4 ms·

And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. Apple is one half of a

And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. Apple is one half of a duopoly. People keep on bringing up these 'gotcha' arguments about, "how would you feel if Walmart was forced to stock everybody's stuff?" And that ignores the fact that it would be a serious problem if there were only two supermarkets that I could buy from. I would feel exactly the same way if one to two companies had the kind of stranglehold over physical supermarket goods as Apple has over the mobile app ecosystem. A physical duopoly of that scale would very clearly call for either breaking up the owners or regulating them to ensure that everyone had equal access to the market. Scenarios like that are why we have antitrust in the first place, particularly around the kind of vertical integration that Apple advocates hold in such high regard. I don't think the people who put forward these arguments have really thought them through. A duopoly is different from a house. If we could travel back 35-40 years through history, I have no doubt there'd be no shortage of people arguing that Bell's vertical integration of the Internet was the very reason why their service was so good, and that allowing people to hook their own 'unapproved' answering machines to their phone lines would just ruin the entire network, and that allowing one company to own all of the railroads would just mean that shipping became that much simpler and reliable for consumers. So be careful about making analogies to the physical world when you're supporting Apple, because people might just take them at face value.

ghostwriter 6y ago
> And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. There are more than two platforms out there. But even if there weren't, the fact that there's only N things in the world doesn't make your random claim on someone else's property any more valid. App Store is Apple's property. Build your own and host whoever you want there, but firstly you have to convince others that it is more valuable than the popular alternative. And if you fail to do that, it's not necessarily because the alternative is a monopoly, it may be and more likely is because your product is inferior. > And that ignores the fact that it would be a serious problem if there were only two supermarkets that I could buy from. Do you know the reason why it never happens though? Your examples from the past just demonstrate that no monopoly exists without a government acting as a gatekeeper, like it was in the case of Bell and Union Pacific, and even then there was a place for successful competitors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) > So be careful about making analogies to the physical world when you're supporting Apple, because people might just take them at face value. likewise, learn what you are advocating for, because mere quantity of stuff out there is never a justification for taking it over (and neither is your convenience), which my analogy was all about.
- danShumway 6y ago
  > There are more than two platforms out there Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you? > because mere quantity of stuff out there is never a justification for taking it over All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in a market matters. If you're arguing that we should get rid of antitrust entirely, fine. But be upfront about that, that's not a mainstream position to take. > no monopoly exists without a government acting as a gatekeeper I'm not going to derail things too much here, but I do have at least a few Libertarian bones inside of me. To the extent that I am sympathetic to your argument here, I would question why you think that Apple is different. Apple's dominant market position exists in no small part based on its exploitation of copyright, the DMCA, import laws, and heavy lawsuits over trademark and cross-compatible app runtimes, all of which only work because of artificial government intervention into the market. If you want to go full Libertarian, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but then I'm also going to go full Libertarian and ask what your views are on abolishing copyright. Apple might not have such a stranglehold over the market if it was legal for other US companies to build iPhone emulators, hackintoshes, to distribute jailbreaks, and to build their own compatible phones that could run both iOS apps and apps from other markets. If we're all OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm OK with dropping antitrust. If we're not OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm keeping antitrust. I'm OK with either having government regulation or not having it, but no halvsies.
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    > Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you? Any phone that runs WebGL. Inconvenient? Tough life, why does Apple have to do anything about it for you? > All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in a market matters. US antitrust laws are deeply flawed and in no way serve the purpose they were enacted for. If your product (subjectively) costs too high you are a monopolist; if your product costs too low (hello IE) you are dumping the market; and if your product costs approximately the same as of your competitors then there's a "market collusion". You cannot win in this system if you are a successful economic player. The bottom line is this though - there was no time in history where monopoly existed without government's sanction and gate-keeping, and Union Pacific was a prime example of it. > If you want to go full Libertarian I don't as I'm not one of them, which doesn't negate the points that I've made before. > Apple's dominant market position exists in no small part based on its exploitation of copyright, the DMCA, import laws, and heavy lawsuits over trademark and cross-compatible app runtimes, all of which only work because of artificial government intervention into the market. Wasn't it the government that enacted them? Why asking for it from Apple? > I'm also going to go full Libertarian and ask what your views are on abolishing copyright. I'm not libertarian; if you are just asking, I'm for IP in principle, whether it's modern copyright laws or something else is another story. > If we're all OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm OK with dropping antitrust. If we're not OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm keeping antitrust. I'm OK with either having government regulation or not having it, but no halvsies with all respect, it really is a funny position. Everything you mentioned here is a product of federal legislature, yet you want to blame an economic player that acts according to the law, in a system that is designed to eventually punish successful.

