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Why can't this just be reached by market pressure? In a free and open market, producers offering unpopular products should not be able to survive for long.

by Hermel 6y ago

fiblye 6y ago
It’s been decades and computers still come with bloatware. Phones will likely have garbage for decades as well. If there’s a few pennies to make off doing it, companies will just do it and not leave many options.
tsimionescu 6y ago
What could be achieved by some theoretical model of an open market is largely irrelevant. The more relevant point is what HAS been achieved by the actual market. If the market, given enough time, is still doing things that are hurting consumers, at some point the government must intervene.
black_puppydog 6y ago
Two locked-down ecosystems, controlled by two large corporations that act largely without competition between their respective market segments and who keep the barriers to entry high enough that no other competition can enter is exactly not a free market. And, surprise, it is hurting customers. This is exactly an attempt to make an entrenched duopoly face some actual competition.
- Hermel 6y ago
  What if the locked-down ecosystem is the result of overly restrictive copyright laws? Wouldn’t it be better to tackle the root cause and adjust that?
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    Sure, migh do that as well while also fixing the current issue.
  - Twixes 6y ago
    Copyright laws _are_ overly restrictive, but that's not what gives Apple and Google such power. It's how much they're established in the mobile systems market - which is not a free market. At this point it would be a miracle if any other OS maker made a dent in their marketshares without huge government intervention (think the US, EU or China forcing a new OS) – otherwise no way users _and_ developers would come. So there needs to be some regulation to stop anticonsumer practices.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Copyright laws are by no means perfect, but they solve a very significant flaw of the free market: without the "overly restrictive copyright laws" you would have literally thousands of technologies under lock and key and unavailable to anyone except the inventor of those technologies. Apple's commanding lead in processor design is entirely unavailable to anyone except Apple. How do you propose the free market to solve that? Oh wait, it didn't and it hasn't: there are no regulations governing processor designs. You're free to go ahead and implement anything you want.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Oh wait, it didn't and it hasn't: there are no regulations governing processor designs. We have no patent laws? Or are you saying that the “technologies” are obvious and non-novel?
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        The patent laws solve the actual problem of a free market: they give access to a technology to everyone (after a period of time). Something a free market would never agree to because that destroys the advantage of a company. --- start quote --- A patent is a form of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. --- end quote ---
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
Sometimes the market chooses the best of various bad options, if the only options available are those bad options, or information to avoid the bad options is not readily available (e.g. you should be able to know which apps are undeletable before buying the phone). So the best product, that violates the ideas of ownership in this case (if I own a device I should decide what apps run on it) might win in a free and open markets. But it's still OK to, for example, enforce normal expectations of device ownership, or enforce disclosure of information to ensure the consumer choice is genuine.
nixass 6y ago
Average consumer is uneducated and doesn't care, and does not punish producers for their wrong doings
- Proven 6y ago
  If you are right that means the wrongdoings are on average minor and State has no justification for stepping in and increasing compliance costs on everyone. Unless the primary objective is to grow the State apparatus. Which is really the only objective the EU busybodies ever had.
dmitriid 6y ago
What makes you think that current situation isn't the direct result of a free and open market?
- zepto 6y ago
  It is. What makes you thing there is a problem that the free and open market won’t correct?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Because the duopoly you see is the direct consequence of such a free market. There were no regulations saying there must only be two, there have been dozens of competitors free to do whatever they please, and this is the situation we've arrived at. Moreover, the whole premise of the free market is "survival of the fittest". Well, Apple and Google are the fittest, and they survived.
    - zepto 6y ago
      You say ‘we’ve arrived here’ as if technology and culture have stopped evolving and all new work is being done within these two companies. This simply isn’t so. Apple and Google (especially) are both showing signs of ossification. There are competitors like Amazon slowly building ecosystems around them. There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole, or from a competitor could not be built over the next 10 years. If that seems like too long to wait, consider that it’s less time than it took for the current situation to arise.
