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I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple, but I'm glad to see all that unfairly amassed wealth benefitting eve

I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple, but I'm glad to see all that unfairly amassed wealth benefitting even the lowest rungs of its corporate hierarchy through the unusual benefit of not being terminated at the drop of a hat. Bravo!

sircastor 4y ago
> I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple In a world where Amazon, Meta, Google, Wal-Mart, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc exist, you think Apple is the most anti-competitive?
- testfrequency 4y ago
  Maybe ask the Vape companies or any developers who had their apps cloned what they think?
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Are vape companies competing with Apple?
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  Yes, I am not OP but obviously they are more anti-competitive if ONLY for their killing off support for progressive web apps over the last 3 or 17 releases of iOS/Safari
  - culi 4y ago
    I'm a big fan of PWAs, but this really seems like small fries compared to something like Walmart which has an internal planned economy many times larger than the Soviet Union ever achieved. If you sell your product in Walmart they basically own everything about it. They deem how you make your product, the supply chain, the prices you charge, everything And they use this incredibly granular level of control to run out any possible competition
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I guess that's why Amazon, Best Buy, local grocery stores, etc. all went out of business. Oh wait...
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        I think you meant that as sarcasm, but... Fry's Electronics closed completely, while Best Buy keeps closing stores and laying people off at an accelerated rate[0]. Local grocery stores are almost extinct, as Walmart[1], Amazon, Kroger, and Albertson's crowd out or buy out everyone else. It's a serious problem, your sarcasm notwithstanding. 0. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/business/best-buy-store-closures-workers/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/business/best-buy-store-closu... 1. https://ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-markets/ https://ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-ma...
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    This statement is a verifiable lie. 1. There's no such thing as PWA. There are a dozen or more standards, and everyone selects a different set of them to pretend they are oh so crucial. 2. Safari has supported the vast majority of standards that even Google deems as crucial for PWAs 3. Many of the "standards" some people on HN want are Chrome-only non-standards that are also opposed by Firefox 4. Actual people couldn't care less about PWAs because: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Yes because PWAs are so great on Android, most companies only build iOS apps and tell Android users just to use their website.
- xvector 4y ago
  In a world where when Apple puts a dialogue on your phone, that when they try track you with ads, they ask "allow us to enhance your experience?" whereas when other companies try to track you, they ask "allow <company> to track you across apps and websites?" In a world when you can't even hint at the existence of a payment mechanism outside the App Store to get subscriptions? It's not the most anticompetitive but it's definitely competing for the title in big tech.
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
    They single handedly killed PWA in iOS, they should get split up just for that
    - culi 4y ago
      they're slowly reversing course on this. It's not like PWAs ever had amazing support on other mobile OSes. The standard just isn't quite there
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      They didn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543451 PWAs were never alive to begin with. If they were there would be amazing world-shattering and paradigm-changing PWAs on Android which holds 71% of worldwide market share. Oh wait. There are still none. For reasons obvious to anyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503
    - rimliu 4y ago
      PWAs killed PWAs. The only people who want PWAs are the devs too lazy to learn anything outside half-baked react.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      And yes, that’s why there are so many great PWAs on Android…
- daevout 4y ago
  Amazon, Meta, Google are most certainly cut from the same cloth, only slightly smaller. For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive, but its practice of paying sub-subsistance wages and counting on government relief programs to make up the difference is so disgusting I don't know how to describe. Time-Warner, Comcast I'm not too familiar with, but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com, a site where their business is frequently ridiculed, which is certainly a step in the right direction and the model that should be applied broadly and forcefully to all of the above.
  - thejammahimself 4y ago
    > but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com Was that a problem before?
    - unity1001 4y ago
      Yes. Frequently. https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-bri...
  - culturestate 4y ago
    > For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive... Wal-Mart might be the world's foremost practitioner of predatory pricing, not to mention the control they exert over their suppliers.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- lmm 4y ago
  Yes. I don't think any of the others would dare to run a platform as locked down as Apple, and if they tried then I don't think anyone would show up.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Xbox? How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store?
    - lmm 4y ago
      > Xbox? Hmm, point. People tend to give video game systems more of a pass for historical reasons. > How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store? I assume they distributed non-Play Store APKs and it all quietly worked without any drama - that's how it is for Amazon, and how it's meant to work.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        It was a complete failure.
        lmm 4y ago
        I mean, in terms of whether they succeeded as a business, sure. One competitor failing doesn't mean competition is impossible or unimportant.
- Lutger 4y ago
  These companies you mention, at least the tech ones, are all way more open to third parties interfacing with whatever products they have or data they produce. They are more like big city gangsters willing to do business with whomever as long as you pay them protection money, while Apple's ecosystem is like a gated community where you get shot at the door if you even so much as look like you can't afford to get in.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Do you have any examples of that? Facebook and Google seems open more in the roach motel sense - they get your customer volume but continually adjust the terms so you get less of the ad revenue (pivot to video, ad words’ declining payout, the need to pay for placement in search or adopt proprietary tools like AMP not to be pushed down the page, etc.).

