if this came to court is does the app store constitute a monopoly and is apple using that monopoly to it's advantage to crush competition. And I think the app store is a monopoly and of course when you have a monopoly you are going to use it to prevent people from competing with you.

st3v3r 10y ago

"The app store itself is a monopoly." No, it isn't. There is Google Play, Microsoft, Amazon, and a whole host of other app stores out there. Remember, the market is mobile devices altogether, not just iOS devices. "Only legal gap is declaring Apple's app store on its platform a monopoly, the second that is done then everything else naturally falls into place and Apple receives antitrust violations." Which will not happen, because you can't have a monopoly on your own platform.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
> No, it isn't. There is Google Play, Microsoft, Amazon, and a whole host of other app stores out there. Apple has banned all of those from iOS. It allows no third party app stores. > Remember, the market is mobile devices altogether, not just iOS devices. You cannot just tack on the word "remember" to make something an established fact. We don't know what the scope of future legal decisions will be until they're in fact made. > Which will not happen, because you can't have a monopoly on your own platform. You, nor I, have any way of knowing or proving that. This will likely go to SCOTUS in our lifetime, until that happens we won't know the scope of what is a monopolistic market.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "Apple has banned all of those from iOS. It allows no third party app stores." Which is irrelevant, as Spotify can still sell apps through those stores. Remember, the market is mobile as a whole, not just iOS. "You cannot just tack on the word "remember" to make something an established fact. We don't know what the scope of future legal decisions will be until they're in fact made." It is currently an established fact. If that changes, then we will have to revisit. But as of now, it stands.
  - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
    > It is currently an established fact. If that changes, then we will have to revisit. But as of now, it stands. It hasn't been ruled on. So, no, it hasn't been established. > Remember, the market is mobile as a whole, not just iOS. Why are you copying and pasting? I won't reply to this again, you already posted this above.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      "Why are you copying and pasting? I won't reply to this again, you already posted this above." Yet, you continue to say the same thing in every one of your comments, trying to define the market so as to ignore other mobile OSes. If you're going to post the same thing, then expect to get the same responses.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Why are you copying and pasting? Rephrasing the same thing, while refusing to understand terms with clear formal definitions, is not that different from copying and pasting.
      - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
        There is no formal definition for what we're discussing, that's the entire point. A market has no fixed definition, it is up to a court to define it. It was a copy/paste, they changed literally one word, and ignored my response to that same point above.
        st3v3r 10y ago
        That's not true at all. The market is very clearly all of mobile software. You do not need a court to define that.
- scarface74 10y ago
  Anything stopping people from buying non-Apple smart phones?
  - teacup50 10y ago
    Yes. It's quite similar to what stops people from simply moving to a new city to escape a local monopoly.
    - zepto 10y ago
      What are you talking about? Android phones are sold everywhere that iPhones are sold.
      - teacup50 10y ago
        Do they run your purchased iOS software? Play your purchased iTunes movies locked with Fairplay DRM? Read your purchased iBooks? Read your personal documents, passwords, and data locked into iCloud? Synchronize with your other Apple iCloud-only devices? At some point, product tying results in lock-in far more costly to escape than, say, a video game console with platform-only titles.
        zepto 10y ago
        This is standard practice and applies to Android too.
        Bombthecat 10y ago
        You can't read Google books on ios? TiL
- 9935c101ab17a66 10y ago
  I wish you'd stop cluttering up these comment trees with your superficial and obviously misguided beliefs about what is and is not legal.
drewcrawford 10y ago
It's way more complicated than that. Antitrust law doesn't care about "the market", it cares about "the relevant market", where "relevant" is a legal term of art that may or may not have anything to do actual markets. There were 6 factors considered in establishing the relevant market in the Microsoft case (paraphrasing Court's Findings of Fact, §2)[0]. A) Servers were not cost-effective replacements for consumer hardware and were excluded from the relevant market. It's not clear whether the discrimination also goes the opposite way (e.g. instead of "smartphones" we compare "flagship smartphones"). If so, that kind of market definition would really make iOS look gigantic. B) PowerPC and other non-Intel-compatibles were excluded from the relevant market since consumers could not install the competing OS on their hardware (that's right, "the relevant market" was constructed so as to exclude Apple, MS's only serious competitor). It is an interesting question whether the fact that you can't run Android on your iPhone for non-ISA reasons would be viewed similarly to an ISA difference in the hardware, but the way I read the ruling, it seems likely to be viewed similarly, or perhaps much worse. The reasoning all stems from whether consumers have choices to install their own OS, nothing to do with ISAs per se. C) Various "borderline formfactors" were excluded from the relevant market. In the 90s this was e.g. WebTV, thin clients and game consoles. Today this might be things like tablets, VR platforms, chromebooks, etc. These are (today) all Android form factors, and excluding them to focus on "traditional" formfactors makes iOS look a bit larger than it does in Netcraft surveys. D) The court observed that market conditions create a feedback loop, e.g. more people write apps for the dominant platform, that make the dominant platform more attractive to write apps for, round and round it goes, etc. This is obviously true for the smartphone market. E) The court was concerned that nobody could realistically enter the market and "in less than a few years, present a significant percentage of consumers with a viable alternative to incumbents." This seems probable for the smartphone market, based on Mozilla and Canonical's misadventures, RIM and Nokia's inability to make a comeback, and even Windows Phone. F) There was also a discussion about why "portals" (like today's cloud computing and/or webapps, basically) are not an effective substitute for doing computing locally and should not be in the relevant market, as well as a discussion of why Java is not a substitute for Windows (obvious to us, but not to lawyers) All of this to say, it is really not so obvious from a legal POV why Apple are not a monopoly or are in any way different fro the Microsoft case. The real reason is probably nobody wants to sue them; I have seen estimates of the Microsoft case that suggests MS spent more than $500M defending it, and the taxpayers (with much cheaper lawyers) spent more or less $100M to prosecute it and didn't get much for their money. Then there is the question of who gains by spending that money: Apple is well-loved by their customers so it doesn't have the election appeal for politicians that the Microsoft case did. Google would prefer to implement Apple-like policies in their store and don't want them found to be illegal. That leaves bit players like Canonical or Mozilla, and for them the legal costs are likely prohibitive. [0] https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-fact#ii https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...

