5 ms·

The lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend mark

The lack of interoperability is strictly illegal since it's being leveraged to expand Apple's already formidable market power (using market power to extend market power is the strictly illegal part) by pushing people to buy an iphone. Cook can hardly deny that's a conscious thought at Apple, 'cause he just said the quiet part out loud. FRO - IINAL but I do know "monopoly" is not the correct term in law, "market power" is. You don't need to be a monopoly to violate the laws.

emodendroket 4y ago
If you’re telling me that any sort of vendor lock-in is illegal then this law is being flagrantly violated all the time by everything from computers to razors to Diaper Genies.
- pydry 4y ago
  He isnt. The illegality or lack thereof is determined by your level of market power.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    That seems awfully woolly. What he actually said is “using market power to extend market power” is illegal, but without any kind of market power vendor lock-in is pointless.
    - MagnumOpus 4y ago
      Not wooly at all. The "abuse" of a "dominant market position" is illegal. Vendor lock in to raise prices above the competitive level or to extend market share is the abuse, and "dominant market position" is well defined through law and thousands of precedent cases in antitrust. (In Europe Hoffman-La Roche vs. Commission is one of the cases defining it.)
    - Nomentatus 4y ago
      Not pointless, but nothing like as powerful, true. Any lock-in can create market power over a subsection of the market, however small, illegally; but small potatoes stuff is rarely prosecuted. Huge potatoes are rarely prosecuted, post-Bork.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  Why yes, especially post-Bork, lock-in (and much else) is overlooked in many, many instances. But then, the Sherman Act was passed to hamstring previous "restrain of trade" suits; and was suspiciously rarely used. John Sherman was the brother of General Sherman who ran an urban railroad before and for part of the Civil War. The powers that be serve themselves while pretending to serve the people surprisingly often. Lock-in isn't necessarily illegal (or even avoidable.) Note too that lock-in that's a necessary consequence of IP such as a patent is legal, for the duration of the patent, and no longer.
nojito 4y ago
Apple doesn't have a monopoly of mobile devices.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  Please read the comment of mine you are replying to. This was anticipated and answered after "FRO", which stands for "answers to frequently raised objections."
  - nojito 4y ago
    The moment you move the definition from monopoly to "formidable" market power you start the slippery slope you can never get of.
DavideNL 4y ago
Well not yet, but the EU is working on it; The Digital Markets Act states that major messaging services must be interoperable. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IPR25504/deal-on-digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-competition-and-more-choice-for-users https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IP...
- hbosch 4y ago
  So by this act, should I be able to send a Twitter DM to your phone number if you don't have a Twitter account? What does interoperability mean here? Can I send Instagram messages from my Signal app?
  - blantonl 4y ago
    By law the EU is going to require that when you make an Amazon Alexa announcement in your household that "dinner is ready" it will have to interoperate with Facebook messaging, Twitter DMs, Instangram messages, LinkedIn, Signal, iMessages, and SMS.
    - thrill 4y ago
      (the royal) We still demand all messages be sent to the nearest telegraph station, delivered by courier on horseback, and presented by a melodious singer who politely knocks on the door just post dinner time, TYVM.
  - Hamcha 4y ago
    IANAL but I think the legal ramification is probably that big services won't be allowed to ban third party clients and services, i.e. Whatsapp waged war on unofficial clients for the longest time
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Please read the link that the OP graciously provided: > EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice.
tshaddox 4y ago
Are you using “market power” differently than the common definition in economics? It normally refers to any firm which has the ability to set prices above marginal cost without losing revenue, i.e. any firm in a market that lacks perfect competition, i.e. every firm that actually exists.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  Same definition (except I don't think you want marginal cost there, because fixed costs - not just the increase in fixed costs - as well as opportunity costs - should be included), but of course market power can be used to restrain trade, take over adjacent markets, etc; as well as just soak the consumer in the short run. All these are abuses and illegal - still the litmus test of being able to charge extra is a good one.
behnamoh 4y ago
True, but I don’t think GOOG pushes interoperability for the sake of consumers. Maybe it’s just easier to collect data that way, and Apple wants that data for itself.
Bluecobra 4y ago
I don't see the problem here. 20 years ago you could have said the same thing about AOL Instant Messenger not being compatible with Yahoo Messenger.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  The problem comes when you use your dominant position in one market (messaging apps) to strengthen or create a dominant position in a different market (mobile phone hardware).
