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Everything was legal until it wasn't. It was the same for Standard oil before 1911: they said it's all legal to have such a monopoly on oil. For some people at

Everything was legal until it wasn't. It was the same for Standard oil before 1911: they said it's all legal to have such a monopoly on oil. For some people at the time, it was obvious this was an unfair advantage on the market, so they fought to make it illegal. It's the same now. Of course Google and Apple mostly respect the laws of the land, but if a large swath of the population/industry thinks they are unfair, their position will soon become illegal as well.

ericmay 5y ago
The reality is that there's a vocal minority (looks around here) and the vast majority of people couldn't give a shit less. Not once in my life has my dad, my grandma, or some random friend I met up with at a bar gone "jeez, Apple and Google sure do have a monopoly on pricing in their respective app stores and this harms me as a consumer". Nobody cares. In fact, most people probably think everything is amazing how it is now and don't think there's a problem. Personally, I'm knowledgable enough and I think things are way better now than they might be in a future state where this is changed. I know exactly what is going to happen. They are going to be forced to allow competing app stores (in the case of Apple) and then everybody I know is going to have like 5 stores installed, garbage apps spying and harvesting personal info, and it's going to just be a shit storm of stupid knock-offs, crappy products, and outright theft. There's no way around it and if you don't understand that you're now going to have to fix your grandma's iPhone now because Facebook wasn't on the Apple App Store but was on the whatever App Store you're living in a fantasy bubble where people are even moderately technically literate. There's just a few disgruntled developers who don't like the rules so they complain loudly, and some billion dollar corporations who can make some money if they win legal cases. Small, but vocal players. Unfortunately that's how a democracy in a country as large as the United States works. Most people don't care about something so one group can just shout loudly and eventually get their way, even if it is bad for the country as a whole. Then they get entrenched and laws are nearly impossible to repeal now. Then we overcorrect and pass new laws, but then these laws have loopholes or carve out exceptions. /rant
- flavius29663 5y ago
  You should read upon the woman who brought down Standard Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell#Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell#Standard_Oil It was basically a person that took on the largest monopoly in the world, and won. What we have today is a significantly larger momentum against tech monopolies. Look at some of the practices that brought the case forward: "An office boy working at the Standard Oil headquarters was given the job of destroying records which included evidence that railroads were giving the company advance information about refiner's shipments.[85] This allowed them to undercut the refiners" Does that sound familiar? Google knows everything that happens on your phone; and they can just undercut every other successful app if they wish so? Or how Amazon can simply analyze all the sales and create their own version of the successful products?
  - ericmay 5y ago
    I'm not arguing that all tech companies are or are not monopolies. I think Google and Facebook are specifically candidates for anti-trust regulation. But I don't see it with Apple at all, especially around this App Store issue, and I'm not really convinced that Amazon is either.
    - echelon 5y ago
      50% of Americans use jPhone, and many as their primary computer device. You can't reach them without paying Apple tax. You can't write software and be done with it - you have to make their arbitrary reviewers happy and wait for releases. No matter what your business is. They also keep you from forming a relationship with the customer. You don't get an email or anything. You're on their payment rails most of the time, which significantly increases risk. One press of a button, and your business is obliterated. Imagine if every car was either Ford or Tesla, and Tesla charged your destinations 30% on everything you do. Every bagel you buy, or every concert you attend. Margins are tight as it is. Apple makes it substantially harder. Before Apple, people were satisfied with websites and Windows programs. Now everything has to be an App.
dantheman 5y ago
You should actually look at Standard Oil - it lowered prices, increased access, and by the time it was broken up was already losing market share and was not nearly as dominant. As with most anti-trust arguments -- market domination is temporary unless granted by the government, e.g. AT&T. In general it is sour grapes from those who can't compete.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  You should look at Standard Oil. Yes, it lowered prices and increased access. And it did things that were clearly blatantly unfair competition. For one example, it demanded kickbacks from railroads on oil shipments - all oil shipments, including competitors'. It's pretty hard for a competitor to be able to compete in that environment.
  - dantheman 5y ago
    If you're referring to drawbacks - then you have to ask, why did the railroads grant them? Why would other oil shipments pay a higher rate? Is it because the volume and stability standard oil offered, as well as ownership of tankers and other critical infrastructure needed to be compensated for? Once again, their market share was falling while these programs were going on so clearly it didn't hamper competition.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Why did the railroads grant them? Because Standard Oil was a huge amount of business. And back then, railroads had other railroads that competed with them. The railroads granted them under the threat of Standard Oil taking a huge amount of business to the competition. Was it for the ownership of the tanks? No, I don't think so... but I can't prove it.

