6 ms·
The frame, considering the overall context is kind of ridiculous: Apple "requiring software developers to use its in-app payment system" is anticompetitive Wel
by netcan 5y ago
The frame, considering the overall context is kind of ridiculous: Apple "requiring software developers to use its in-app payment system" is anticompetitive
Well shucks. Apple also controls who and what can be sold or distributed in the market, how it should be built. They control how much exposure apps get. Some of these controls are used more directly, or blatantly to "rig the market" than others... but these are just the current choices by Apple. It's not a rig. It's the OEM design. Apple rigging the app store market is like Apple penetrating icloud security. That's not a hack, it's a login.
I can see a logic within the frame. If courts force Apple to allow a competing system, it will put downward pressure on what are (imo) indisputably monopoly prices. That's competition, in a neoclassical sense. There can be a big difference between no competition and some.
OTOH, competitiveness within Apples' fully owned market seems like a silly frame to operate within. Competition between ice cream parlours within the walls of DisneyLand are at Mr Disney's discretion. They can decide all ice cream parlours will be subsidiaries, franchises or independants. They can set prices, ban ice cream, etc.
Trying to deal with ice cream competitiveness in DisneyLand this way is a fool's errand. One court rules on a policy forcing Parlours to use Disney's insurance vendor, and price gouging. It's a random detail and maybe it does help out parlour owners lower costs. Disney have an infinite number of such options available though. A free market it'll never be.
- realusername 5y agoHaving competition in the mobile app market is more important for the global & local economy than "ice cream parlours at disneyland"...
- netcan 5y agosure. I wasn't arguing for equal importance, or equal need for policy-level decisions.
- CuriouslyC 5y agoIf people were forced to walk through Disneyland to get to work or live their daily lives, your analogy would be more apt.
- oauea 5y agoExactly, everything else you listed about Apple's behavior is also anticompetitive and will hopefully be addressed in the future. But lets start with payments.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoFirst principles arguments are crushed by emergent properties at scale. Disneyland has less than a hundred restaurants. The harm to society if Dinseyland has extra control over those restaurants is miniscule. The harm caused by Apple having monopolist control on the majority of mobile phone owner's entire software stack is exponentially larger.
- jeroenhd 5y ago> the majority of mobile phone owner's In some circles, maybe, but not here in the Netherlands (+/- 60%). Worldwide, the majority of phone owners still run Android. This is one of the key arguments people use in Apple's defence, because the bigger their majority share, the quicker anti-monopoly laws would apply. I agree with your point, though. The Apple/Google duopoly hurts the general public to ensure the profit margins for these companies' shareholders. Those with neoliberal convictions might not agree with me, but I believe that the free market needs regulation to prevent problems like these.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoI don't find that convincing. There's billions of ios users. That certainly passes the bar of emergent effects of scale to properly view it as its own unique market. It doesn't matter if there's billions of other users on android.
- netcan 5y agoI don't disagree with that. I'm not suggesting that harm is comparable, only structure. You can deal with DisneyLand ice cream by ignoring it. Apple, not necessarily. That said, if you were to deal with DisneyLand ice cream...
- trothamel 5y agoPart of the difference is that that nobody thinks you own Disneyland, but people think that they own their iPhone or iPad. This sort of ownership means that it should be possible to change your decisions about what to do with a device after the moment you bought it. I think most people would find it bad if a BMW branded car could only take gasoline/petrol purchased using a BMW credit card. Even if the terms of the BMW credit card were better than everything else when the vehicle was first purchased, the lock-in it creates would stop competition. And of course, if BMW could change the credit card terms - say, stop allowing purchases at your closest filling station, that would be worse. Just from a consumer's perspective, given the popularity of Fortnite, it's quite possible that there are some number of people who bought an iPhone just for the purpose of playing Fortnite, and had that use taken away from them. It feels wrong that Apple can take that away from them.
- mjhagen 5y agoI think your analogies aren't very fair: Disney: It's not the park or the device, it's about the experience, Apple wants to control that, just like Disney. BMW: You're allowed to put any brand of electricity in your iPhone's battery. I would've gone with the third party car stereo market.
- threatofrain 5y agoBut if the sole act of forcing app makers to use Apple's generally more private and secure payment system is anticompetitive, then how does the consumer choose Apple as the mediator of their relationships? Where is the consumer choice for that? I ask because I don't want 3rd parties selling insights from my financial data. Of all choices that a consumer actually wants, it would be the ability to control the apps (i.e., sideloading) running on their device, as opposed to have more control yielded to app makers.
- dmos62 5y agoIt is ridiculous if framed like that. A better interpretation is that this adresses an easy to address aspect of the anti-competitive phenomenon that is Apple app store – allow other payment processors. It is a lot like coming to a house fire with a pack of bandages. Can't hide the fact that noone seems willing to address the bigger problem.
- y7 5y agoThe regulator's antitrust case is probably much broader than IAPs, but the findings are not yet public.