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Are we justifying potentially illegal behavior by saying "that's their brand" and it helps them get wealthy in the long run? Monsanto does the same with seeds.

Are we justifying potentially illegal behavior by saying "that's their brand" and it helps them get wealthy in the long run? Monsanto does the same with seeds. They do RnD, develop seeds and force farmers to buy seeds directly from them, control end to end and probably produce higher-yield crops with lesser diseases. It is their "brand" but should we justify that behavior?

gowld 7y ago
> justifying potentially illegal behavior No, that's putting the cart before the horse. The question isn't "is this (presumed) illegal behavior justified?"; the question is "this behavior is illegal if it is unjustified -- is it justified?". The illegality (should) be a result of answering the question "is someone hurt unfairly?" If the behavior in question is profiting from their own hard+smart work and not sharing the wealth as much as partners want, it shouldn't be illegal (or at most, the illegality is in keeping too high a share of the profits). If the behavior is bait-and-switch trapping people and ripping them off by hooking them with deceptively low onboarding price with high back-end "debt service", then it should be illegal. This is the principle underlying anti-trust/monopoly law.
wayoutthere 7y ago
I think we simply need to look at the iPhone as a platform on its own. Sure, they own a sizable chunk of the market, but so does Android. People are free to develop on Android, it’s just they don’t as often because Android made some platform decisions that for whatever reason caused people to not make App Store purchases. There is a choice in platforms — but the monetization situation on the Android platform makes it unattractive to developers for whatever reason. Why are users more willing to spend money buying apps on Apple’s store than Google’s? I suspect it is because of Apple’s stringent App Store screening process. Yeah, it sucks ass for developers but again, this is Apple’s MO. Apple takes care of their end users, Google takes care of their business partners (and this is a pretty consistent theme across both companies and apparent in their approach to product support). I often find this is useful if followed up with another question: Is there a market for tablets, or is there just an iPad market? Would the entire model have been as successful without Apple’s approach? Remember, Windows tablets and netbooks had hyped and fizzled long before the iPad. Would it have gotten off the ground before fragmenting the user experience into a thousand pieces?

gowld 7y ago

> justifying potentially illegal behavior No, that's putting the cart before the horse. The question isn't "is this (presumed) illegal behavior justified?"; the question is "this behavior is illegal if it is unjustified -- is it justified?". The illegality (should) be a result of answering the question "is someone hurt unfairly?" If the behavior in question is profiting from their own hard+smart work and not sharing the wealth as much as partners want, it shouldn't be illegal (or at most, the illegality is in keeping too high a share of the profits). If the behavior is bait-and-switch trapping people and ripping them off by hooking them with deceptively low onboarding price with high back-end "debt service", then it should be illegal. This is the principle underlying anti-trust/monopoly law.

wayoutthere 7y ago

I think we simply need to look at the iPhone as a platform on its own. Sure, they own a sizable chunk of the market, but so does Android. People are free to develop on Android, it’s just they don’t as often because Android made some platform decisions that for whatever reason caused people to not make App Store purchases. There is a choice in platforms — but the monetization situation on the Android platform makes it unattractive to developers for whatever reason. Why are users more willing to spend money buying apps on Apple’s store than Google’s? I suspect it is because of Apple’s stringent App Store screening process. Yeah, it sucks ass for developers but again, this is Apple’s MO. Apple takes care of their end users, Google takes care of their business partners (and this is a pretty consistent theme across both companies and apparent in their approach to product support). I often find this is useful if followed up with another question: Is there a market for tablets, or is there just an iPad market? Would the entire model have been as successful without Apple’s approach? Remember, Windows tablets and netbooks had hyped and fizzled long before the iPad. Would it have gotten off the ground before fragmenting the user experience into a thousand pieces?