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    It seems like a stretch to claim that Apple’s position in either market is truly dominant given a similarly sized competitor.
    - MagnumOpus 4y ago
      Not a stretch - one of the criteria of dominance is being able to make abnormal profits. The company's famous 200% markups that are triple that of everyone else in the industry is a strong sign. (Even if you disregard that its next-biggest competitor Samsung is 10x smaller in phone revenues.)
      - tshaddox 4y ago
        Their mobile hardware is generally comparable to competitors' flagships both in tech specs and prices, so aren't the profits more of an issue with scale and efficiency? It feels like quite the stretch to claim that Apple is able to massively overcharge for its phones because they control access to iMessage.
    - rahimnathwani 4y ago
      From the article: Former marketing chief Phil Schiller famously said that porting iMessage to Android "would hurt us more than help us," and another former Apple exec said in an email that "iMessage amounts to serious lock-in."
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I don’t understand, where is the interoperability issue?? I can send someone who has an android phone a text message. I can send them a photo, or a video. It would seem the two are completely interoperable. Does having your messages turn green really upset people that much?
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > I can send someone who has an android phone a text message. I can send them a photo, or a video. You can, and the quality of the photo/video on the other end is horrendous. It's artificially downgraded. Android doesn't have this problem when messaging any other platform, because all other platforms use RCS (an open standard), which Apple chooses not to adopt because they benefit from the lock-in. It also breaks all the other features that iMessage and RCS both provide. So no, it's not just about the color of the bubble: it actually is an interoperability issue. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/08/13/google-apple-iphone-android-text-messaging/10317487002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/08/13/google-apple-...
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    > Android doesn't have this problem when messaging any other platform, because all other platforms use RCS I broadly agree with you about this being an interoperability issue, but what other platforms besides Android use RCS?
  - jlokier 4y ago
    My Android phone has occasionally prompted me about switching on enhanced messaging features, RCS, but to do so required agreeing to some Google T&Cs that I wasn't comfortable with, so I've consistently declined. RCS is a weird thing. It's supposed to be operated by carriers - but it's inconsistently supported by carriers, so Google provides the service. I'd rather not send photos and all my personal messages to Google. No, I don't use Gmail, and no I don't backup my Android phone to Google servers. SMS seems to have gone out of fashion for personal conversations, except when mobile signal is poor and SMS is the only thing that still works. So I don't particularly feel the enhanced features matter. Commercial SMS is still used a lot, but I probably prefer to _not_ have enhanced messaging from those anyway. Because of Apple's clearer privacy stance compared with Google, especially with Google being primarily an advertising and tracking company by revenue, I sometimes think I'd feel ok using Apple's services - if only iOS wasn't so limiting. But because of iOS limitations I pretty much have to use Android and live with the compromises. I am conflicted about this, because if iOS is forced to open up, it'll be more useful to me for some things, but also more of a cesspit of scam apps, and Google Chrome and related services will dominate the landscape more. Although everyone recognises Apple uses iMessage for "prestige" and lock-in, I think there are good reasons why even if Apple didn't care about its own benefits, and only wanted to protect users' pricacy, Apple should perhaps not go all-in on RCS in its current form. From Wikipedia about RCS: "Amnesty International researcher Joe Westby criticized RCS for not allowing end-to-end encryption, because it is treated as a service of carriers and thus subject to lawful interception. "The Verge criticized the inconsistent support of RCS in the United States, with carriers not supporting RCS in all markets, not certifying service on all phones, or not yet supporting the Universal Profile. Concerns were shown over Google's decision to run its own RCS service due to the possibility of antitrust scrutiny, but it was acknowledged that Google had to do so in order to bypass the carriers' inconsistent support of RCS, as it wanted to have a service more comparable to Apple's iMessage service available on Android. "Ars Technica also criticized Google's move to launch a direct-to-consumer RCS service, considering it a contradiction of RCS being native to the carrier to provide features reminiscent of messaging apps, counting it as being among various past and unsuccessful attempts by Google to develop an in-house messaging service (including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, Hangouts, and Allo), and noting limitations: such as its dependencies on phone numbers as the identity (whereas email-based accounts are telco-agnostic), not being capable of being readily synchronized between multiple devices, and the aforementioned lack of end-to-end encryption.[8 In June 2021 Google introduced end-to-end encryption in Google Messages, an app supporting RCS. Encryption is supported only if two users are on Messages in a 1:1 chat (not group chat), both with RCS turned on."