sircastor 4y ago

> I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple In a world where Amazon, Meta, Google, Wal-Mart, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc exist, you think Apple is the most anti-competitive?

testfrequency 4y ago
Maybe ask the Vape companies or any developers who had their apps cloned what they think?
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Are vape companies competing with Apple?
arthurcolle 4y ago
Yes, I am not OP but obviously they are more anti-competitive if ONLY for their killing off support for progressive web apps over the last 3 or 17 releases of iOS/Safari
- culi 4y ago
  I'm a big fan of PWAs, but this really seems like small fries compared to something like Walmart which has an internal planned economy many times larger than the Soviet Union ever achieved. If you sell your product in Walmart they basically own everything about it. They deem how you make your product, the supply chain, the prices you charge, everything And they use this incredibly granular level of control to run out any possible competition
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I guess that's why Amazon, Best Buy, local grocery stores, etc. all went out of business. Oh wait...
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      I think you meant that as sarcasm, but... Fry's Electronics closed completely, while Best Buy keeps closing stores and laying people off at an accelerated rate[0]. Local grocery stores are almost extinct, as Walmart[1], Amazon, Kroger, and Albertson's crowd out or buy out everyone else. It's a serious problem, your sarcasm notwithstanding. 0. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/business/best-buy-store-closures-workers/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/business/best-buy-store-closu... 1. https://ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-markets/ https://ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-ma...
- dmitriid 4y ago
  This statement is a verifiable lie. 1. There's no such thing as PWA. There are a dozen or more standards, and everyone selects a different set of them to pretend they are oh so crucial. 2. Safari has supported the vast majority of standards that even Google deems as crucial for PWAs 3. Many of the "standards" some people on HN want are Chrome-only non-standards that are also opposed by Firefox 4. Actual people couldn't care less about PWAs because: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503
- scarface74 4y ago
  Yes because PWAs are so great on Android, most companies only build iOS apps and tell Android users just to use their website.
xvector 4y ago
In a world where when Apple puts a dialogue on your phone, that when they try track you with ads, they ask "allow us to enhance your experience?" whereas when other companies try to track you, they ask "allow <company> to track you across apps and websites?" In a world when you can't even hint at the existence of a payment mechanism outside the App Store to get subscriptions? It's not the most anticompetitive but it's definitely competing for the title in big tech.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  They single handedly killed PWA in iOS, they should get split up just for that
  - culi 4y ago
    they're slowly reversing course on this. It's not like PWAs ever had amazing support on other mobile OSes. The standard just isn't quite there
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    They didn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543451 PWAs were never alive to begin with. If they were there would be amazing world-shattering and paradigm-changing PWAs on Android which holds 71% of worldwide market share. Oh wait. There are still none. For reasons obvious to anyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503
  - rimliu 4y ago
    PWAs killed PWAs. The only people who want PWAs are the devs too lazy to learn anything outside half-baked react.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    And yes, that’s why there are so many great PWAs on Android…
daevout 4y ago
Amazon, Meta, Google are most certainly cut from the same cloth, only slightly smaller. For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive, but its practice of paying sub-subsistance wages and counting on government relief programs to make up the difference is so disgusting I don't know how to describe. Time-Warner, Comcast I'm not too familiar with, but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com, a site where their business is frequently ridiculed, which is certainly a step in the right direction and the model that should be applied broadly and forcefully to all of the above.
- thejammahimself 4y ago
  > but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com Was that a problem before?
  - unity1001 4y ago
    Yes. Frequently. https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-bri...
- culturestate 4y ago
  > For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive... Wal-Mart might be the world's foremost practitioner of predatory pricing, not to mention the control they exert over their suppliers.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
lmm 4y ago
Yes. I don't think any of the others would dare to run a platform as locked down as Apple, and if they tried then I don't think anyone would show up.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Xbox? How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store?
  - lmm 4y ago
    > Xbox? Hmm, point. People tend to give video game systems more of a pass for historical reasons. > How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store? I assume they distributed non-Play Store APKs and it all quietly worked without any drama - that's how it is for Amazon, and how it's meant to work.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      It was a complete failure.
      - lmm 4y ago
        I mean, in terms of whether they succeeded as a business, sure. One competitor failing doesn't mean competition is impossible or unimportant.
Lutger 4y ago
These companies you mention, at least the tech ones, are all way more open to third parties interfacing with whatever products they have or data they produce. They are more like big city gangsters willing to do business with whomever as long as you pay them protection money, while Apple's ecosystem is like a gated community where you get shot at the door if you even so much as look like you can't afford to get in.
- acdha 4y ago
  Do you have any examples of that? Facebook and Google seems open more in the roach motel sense - they get your customer volume but continually adjust the terms so you get less of the ad revenue (pivot to video, ad words’ declining payout, the need to pay for placement in search or adopt proprietary tools like AMP not to be pushed down the page, etc.).