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        > You say ‘we’ve arrived here’ as if technology and culture have stopped evolving and all new work is being done within these two companies. > This simply isn’t so. Apple and Google (especially) are both showing signs of ossification. One: I never said this. Two: this has nothing to do with "free market will solve things" > There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole, or from a competitor could not be built over the next 10 years. Once again: you bemoan that free market should be able to solve the problem of the duopoly. It has already solved it: by creating the duopoly. A free market will always tend towards monopolisation for the simple reason: the best way to stay alive is by destroying and/or buying the competition. The many regulations (from antitrust law to basic things like food and safety regulations) have arisen precisely because free market never arrives at good solutions. And even if a competitor arises, it will, once again, be a competitor with nearly unlimited power and money creating a yet another, you guessed it, duopoly or monopoly. > There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole "Community as a whole" does not "build an alternative". "Community as a whole" is a nation/country. So now you want government intervention for some reason. > If that seems like too long to wait, consider that it’s less time than it took for the current situation to arise. The current situation took about 10 years to arise. And Apple and Google are quite deeply entrenched now. So now you're taking a number out of the blue, and pretend it's a given. Try this for size: "there's no reason an alternative could not be built in the next 50 years". Just as out of the blue. Doesn't sound too good now, does it?
sasaf5 6y ago
Also people should be free to decide what code runs in their property.
- Someone 6y ago
  One could argue they also are free to decide to buy some property that makes that so hard to be effectively impossible. People do that all the time with game consoles, cars, fridges, smart light bulbs, etc. So, does anything differentiate smartphones from those? If not, arguing all of those should be opened up, I guess, wouldn’t make it through the justice system (¿yet?) If it’s “if the seller allows installing some apps, they have to open up for all apps”, game consoles would be affected, too, and one could argue that the likes of Fortnite would be, too (that isn’t hardware, but neither is iOS, and it’s iOS that people want to install apps on. If Apple opened the iPhone, but not iOS, I doubt people would be happy) If it isn’t that, what is it that differentiates smart phones?
josefx 6y ago
Hilariously anti competitive licensing agreements that companies like Google require for example. All the large phone manufacturers are required to preinstall Googles software on any Android they sell and give it preferential treatment, selling an Android phone without would be a Play Store license violation in the U.S. . Market pressure against Google Play would have to be gigantic to get them to completely abandon their existing product lines. > In a free and open market, Could you tell me were to find one? Even Amazon had issues getting its kindle product line produced and it doesn't exactly lack the money to get that done.
- nradov 6y ago
  It is possible and legal to build and sell an Android phone using the free AOSP with no Google Play store or other Google services. However very few customers would buy it because it would be missing many of the features they expect. https://source.android.com/ https://source.android.com/
  - tpxl 6y ago
    Google used to refuse to license Google Play store to any vendor that had any android phone without it.
  - josefx 6y ago
    > However very few customers would buy it because it would be missing many of the features they expect. There is a glaringly large hole in that claim: Despite Googles best efforts the Amazon Kindle exists and people used it. I even explicitly mentioned that Amazon had issues finding a manufacturer to produce it.
    - nradov 6y ago
      The Kindle is only a special purpose media consumption device. Amazon's attempt at building a smartphone was a market failure.
TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
The current status quo is the result of a free market. There is no magical law of nature that prevents monopolies, it is in fact a very common outcome of a free market.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
Because it's a non issue and not enough customers care. I don't buy Apple precisely because of their golden walls and not being able to install custom apps. I consider Android to be good enough though, and I use most of the pre-installed apps from Google. Another law from the EU which will make it even harder for a competitor to come up.
- doublesCs 6y ago
  Can you spell how exactly this law makes it harder for a competitor to come up? Because if you don't, you'll sound like you're just parroting the generic (and generically false) old "regulations are bad for business".
cratermoon 6y ago
It's time we stopped believing in the Free Market Fairy: https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/ https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/

