4 ms·

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any def

by vondur 6y ago

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Apple's monopoly is unusual, because what they did was create a wall around a section of an ancillary market (apps) which caused it to be its own market. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on bread because anybody can buy bread from Costco instead without having to buy a new toaster. Once you make buying $1 apps from not-Apple require people to replace their $1000 phone, that makes apps for that kind of phone its own market which Apple has a monopoly on. That wouldn't be the case if they had competing app stores, but they don't. Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. I don't understand why United Airlines is on that list either. Airlines are a weird market because it's extremely capital intensive but also aggressively competitive, so they sort of alternate between all going bankrupt from relentless price competition and all colluding to raise prices enough that they don't all go bankrupt and then getting in trouble over it.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  > Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. This isn't due to monopolistic behavior; the McDonnell Douglas company, the last big American competitor to Boeing, would probably have ceased to be a going concern had the merger not happened. Modern aircraft cost billions and billions of dollars to develop; Bombardier just threw in the towel and sold to Airbus, and Embraer almost did the same with Boeing were it not for COVID. There are only so many aircraft manufacturers with the resources to invest in development of brand new commerical aircraft.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > This isn't due to monopolistic behavior That might mean they haven't violated antitrust laws but that doesn't make them any less a monopoly. We might also want to start looking at how that somehow happened without them doing something untoward, because it implies that something else has gone wrong -- why is it now prohibitively expensive to design a commercial aircraft when it didn't used to be? Monopolies also aren't allowed to do certain things no matter how they got that way. (Many of the things Apple does come to mind.)
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      1. Aircraft is not a monopoly, it's a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus in certain aircraft segments, and there are other manufacturers like Embraer. Airbus has manufacturing lines in the US and sells plenty of aircraft to American customers so it's not even a monopoly on manufacturing in the US. 2. Aircraft development has always been really expensive. Lots of iconic companies have shuttered, merged, or otherwise ceased to exist because aircraft development is fucking hard. Historically: * McDonnell Douglas merged into Boeing (or the other way around, depending on your view) after they failed to build the MD-11 up to the performance advertised to customers and suffered billions in costs and delays, and that was formed from an earlier merger of McDonnell and Douglas after Douglas struggled with the costs of developing the DC-8 and 9, both airliners that are considered to have sold fairly well. * Airbus was formed from scavenging various European national aircraft manufacturers because they would all lose money if they tried competing individually vs MCD and Boeing. * Lockheed Martin exited the commercial aircraft market decades ago after spending billions of dollars on a delayed aircraft that airlines said they were interested in, but then got cold feet about buying. More recently: * Bombardier sold its aircraft lines to Airbus because it spent billions of dollars trying to fix mistakes and delays. * Embraer tried to sell stakes in its aircraft lines to Boeing because despite having airplanes that sell well they could not cope with the cost of developing updated versions of their aircraft. * China, Japan, and Russia have each had state-backed programs to try and take some of the lucrative airline market. All of the programs have cost billions of dollars, were delayed, and on top of that non-domestic customers are not really interested in these planes since they have worse efficiency and performance characteristics than competing aircraft products. Even the big two have had problems; every single recent aircraft line has seen delays and cost overruns. Boeing and Airbus are just big enough that they can eat the cost of it without needing lots of government subsidy, but the MAX8 crisis has shown that might not even be true anymore. If it were possible to reduce costs, someone would have done it by now, because aircraft manufacturing can be a very lucrative industry resulting in millions of direct and indirect jobs. As it turns out, aircraft are expensive because the ever-increasing requirements for fuel efficiency and safety from airlines and regulators have resulted in aircraft that get harder and harder to develop and build each generation. Rolling any of this back is not a good idea, because * for various reasons, using more fuel than you have to for air travel is not good * every single safety regulation for aircraft is written in blood, and in general people do not want to fly in planes created via "move fast, break things"; see the MAX8 crisis. > Monopolies also aren't allowed to do certain things no matter how they got that way. (Many of the things Apple does come to mind.) What is something Boeing has done that they should not be allowed to do as a result of their position in a duopoly?
wayneftw 6y ago
The Apple iPhone has very close to 50% market in the US and you simply cannot have a successful mobile software business without releasing your app on the iPhone. Apple already lost a preliminary suit that will allow them to be sued for their monopolistic practices - https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-walled-garden-apple-gets-bitten-right-in-the-app-store/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-walled-garden-apple-ge...
ohazi 6y ago
> Comcast, they need to be broken up Breaking up a regional monopoly into smaller regional monopolies doesn't work (see baby Bells). What would be better is requiring the owners of any last mile infrastructure to lease said infrastructure to any other interested operator at cost. This worked with DSL, but the mandate ended when we moved on to other technologies like cable and fiber that had no such requirements. Instead, we now do the opposite. We give ISPs tax breaks and incentives and piles of cash to "build out the infrastructure" (read: we pay them to invest in their own business), because they threaten to not build it otherwise (read: they're threatening to deliberately decline to grow their business), and for the privilege of paying them to increase their customer and revenue base, we (get this) give them the exclusive right to be the only operator of any similar last mile infrastructure in that area. How fucking stupid can we get? We should not allow these agreements to happen, and we should retroactively void any that are currently in place.
- blackflame7000 6y ago
  Moot point, everything will be wireless in 10 years with 5G speeds and the expense of laying fiber.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I’ll believe it when I see it. Nothing wireless comes close to The experience of a wired fiber connection, especially getting through walls of various materials.
greggman3 6y ago
Depending on the source Apple has 51% to 61% of the mobile market in the USA https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... And 66% of the tablet market share in the USA https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/tablet/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/tablet/united-sta... So yes, Apple can easily be considered a monopoly in the USA. Monopolies are regulated by countries.

