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Apple's market share is low enough that it may continue to be unchallenged by enforcing all its own apps to be the default apps. Antitrust will probably not app

Apple's market share is low enough that it may continue to be unchallenged by enforcing all its own apps to be the default apps. Antitrust will probably not apply to them, I suspect.

MBCook 7y ago
The US government (for example) doesn’t care about Apple’s world wide market share, they care about the US. And in the US Apple’s market share is MUCH higher.
- dep_b 7y ago
  Not even close to anti-trust triggering size though
- Retric 7y ago
  Still 10% below Android though.
  - writepub 7y ago
    Not according to [1]. Install base of iOS is higher in the US [1]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...
runevault 7y ago
This gets into an interesting consideration around what monopoly means. Up until now it's always been about market share, but the interesting trick apple has pulled is, while not having a great chunk of the market, they DO have a massive chunk of mobile app revenue, hence mobile devs so focused on iOS in spite of total available user base relative to Android.
mcphage 7y ago
I am not a lawyer by any stretch, but I remember from conversations here recently about anti-trust, is that it all depends on how the "market" is defined. Apple has a non-monopoly share of the smartphone market, or even the app market, but they do have a monopoly share of the iPhone market. Sometimes, that's the relevant metric.
- zepto 7y ago
  By that logic, any manufacturer who doesn’t produce a commodity is automatically a monopolist.
  - hrktb 7y ago
    The metrics might be how far they are using their weight to one-up competition within their ecosystem. The same point has been raised with Amazon using its platform wide vision to see market trends and enter profitable niches with its own brand. There’s an effort to redefine anti-competitive behaviors within a platform, it might end up being called something else than anti-trust, but it’s a real effort.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    Not just any arbitrary one, but certainly one that is big enough is a monopolist. This seems obviously true to me. The big insight from Lina Khan's work is that harm to consumer welfare is sufficient but not necessary for an entity to be a monopoly. Bigness itself is a problem for society.
    - zepto 7y ago
      What’s the definition of bigness in this work?
      - damnyou 7y ago
        There are debates to be had at the borders, but FAANG are clearly on the wrong side of it.
        zepto 7y ago
        That’s a non answer. There must be a structural definition, otherwise who gets to decide?
bearjaws 7y ago
If Microsoft defaulting IE8 can result in a antitrust lawsuit, I believe we will see the same applied here when it comes to assistants, google maps, browsers and such.

Apple's market share is low enough that it may continue to be unchallenged by enforcing all its own apps to be the default apps. Antitrust will probably not apply to them, I suspect.

MBCook 7y ago

The US government (for example) doesn’t care about Apple’s world wide market share, they care about the US. And in the US Apple’s market share is MUCH higher.

dep_b 7y ago
Not even close to anti-trust triggering size though
Retric 7y ago
Still 10% below Android though.
- writepub 7y ago
  Not according to [1]. Install base of iOS is higher in the US [1]: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...

runevault 7y ago

This gets into an interesting consideration around what monopoly means. Up until now it's always been about market share, but the interesting trick apple has pulled is, while not having a great chunk of the market, they DO have a massive chunk of mobile app revenue, hence mobile devs so focused on iOS in spite of total available user base relative to Android.

mcphage 7y ago

I am not a lawyer by any stretch, but I remember from conversations here recently about anti-trust, is that it all depends on how the "market" is defined. Apple has a non-monopoly share of the smartphone market, or even the app market, but they do have a monopoly share of the iPhone market. Sometimes, that's the relevant metric.

zepto 7y ago
By that logic, any manufacturer who doesn’t produce a commodity is automatically a monopolist.
- hrktb 7y ago
  The metrics might be how far they are using their weight to one-up competition within their ecosystem. The same point has been raised with Amazon using its platform wide vision to see market trends and enter profitable niches with its own brand. There’s an effort to redefine anti-competitive behaviors within a platform, it might end up being called something else than anti-trust, but it’s a real effort.
- damnyou 7y ago
  Not just any arbitrary one, but certainly one that is big enough is a monopolist. This seems obviously true to me. The big insight from Lina Khan's work is that harm to consumer welfare is sufficient but not necessary for an entity to be a monopoly. Bigness itself is a problem for society.
  - zepto 7y ago
    What’s the definition of bigness in this work?
    - damnyou 7y ago
      There are debates to be had at the borders, but FAANG are clearly on the wrong side of it.
      - zepto 7y ago
        That’s a non answer. There must be a structural definition, otherwise who gets to decide?

bearjaws 7y ago

If Microsoft defaulting IE8 can result in a antitrust lawsuit, I believe we will see the same applied here when it comes to assistants, google maps, browsers and such.