4 ms·

"Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should* be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace?"* That falls under competition law. It's in a governmen

"Who is the court, or any of us, to say what should* be the charge for selling a game on a marketplace?"* That falls under competition law. It's in a government's interests to encourage companies to compete with each other, and to prevent a single or a handful of companies explicitly or implicitly agreeing to control market pricing to the detriment of consumers. In this case, both Google and Apple set the same 30% pricing, and clearly neither have any incentive to rock the boat and compete with each other, and every incentive to dissuade or prevent other companies from creating competing app stores. When competition in a market fails, it's up to the courts or government to step in. "I find irony in many people who get probably so knee-jerk opposed to Google/Apple and "on Epic's side" will find themselves justifying why they should be free to set their own prices when they launch their next product." Its not hypocritical (or even ironic) to say that there should be different rules for companies operating as part of an oligopoly, compared to small business competing in a crowded marketplace.

supernova87a 6y ago
The state-overseen apparatus you might next jump to is a nightmare to me. You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? So, someone coming up with a new app that does something never done before, that would be a monopoly or oligopoly, right?
- stale2002 6y ago
  > A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? This is called our court system. And they have been handling anti-trust law for a century now. And they have done a pretty reasonable job of it. Anti-trust law is not something new. It is well established.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    You are not calling for violations of a law to be tried between adversaries at court as an exception to normal business behavior. You are calling for the wholesale new regulation of business by the status and concentration of its market. A highly subjective and scope-dependent analysis specific to every company, every market, every industry. You should realize the difference. You think that's what the courts are supposed to do? You have a serious flaw in understanding what courts are for if so.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      > You are calling for the wholesale new regulation of business No I am not! I am calling for the existing law, known as the Sherman Anti-trust act, to be enforced in the same way that it has been enforce for literally a century! There are already laws that cover this! They have been around for literally 100 years. And our existing court system is more than capable of enforcing our existing laws, in the same way that they have been doing, for a literal century. > You think that's what the courts are supposed to do? Courts have already enforced the sherman anti-trust act, and have been enforcing it for 100 years. And they will continue to enforce it when violations come up. > by the status and concentration of its market I recommend that you go research anti-trust law, and how it is enforced. The courts already use the "concentration of the market", in existing anti-trust law evaluations. They have been doing this for a century! It is entirely standard, in basically every single anti-trust evaluation, that has ever happened, to look at how concentrated the market is.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? Absolutely. There is a cost to society when business is concentrated in a few large organisations. It descreases competition (which forms the bedrock of the capitalist system), and concentrates wealth (extracting it from local communities). It seems completely fair to make theae comapnies pay for that cost. If it means that they can't compete and get outcompeted by smaller companies then... good.
- weavejester 6y ago
  > The state-overseen apparatus you might next jump to is a nightmare to me. Markets have to be overseen by the state to some degree, because free markets rely on certain conditions being met in order to work optimally. One of these conditions is that the companies in the market must be competing. > You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? You mean like how individuals are taxed at different rates dependent on the size of their income? > A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? We already have that: the court system. I'm not describing anything new here. Competition law in the US dates back at least to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. > So, someone coming up with a new app that does something never done before, that would be a monopoly or oligopoly, right? Having a monopoly by itself is fine; you just can't leverage that monopoly to artificially inhibit competition.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    If that's what you think of the courts, you are under a serious misapprehension of what the judicial court system is. And this kind of bad information probably contributes to why courts have become so overloaded in the last 20 years. You would call for huge government apparatuses to be created, and you think that "the courts will figure it out". The role of courts is not of fact finder, market minder, or regulator. You should educate yourself on that topic before proposing stuff like this. You would have to create an IRS-like body to determine the monopolistic status of every market, industry, company. And tell me, are you just concerned about big tech companies making 30%, or would you regulate grocery chains that make 4% just the same? It's like people don't think of the details and implications of an idea before proposing that they've got the answer.
    - username90 6y ago
      EU already has this, one thing they did was reduce credit card fees by an order of magnitude. This has greatly sped up the move to cashless payments since now the fees are so small that you don't have to bother. Companies working to create bottlenecks in society instead of removing them really is bad for everyone, so governments needs to step in to fix that. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/262142-if-europe-can-rein-in-credit-card-fees-why-not-us https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/26214...

