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The Apple ecosystem is huge though. You can't claim Google is dominant "outside the Apple ecosystem". That's the same as saying Google has a monopoly if you ign

The Apple ecosystem is huge though. You can't claim Google is dominant "outside the Apple ecosystem". That's the same as saying Google has a monopoly if you ignore its competitors. I used to work at Google. Apps written by hobbyists were only exceptionally rarely blocked deliberately. But those apps often [ab]use internal APIs and protocols of the services, so they'd break during updates (which were frequent). Sometimes they have to be blocked due to external contracts (e.g. Maps). Sometimes they tripped anti-botting/anti-spam detection and got users blocked that way. In the end there's no law, agreement or even convention that all services exposed over the internet must allow reimplementations of third party client software. Moxie Marlinspike has written about the difficulties introduced by formally supporting this: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

stale2002 7y ago
> In the end there's no law, agreement or even convention that all services exposed over the internet must allow reimplementations of third party client software Yes there are. They are called anti trust laws, and anti competition laws. These laws apply to companies that have significant market power, regardless if they are on the internet or not. If a company has significant market power, then it is illegal for them to engage in anti competitive practices. In Google's industries, such as search, it can be described as being close to a monopoly, which is enough for anti trust laws to kick in. Yes, if you have significant market power, then you are required by law to not engage in anti competitive practices.
- eclipxe 7y ago
  You're connecting two very different things. Disallowing a third party client to connect and use your infrastructure for it's own purposes is not anti competitive.
  - stale2002 7y ago
    It could be anti competitive if you are a monopoly and it effects competition. This is a common thing that happens in anticompetitive case law. Just ignore the internet part of this, for a second. Instead, imagine if a train company, that owned all of the train tracks in the US, decided to retaliate against it competitors by banning some people from using their trains. This is anti competitive. Being on the internet does not absolve you from anti competitive claims. This is similar to internet clients. There isn't much difference, logically, from banning people from using your trains, vs banning them from using their stuff on the internet. If something effects competition, and you are a monopoly, it could be considered anti competitive. It being on the internet doesn't change this.
    - eclipxe 7y ago
      >imagine if a train company, that owned all of the train tracks in the US, decided to retaliate against it competitors by banning some people from using their trains. This is anti competitive. No it isn't. As long as the train company is not banning people based on a protected category (a local or federal civil right), a private corporation can choose who it does business with. A company has the right to refuse service. How does that even apply to competition? If anything, refusing some customers from using their trains means that it opens up competition for other companies to serve those banned customers. To take your analogy in another direction - if a private train company buys land across the US, lays down track with their labor and their material, they are not forced to let other companies use their tracks. That is what you're asking for here. Of course, if this were a public company or utility that was paid for with public funds, it is a different matter - because it belongs to the public. But a private company doing what it wishes with the private resources it acquired and manages is a right.
      - stale2002 7y ago
        > a private corporation can choose who it does business with. A company has the right to refuse service This is not true. I would strongly encourage you to read up on the history of anti trust law. I chose the example of train lines for a reason. The reason being that this literal thing happened. It is the literal most famous example of antitrust law, of all time. The sherman anti trust act was created, for the literal purpose of prosecuting people, related to railroads, in the example that I just gave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antitrust_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antit... > if a private train company buys land across the US, lays down track with their labor and their material, they are not forced to let other companies use their tracks. Yes they are. This happened. Literally this exact situation happened. It was called the Standard Oil Company. And they used the railroad system in the exact way that I described, and it was was broken up, in the most famous example in history of anti-trust law. Check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey... So once again, this is not an argument about what could happen. This is instead an argument of literally what happened, in the most famous example of anti-trust law, in history. You cannot disagree with what happened, related to the most famous example of anti-trust law, in history. I am honestly not sure if you know what anti-trust law even is, if you don't understand anything about the most famous example of anti-trust law in history.

stale2002 7y ago

> In the end there's no law, agreement or even convention that all services exposed over the internet must allow reimplementations of third party client software Yes there are. They are called anti trust laws, and anti competition laws. These laws apply to companies that have significant market power, regardless if they are on the internet or not. If a company has significant market power, then it is illegal for them to engage in anti competitive practices. In Google's industries, such as search, it can be described as being close to a monopoly, which is enough for anti trust laws to kick in. Yes, if you have significant market power, then you are required by law to not engage in anti competitive practices.

eclipxe 7y ago
You're connecting two very different things. Disallowing a third party client to connect and use your infrastructure for it's own purposes is not anti competitive.
- stale2002 7y ago
  It could be anti competitive if you are a monopoly and it effects competition. This is a common thing that happens in anticompetitive case law. Just ignore the internet part of this, for a second. Instead, imagine if a train company, that owned all of the train tracks in the US, decided to retaliate against it competitors by banning some people from using their trains. This is anti competitive. Being on the internet does not absolve you from anti competitive claims. This is similar to internet clients. There isn't much difference, logically, from banning people from using your trains, vs banning them from using their stuff on the internet. If something effects competition, and you are a monopoly, it could be considered anti competitive. It being on the internet doesn't change this.
  - eclipxe 7y ago
    >imagine if a train company, that owned all of the train tracks in the US, decided to retaliate against it competitors by banning some people from using their trains. This is anti competitive. No it isn't. As long as the train company is not banning people based on a protected category (a local or federal civil right), a private corporation can choose who it does business with. A company has the right to refuse service. How does that even apply to competition? If anything, refusing some customers from using their trains means that it opens up competition for other companies to serve those banned customers. To take your analogy in another direction - if a private train company buys land across the US, lays down track with their labor and their material, they are not forced to let other companies use their tracks. That is what you're asking for here. Of course, if this were a public company or utility that was paid for with public funds, it is a different matter - because it belongs to the public. But a private company doing what it wishes with the private resources it acquired and manages is a right.
    - stale2002 7y ago
      > a private corporation can choose who it does business with. A company has the right to refuse service This is not true. I would strongly encourage you to read up on the history of anti trust law. I chose the example of train lines for a reason. The reason being that this literal thing happened. It is the literal most famous example of antitrust law, of all time. The sherman anti trust act was created, for the literal purpose of prosecuting people, related to railroads, in the example that I just gave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antitrust_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_antit... > if a private train company buys land across the US, lays down track with their labor and their material, they are not forced to let other companies use their tracks. Yes they are. This happened. Literally this exact situation happened. It was called the Standard Oil Company. And they used the railroad system in the exact way that I described, and it was was broken up, in the most famous example in history of anti-trust law. Check it out here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey... So once again, this is not an argument about what could happen. This is instead an argument of literally what happened, in the most famous example of anti-trust law, in history. You cannot disagree with what happened, related to the most famous example of anti-trust law, in history. I am honestly not sure if you know what anti-trust law even is, if you don't understand anything about the most famous example of anti-trust law in history.