4 ms·

Seems like you could make that apply to any product right? If you can define the market as literally just your own product? Like if Joe's Coffee has a dominant

by wilg 3y ago

Seems like you could make that apply to any product right? If you can define the market as literally just your own product? Like if Joe's Coffee has a dominant market position in selling Joe's Coffee it would be monopolistic to use that to advantage to sell donuts?

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rezonant 3y ago
  And, to extend the analogy, paying the coffee patrons you think might consider opening a competitive donut shop next door to avoid that from happening (ie Google).
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    "Coffee patrons" would be consumers - literally paying consumers to not shop at your competitor is just offering extremely low (i.e. negative) prices, which may be perfectly legal depending on the context. Paying off gamedevs would be analogous to paying off dough-makers (or doughnut bakers?) to only supply your store, and not your competitor, which would be super illegal. AMD sued Intel for very similar activity, and won.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Wouldn't Epic be paying game developers to only put games in their store? Don't console exclusives work this way all the time?
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Yeah, that's why the monopoly argument is important. Not because monopolies are illegal, but some new competitor being aggressive is different from the established robber baron squashing potential competition using its establishment. Epic as a game store is very much not a monopoly by any means. Game consoles are certainly an argument, but thus far none are dominant over the other. It would mostly be a problem if a new console jumped in and Sony/Microsoft teamed up to hardball it out.
      - Master_Odin 3y ago
        Epic already does that and has a number of exclusives to their store, like Alan Wake 2. They also will pay devs to have it exclusive to their store for a year.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts. Isn't the resolution the same in each case? If you have an iPhone and you want to install an app from another store, you have to buy another phone. It's the same with these deals with Android, just overt.
  - m45t3r 3y ago
    In most cases I can buy a donut from a competitor's and eat inside the coffee shop as long as I buy some product from the said coffee shop. Apple prevents that I bring an outside donut from competitor's, while Android allows it. That is basically the difference.
    - ralfd 3y ago
      I don't know what restaurants you frequent, but I can't think of anyone being okay with bringing outside meals or beverages. Probably you are just not kicked out because staff is not noticing or apathetic. I only know of the concept of Corkage, where you pay the restaurant a fee if you bring your own wine to drink: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/2626/corkage-fee-guide.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/2626/corkage-fee-guide... > A corkage fee is the price charged to guests who choose to bring their own bottle of wine to a restaurant. Corkage fees usually exist at restaurants that already serve wine. The practice of allowing guests to bring their own wine is considered a courtesy to guests. … The average corkage fee ranges from $10 to $40 per bottle but may be as high as $100 or more.
      - m45t3r 3y ago
        > Probably you are just not kicked out because staff is not noticing or apathetic. Or you know, they don't care as long you're a paid customer. BTW, I didn't say anything about restaurants. Coffee shop in general have much more of a lax atmosphere, so they generally don't care too much.
        3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gafage 3y ago
  [dead]
- sidlls 3y ago
  They aren't preventing anyone from buying a competitor's donuts. At one point I had both an Apple and a Google Android phone. Apple preventing other app stores on iOS is more like Starbucks preventing Peet's from coming into its stores to sell its coffee. That's not monopolistic behavior.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    It depends on if you think of IOS as a commons or as a private OS. And more and more court arguments are leaning towards the commons argument because of its market dominance in the mobile space. Becoming more regarded as a general purpose OS than "just a phone with a store hosted on it". So IOS may one day not be considered a starbucks, but a park. And you can't hog a park to yourself
  - sickcodebruh 3y ago
    So is Apple the building that contains a Starbucks or the business known as Starbucks? It seems like it’s both — that is a problem. Is Starbucks charging its customers steep costs for entering the building? Where does the existing App Store with its large transaction fees and restrictions around billing fit into this analogy?
  - jakkos 3y ago
    No but it's not just going to a competitor's donut shop, it's losing your family group chat, cloud storage, apps you've paid for, integration with your laptop, tablet, earbuds, smart watch, etc, etc. Apple has on purpose (there are verified transcripts of execs talking about it) built a walled garden ecosystem that is incredibly hard to leave.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Yes, the other coffee shop doesn’t remember my name and my regular morning order. I’ll have to start afresh. Seems to me the analogy holds.
      - freedomben 3y ago
wasmitnetzen 3y ago
This sort of argument is exactly why good programmers are usually not good lawyers (and vice versa, of course).
zigzag312 3y ago
Maybe we should ask, how many people make a living through that market? People that are not employees of the company that holds dominant market position.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
especially if you created a product that a large part of the world's population at the time of creation agreed was something new and defined a new category so much that a new category was created in general language to describe things like your product and other products came along later from competitors and defined themselves using that same category name - for example if someone came up with a phone that was smarter than other phones and coined the term smartphone for that then yeah, it would be like that.

