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> 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

> 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.

danShumway 6y ago
> Inconvenient Impossible. There's a difference. There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps. There could be in a better world, but there aren't in this world. Talk to me in a couple of years when we have native storage ironed out and maybe that'll be different. Or talk to me in 5-10 years when Librem 5 has its issues worked out, and maybe things will be different then. > why does Apple have to do anything about it for you? It doesn't, not unless Apple enjoys the benefit of extensive government regulations that allow it to block and sue the competitors that do want to do something about it for me. Regulations like, for example, the DMCA. Live by the government, die by the government. Companies don't get to pretend to be free-market Capitalists only when it's convenient for them. > Everything you mentioned here is a product of federal legislature, yet you want to blame an economic player No, I just want consistency. I want the government to get in the way or to get out of the way. It is infeasible to get rid of antitrust unless we're also going to also get rid of the regulation and interference that keeps the market from working the way it was intended. Getting rid of the regulations that protect us from the current smartphone duopoly while keeping the regulations that caused the smartphone duopoly isn't free market Capitalism, it's Feudalism. I don't have patience for an argument that it's a bridge too far for the government to stop Apple from exploiting developers/consumers, but perfectly fine for Apple to use the government to reinforce their market position. I'm sympathetic to anti-regulation arguments and the people who make them, but I am not sympathetic to pro-monopoly arguments.
- ghostwriter 6y ago
  > Impossible. There's a difference. If I name you the companies that release WebGL games I would state impossible? Let's not get that low in this discussion. > There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps. Comparable based on what criteria? Oftentimes I wish companies stop bother me with their "bug fixes and performance improvements" every other day and provide a sleek Web experience instead. So far I just hear how you are saying that alternatives do exist, but they suck, hence Apple's ability to charge 30% on top of everything is a viable business model, because their platform doesn't suck that much. No issue here. > Getting rid of the regulations that protect us from the current smartphone duopoly while keeping the regulations that caused the smartphone duopoly isn't free market Capitalism, it's Feudalism. If you make this claim, then it's on you to prove that in the absence of regulations you won't be able to enter the market with your new competing platform. Apple with all its money is in no position to dictate the way you or anyone else establish a new ecosystem based on open standards and free licenses.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    > because their platform doesn't suck that much Apple is the reason why web experiences on iOS suck. They deliberately lag on web standards so that their browser experience is inferior to native apps. None of this accidental. And no, it's not just inconvenience. There are things on iOS that are literally impossible to do in WebGL. Reliable, persistent offline storage on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Reliable persistent login on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Notifications are impossible to do on iOS from a web app. The APIs have not been added to the platform. It's not inconvenient -- you literally can't do them. It is not a comparable platform, because Apple makes sure that it will never be a comparable platform. It's not that Apple made an amazing native experience and the web couldn't keep up. The reason the web can't keep up on iOS is because Apple deliberately hobbles its mobile browser. > Apple with all its money is in no position to dictate the way you or anyone else establish a new ecosystem based on open standards and free licenses. https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/apples-corellium-lawsuit-is-a-direct-attack-on-ios-emulation/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/apples-corellium-lawsuit-... Imagine a world where I could build a phone that was compatible with every iOS app and Android app, where users didn't have to choose in advance which ecosystem they wanted to be a part of. Imagine a world where I could build a competitor to iOS that allowed users to port the apps that they had already bought to their new phones outside of Apple's ecosystem, rather than spending hundreds of dollars buying all of them a second time. Imagine a world where I could build and sell my own hardware that dual-booted iOS and Android. Imagine a world where I could sell a TV/Phone that would play DRM-encumbered content from Apple devices and iTunes. That would be a real free market. In the current market, any of those competitors would be sued into oblivion. > If you make this claim, then it's on you to prove that in the absence of regulations you won't be able to enter the market with your new competing platform. Give people a real free market, and then we'll find out whether or not in the absence of regulations they can compete. You keep on repeating the exact same argument, that regulation is the problem. I'm not sure that you're following what I'm saying. All I'm advocating for is that we get rid of all of the regulation. If you have a problem with regulation, then fine, let's get rid of it, including the DMCA. It doesn't sound like you have a problem with market regulation and interference though. It sounds like you have a problem with a very small subset of regulations.