emodendroket 4y ago

If you’re telling me that any sort of vendor lock-in is illegal then this law is being flagrantly violated all the time by everything from computers to razors to Diaper Genies.

pydry 4y ago
He isnt. The illegality or lack thereof is determined by your level of market power.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  That seems awfully woolly. What he actually said is “using market power to extend market power” is illegal, but without any kind of market power vendor lock-in is pointless.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    Not wooly at all. The "abuse" of a "dominant market position" is illegal. Vendor lock in to raise prices above the competitive level or to extend market share is the abuse, and "dominant market position" is well defined through law and thousands of precedent cases in antitrust. (In Europe Hoffman-La Roche vs. Commission is one of the cases defining it.)
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    Not pointless, but nothing like as powerful, true. Any lock-in can create market power over a subsection of the market, however small, illegally; but small potatoes stuff is rarely prosecuted. Huge potatoes are rarely prosecuted, post-Bork.
Nomentatus 4y ago
Why yes, especially post-Bork, lock-in (and much else) is overlooked in many, many instances. But then, the Sherman Act was passed to hamstring previous "restrain of trade" suits; and was suspiciously rarely used. John Sherman was the brother of General Sherman who ran an urban railroad before and for part of the Civil War. The powers that be serve themselves while pretending to serve the people surprisingly often. Lock-in isn't necessarily illegal (or even avoidable.) Note too that lock-in that's a necessary consequence of IP such as a patent is legal, for the duration of the patent, and no longer.

nojito 4y ago

Apple doesn't have a monopoly of mobile devices.

Nomentatus 4y ago
Please read the comment of mine you are replying to. This was anticipated and answered after "FRO", which stands for "answers to frequently raised objections."
- nojito 4y ago
  The moment you move the definition from monopoly to "formidable" market power you start the slippery slope you can never get of.

DavideNL 4y ago

Well not yet, but the EU is working on it; The Digital Markets Act states that major messaging services must be interoperable. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IPR25504/deal-on-digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-competition-and-more-choice-for-users https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/nl/press-room/20220315IP...

hbosch 4y ago
So by this act, should I be able to send a Twitter DM to your phone number if you don't have a Twitter account? What does interoperability mean here? Can I send Instagram messages from my Signal app?
- blantonl 4y ago
  By law the EU is going to require that when you make an Amazon Alexa announcement in your household that "dinner is ready" it will have to interoperate with Facebook messaging, Twitter DMs, Instangram messages, LinkedIn, Signal, iMessages, and SMS.
  - thrill 4y ago
    (the royal) We still demand all messages be sent to the nearest telegraph station, delivered by courier on horseback, and presented by a melodious singer who politely knocks on the door just post dinner time, TYVM.
- Hamcha 4y ago
  IANAL but I think the legal ramification is probably that big services won't be allowed to ban third party clients and services, i.e. Whatsapp waged war on unofficial clients for the longest time
- rchaud 4y ago
  Please read the link that the OP graciously provided: > EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice.

tshaddox 4y ago

Are you using “market power” differently than the common definition in economics? It normally refers to any firm which has the ability to set prices above marginal cost without losing revenue, i.e. any firm in a market that lacks perfect competition, i.e. every firm that actually exists.

Nomentatus 4y ago
Same definition (except I don't think you want marginal cost there, because fixed costs - not just the increase in fixed costs - as well as opportunity costs - should be included), but of course market power can be used to restrain trade, take over adjacent markets, etc; as well as just soak the consumer in the short run. All these are abuses and illegal - still the litmus test of being able to charge extra is a good one.

behnamoh 4y ago

True, but I don’t think GOOG pushes interoperability for the sake of consumers. Maybe it’s just easier to collect data that way, and Apple wants that data for itself.

