8 ms·

I have read up on the Microsoft case, and I think I disagree -- it's hard to draw direct comparisons here. Microsoft Windows had over 90% of the entire persona

I have read up on the Microsoft case, and I think I disagree -- it's hard to draw direct comparisons here. Microsoft Windows had over 90% of the entire personal computer operating system market, which was clearly a de facto monopoly position. The antitrust element was them leveraging that monopoly to give them an ostensibly unfair advantage in the browser market. There was no "gatekeeping" aspect involved; it was about whether bundling application software with the OS to undermine commercial competition was fair. Apple's case is very different. They have much less than 90% of the mobile phone operating system market, but they control access to 100% of the application market for iOS devices. This isn't about bundling, like Microsoft's case was, nor did Microsoft act as a gatekeeper for Windows. The closest precedents are game consoles, but those don't seem to offer a lot of guidance here in terms of case law -- although Apple's very likely to draw the comparison, e.g., Sony has a "monopoly" on downloadable applications for all PlayStations. Consumers know that limitation when they buy either a PlayStation or an iPhone, and see it as a feature, not a bug. In a lot of ways, the ultimate argument here is whether a device manufacturer can or should be legally forced to treat their devices more like general purpose computing devices than like consoles. And that's not like Microsoft at all. This is a fundamentally different question. (The sort of ironic footnote in drawing a comparison to the Microsoft case is that while bundling IE with Windows killed Netscape's commercial prospects and it was certainly done with malice aforethought, it was also fundamentally the right call. Applications that achieve such amazing runaway success that their functionality quickly becomes essential to everyone are almost certain to be bundled into either the operating system or a suite that everyone has.)

RonanTheGrey 6y ago
You make some good points, in alot of ways comparisons to the MS of the 90's is tricky. Apple has less market share, but alot more users - and the market is shaped quite differently (only 2 hardware makers, where back then (and even now) there are hundreds of hardware makers for computers). Microsoft also had no means to prevent people from installing outside software on the device, which iOS does - to the tune of over 1 billion users. There are whole industries built on iOS now, which was also true then, but due to the much more limited hardware landscape and single means of installing software, this now plays differently with competition than just browser bundling. I don't think whether Apple is using monopoly power is the appropriate focus here; they can be anti-competitive without being a monopoly, and due to the fact that they control >1 billion users and control their hardware, there's a fair question to ask about this anti-competitive behavior.
nodamage 6y ago
> The sort of ironic footnote in drawing a comparison to the Microsoft case is that while bundling IE with Windows killed Netscape's commercial prospects and it was certainly done with malice aforethought, it was also fundamentally the right call. It's also worth noting this was never actually ruled to be illegal. The appeals court remanded the question back to the district court for further analysis under the rule of reason, but that never actually happened as the case was eventually settled. Under the rule of reason, Microsoft would have been able to argue that it had legitimate justification for bundling a browser with Windows, and then it would have been up to the DOJ to argue that the anticompetitive effect of the bundling outweighed the justification given. I think Microsoft would have had a relatively strong argument there, as an operating system that shipped without a web browser (or media player, for that matter) would have been, in fact, less useful to the consumer.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  That's true, and a good point. I dimly remember thinking at the time that the browser was the wrong focus for this whole endeavor -- if there was anything Microsoft was doing that was legitimately shady, it was relating to some of their OEM agreements, which I (admittedly now fuzzily) recall had some terms in them which were pretty clearly meant to stifle competition with Windows. IIRC, you weren't allowed to ship computers that dual-booted Windows and another OS, for instance; if Windows was pre-installed it had to be the only OS. And if you shipped any computers that had Windows pre-installed, your OEM license was based on the number of total computers you shipped whether or not Windows was installed on all of them, e.g., if you sold 50 computers and only 30 of them had Windows pre-installed, you paid for 50 licenses.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago

You make some good points, in alot of ways comparisons to the MS of the 90's is tricky. Apple has less market share, but alot more users - and the market is shaped quite differently (only 2 hardware makers, where back then (and even now) there are hundreds of hardware makers for computers). Microsoft also had no means to prevent people from installing outside software on the device, which iOS does - to the tune of over 1 billion users. There are whole industries built on iOS now, which was also true then, but due to the much more limited hardware landscape and single means of installing software, this now plays differently with competition than just browser bundling. I don't think whether Apple is using monopoly power is the appropriate focus here; they can be anti-competitive without being a monopoly, and due to the fact that they control >1 billion users and control their hardware, there's a fair question to ask about this anti-competitive behavior.

nodamage 6y ago

> The sort of ironic footnote in drawing a comparison to the Microsoft case is that while bundling IE with Windows killed Netscape's commercial prospects and it was certainly done with malice aforethought, it was also fundamentally the right call. It's also worth noting this was never actually ruled to be illegal. The appeals court remanded the question back to the district court for further analysis under the rule of reason, but that never actually happened as the case was eventually settled. Under the rule of reason, Microsoft would have been able to argue that it had legitimate justification for bundling a browser with Windows, and then it would have been up to the DOJ to argue that the anticompetitive effect of the bundling outweighed the justification given. I think Microsoft would have had a relatively strong argument there, as an operating system that shipped without a web browser (or media player, for that matter) would have been, in fact, less useful to the consumer.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago
That's true, and a good point. I dimly remember thinking at the time that the browser was the wrong focus for this whole endeavor -- if there was anything Microsoft was doing that was legitimately shady, it was relating to some of their OEM agreements, which I (admittedly now fuzzily) recall had some terms in them which were pretty clearly meant to stifle competition with Windows. IIRC, you weren't allowed to ship computers that dual-booted Windows and another OS, for instance; if Windows was pre-installed it had to be the only OS. And if you shipped any computers that had Windows pre-installed, your OEM license was based on the number of total computers you shipped whether or not Windows was installed on all of them, e.g., if you sold 50 computers and only 30 of them had Windows pre-installed, you paid for 50 licenses.