7 ms·

are you serious? Historically you are on the wrong side of the argument. MSFT lost their case in the 90s, of 'other' but not that much different reasons... t

are you serious? Historically you are on the wrong side of the argument. MSFT lost their case in the 90s, of 'other' but not that much different reasons... to their core they are anti-competitive. Also we have the break up of the original Bell system and several companies were formed out of it. GOOG and APL most likely will lose this one.

parasubvert 6y ago
Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. This is completely different from the #1 and #2 smart phone marketshare players charging a 30% cut as the exclusive software reseller to their own platform. The original At&T was allowed to be a monopoly for 80+ years because it was in the public interest. The 1982 breakup was 8 years in the making due to poor management decisions in the 1960s and eroded that trust. Unfortunately the breakup was a failure. The Baby Bells maintained their regional monopolies, grew massively, and got their restrictions removed in the 1996 communications act, and now we have Verizon (2 of the 7 baby bells), AT&T (which is the original monopoly plus 4 of the 7 baby bells) and CenturyLink (the remnants of US West and other independents). The only real competition has come from foreign entrants like T-Mobile. I think you need to take a closer look at the history of antitrust cases. It hasn’t been particularly successful.
- krrrh 6y ago
  There is so much misremembering of the Microsoft antitrust case, especially by people who didn’t follow it closely at the time, and you’re very right to remind everyone that the core issue was asking the government to intervene to maintain the viability of $40 closed source browser licenses. MSFT “lost” the case but the remedies amounted to a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile the market in its broadest sense innovated in ways that no court or legislator could have reasonably predicted in the late 90s. Not just innovation in terms of superior technology, but in intellectual property (open source), culture (the web standards movement amongst devs), and organization (W3C getting its act together). Beyond browsers Microsoft’s expected dominance on internet server business ran up against Linux, which like gecko and webkit, won out not because some Kommissar deemed it worthy, but because competitors to Microsoft were incentivized to think way outside of the box. If App Store policies truly are as untenable as half of the people posting in this thread believe them to be, then the desire to solve the problem by bringing the coercive power of the state to redistribute some revenue seems more like a lack of imagination than anything else.
  - shi314 6y ago
    What would have happened if Microsoft only allowed Apps to be installed through a store instead of side loading. I don't think you could have gotten open source browsers and open standards especially if it had terms like that of Apple. Microsoft could have made arguments like security risk or against their policy to shut down community projects in early stage.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    > MSFT “lost” the case but the remedies amounted to a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile the market in its broadest sense innovated That is true, but there is the argument that some of this innovation was possible because Microsoft restrained its behavior while the case was pending.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. Nope, they have been accused and sentenced of abusing their dominant position by forcing OEMs to pre install IE on Windows, before the integration started. The way MS force them was with restrictive licenses that practically threatened OEMs to do what MS ordered or face legal consequences and risk to go out of business. The second accusation was that MS used internals secret API for their product not available to third parties giving MS an unfair advantage. Those API were also shared among few OEMs that helped MS secure its dominant position. > Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product” The third of their anticompetitive behavior was to pay some OEMs to not install (or offer to customers) other operating systems on their hardware (including BeOS, for example) "Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market." Does it sound similar to what Apple does today?
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    When Apple starts OEMing iPhones, get back to me. The cases are not even close to being in the same league. Microsoft didn’t force OEMs to preinstall IE: it came with the Plus! pack in Win95 which was optional. IE shipped preinstalled on the OSR1 distributions in late 1995. OEMs couldn’t uninstall it. MS saw IE as a feature, nor a product. The DOJ disagreed. And yes, the API arguments were the other factor of the consent decree violation. Apple: - has no consent decree to violate - is not being anticompetitive by taking a retail cut on a store for its own platform (ISVs are free to go exclusively Android); Google is free to drop its retail cut, 3rd party stores on Android exist, and also the browser exists and is arguably completely unrestricted. - should be allowed the freedom to admit apps on its platform to better the consumer experience. Interfering with this collapses the whole security and curation value add of the App Store, or relegates it to a 3rd party with different incentives, or declares that Apple’s store is the only one where ISVs make money and therefore must become a utility because ISVs want more margin. Good luck with arguing this. It will take 5+ years or more to legislate properly, and I suspect parliaments have bigger problems to deal with. If one wanted to chase Apple for anticompetitive behavior it would be to do some amazing stuff in-browser with things like WASM, streaming, etc. and argue that Apple is blocking those innovations with its Safari mandatory policy to force people to use its App Store and native APIs. That’s the closest where I can see this argument holding water.

