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To your first point: I find it telling that your main concern with reducing Apple's monopoly power is that it would elevate Facebook's monopoly power. How about
by bloppe 4y ago
To your first point: I find it telling that your main concern with reducing Apple's monopoly power is that it would elevate Facebook's monopoly power. How about we design regulations that mitigate against monopoly power in all its forms? Then there would be viable alternatives to Facebook and all of the sudden their business model based on hostile tracking becomes completely unsustainable because there's meaningful competition that actually respects their users. We don't need to be serfs.
To your second point: Apple exerts influence far beyond their consumers. Even though I'm sure this isn't news to you, I'll still point you toward some interesting articles:
https://proton.me/blog/apple-app-store-antitrust https://proton.me/blog/apple-app-store-antitrust
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
Much of this is invisible to the typical resident of the walled garden, but they actually cause a lot of harm to society because of their market dominance. Anybody with a small child is probably aware of the harmful effects of the "dreaded green bubbles" (I'm sure people will try to counter this point with claims that iMessage is somehow more secure / more functional than other protocols. I invite those people to do some research first. I think you'd be surprised at the gulf between your own understanding of iMessage's security vs. reality).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nemothekid 4y ago>Then there would be viable alternatives to Facebook and all of the sudden their business model based on hostile tracking becomes completely unsustainable because there's meaningful competition that actually respects their users. This assumes my problem is with Facebook and Facebook alone. My problem is with ad-tech and more generally all other developers. I know Apple exersts influence beyond their customers and I'm not sympathetic to developers who cry about Apple not letting them run $program. What the web has shown is that given a free-for-all platform, users lose and any new technology is used to fingerprint people on the web. Apple has provided an option that, sure is a walled garden, but I can be reasonably confident isn't doing something I'm not interested in. I'm not sure what "harmful effects" of green bubbles are but I'm sure envy isn't as bad as every ad tech company having an NSA style citizen database.
- bloppe 4y ago> I'm not sympathetic to developers who cry about Apple not letting them run $program You don't have to be sympathetic to developers. By sympathetic to yourself. Apple stifling competition and charging exorbitant rents absolutely harms you as a consumer.
- pb7 4y agoNo, it doesn't. I extract more value from Apple's offerings than they extract from me in $$$.
- bloppe 4y agoI don't think you're grasping the point of antitrust. This was a common sentiment about AT&T in the 70's; people actually liked them despite their monopoly because they liked having telephones and didn't realize how much better things could be.
- spideymans 4y agoNothing I’ve seen from the major players in this industry (Meta, Epic, etc…), has convinced me that they’re capable of doing better. I do hope I’m wrong though.
- pksebben 4y agoI think that's kind of the point. If they have to give up control of the industry it can move in better directions.
- hnaccount_rng 4y agoI would really love to have at least one competitive product to Apple's. At least one, which I could give my family and not have to worry about them getting scammed out of their payment details. Without having recourse. Yes, Apple is fricking expensive. Yes, I'd prefer if they would offer something at cheaper price points. Yes, I'd prefer if they were forced to provide better-than-mediocre software. Yes, I'd prefer if there would be access in case things don't work, for me to fix stuff myself and not just shrug and try again. BUT they are still without a reasonable competitor that manages to even meet their bar in quality. And yes, that makes them comfortable enough to behave stupidly and in (more or less) open ignorance of anticompetitive regulations. However making their offering _worse_ is not helping _me_! Demonstrate a similar amount of customer safety and we can talk about mandating that also for Apple. But thanks but no thanks if the best we can hope for is AndroidII