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I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. The

I think governments should go after cartels rather than monopolies. Google and Apple combined have a >99% market share for mobile OS/app store market share. They also impose a synchronized 30% fee cut. There is a case to be made for an antitrust behavior from this cartel.

Traster 6y ago
Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.
- sumedh 6y ago
  Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?
  - Traster 6y ago
    Because they don’t need to.
    - sumedh 6y ago
      They did not need to collude to suppress employee wages yet they did.
Someone 6y ago
I don’t see that going anywhere. I would expect both parties to argue that this is conscious parallelism, which Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_parallelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para...) states “is very hard to prosecute because it may occur without any collusion between the competitors”. They’ll also argue that they don’t keep prices high in their stores and provide value that makes that 15/30% cut worthwhile. Anti-trust, IMO, won’t work either. Currently, Apple will (rightfully, IMO) argue it has viable competition in Android, and Google will say the same about iOS and say they allow other stores to exist. I think we need new law to handle this kind of stuff.
- username90 6y ago
  EU law already handled the credit card duopoly, should work the same here. The changes didn't propagate to US though.
  - ksec 6y ago
    The Apple Apologist keep saying it is Apple's platform, Apple dictates the rules, if you dont like it go somewhere else. And yet when EU say it is their market their rules, Apple apologist keep saying foul. You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      > You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares. The monopoly thing is an Americanism and is irrelevant as far as European law is concerned anyway. Companies are tried for anticompetitive behaviour or abuse of a dominant position, neither requires a monopoly or anything close. It is enough to show that the company is dominant in one market, and using that unfairly to advance its position in another market. A company can be dominant with a 60% marketshare, depending on the market. On the other hand, being a monopoly is perfectly legal as long as it is not used for anticompetitive purposes. Same for oligopolies. There are a lot of markets served by only 2 or 3 companies and that’s fine as long as everyone behaves.
      - ksec 6y ago
        Agree on everything you have said. It is the Anti-Competitive nature that is of concern. I think Benedict Evans puts it best, do other business "Fear" of losing market access because of certain company.
kergonath 6y ago
It is very difficult to prosecute though, because convergence is something that happens without collusion. You need to have a smoking gun to convict a group of companies under anti-collusion laws. Case in point, the 30% fee for digital stores existed before both Apple’s and Google’s stores.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  30% on specialized game consoles, yes. On general purpose computers digital distribution was diversified among many websites. (At least apart from games or before Steam.) IOS and Android are increasingly marketed as general purpose devices which are needed for more and more parts of life.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    You said exactly the same thing as I did. When the App Store started, the model was device-specific stores or Steam, all of them taking 30%. It was entirely unremarkable. Now, is there a law saying that you are allowed to take a cut only on non-general purpose computers? Where is the line between specific- and general-purpose? Is it defined anywhere? Why would app stores selling games be meaningfully different? Is a feature phone “general purpose”? At which point did smartphones become “general purpose”? Since when the character of a device is determined by marketing (other than for the purposes of fake advertising)? Have you got any concrete examples of phones being marketed explicitly as “general-purpose computing devices” anyway? Until there is a definite answer to these questions, the argument boils down to “I don’t like it” or “I feel it should be different”. It might make you feel good, but that point of view is unlikely to be shared with courts.
    - paulryanrogers 6y ago
      I'm not trying to make a legal argument. Just pointing out that before the IOS store and Steam it was common to buy from producers directly or from a variety of digital markets. Which could undermine the premise that a 30% cut was typical.
- 6y ago

Traster 6y ago

Do you really think that they colluded though? The exact same result can be expected if they simply independently reacted to market conditions. It’d be very hard to prove illegal coordination.

sumedh 6y ago
Apple and Google colluded to not poach employees from one another, why do you think they wont collude again?
- Traster 6y ago
  Because they don’t need to.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    They did not need to collude to suppress employee wages yet they did.

Someone 6y ago

I don’t see that going anywhere. I would expect both parties to argue that this is conscious parallelism, which Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_parallelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion#Conscious_para...) states “is very hard to prosecute because it may occur without any collusion between the competitors”. They’ll also argue that they don’t keep prices high in their stores and provide value that makes that 15/30% cut worthwhile. Anti-trust, IMO, won’t work either. Currently, Apple will (rightfully, IMO) argue it has viable competition in Android, and Google will say the same about iOS and say they allow other stores to exist. I think we need new law to handle this kind of stuff.

username90 6y ago
EU law already handled the credit card duopoly, should work the same here. The changes didn't propagate to US though.
- ksec 6y ago
  The Apple Apologist keep saying it is Apple's platform, Apple dictates the rules, if you dont like it go somewhere else. And yet when EU say it is their market their rules, Apple apologist keep saying foul. You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    > You then have half of the discussion about the term "monopoly" which half of them dont understand and refuse to understand. And another half of the discussions about Apple's BS that they took and state they have very small market shares. The monopoly thing is an Americanism and is irrelevant as far as European law is concerned anyway. Companies are tried for anticompetitive behaviour or abuse of a dominant position, neither requires a monopoly or anything close. It is enough to show that the company is dominant in one market, and using that unfairly to advance its position in another market. A company can be dominant with a 60% marketshare, depending on the market. On the other hand, being a monopoly is perfectly legal as long as it is not used for anticompetitive purposes. Same for oligopolies. There are a lot of markets served by only 2 or 3 companies and that’s fine as long as everyone behaves.
    - ksec 6y ago
      Agree on everything you have said. It is the Anti-Competitive nature that is of concern. I think Benedict Evans puts it best, do other business "Fear" of losing market access because of certain company.

kergonath 6y ago

It is very difficult to prosecute though, because convergence is something that happens without collusion. You need to have a smoking gun to convict a group of companies under anti-collusion laws. Case in point, the 30% fee for digital stores existed before both Apple’s and Google’s stores.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
30% on specialized game consoles, yes. On general purpose computers digital distribution was diversified among many websites. (At least apart from games or before Steam.) IOS and Android are increasingly marketed as general purpose devices which are needed for more and more parts of life.
- kergonath 6y ago
  You said exactly the same thing as I did. When the App Store started, the model was device-specific stores or Steam, all of them taking 30%. It was entirely unremarkable. Now, is there a law saying that you are allowed to take a cut only on non-general purpose computers? Where is the line between specific- and general-purpose? Is it defined anywhere? Why would app stores selling games be meaningfully different? Is a feature phone “general purpose”? At which point did smartphones become “general purpose”? Since when the character of a device is determined by marketing (other than for the purposes of fake advertising)? Have you got any concrete examples of phones being marketed explicitly as “general-purpose computing devices” anyway? Until there is a definite answer to these questions, the argument boils down to “I don’t like it” or “I feel it should be different”. It might make you feel good, but that point of view is unlikely to be shared with courts.
  - paulryanrogers 6y ago
    I'm not trying to make a legal argument. Just pointing out that before the IOS store and Steam it was common to buy from producers directly or from a variety of digital markets. Which could undermine the premise that a 30% cut was typical.
6y ago