parasubvert 6y ago

Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. This is completely different from the #1 and #2 smart phone marketshare players charging a 30% cut as the exclusive software reseller to their own platform. The original At&T was allowed to be a monopoly for 80+ years because it was in the public interest. The 1982 breakup was 8 years in the making due to poor management decisions in the 1960s and eroded that trust. Unfortunately the breakup was a failure. The Baby Bells maintained their regional monopolies, grew massively, and got their restrictions removed in the 1996 communications act, and now we have Verizon (2 of the 7 baby bells), AT&T (which is the original monopoly plus 4 of the 7 baby bells) and CenturyLink (the remnants of US West and other independents). The only real competition has come from foreign entrants like T-Mobile. I think you need to take a closer look at the history of antitrust cases. It hasn’t been particularly successful.

krrrh 6y ago
There is so much misremembering of the Microsoft antitrust case, especially by people who didn’t follow it closely at the time, and you’re very right to remind everyone that the core issue was asking the government to intervene to maintain the viability of $40 closed source browser licenses. MSFT “lost” the case but the remedies amounted to a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile the market in its broadest sense innovated in ways that no court or legislator could have reasonably predicted in the late 90s. Not just innovation in terms of superior technology, but in intellectual property (open source), culture (the web standards movement amongst devs), and organization (W3C getting its act together). Beyond browsers Microsoft’s expected dominance on internet server business ran up against Linux, which like gecko and webkit, won out not because some Kommissar deemed it worthy, but because competitors to Microsoft were incentivized to think way outside of the box. If App Store policies truly are as untenable as half of the people posting in this thread believe them to be, then the desire to solve the problem by bringing the coercive power of the state to redistribute some revenue seems more like a lack of imagination than anything else.
- shi314 6y ago
  What would have happened if Microsoft only allowed Apps to be installed through a store instead of side loading. I don't think you could have gotten open source browsers and open standards especially if it had terms like that of Apple. Microsoft could have made arguments like security risk or against their policy to shut down community projects in early stage.
- microtherion 6y ago
  > MSFT “lost” the case but the remedies amounted to a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile the market in its broadest sense innovated That is true, but there is the argument that some of this innovation was possible because Microsoft restrained its behavior while the case was pending.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. Nope, they have been accused and sentenced of abusing their dominant position by forcing OEMs to pre install IE on Windows, before the integration started. The way MS force them was with restrictive licenses that practically threatened OEMs to do what MS ordered or face legal consequences and risk to go out of business. The second accusation was that MS used internals secret API for their product not available to third parties giving MS an unfair advantage. Those API were also shared among few OEMs that helped MS secure its dominant position. > Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product” The third of their anticompetitive behavior was to pay some OEMs to not install (or offer to customers) other operating systems on their hardware (including BeOS, for example) "Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market." Does it sound similar to what Apple does today?
- parasubvert 6y ago
  When Apple starts OEMing iPhones, get back to me. The cases are not even close to being in the same league. Microsoft didn’t force OEMs to preinstall IE: it came with the Plus! pack in Win95 which was optional. IE shipped preinstalled on the OSR1 distributions in late 1995. OEMs couldn’t uninstall it. MS saw IE as a feature, nor a product. The DOJ disagreed. And yes, the API arguments were the other factor of the consent decree violation. Apple: - has no consent decree to violate - is not being anticompetitive by taking a retail cut on a store for its own platform (ISVs are free to go exclusively Android); Google is free to drop its retail cut, 3rd party stores on Android exist, and also the browser exists and is arguably completely unrestricted. - should be allowed the freedom to admit apps on its platform to better the consumer experience. Interfering with this collapses the whole security and curation value add of the App Store, or relegates it to a 3rd party with different incentives, or declares that Apple’s store is the only one where ISVs make money and therefore must become a utility because ISVs want more margin. Good luck with arguing this. It will take 5+ years or more to legislate properly, and I suspect parliaments have bigger problems to deal with. If one wanted to chase Apple for anticompetitive behavior it would be to do some amazing stuff in-browser with things like WASM, streaming, etc. and argue that Apple is blocking those innovations with its Safari mandatory policy to force people to use its App Store and native APIs. That’s the closest where I can see this argument holding water.