coldtea 10y ago

>The app store itself is a monopoly. Not in the legal sense of the word, so no. To put it simply, monopoly is not "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of their own marketplace/platform". It's "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of the general market".

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
> Not in the legal sense of the word, so no. Since that hasn't been ruled on, we won't know that until it has. > It's "only a company dictates the rules/has near total share/control of the general market". That's a strange definition, but even taking it, the market has yet to be defined by a court. As I've said elsewhere courts have already expanded competition law into securities, they literally declared it a market allowing them to use anti-monopoly controls.
vivekd 10y ago
I wonder about that, because the Sherman anti-trust act says 1. "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." which is, extremely vague. I think you are right, intuitively, creating a mobile platform on which only your approved vendors may sell is not breaking anti-trust because you created that platform and there was conspiracy or anti-trade sentiment involved in just the platform getting popular. Certainly we can agree it would not be a monopoly if the iphone only had a market of a few thousand people and apple controlled the app store. At the same time, the law is so vague that it could easily be applied to Apple. All the Sherman anti-trust act seems to require is some kind of interstate or foreign trade (to bring it under Federal Jurisdiction) and a large control of any kind of Trade, which it seems to me could be applied against Apple on the whim of the Feds. The question a judge would ask if this came to court is does the app store constitute a monopoly and is apple using that monopoly to it's advantage to crush competition. And I think the app store is a monopoly and of course when you have a monopoly you are going to use it to prevent people from competing with you.