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The point is that this is analogous to Microsoft shipping Internet Explorer with Windows to try and kill Netscape. Apple does the same thing with their app stor
by lukeschlather 6y ago
The point is that this is analogous to Microsoft shipping Internet Explorer with Windows to try and kill Netscape. Apple does the same thing with their app store. Except this goes a step further: imagine how the Microsoft antitrust suit would have gone if in addition to shipping a free competing product, Microsoft had built something into Windows so that Netscape wouldn't run at all and demanded Netscape only sell their browser through Microsoft Internet Explorer with Microsoft taking a 30% commission.
- smachiz 6y agoExcept it's not really an analog at all. Microsoft didn't lose their antitrust case because of any of that - they lost because they were paying OEMs to not install software - and if they did, they were punishing them. The rebate scheme was really central to the issue. Then, they didn't clearly say "you can't install software" or "everyone who wants to install software has to do X" they just made installing Netscape or removing IE functionally broken. That's really different than "everyone who wants to make money through my platform has to pay me 30%". The place Apple might actually have trouble would be Spotify - where Apple is competing with their product, allowing subscriptions in-app for their own platform, but not for Spotify unless they cough up 30% or whatever.