4 ms·
I mean, I can, but this is probably the wrong thread. You're also slightly off about "allowing" competing browsers. MS never limited other browsers in Windows;
by ubermonkey 6y ago
I mean, I can, but this is probably the wrong thread.
You're also slightly off about "allowing" competing browsers. MS never limited other browsers in Windows; you were always free to download another (and there were others). It just gave IE an absurd inside track by including it FREE with Windows and making it the default, which was hugely damaging to Netscape (which, at the time, was charging money for a browser; yes, this sounds bananas today).
This was a textbook example of monopolistic behavior, since at the time Microsoft OWNED computing. There wasn't another viable platform. The Mac was, at the time, circling the drain. Desktop Linux didn't exist. If you wanted a computer, you ran Windows, full stop. MSFT was leveraging their enormous monopoly power to give them a monopoly in another market (browsers), and that's a big anti-trust no-no.
Apple has nowhere near that kind of market power. The iPhone is a minority player in a huge market -- much bigger than the PC market Microsoft dominated in the 90s. Android holds a majority position there.
This means Apple doesn't have a monopoly. You can, and people do, buy something else that allows you do configure basically whatever you want. Apple isn't distorting or damaging the phone/mobile market with their behavior, as MSFT was.
Apple definitely DOES have enormous influence and power in mobile computing. That's very true. But because they are a minority player, they don't control the market. And so there's no real legal argument on antitrust grounds to compel them to do anything differently.
- rrdharan 6y agoDesktop Linux definitely did exist. I distinctly remember running Slackware with a pirated AccelX server in fall 1997 and messing around with Red Hat (first released in 1995) around that time. The lawsuit was filed in 1998 and arguments were in 2000/2001.
- ubermonkey 6y agoI get that it existed, but it wasn't really an option for regular humans.
- saberdancer 6y agoWas this an issue just because Netscape charged for their browser? Microsoft includes a lot of stuff with the OS, from calculator, file manager, rudimentary word processor, ... How is a browser any different? I understand now we know that the ads and search engine control became vital but I doubt it was predicted at the time. Maybe the regulators believed MS was trying to get Netscape out of the business only to start charging a premium for IE.
- ubermonkey 6y agoPartly, because MSFT deliberately included a competing product in the OS for free to destroy Netscape's business, and doing this from a position of near-total control of the ENTIRE personal computing market is literally the definition of monopolistic behavior.
- manquer 6y agoIs Google not doing the same thing as MS by not allowing plugins on mobile Chrome, and dropping APIs used by ad-blockers are they not using the dominant market share in one market (browser/ smartphone) to support their other market - ad revenue ?
- ubermonkey 6y agoBut Google isn't a monopoly. That's the difference. Using your market position to gain traction in secondary markets is okay, as long as you aren't in a monopolistic position. Then it's predatory, and will get you in trouble with regulators.