4 ms·

Microsoft's failures as a monopoly helped write the book on how to keep your monopoly. Apple learned that a monopoly is only illegal when it stifles competitio

Microsoft's failures as a monopoly helped write the book on how to keep your monopoly. Apple learned that a monopoly is only illegal when it stifles competition, but if no competition is ever allowed then regulatory bodies completely overlook it. Google learned that you don't have to stifle the competition, instead you overwhelm them with openness. You make everything you do an open or standardized and keep dumping it over the fence.

simonh 6y ago
>...if no competition is ever allowed then regulatory bodies completely overlook it. Regulators look at the market. When they looked at desktops in 2001 they saw Microsoft with 90%+ domination and were concerned that consumer choice might be compromised and was being abused. For mobile they don't look at the 'iOS market', they look at the smartphone market and see Apple with less that 50% of it in the US. So if you're concerned about Apple's potential abuse of it's power over it's users, which is entirely fair, anti-trust simply isn't the way to look at it. You'd need to go to regular consumer protection legislation.
Ensorceled 6y ago
Apple is sh*t at stifling competition, they have less than 20% of the world smart phone market and a half dozen major competitors. Google stifles competition by using their incredible ad revenue engine to fund products like Android and then giving them away for what amounts to "future consideration", effectively destroying the non-apple OS market as well as other markets.
- simonh 6y ago
  I'm not really disagreeing with you, but I don't think it's because they're not good at it, I think they genuinely just don't care about stifling competition. They consciously target their products at the high end, professional and affluent customers. They're a premium brand. They have no more interest in chasing market share on the desktop or mobile than Gucci has in chasing market share in handbags.

simonh 6y ago

>...if no competition is ever allowed then regulatory bodies completely overlook it. Regulators look at the market. When they looked at desktops in 2001 they saw Microsoft with 90%+ domination and were concerned that consumer choice might be compromised and was being abused. For mobile they don't look at the 'iOS market', they look at the smartphone market and see Apple with less that 50% of it in the US. So if you're concerned about Apple's potential abuse of it's power over it's users, which is entirely fair, anti-trust simply isn't the way to look at it. You'd need to go to regular consumer protection legislation.

Ensorceled 6y ago

Apple is sh*t at stifling competition, they have less than 20% of the world smart phone market and a half dozen major competitors. Google stifles competition by using their incredible ad revenue engine to fund products like Android and then giving them away for what amounts to "future consideration", effectively destroying the non-apple OS market as well as other markets.

simonh 6y ago
I'm not really disagreeing with you, but I don't think it's because they're not good at it, I think they genuinely just don't care about stifling competition. They consciously target their products at the high end, professional and affluent customers. They're a premium brand. They have no more interest in chasing market share on the desktop or mobile than Gucci has in chasing market share in handbags.