by vondur 6y ago

I agree with Comcast, they need to be broken up, and Amazon could do with some scrutiny. But Apple, Boeing and United Airlines? The aren't monopolies by any definition.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

Apple's monopoly is unusual, because what they did was create a wall around a section of an ancillary market (apps) which caused it to be its own market. Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on bread because anybody can buy bread from Costco instead without having to buy a new toaster. Once you make buying $1 apps from not-Apple require people to replace their $1000 phone, that makes apps for that kind of phone its own market which Apple has a monopoly on. That wouldn't be the case if they had competing app stores, but they don't. Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. I don't understand why United Airlines is on that list either. Airlines are a weird market because it's extremely capital intensive but also aggressively competitive, so they sort of alternate between all going bankrupt from relentless price competition and all colluding to raise prices enough that they don't all go bankrupt and then getting in trouble over it.

bobthepanda 6y ago
> Boeing has a serious lack of competition. Their only meaningful competitor is Airbus and that's a foreign company. They have no domestic competition at all, which is inherently problematic, especially for a critical industry like that. This isn't due to monopolistic behavior; the McDonnell Douglas company, the last big American competitor to Boeing, would probably have ceased to be a going concern had the merger not happened. Modern aircraft cost billions and billions of dollars to develop; Bombardier just threw in the towel and sold to Airbus, and Embraer almost did the same with Boeing were it not for COVID. There are only so many aircraft manufacturers with the resources to invest in development of brand new commerical aircraft.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > This isn't due to monopolistic behavior That might mean they haven't violated antitrust laws but that doesn't make them any less a monopoly. We might also want to start looking at how that somehow happened without them doing something untoward, because it implies that something else has gone wrong -- why is it now prohibitively expensive to design a commercial aircraft when it didn't used to be? Monopolies also aren't allowed to do certain things no matter how they got that way. (Many of the things Apple does come to mind.)
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    1. Aircraft is not a monopoly, it's a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus in certain aircraft segments, and there are other manufacturers like Embraer. Airbus has manufacturing lines in the US and sells plenty of aircraft to American customers so it's not even a monopoly on manufacturing in the US. 2. Aircraft development has always been really expensive. Lots of iconic companies have shuttered, merged, or otherwise ceased to exist because aircraft development is fucking hard. Historically: * McDonnell Douglas merged into Boeing (or the other way around, depending on your view) after they failed to build the MD-11 up to the performance advertised to customers and suffered billions in costs and delays, and that was formed from an earlier merger of McDonnell and Douglas after Douglas struggled with the costs of developing the DC-8 and 9, both airliners that are considered to have sold fairly well. * Airbus was formed from scavenging various European national aircraft manufacturers because they would all lose money if they tried competing individually vs MCD and Boeing. * Lockheed Martin exited the commercial aircraft market decades ago after spending billions of dollars on a delayed aircraft that airlines said they were interested in, but then got cold feet about buying. More recently: * Bombardier sold its aircraft lines to Airbus because it spent billions of dollars trying to fix mistakes and delays. * Embraer tried to sell stakes in its aircraft lines to Boeing because despite having