Bluecobra 4y ago

I don't see the problem here. 20 years ago you could have said the same thing about AOL Instant Messenger not being compatible with Yahoo Messenger.

rahimnathwani 4y ago
The problem comes when you use your dominant position in one market (messaging apps) to strengthen or create a dominant position in a different market (mobile phone hardware).
- emodendroket 4y ago
  It seems like a stretch to claim that Apple’s position in either market is truly dominant given a similarly sized competitor.
  - MagnumOpus 4y ago
    Not a stretch - one of the criteria of dominance is being able to make abnormal profits. The company's famous 200% markups that are triple that of everyone else in the industry is a strong sign. (Even if you disregard that its next-biggest competitor Samsung is 10x smaller in phone revenues.)
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      Their mobile hardware is generally comparable to competitors' flagships both in tech specs and prices, so aren't the profits more of an issue with scale and efficiency? It feels like quite the stretch to claim that Apple is able to massively overcharge for its phones because they control access to iMessage.
  - rahimnathwani 4y ago
    From the article: Former marketing chief Phil Schiller famously said that porting iMessage to Android "would hurt us more than help us," and another former Apple exec said in an email that "iMessage amounts to serious lock-in."

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I don’t understand, where is the interoperability issue?? I can send someone who has an android phone a text message. I can send them a photo, or a video. It would seem the two are completely interoperable. Does having your messages turn green really upset people that much?

chimeracoder 4y ago
> I can send someone who has an android phone a text message. I can send them a photo, or a video. You can, and the quality of the photo/video on the other end is horrendous. It's artificially downgraded. Android doesn't have this problem when messaging any other platform, because all other platforms use RCS (an open standard), which Apple chooses not to adopt because they benefit from the lock-in. It also breaks all the other features that iMessage and RCS both provide. So no, it's not just about the color of the bubble: it actually is an interoperability issue. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/08/13/google-apple-iphone-android-text-messaging/10317487002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/08/13/google-apple-...
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  > Android doesn't have this problem when messaging any other platform, because all other platforms use RCS I broadly agree with you about this being an interoperability issue, but what other platforms besides Android use RCS?
- jlokier 4y ago
  My Android phone has occasionally prompted me about switching on enhanced messaging features, RCS, but to do so required agreeing to some Google T&Cs that I wasn't comfortable with, so I've consistently declined. RCS is a weird thing. It's supposed to be operated by carriers - but it's inconsistently supported by carriers, so Google provides the service. I'd rather not send photos and all my personal messages to Google. No, I don't use Gmail, and no I don't backup my Android phone to Google servers. SMS seems to have gone out of fashion for personal conversations, except when mobile signal is poor and SMS is the only thing that still works. So I don't particularly feel the enhanced features matter. Commercial SMS is still used a lot, but I probably prefer to _not_ have enhanced messaging from those anyway. Because of Apple's clearer privacy stance compared with Google, especially with Google being primarily an advertising and tracking company by revenue, I sometimes think I'd feel ok using Apple's services - if only iOS wasn't so limiting. But because of iOS limitations I pretty much have to use Android and live with the compromises. I am conflicted about this, because if iOS is forced to open up, it'll be more useful to me for some things, but also more of a cesspit of scam apps, and Google Chrome and related services will dominate the landscape more. Although everyone recognises Apple uses iMessage for "prestige" and lock-in, I think there are good reasons why even if Apple didn't care about its own benefits, and only wanted to protect users' pricacy, Apple should perhaps not go all-in on RCS in its current form. From Wikipedia about RCS: "Amnesty International researcher Joe Westby criticized RCS for not allowing end-to-end encryption, because it is treated as a service of carriers and thus subject to lawful interception. "The Verge criticized the inconsistent support of RCS in the United States, with carriers not supporting RCS in all markets, not certifying service on all phones, or not yet supporting the Universal Profile. Concerns were shown over Google's decision to run its own RCS service due to the possibility of antitrust scrutiny, but it was acknowledged that Google had to do so in order to bypass the carriers' inconsistent support of RCS, as it wanted to have a service more comparable to Apple's iMessage service available on Android. "Ars Technica also criticized Google's move to launch a direct-to-consumer RCS service, considering it a contradiction of RCS being native to the carrier to provide features reminiscent of messaging apps, counting it as being among various past and unsuccessful attempts by Google to develop an in-house messaging service (including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, Hangouts, and Allo), and noting limitations: such as its dependencies on phone numbers as the identity (whereas email-based accounts are telco-agnostic), not being capable of being readily synchronized between multiple devices, and the aforementioned lack of end-to-end encryption.[8 In June 2021 Google introduced end-to-end encryption in Google Messages, an app supporting RCS. Encryption is supported only if two users are on Messages in a 1:1 chat (not group chat), both with RCS turned on."