6 ms·

Break them up, way past the point of too big

Someone 3y ago
FTA: “More than 90% of this figure originated from transactions that did not happen through the App Store, meaning that these amounts accrued solely to developers and other third parties, and that Apple collected no commission on them.”
nl 3y ago
From the article: > this data includes payments which are not captured by Apple directly. In the words of the authors, “More than 90% of this figure originated from transactions that did not happen through the App Store, meaning that these amounts accrued solely to developers and other third parties, and that Apple collected no commission on them.”
_Parfait_ 3y ago
Reactionary and meaningless. Break it up into what?
- folmar 3y ago
  Phones, computers, software, consumer electronics, digital services, marketplace.
  - HFguy 3y ago
    Why this is right? You just responded with a list of their product lines?
    - folmar 3y ago
      Each of those can be reasonably separated. But I do think that it is quite natural and will stop the digital dictator mindset, most importantly splitting of digital services from marketplace and both of those from hardware. Notably they seem to view their product lines quite different, the website lists "Store Mac iPad iPhone Watch Vision AirPods TV & Home Entertainment Accessories".
      - _Parfait_ 3y ago
        You're essentially just asking them to destroy the company and each of those products. I'm really not sure how you're going to go about this when all of these operate within the walled garden. I mean it 100% won't happen, but further I don't see how this would benefit the consumer in any way.
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        How would it destroy any of them? They could all still be used together by anyone who prefers that. Anyone who wanted to could continue to install apps only from a specific App Store even if others were available. You could still run iOS on an iPhone even if iOS also ran on Samsung devices and Android also ran on iPhones. The only change is that you could also choose something different.
  - lsmeducation 3y ago
    They work very hard to make sure all their product lines form a cohesive experience. It’s very different than GE simply (once? Still? Someone fact check me) owning NBC. Or Blackrock just owning a ton of real estate. The latter just owns shit to own shit.
scarface_74 3y ago
So exactly how would you “break Apple up”?
- EGreg 3y ago
  Once they get bigger than the US government (not the country, the government) they wouldn’t be able to do anything to Apple. And even now, Apple can just relocate, as Microsoft threatened to do.
  - ThunderSizzle 3y ago
    Then just tax them to hell (aka tariff Apple imports if they move out of the country significantly) if that's the game these companies want to play. They need the US customer base and investment base more than the US needs Apple.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Yes and raise prices on everyone? How do you just “tax Apple” and not everyone else?
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Based on share of profits for any given market, like smartphones or laptops.
        scarface_74 3y ago
        You realize Apple has less than 20% of the PC market? Every company already pays taxes on profits
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        I said "share of profits". Though perhaps I should have said revenue. Regardless Apple has 85% of smartphone profit. And its share of services on mobile and laptops is growing.
mustafa_pasi 3y ago
Of all the big tech companies Apple is the most innocuous. There have no monopoly in any of their sectors and you can just ignore them if you wish, as I do, without any consequences.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Plenty of jobs require use of Apple products or services, if nothing else to test on them.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It's not just testing on them. If any of your customers have bought an Apple mobile device, your only feasible way to distribute apps to them is through Apple. It's like having Comcast and Time Warner and they each want to charge 30% of revenue to any service traversing their network. Not only is it unreasonable to say that they compete with each other because if you're not satisfied with Comcast you can just sign up with Time Warner -- because one of them is in California and the other is in New York and you'd have to move -- but it's not even you who would have to move. The customer of the App Store, the one who pays the fee, is the developer. It's your customers who would have to move -- every single one of them, or Apple still has a monopoly on each one who doesn't. Notice how this differs from an ordinary retailer. Your customer can easily go across the street to Target or Walmart, or shop in both stores on the same day. They don't have to "move" -- buy a new device for hundreds of dollars and transition all of their other apps and services to an incompatible platform.
- adventured 3y ago
  There is at least one aspect where they may be a serious competitive problem: their enormous size enables them to buy up a huge share of the world's most advanced chip supply from TSMC. Their scale and the profit that goes with it makes that possible. They can very effectively limit competition globally through that mechanism. You're a smaller company with a hot new phone? You need a large supply of 3nm chips from TSMC to compete? You can't get them because Apple is buying them all. And their leverage on TSMC (with TSMC eating the cost of defective supply), which is very remarkable unto itself, may also be a serious problem. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/report-apple-is-saving-billions-on-chips-thanks-to-unique-deal-with-tsmc/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/report-apple-is-savi...
elorant 3y ago
Name one product market where Apple's share is more than 60%.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Distribution of iOS apps.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Luckily, we had a real judge say that’s not a monopoly. But by that logic Shopify has a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps, and McDonalds has a monopoly on Quarter Pounders.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      District court decisions don't set precedent and the case is still under appeal. But I also notice that you're not providing a counterargument in any logical sense and only an appeal to authority. We're not in a courtroom, we've having a public policy discussion about what the law should be. If you have prospective customers with iOS devices you want to distribute your app to, name a feasible distribution method that isn't Apple. > But by that logic Shopify has a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps, and McDonalds has a monopoly on Quarter Pounders. Anyone can make and sell a Quarter Pounder to anyone. They may need to call it something else if McDonalds has a trademark on the name, but that doesn't cause it to be a different market when the product is a substitute and the customers are the same people. Maybe Shopify does have a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps? That presumably depends on whether you can install the apps in some other way. Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on distributing Windows apps, for example, and the fact that there is a difference between that and what is going on with Apple is demonstrative.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        > But I also notice that you're not providing a counterargument in any logical sense because judges are kinda the authority on the interpretation of the law. That’s how the legal system works. > Anyone can make and sell a Quarter Pounder to anyone. They may need to call it something else if McDonalds has a trademark on the name, Only McDonald’s can distribute a McDonald’s quarter pounder. Anyone can make a distribute a smart phone too. There are dozens of white market smart phone makers that a company can get a run of smart phones made and put their own version of AOSP or Linux on it. > If you have prospective customers with iOS devices you want to distribute your app to, name a feasible distribution method that isn't Apple. The web….
sph 3y ago
Who's gonna break them up? The government itself, that enables companies to grow this big, and whose politicians are paid and dined by megacorporations? Or did you mean you and me?
- astrange 3y ago
  > and whose politicians are paid and dined by megacorporations? This is largely faked and comes from people intentionally misreading donations from company employees as if they were donations from companies. (Companies can do some things with PACs, but not much, and Apple doesn't have a PAC.) What's actually happening is the FTC currently is run by someone who's trying to break up all the big tech companies, and they keep losing in court because their arguments are bad.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    I suppose those company employees are doing it out of the kindness of their heart and patriotic duty. The issue isn't "companies, specifically, the direct legal entity have influence on politicians" The issue is "money, and the people wielding it, having undue influence on politicians"
    - astrange 3y ago
      Employees don't have the same interests as their employer, which is why you can use the same methodology to show every big tech company actually loves Bernie Sanders.
0xDEF 3y ago
As a non-American I would love if Americans started doing more impulsive footgun politics like breaking up their big tech companies. That will finally give European and non-Chinese Asian competitors a chance.

