8 ms·

I think that the antitrust suits are just around the corner. Which is good, because there are a ton of corner cases beyond the obvious ones that just got damage

by jonbro 16y ago

I think that the antitrust suits are just around the corner. Which is good, because there are a ton of corner cases beyond the obvious ones that just got damaged. I think the books / movies / tv are just the ones that we heard about first. Pretty sure this is going to effect flickr, vimeo, and more.

dantheman 16y ago
Yeah because when you can't compete in the market, it doesn't hurt try and get the government to smack down your competitors...
cletus 16y ago
People love to throw around the antritrust word without--and this isn't necessarily directed at you personally--knowing what it actually means. Does Apple have a monopoly on phones? Hardly. Look at HTC, Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Nokia, etc. Does Apple have a monopoly on music? No. You can buy it from Amazon and elsewhere. Likewise you can use Grooveshark, Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc for different services depending on what country you're in. iTunes sure is dominant though. Does Apple have a monopoly on ebooks? Hardly. Amazon is a far bigger player here. Amazon is not dependent on Apple as a means of distribution, although Apple devices are obviously important. Does Apple have a monopoly on TV shows or movies? Hardly. You can buy DVDs from any number of places and downloads from the likes of Amazon. Content producers like Comedy Central, CBS, Fox and others also stream directly from their Websites (and they could do this in HTML5 if they wanted to, allowing them to be viewed on iDevices, but alas they still choose Flash almost exclusively). So where exactly is the monopoly (virtual or actual) here? You can say that Apple is the only one who can sell apps on iDevices and you'd be right. So what? NBC is the only one who can broadcast shows on their stations. That doesn't make them a monopoly. So unless someone can produce a cogent argument of how antitrust applies--and I've yet to see one--can we please stop bandying the word around like it has any relevance here? This isn't to say that some Congressman or Senator won't speak out or possibly there might be a House or Senate hearing but that's really about creating the appearance of doing something rather than their being any justifiable basis for investigation.
- halo 16y ago
  Did Microsoft ever have a monopoly on OSes? Hardly. Look at Mac OS, OS/2, BeOS, AIX, Solaris, Debian, Slackware, SUSE, Red Hat, RISC OS, BeOS, QNX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, IRIX, VMS, Palm OS, EPOC OS (nee Symbian) etc.
  - podperson 16y ago
    I'm replying to the reply to your post, and not your post because for some reason I can't reply directly to it. Microsoft has >90% market share in OSes. The existence of a rival product doesn't negate a monopoly. The existence of a true alternative negates a monopoly. Apple doesn't even have a dominant share of ANYTHING except portable music players (which, incidentally, play content from other vendors just fine -- oh and you can _legally_ rip your Apple DRMed music to CD and play it anywhere so where's the lock-in?).
    - Stormbringer 16y ago
      If the reply gets beyond a certain depth there is a built in delay (that gets longer the deeper you get). It's there because Hacker news has decided that there is no value in deep conversations, they prefer the more shallow ones and feel that they get a better result that way. Presumably it also serves as a brake on certain kinds of anti-social behaviour such as flamewars and trolling. It's in the terms of service or rules for newbies or something like that. (edit: went looking for the text in the guidelines so I could link it, but couldn't find it. Sorry. It might be one of PGs articles that I was thinking of)
      - calloc 16y ago
        From what I've gathered from other hn'ers was that the reply was gone so that it couldn't turn into a quick back and forth between two authors. If you ever need to reply, click the link button for that comment, the reply box is now available.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    MS had over 90% of the market. Apple is selling 90% of phones?

by jonbro 16y ago

dantheman 16y ago

Yeah because when you can't compete in the market, it doesn't hurt try and get the government to smack down your competitors...

cletus 16y ago

People love to throw around the antritrust word without--and this isn't necessarily directed at you personally--knowing what it actually means. Does Apple have a monopoly on phones? Hardly. Look at HTC, Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Nokia, etc. Does Apple have a monopoly on music? No. You can buy it from Amazon and elsewhere. Likewise you can use Grooveshark, Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc for different services depending on what country you're in. iTunes sure is dominant though. Does Apple have a monopoly on ebooks? Hardly. Amazon is a far bigger player here. Amazon is not dependent on Apple as a means of distribution, although Apple devices are obviously important. Does Apple have a monopoly on TV shows or movies? Hardly. You can buy DVDs from any number of places and downloads from the likes of Amazon. Content producers like Comedy Central, CBS, Fox and others also stream directly from their Websites (and they could do this in HTML5 if they wanted to, allowing them to be viewed on iDevices, but alas they still choose Flash almost exclusively). So where exactly is the monopoly (virtual or actual) here? You can say that Apple is the only one who can sell apps on iDevices and you'd be right. So what? NBC is the only one who can broadcast shows on their stations. That doesn't make them a monopoly. So unless someone can produce a cogent argument of how antitrust applies--and I've yet to see one--can we please stop bandying the word around like it has any relevance here? This isn't to say that some Congressman or Senator won't speak out or possibly there might be a House or Senate hearing but that's really about creating the appearance of doing something rather than their being any justifiable basis for investigation.

halo 16y ago
Did Microsoft ever have a monopoly on OSes? Hardly. Look at Mac OS, OS/2, BeOS, AIX, Solaris, Debian, Slackware, SUSE, Red Hat, RISC OS, BeOS, QNX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, IRIX, VMS, Palm OS, EPOC OS (nee Symbian) etc.
- podperson 16y ago
  I'm replying to the reply to your post, and not your post because for some reason I can't reply directly to it. Microsoft has >90% market share in OSes. The existence of a rival product doesn't negate a monopoly. The existence of a true alternative negates a monopoly. Apple doesn't even have a dominant share of ANYTHING except portable music players (which, incidentally, play content from other vendors just fine -- oh and you can _legally_ rip your Apple DRMed music to CD and play it anywhere so where's the lock-in?).
  - Stormbringer 16y ago
    If the reply gets beyond a certain depth there is a built in delay (that gets longer the deeper you get). It's there because Hacker news has decided that there is no value in deep conversations, they prefer the more shallow ones and feel that they get a better result that way. Presumably it also serves as a brake on certain kinds of anti-social behaviour such as flamewars and trolling. It's in the terms of service or rules for newbies or something like that. (edit: went looking for the text in the guidelines so I could link it, but couldn't find it. Sorry. It might be one of PGs articles that I was thinking of)
    - calloc 16y ago
      From what I've gathered from other hn'ers was that the reply was gone so that it couldn't turn into a quick back and forth between two authors. If you ever need to reply, click the link button for that comment, the reply box is now available.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  MS had over 90% of the market. Apple is selling 90% of phones?