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> MS and Apple don't compete on merit, because of the lock-in above. That's bullshit. Of course they compete on merit. You don't have lock-in until you actuall
by eridius 10y ago
> MS and Apple don't compete on merit, because of the lock-in above.
That's bullshit. Of course they compete on merit. You don't have lock-in until you actually acquire the customer, and until they've been using your platform long enough to buy into the lock-in. The platforms are absolutely competing on merit in order to attract new customers, and to ensure the current customers are happy enough that they don't pay the cost of jumping platforms.
> When they are forced to compete on merit, it quickly shows they aren't anywhere "hugely better", and often they are simply worse. The article highlights this point.
You completely misunderstand the article. It's not saying iOS is not better. It's saying that Chinese users are using WeChat as their platform and largely don't care about the underlying software platform that WeChat is running on. For the most part it doesn't matter whether iOS or Android is better, because the Chinese users are completely ignoring that and using the common WeChat platform. So the fact that Chinese iOS users might switch to Android doesn't mean iOS is worse, it just means the fact that it's better is irrelevant.
- shmerl 10y agoCompeting on merit means no dirty monopolistic tricks, like saying "you can only use our browser here. Tough luck if you want to use something better than that". So they clearly don't compete on merit when they make all those weird restrictions. > You completely misunderstand the article. I understand it well. The article says, that in China the situation ironically managed to undermine Apple's lock-in (though replacing it with Wechat lock-in). This way Apple only serves as another hardware option. So Apple has to compete on merit with other hardware makers.