Why can't this just be reached by market pressure? In a free and open market, producers offering unpopular products should not be able to survive for long.

by Hermel 6y ago

Why can't this just be reached by market pressure? In a free and open market, producers offering unpopular products should not be able to survive for long.

fiblye 6y ago

It’s been decades and computers still come with bloatware. Phones will likely have garbage for decades as well. If there’s a few pennies to make off doing it, companies will just do it and not leave many options.

tsimionescu 6y ago

What could be achieved by some theoretical model of an open market is largely irrelevant. The more relevant point is what HAS been achieved by the actual market. If the market, given enough time, is still doing things that are hurting consumers, at some point the government must intervene.

black_puppydog 6y ago

Two locked-down ecosystems, controlled by two large corporations that act largely without competition between their respective market segments and who keep the barriers to entry high enough that no other competition can enter is exactly not a free market. And, surprise, it is hurting customers. This is exactly an attempt to make an entrenched duopoly face some actual competition.

Hermel 6y ago
What if the locked-down ecosystem is the result of overly restrictive copyright laws? Wouldn’t it be better to tackle the root cause and adjust that?
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Sure, migh do that as well while also fixing the current issue.
- Twixes 6y ago
  Copyright laws _are_ overly restrictive, but that's not what gives Apple and Google such power. It's how much they're established in the mobile systems market - which is not a free market. At this point it would be a miracle if any other OS maker made a dent in their marketshares without huge government intervention (think the US, EU or China forcing a new OS) – otherwise no way users _and_ developers would come. So there needs to be some regulation to stop anticonsumer practices.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Copyright laws are by no means perfect, but they solve a very significant flaw of the free market: without the "overly restrictive copyright laws" you would have literally thousands of technologies under lock and key and unavailable to anyone except the inventor of those technologies. Apple's commanding lead in processor design is entirely unavailable to anyone except Apple. How do you propose the free market to solve that? Oh wait, it didn't and it hasn't: there are no regulations governing processor designs. You're free to go ahead and implement anything you want.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Oh wait, it didn't and it hasn't: there are no regulations governing processor designs. We have no patent laws? Or are you saying that the “technologies” are obvious and non-novel?
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      The patent laws solve the actual problem of a free market: they give access to a technology to everyone (after a period of time). Something a free market would never agree to because that destroys the advantage of a company. --- start quote --- A patent is a form of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. --- end quote ---

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

Sometimes the market chooses the best of various bad options, if the only options available are those bad options, or information to avoid the bad options is not readily available (e.g. you should be able to know which apps are undeletable before buying the phone). So the best product, that violates the ideas of ownership in this case (if I own a device I should decide what apps run on it) might win in a free and open markets. But it's still OK to, for example, enforce normal expectations of device ownership, or enforce disclosure of information to ensure the consumer choice is genuine.

nixass 6y ago

Average consumer is uneducated and doesn't care, and does not punish producers for their wrong doings

Proven 6y ago
If you are right that means the wrongdoings are on average minor and State has no justification for stepping in and increasing compliance costs on everyone. Unless the primary objective is to grow the State apparatus. Which is really the only objective the EU busybodies ever had.

dmitriid 6y ago

What makes you think that current situation isn't the direct result of a free and open market?