FTA: “More than 90% of this figure originated from transactions that did not happen through the App Store, meaning that these amounts accrued solely to developers and other third parties, and that Apple collected no commission on them.”

nl 3y ago

From the article: > this data includes payments which are not captured by Apple directly. In the words of the authors, “More than 90% of this figure originated from transactions that did not happen through the App Store, meaning that these amounts accrued solely to developers and other third parties, and that Apple collected no commission on them.”

_Parfait_ 3y ago

Reactionary and meaningless. Break it up into what?

folmar 3y ago
Phones, computers, software, consumer electronics, digital services, marketplace.
- HFguy 3y ago
  Why this is right? You just responded with a list of their product lines?
  - folmar 3y ago
    Each of those can be reasonably separated. But I do think that it is quite natural and will stop the digital dictator mindset, most importantly splitting of digital services from marketplace and both of those from hardware. Notably they seem to view their product lines quite different, the website lists "Store Mac iPad iPhone Watch Vision AirPods TV & Home Entertainment Accessories".
    - _Parfait_ 3y ago
      You're essentially just asking them to destroy the company and each of those products. I'm really not sure how you're going to go about this when all of these operate within the walled garden. I mean it 100% won't happen, but further I don't see how this would benefit the consumer in any way.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        How would it destroy any of them? They could all still be used together by anyone who prefers that. Anyone who wanted to could continue to install apps only from a specific App Store even if others were available. You could still run iOS on an iPhone even if iOS also ran on Samsung devices and Android also ran on iPhones. The only change is that you could also choose something different.
- lsmeducation 3y ago
  They work very hard to make sure all their product lines form a cohesive experience. It’s very different than GE simply (once? Still? Someone fact check me) owning NBC. Or Blackrock just owning a ton of real estate. The latter just owns shit to own shit.

scarface_74 3y ago

So exactly how would you “break Apple up”?