airplanes that sell well they could not cope with the cost of developing updated versions of their aircraft. * China, Japan, and Russia have each had state-backed programs to try and take some of the lucrative airline market. All of the programs have cost billions of dollars, were delayed, and on top of that non-domestic customers are not really interested in these planes since they have worse efficiency and performance characteristics than competing aircraft products. Even the big two have had problems; every single recent aircraft line has seen delays and cost overruns. Boeing and Airbus are just big enough that they can eat the cost of it without needing lots of government subsidy, but the MAX8 crisis has shown that might not even be true anymore. If it were possible to reduce costs, someone would have done it by now, because aircraft manufacturing can be a very lucrative industry resulting in millions of direct and indirect jobs. As it turns out, aircraft are expensive because the ever-increasing requirements for fuel efficiency and safety from airlines and regulators have resulted in aircraft that get harder and harder to develop and build each generation. Rolling any of this back is not a good idea, because * for various reasons, using more fuel than you have to for air travel is not good * every single safety regulation for aircraft is written in blood, and in general people do not want to fly in planes created via "move fast, break things"; see the MAX8 crisis. > Monopolies also aren't allowed to do certain things no matter how they got that way. (Many of the things Apple does come to mind.) What is something Boeing has done that they should not be allowed to do as a result of their position in a duopoly?

wayneftw 6y ago

The Apple iPhone has very close to 50% market in the US and you simply cannot have a successful mobile software business without releasing your app on the iPhone. Apple already lost a preliminary suit that will allow them to be sued for their monopolistic practices - https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-walled-garden-apple-gets-bitten-right-in-the-app-store/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-walled-garden-apple-ge...

ohazi 6y ago

> Comcast, they need to be broken up Breaking up a regional monopoly into smaller regional monopolies doesn't work (see baby Bells). What would be better is requiring the owners of any last mile infrastructure to lease said infrastructure to any other interested operator at cost. This worked with DSL, but the mandate ended when we moved on to other technologies like cable and fiber that had no such requirements. Instead, we now do the opposite. We give ISPs tax breaks and incentives and piles of cash to "build out the infrastructure" (read: we pay them to invest in their own business), because they threaten to not build it otherwise (read: they're threatening to deliberately decline to grow their business), and for the privilege of paying them to increase their customer and revenue base, we (get this) give them the exclusive right to be the only operator of any similar last mile infrastructure in that area. How fucking stupid can we get? We should not allow these agreements to happen, and we should retroactively void any that are currently in place.

blackflame7000 6y ago
Moot point, everything will be wireless in 10 years with 5G speeds and the expense of laying fiber.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I’ll believe it when I see it. Nothing wireless comes close to The experience of a wired fiber connection, especially getting through walls of various materials.

greggman3 6y ago

Depending on the source Apple has 51% to 61% of the mobile market in the USA https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america/ https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... And 66% of the tablet market share in the USA https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/tablet/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/tablet/united-sta... So yes, Apple can easily be considered a monopoly in the USA. Monopolies are regulated by countries.