ericmay 5y ago

The reality is that there's a vocal minority (looks around here) and the vast majority of people couldn't give a shit less. Not once in my life has my dad, my grandma, or some random friend I met up with at a bar gone "jeez, Apple and Google sure do have a monopoly on pricing in their respective app stores and this harms me as a consumer". Nobody cares. In fact, most people probably think everything is amazing how it is now and don't think there's a problem. Personally, I'm knowledgable enough and I think things are way better now than they might be in a future state where this is changed. I know exactly what is going to happen. They are going to be forced to allow competing app stores (in the case of Apple) and then everybody I know is going to have like 5 stores installed, garbage apps spying and harvesting personal info, and it's going to just be a shit storm of stupid knock-offs, crappy products, and outright theft. There's no way around it and if you don't understand that you're now going to have to fix your grandma's iPhone now because Facebook wasn't on the Apple App Store but was on the whatever App Store you're living in a fantasy bubble where people are even moderately technically literate. There's just a few disgruntled developers who don't like the rules so they complain loudly, and some billion dollar corporations who can make some money if they win legal cases. Small, but vocal players. Unfortunately that's how a democracy in a country as large as the United States works. Most people don't care about something so one group can just shout loudly and eventually get their way, even if it is bad for the country as a whole. Then they get entrenched and laws are nearly impossible to repeal now. Then we overcorrect and pass new laws, but then these laws have loopholes or carve out exceptions. /rant

flavius29663 5y ago
You should read upon the woman who brought down Standard Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell#Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell#Standard_Oil It was basically a person that took on the largest monopoly in the world, and won. What we have today is a significantly larger momentum against tech monopolies. Look at some of the practices that brought the case forward: "An office boy working at the Standard Oil headquarters was given the job of destroying records which included evidence that railroads were giving the company advance information about refiner's shipments.[85] This allowed them to undercut the refiners" Does that sound familiar? Google knows everything that happens on your phone; and they can just undercut every other successful app if they wish so? Or how Amazon can simply analyze all the sales and create their own version of the successful products?
- ericmay 5y ago
  I'm not arguing that all tech companies are or are not monopolies. I think Google and Facebook are specifically candidates for anti-trust regulation. But I don't see it with Apple at all, especially around this App Store issue, and I'm not really convinced that Amazon is either.
  - echelon 5y ago
    50% of Americans use jPhone, and many as their primary computer device. You can't reach them without paying Apple tax. You can't write software and be done with it - you have to make their arbitrary reviewers happy and wait for releases. No matter what your business is. They also keep you from forming a relationship with the customer. You don't get an email or anything. You're on their payment rails most of the time, which significantly increases risk. One press of a button, and your business is obliterated. Imagine if every car was either Ford or Tesla, and Tesla charged your destinations 30% on everything you do. Every bagel you buy, or every concert you attend. Margins are tight as it is. Apple makes it substantially harder. Before Apple, people were satisfied with websites and Windows programs. Now everything has to be an App.

dantheman 5y ago

You should actually look at Standard Oil - it lowered prices, increased access, and by the time it was broken up was already losing market share and was not nearly as dominant. As with most anti-trust arguments -- market domination is temporary unless granted by the government, e.g. AT&T. In general it is sour grapes from those who can't compete.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
You should look at Standard Oil. Yes, it lowered prices and increased access. And it did things that were clearly blatantly unfair competition. For one example, it demanded kickbacks from railroads on oil shipments - all oil shipments, including competitors'. It's pretty hard for a competitor to be able to compete in that environment.
- dantheman 5y ago
  If you're referring to drawbacks - then you have to ask, why did the railroads grant them? Why would other oil shipments pay a higher rate? Is it because the volume and stability standard oil offered, as well as ownership of tankers and other critical infrastructure needed to be compensated for? Once again, their market share was falling while these programs were going on so clearly it didn't hamper competition.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Why did the railroads grant them? Because Standard Oil was a huge amount of business. And back then, railroads had other railroads that competed with them. The railroads granted them under the threat of Standard Oil taking a huge amount of business to the competition. Was it for the ownership of the tanks? No, I don't think so... but I can't prove it.