EGreg 3y ago
Once they get bigger than the US government (not the country, the government) they wouldn’t be able to do anything to Apple. And even now, Apple can just relocate, as Microsoft threatened to do.
- ThunderSizzle 3y ago
  Then just tax them to hell (aka tariff Apple imports if they move out of the country significantly) if that's the game these companies want to play. They need the US customer base and investment base more than the US needs Apple.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Yes and raise prices on everyone? How do you just “tax Apple” and not everyone else?
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      Based on share of profits for any given market, like smartphones or laptops.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        You realize Apple has less than 20% of the PC market? Every company already pays taxes on profits
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        I said "share of profits". Though perhaps I should have said revenue. Regardless Apple has 85% of smartphone profit. And its share of services on mobile and laptops is growing.

mustafa_pasi 3y ago

Of all the big tech companies Apple is the most innocuous. There have no monopoly in any of their sectors and you can just ignore them if you wish, as I do, without any consequences.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Plenty of jobs require use of Apple products or services, if nothing else to test on them.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It's not just testing on them. If any of your customers have bought an Apple mobile device, your only feasible way to distribute apps to them is through Apple. It's like having Comcast and Time Warner and they each want to charge 30% of revenue to any service traversing their network. Not only is it unreasonable to say that they compete with each other because if you're not satisfied with Comcast you can just sign up with Time Warner -- because one of them is in California and the other is in New York and you'd have to move -- but it's not even you who would have to move. The customer of the App Store, the one who pays the fee, is the developer. It's your customers who would have to move -- every single one of them, or Apple still has a monopoly on each one who doesn't. Notice how this differs from an ordinary retailer. Your customer can easily go across the street to Target or Walmart, or shop in both stores on the same day. They don't have to "move" -- buy a new device for hundreds of dollars and transition all of their other apps and services to an incompatible platform.
adventured 3y ago
There is at least one aspect where they may be a serious competitive problem: their enormous size enables them to buy up a huge share of the world's most advanced chip supply from TSMC. Their scale and the profit that goes with it makes that possible. They can very effectively limit competition globally through that mechanism. You're a smaller company with a hot new phone? You need a large supply of 3nm chips from TSMC to compete? You can't get them because Apple is buying them all. And their leverage on TSMC (with TSMC eating the cost of defective supply), which is very remarkable unto itself, may also be a serious problem. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/report-apple-is-saving-billions-on-chips-thanks-to-unique-deal-with-tsmc/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/report-apple-is-savi...

elorant 3y ago

Name one product market where Apple's share is more than 60%.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Distribution of iOS apps.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Luckily, we had a real judge say that’s not a monopoly. But by that logic Shopify has a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps, and McDonalds has a monopoly on Quarter Pounders.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    District court decisions don't set precedent and the case is still under appeal. But I also notice that you're not providing a counterargument in any logical sense and only an appeal to authority. We're not in a courtroom, we've having a public policy discussion about what the law should be. If you have prospective customers with iOS devices you want to distribute your app to, name a feasible distribution method that isn't Apple. > But by that logic Shopify has a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps, and McDonalds has a monopoly on Quarter Pounders. Anyone can make and sell a Quarter Pounder to anyone. They may need to call it something else if McDonalds has a trademark on the name, but that doesn't cause it to be a different market when the product is a substitute and the customers are the same people. Maybe Shopify does have a monopoly on distributing Shopify apps? That presumably depends on whether you can install the apps in some other way. Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on distributing Windows apps, for example, and the fact that there is a difference between that and what is going on with Apple is demonstrative.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      > But I also notice that you're not providing a counterargument in any logical sense because judges are kinda the authority on the interpretation of the law. That’s how the legal system works. > Anyone can make and sell a Quarter Pounder to anyone. They may need to call it something else if McDonalds has a trademark on the name, Only McDonald’s can distribute a McDonald’s quarter pounder. Anyone can make a distribute a smart phone too. There are dozens of white market smart phone makers that a company can get a run of smart phones made and put their own version of AOSP or Linux on it. > If you have prospective customers with iOS devices you want to distribute your app to, name a feasible distribution method that isn't Apple. The web….

sph 3y ago

Who's gonna break them up? The government itself, that enables companies to grow this big, and whose politicians are paid and dined by megacorporations? Or did you mean you and me?

astrange 3y ago
> and whose politicians are paid and dined by megacorporations? This is largely faked and comes from people intentionally misreading donations from company employees as if they were donations from companies. (Companies can do some things with PACs, but not much, and Apple doesn't have a PAC.) What's actually happening is the FTC currently is run by someone who's trying to break up all the big tech companies, and they keep losing in court because their arguments are bad.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  I suppose those company employees are doing it out of the kindness of their heart and patriotic duty. The issue isn't "companies, specifically, the direct legal entity have influence on politicians" The issue is "money, and the people wielding it, having undue influence on politicians"
  - astrange 3y ago
    Employees don't have the same interests as their employer, which is why you can use the same methodology to show every big tech company actually loves Bernie Sanders.

0xDEF 3y ago

As a non-American I would love if Americans started doing more impulsive footgun politics like breaking up their big tech companies. That will finally give European and non-Chinese Asian competitors a chance.