by wilg 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rezonant 3y ago
And, to extend the analogy, paying the coffee patrons you think might consider opening a competitive donut shop next door to avoid that from happening (ie Google).
- Qwertious 3y ago
  "Coffee patrons" would be consumers - literally paying consumers to not shop at your competitor is just offering extremely low (i.e. negative) prices, which may be perfectly legal depending on the context. Paying off gamedevs would be analogous to paying off dough-makers (or doughnut bakers?) to only supply your store, and not your competitor, which would be super illegal. AMD sued Intel for very similar activity, and won.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Wouldn't Epic be paying game developers to only put games in their store? Don't console exclusives work this way all the time?
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Yeah, that's why the monopoly argument is important. Not because monopolies are illegal, but some new competitor being aggressive is different from the established robber baron squashing potential competition using its establishment. Epic as a game store is very much not a monopoly by any means. Game consoles are certainly an argument, but thus far none are dominant over the other. It would mostly be a problem if a new console jumped in and Sony/Microsoft teamed up to hardball it out.
    - Master_Odin 3y ago
      Epic already does that and has a number of exclusives to their store, like Alan Wake 2. They also will pay devs to have it exclusive to their store for a year.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> There is a difference between selling donuts in the coffee shop and preventing anyone who drinks your coffee from buying a competitor's donuts. Isn't the resolution the same in each case? If you have an iPhone and you want to install an app from another store, you have to buy another phone. It's the same with these deals with Android, just overt.
- m45t3r 3y ago
  In most cases I can buy a donut from a competitor's and eat inside the coffee shop as long as I buy some product from the said coffee shop. Apple prevents that I bring an outside donut from competitor's, while Android allows it. That is basically the difference.
  - ralfd 3y ago
    I don't know what restaurants you frequent, but I can't think of anyone being okay with bringing outside meals or beverages. Probably you are just not kicked out because staff is not noticing or apathetic. I only know of the concept of Corkage, where you pay the restaurant a fee if you bring your own wine to drink: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/2626/corkage-fee-guide.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/2626/corkage-fee-guide... > A corkage fee is the price charged to guests who choose to bring their own bottle of wine to a restaurant. Corkage fees usually exist at restaurants that already serve wine. The practice of allowing guests to bring their own wine is considered a courtesy to guests. … The average corkage fee ranges from $10 to $40 per bottle but may be as high as $100 or more.
    - m45t3r 3y ago
      > Probably you are just not kicked out because staff is not noticing or apathetic. Or you know, they don't care as long you're a paid customer. BTW, I didn't say anything about restaurants. Coffee shop in general have much more of a lax atmosphere, so they generally don't care too much.
      - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gafage 3y ago
[dead]
sidlls 3y ago
They aren't preventing anyone from buying a competitor's donuts. At one point I had both an Apple and a Google Android phone. Apple preventing other app stores on iOS is more like Starbucks preventing Peet's from coming into its stores to sell its coffee. That's not monopolistic behavior.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  It depends on if you think of IOS as a commons or as a private OS. And more and more court arguments are leaning towards the commons argument because of its market dominance in the mobile space. Becoming more regarded as a general purpose OS than "just a phone with a store hosted on it". So IOS may one day not be considered a starbucks, but a park. And you can't hog a park to yourself
- sickcodebruh 3y ago
  So is Apple the building that contains a Starbucks or the business known as Starbucks? It seems like it’s both — that is a problem. Is Starbucks charging its customers steep costs for entering the building? Where does the existing App Store with its large transaction fees and restrictions around billing fit into this analogy?
- jakkos 3y ago
  No but it's not just going to a competitor's donut shop, it's losing your family group chat, cloud storage, apps you've paid for, integration with your laptop, tablet, earbuds, smart watch, etc, etc. Apple has on purpose (there are verified transcripts of execs talking about it) built a walled garden ecosystem that is incredibly hard to leave.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Yes, the other coffee shop doesn’t remember my name and my regular morning order. I’ll have to start afresh. Seems to me the analogy holds.
    - freedomben 3y ago

wasmitnetzen 3y ago

This sort of argument is exactly why good programmers are usually not good lawyers (and vice versa, of course).

zigzag312 3y ago

Maybe we should ask, how many people make a living through that market? People that are not employees of the company that holds dominant market position.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

especially if you created a product that a large part of the world's population at the time of creation agreed was something new and defined a new category so much that a new category was created in general language to describe things like your product and other products came along later from competitors and defined themselves using that same category name - for example if someone came up with a phone that was smarter than other phones and coined the term smartphone for that then yeah, it would be like that.