supernova87a 6y ago

The state-overseen apparatus you might next jump to is a nightmare to me. You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? So, someone coming up with a new app that does something never done before, that would be a monopoly or oligopoly, right?

stale2002 6y ago
> A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? This is called our court system. And they have been handling anti-trust law for a century now. And they have done a pretty reasonable job of it. Anti-trust law is not something new. It is well established.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  You are not calling for violations of a law to be tried between adversaries at court as an exception to normal business behavior. You are calling for the wholesale new regulation of business by the status and concentration of its market. A highly subjective and scope-dependent analysis specific to every company, every market, every industry. You should realize the difference. You think that's what the courts are supposed to do? You have a serious flaw in understanding what courts are for if so.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > You are calling for the wholesale new regulation of business No I am not! I am calling for the existing law, known as the Sherman Anti-trust act, to be enforced in the same way that it has been enforce for literally a century! There are already laws that cover this! They have been around for literally 100 years. And our existing court system is more than capable of enforcing our existing laws, in the same way that they have been doing, for a literal century. > You think that's what the courts are supposed to do? Courts have already enforced the sherman anti-trust act, and have been enforcing it for 100 years. And they will continue to enforce it when violations come up. > by the status and concentration of its market I recommend that you go research anti-trust law, and how it is enforced. The courts already use the "concentration of the market", in existing anti-trust law evaluations. They have been doing this for a century! It is entirely standard, in basically every single anti-trust evaluation, that has ever happened, to look at how concentrated the market is.
nicoburns 6y ago
> You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? Absolutely. There is a cost to society when business is concentrated in a few large organisations. It descreases competition (which forms the bedrock of the capitalist system), and concentrates wealth (extracting it from local communities). It seems completely fair to make theae comapnies pay for that cost. If it means that they can't compete and get outcompeted by smaller companies then... good.
weavejester 6y ago
> The state-overseen apparatus you might next jump to is a nightmare to me. Markets have to be overseen by the state to some degree, because free markets rely on certain conditions being met in order to work optimally. One of these conditions is that the companies in the market must be competing. > You would be ok with different tax rates for different size corporations? You mean like how individuals are taxed at different rates dependent on the size of their income? > A committee / agency to decide what is or is not an oligopoly? We already have that: the court system. I'm not describing anything new here. Competition law in the US dates back at least to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. > So, someone coming up with a new app that does something never done before, that would be a monopoly or oligopoly, right? Having a monopoly by itself is fine; you just can't leverage that monopoly to artificially inhibit competition.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  If that's what you think of the courts, you are under a serious misapprehension of what the judicial court system is. And this kind of bad information probably contributes to why courts have become so overloaded in the last 20 years. You would call for huge government apparatuses to be created, and you think that "the courts will figure it out". The role of courts is not of fact finder, market minder, or regulator. You should educate yourself on that topic before proposing stuff like this. You would have to create an IRS-like body to determine the monopolistic status of every market, industry, company. And tell me, are you just concerned about big tech companies making 30%, or would you regulate grocery chains that make 4% just the same? It's like people don't think of the details and implications of an idea before proposing that they've got the answer.
  - username90 6y ago
    EU already has this, one thing they did was reduce credit card fees by an order of magnitude. This has greatly sped up the move to cashless payments since now the fees are so small that you don't have to bother. Companies working to create bottlenecks in society instead of removing them really is bad for everyone, so governments needs to step in to fix that. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/262142-if-europe-can-rein-in-credit-card-fees-why-not-us https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/26214...