5 ms·
Is there even a legal term for this sort of captive market scenario? Antitrust laws seem close in spirit, but people decades ago apparently couldn't have antici
by redwall_hp 6y ago
Is there even a legal term for this sort of captive market scenario? Antitrust laws seem close in spirit, but people decades ago apparently couldn't have anticipated the sort of vendor lock-in that has become commonplace in the smartphone space.
It's like you had two paper mills that dominated the market, and they wanted to claim a percentage of every novel, newspaper, etc. printed on the paper they produced. Oh, and you can't use that paper you bought to write erotica or other things the company disapproves of.
- camgunz 6y agoYeah, it is technically a cartel.
- Spooky23 6y agoThe only unique thing is the scale. There’s nothing that Apple is doing that your grocery store, Ticketmaster venue, or mall owner isn’t. Seems like a weird hill to die on for an email app to me. The market is saturated.
- jld 6y agoIt's like having only two grocery stores in town, and your kitchen is only able to cook food from one or the other.
- scarface74 6y agoOr three console makers....
- andy_ppp 6y agoBecause ripping people off by rent seeking is common it’s okay? It’s not okay to steal other people’s work when them building things for it means you sell more iPhones. Apple have this stuff completely backwards, stop there from being an App Store at all and see how many iPhones are sold.
- scarface74 6y agoAll retailers “rent seek” by that definition.
- andy_ppp 6y agoSure, but you can only visit one retailer. If there was store competition let Apple charge what they like...
- scarface74 6y agoGoogle and Steam both have potential competitors and they both charge 30%
- anoncake 6y agoGoogle doesn't meaningfully have potential competitors. Alternative stores are severely limited, e.g. they can't update apps in the background.
- scarface74 6y agoIs that a bad thing? If I’m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don’t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server. But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it.
- anoncake 6y ago> Is that a bad thing? If I?m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don?t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server. If you like updating manually, don't give the store you use permission to do it manually. Why are you running software you don't trust anyway! > But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it. See the post you replied to.
- bduerst 6y agoIt's hard because most analogies fall apart when you look at the users having already paid hundreds of dollars just for the hardware up front. You could compare it to Costco, where you have to pay just to get into the store, where Costco sells their own labels side-by-side with the competition. The big difference is Costco doesn't force you to pay with costco credit cards at the cash register.
- krrrh 6y agoIn practice though most people I know do use a Costco branded credit card since it doubles as your membership card. Costco (Canada at least) also only allows MasterCard for credit card payment. Prior to that it was exclusively Amex.
- bduerst 6y agoWhich is fine - that's still the consumer's choice. It's a bit different if Costco took away that choice. Even then it's not the same because you don't own the Costco store like you own your phone.
- eloisant 6y agoI think it's pretty much a textbook case for the antitrust laws. Now the only missing parts is the political will for Congress and US government to move forward. Unfortunately since the MS antitrust trial, they've missed opportunity after opportunity to prevent monopolies or oligopoly of Big Tech companies so they might pass here as well.