3 ms·
Apple/iTunes has(had?) the dominant marketshare for digital music retail in the USA
by canuckintime 10y ago
Apple/iTunes has(had?) the dominant marketshare for digital music retail in the USA
- MBCook 10y agoThat's true it did, but there were perfectly reasonable alternatives such as CDs. That was always the problem with the argument against iTunes Music Store. As time went on other DRM free stores came around like Amazon. The difference with the App Store (full disclosure: I don't think there's anti-trust issues here) is that it's THE ONLY place to buy apps for iOS. There's no place to get a substitute (HTML isn't competitive). The case against the app store is far more compelling in the one against the iTunes Music Store.
- canuckintime 10y ago> The case against the app store is far more compelling in the one against the iTunes Music Store. Well what makes the case compelling to the original parent point is not exclusive access but market share. Apple's iPod (hardware players) and iTunes Store (digital music store) had a dominant 70%+ USA market share for most of the past decade. In comparison the iPhone has been between 40%-50% USA market share for the past 5 years (the iPad though has 60%-70%+ market share). What makes a case compelling for Anti-trust issues though is not market share per se but ABUSE of that market share. A compelling case can be made that Apple is using their market share to muscle in from the digital music downloads business to the digital music streaming business (preferential links between iTunes and Apple Music etc) with unfair tactics against Spotify and other competitors (Rdio for one has already been driven out of business)