danShumway 6y ago

> Inconvenient Impossible. There's a difference. There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps. There could be in a better world, but there aren't in this world. Talk to me in a couple of years when we have native storage ironed out and maybe that'll be different. Or talk to me in 5-10 years when Librem 5 has its issues worked out, and maybe things will be different then. > why does Apple have to do anything about it for you? It doesn't, not unless Apple enjoys the benefit of extensive government regulations that allow it to block and sue the competitors that do want to do something about it for me. Regulations like, for example, the DMCA. Live by the government, die by the government. Companies don't get to pretend to be free-market Capitalists only when it's convenient for them. > Everything you mentioned here is a product of federal legislature, yet you want to blame an economic player No, I just want consistency. I want the government to get in the way or to get out of the way. It is infeasible to get rid of antitrust unless we're also going to also get rid of the regulation and interference that keeps the market from working the way it was intended. Getting rid of the regulations that protect us from the current smartphone duopoly while keeping the regulations that caused the smartphone duopoly isn't free market Capitalism, it's Feudalism. I don't have patience for an argument that it's a bridge too far for the government to stop Apple from exploiting developers/consumers, but perfectly fine for Apple to use the government to reinforce their market position. I'm sympathetic to anti-regulation arguments and the people who make them, but I am not sympathetic to pro-monopoly arguments.

ghostwriter 6y ago
> Impossible. There's a difference. If I name you the companies that release WebGL games I would state impossible? Let's not get that low in this discussion. > There are no phones on the market where the web is a comparable platform to native mobile apps. Comparable based on what criteria? Oftentimes I wish companies stop bother me with their "bug fixes and performance improvements" every other day and provide a sleek Web experience instead. So far I just hear how you are saying that alternatives do exist, but they suck, hence Apple's ability to charge 30% on top of everything is a viable business model, because their platform doesn't suck that much. No issue here. > Getting rid of the regulations that protect us from the current smartphone duopoly while keeping the regulations that caused the smartphone duopoly isn't free market Capitalism, it's Feudalism. If you make this claim, then it's on you to prove that in the absence of regulations you won't be able to enter the market with your new competing platform. Apple with all its money is in no position to dictate the way you or anyone else establish a new ecosystem based on open standards and free licenses.
- danShumway 6y ago
  > because their platform doesn't suck that much Apple is the reason why web experiences on iOS suck. They deliberately lag on web standards so that their browser experience is inferior to native apps. None of this accidental. And no, it's not just inconvenience. There are things on iOS that are literally impossible to do in WebGL. Reliable, persistent offline storage on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Reliable persistent login on iOS is impossible to do from a web app. Notifications are impossible to do on iOS from a web app. The APIs have not been added to the platform. It's not inconvenient -- you literally can't do them. It is not a comparable platform, because Apple makes sure that it will never be a comparable platform. It's not that Apple made an amazing native experience and the web couldn't keep up. The reason the web can't keep up on iOS is because Apple deliberately hobbles its mobile browser. > Apple with all its money is in no position to dictate the way you or anyone else establish a new ecosystem based on open standards and free licenses. https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/apples-corellium-lawsuit-is-a-direct-attack-on-ios-emulation/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/apples-corellium-lawsuit-... Imagine a world where I could build a phone that was compatible with every iOS app and Android app, where users didn't have to choose in advance which ecosystem they wanted to be a part of. Imagine a world where I could build a competitor to iOS that allowed users to port the apps that they had already bought to their new phones outside of Apple's ecosystem, rather than spending hundreds of dollars buying all of them a second time. Imagine a world where I could build and sell my own hardware that dual-booted iOS and Android. Imagine a world where I could sell a TV/Phone that would play DRM-encumbered content from Apple devices and iTunes. That would be a real free market. In the current market, any of those competitors would be sued into oblivion. > If you make this claim, then it's on you to prove that in the absence of regulations you won't be able to enter the market with your new competing platform. Give people a real free market, and then we'll find out whether or not in the absence of regulations they can compete. You keep on repeating the exact same argument, that regulation is the problem. I'm not sure that you're following what I'm saying. All I'm advocating for is that we get rid of all of the regulation. If you have a problem with regulation, then fine, let's get rid of it, including the DMCA. It doesn't sound like you have a problem with market regulation and interference though. It sounds like you have a problem with a very small subset of regulations.