zepto 6y ago
It is. What makes you thing there is a problem that the free and open market won’t correct?
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Because the duopoly you see is the direct consequence of such a free market. There were no regulations saying there must only be two, there have been dozens of competitors free to do whatever they please, and this is the situation we've arrived at. Moreover, the whole premise of the free market is "survival of the fittest". Well, Apple and Google are the fittest, and they survived.
  - zepto 6y ago
    You say ‘we’ve arrived here’ as if technology and culture have stopped evolving and all new work is being done within these two companies. This simply isn’t so. Apple and Google (especially) are both showing signs of ossification. There are competitors like Amazon slowly building ecosystems around them. There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole, or from a competitor could not be built over the next 10 years. If that seems like too long to wait, consider that it’s less time than it took for the current situation to arise.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      > You say ‘we’ve arrived here’ as if technology and culture have stopped evolving and all new work is being done within these two companies. > This simply isn’t so. Apple and Google (especially) are both showing signs of ossification. One: I never said this. Two: this has nothing to do with "free market will solve things" > There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole, or from a competitor could not be built over the next 10 years. Once again: you bemoan that free market should be able to solve the problem of the duopoly. It has already solved it: by creating the duopoly. A free market will always tend towards monopolisation for the simple reason: the best way to stay alive is by destroying and/or buying the competition. The many regulations (from antitrust law to basic things like food and safety regulations) have arisen precisely because free market never arrives at good solutions. And even if a competitor arises, it will, once again, be a competitor with nearly unlimited power and money creating a yet another, you guessed it, duopoly or monopoly. > There is no reason an alternative, either from the community as a whole "Community as a whole" does not "build an alternative". "Community as a whole" is a nation/country. So now you want government intervention for some reason. > If that seems like too long to wait, consider that it’s less time than it took for the current situation to arise. The current situation took about 10 years to arise. And Apple and Google are quite deeply entrenched now. So now you're taking a number out of the blue, and pretend it's a given. Try this for size: "there's no reason an alternative could not be built in the next 50 years". Just as out of the blue. Doesn't sound too good now, does it?

sasaf5 6y ago

Also people should be free to decide what code runs in their property.

Someone 6y ago
One could argue they also are free to decide to buy some property that makes that so hard to be effectively impossible. People do that all the time with game consoles, cars, fridges, smart light bulbs, etc. So, does anything differentiate smartphones from those? If not, arguing all of those should be opened up, I guess, wouldn’t make it through the justice system (¿yet?) If it’s “if the seller allows installing some apps, they have to open up for all apps”, game consoles would be affected, too, and one could argue that the likes of Fortnite would be, too (that isn’t hardware, but neither is iOS, and it’s iOS that people want to install apps on. If Apple opened the iPhone, but not iOS, I doubt people would be happy) If it isn’t that, what is it that differentiates smart phones?

josefx 6y ago

Hilariously anti competitive licensing agreements that companies like Google require for example. All the large phone manufacturers are required to preinstall Googles software on any Android they sell and give it preferential treatment, selling an Android phone without would be a Play Store license violation in the U.S. . Market pressure against Google Play would have to be gigantic to get them to completely abandon their existing product lines. > In a free and open market, Could you tell me were to find one? Even Amazon had issues getting its kindle product line produced and it doesn't exactly lack the money to get that done.

nradov 6y ago
It is possible and legal to build and sell an Android phone using the free AOSP with no Google Play store or other Google services. However very few customers would buy it because it would be missing many of the features they expect. https://source.android.com/ https://source.android.com/
- tpxl 6y ago
  Google used to refuse to license Google Play store to any vendor that had any android phone without it.
- josefx 6y ago
  > However very few customers would buy it because it would be missing many of the features they expect. There is a glaringly large hole in that claim: Despite Googles best efforts the Amazon Kindle exists and people used it. I even explicitly mentioned that Amazon had issues finding a manufacturer to produce it.
  - nradov 6y ago
    The Kindle is only a special purpose media consumption device. Amazon's attempt at building a smartphone was a market failure.

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago

The current status quo is the result of a free market. There is no magical law of nature that prevents monopolies, it is in fact a very common outcome of a free market.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

Because it's a non issue and not enough customers care. I don't buy Apple precisely because of their golden walls and not being able to install custom apps. I consider Android to be good enough though, and I use most of the pre-installed apps from Google. Another law from the EU which will make it even harder for a competitor to come up.

doublesCs 6y ago
Can you spell how exactly this law makes it harder for a competitor to come up? Because if you don't, you'll sound like you're just parroting the generic (and generically false) old "regulations are bad for business".

cratermoon 6y ago

It's time we stopped believing in the Free Market Fairy: https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/ https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/