ghostwriter 6y ago

> And if there were only two livable houses in the entire world, then that would be a completely reasonable position for someone to take. There are more than two platforms out there. But even if there weren't, the fact that there's only N things in the world doesn't make your random claim on someone else's property any more valid. App Store is Apple's property. Build your own and host whoever you want there, but firstly you have to convince others that it is more valuable than the popular alternative. And if you fail to do that, it's not necessarily because the alternative is a monopoly, it may be and more likely is because your product is inferior. > And that ignores the fact that it would be a serious problem if there were only two supermarkets that I could buy from. Do you know the reason why it never happens though? Your examples from the past just demonstrate that no monopoly exists without a government acting as a gatekeeper, like it was in the case of Bell and Union Pacific, and even then there was a place for successful competitors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) > So be careful about making analogies to the physical world when you're supporting Apple, because people might just take them at face value. likewise, learn what you are advocating for, because mere quantity of stuff out there is never a justification for taking it over (and neither is your convenience), which my analogy was all about.

danShumway 6y ago
> There are more than two platforms out there Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you? > because mere quantity of stuff out there is never a justification for taking it over All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in a market matters. If you're arguing that we should get rid of antitrust entirely, fine. But be upfront about that, that's not a mainstream position to take. > no monopoly exists without a government acting as a gatekeeper I'm not going to derail things too much here, but I do have at least a few Libertarian bones inside of me. To the extent that I am sympathetic to your argument here, I would question why you think that Apple is different. Apple's dominant market position exists in no small part based on its exploitation of copyright, the DMCA, import laws, and heavy lawsuits over trademark and cross-compatible app runtimes, all of which only work because of artificial government intervention into the market. If you want to go full Libertarian, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but then I'm also going to go full Libertarian and ask what your views are on abolishing copyright. Apple might not have such a stranglehold over the market if it was legal for other US companies to build iPhone emulators, hackintoshes, to distribute jailbreaks, and to build their own compatible phones that could run both iOS apps and apps from other markets. If we're all OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm OK with dropping antitrust. If we're not OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm keeping antitrust. I'm OK with either having government regulation or not having it, but no halvsies.
- ghostwriter 6y ago
  > Such as? If I'm making a mobile game, what other phones can I realistically target other than Android and iPhone? You don't really think that the Librem 5 is a real competitor right now in this space, do you? Any phone that runs WebGL. Inconvenient? Tough life, why does Apple have to do anything about it for you? > All of US antitrust law is based on the idea that the quantity of providers in a market matters. US antitrust laws are deeply flawed and in no way serve the purpose they were enacted for. If your product (subjectively) costs too high you are a monopolist; if your product costs too low (hello IE) you are dumping the market; and if your product costs approximately the same as of your competitors then there's a "market collusion". You cannot win in this system if you are a successful economic player. The bottom line is this though - there was no time in history where monopoly existed without government's sanction and gate-keeping, and Union Pacific was a prime example of it. > If you want to go full Libertarian I don't as I'm not one of them, which doesn't negate the points that I've made before. > Apple's dominant market position exists in no small part based on its exploitation of copyright, the DMCA, import laws, and heavy lawsuits over trademark and cross-compatible app runtimes, all of which only work because of artificial government intervention into the market. Wasn't it the government that enacted them? Why asking for it from Apple? > I'm also going to go full Libertarian and ask what your views are on abolishing copyright. I'm not libertarian; if you are just asking, I'm for IP in principle, whether it's modern copyright laws or something else is another story. > If we're all OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm OK with dropping antitrust. If we're not OK with making that stuff legal, then I'm keeping antitrust. I'm OK with either having government regulation or not having it, but no halvsies with all respect, it really is a funny position. Everything you mentioned here is a product of federal legislature, yet you want to blame an economic player that acts according to the law, in a system that is designed to eventually punish successful.