23 ms·

Nearly twenty five years ago, the DoJ nearly split Microsoft into two companies due to them abusing their position as an ecosystem gatekeeper. How did we go fro

Nearly twenty five years ago, the DoJ nearly split Microsoft into two companies due to them abusing their position as an ecosystem gatekeeper. How did we go from that to the point where apple (or google even), acting both as gatekeeper and direct competitor, can dictate how another company can communicate things to its end users/customers?

fennecfoxy 3y ago
He he, it'll be tough for that to happen to Apple, as Apple has become a protected class in their customers' minds, imo.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Probably because unlike 25 years ago, US lawmakers and enforcers, realized a large chunk of their economic dominance is dependent on big-tech abusing their market position as gatekeepers, so they intentionally look away when they see how much of their GDP these companies bring in, not to mention aiding the US dragnet mass-surveillance capabilities being the icing on the cake. What else are they gonna do to earn $? It's not like the world is lining up to buy their ultra reliable and high quality cars and planes. Sorry for the tongue in cheek.
- lapcat 3y ago
  That's a nice sounding story, but what actually happened was that George W. Bush was awarded the Presidency after a 5-4 Supreme Court vote stopped the recount in Florida, and the Bush DoJ announced a slap on the wrist for Microsoft just a few days before 9/11, which wiped the story off the map, and everyone forgot. (I'm not suggesting a 9/11 conspiracy, by the way.)
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    So Bush is to blame for the war on terror AND for failing to regulate Microsoft? Wow, just when I thought that being a war criminal was enough of a reason to be hated, now comes the cherry on top.
  - votepaunchy 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - lapcat 3y ago
      This very misleading. It was an unusual per curiam opinion, not attributed to specific justices. The anonymous author of the opinion, who turned out to be Kennedy, “included Souter, Breyer and Stevens as agreeing that there were equal protection "problems" without consulting them.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Equal_Protection_Clause_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Equal_Protection_...
  - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
    I hadn't considered that people might still be complaining about Florida in 2000 in light of 2020.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      what happened in 2020?
      - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        accusations by Trump of getting the election stolen from him. Personally, I think there were shenanigans going on and we should be investigating them but I also feel like the hanging chads was a far bigger issue than the shenanigans that happened in 2020. I don't believe the election was stolen but I also don't believe it's everyone's imagination that some shady shit was going on in places. I suspect that kind of crap happens every election.
        Timon3 3y ago
        Every election will have some shady stuff going on from all participating parties if it's big enough. But it's important to remember that every election has even more stuff going on that can look shady from the outside, but is absolutely normal on further inspection. 2020 was special because the sitting president (who has accused others of election and voter fraud against him in AFAIR every election he's been part of) has primed his emotionally invested base to expect fraud everywhere. They saw a bunch of things they thought were shady, part of which were caused by unrealistic expectations (e.g. "I can just show up and be Poll Watcher without registering beforehand"). If you are aware of shady going-ons that have not been investigated I'm open to hear them, but all the occurrences I've seen have been investigated and explained - but since many people aren't open to normal explanations, the fraud idea keeps and keeps on festering.
        PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        this is a contradiction. If every election has some shady things happen then it's not possible for every bit of shadiness to be explained as anything other than shadiness. So was there shadiness or wasn't there? A lot of it can be explained away, which is why I said the hanging chad issue was a bigger problem. but ALL of it? I don't think so, even at the time there were a few things that gave me pause.
- tomas789 3y ago
  Usually, I would not engage with this kind of conspiracy theory like comments but I think that this particular case has some merit. We are solid in a gray zone where we have to decide where are priorities are. Fair market vs tech dominance in US is a great example. Another one is carbon neutrality vs strong industry in EU. I’m sure there are so many others. It is just important to keep that in mind when building your business because we can easily slide from one side of this gray zone to the other.
  - mjburgess 3y ago
    It's not a conspiracy theory, i'm not quite sure even how that term could possibly apply -- since this describes the ordinary practice of politics. The modern republican party does not support anti-trust enforcement, or indeed, most executive enforcement of anti-corporate regulations. So when they are in office, there isnt any. There's been some increasing bipartisan support for anti-tech anti-trust because republicans perceive them to be (largely accurately) biased towards the cultural left.
    - roenxi 3y ago
      The Republicans would be exposing the thinking that has resulted in them losing almost every culture war battle in the last ... I don't know how long. The bureaucracies enforcing anti-trust will lean left. Eventually there will be a bias of anti-trust action used to break up any companies that look to be helping Republican candidate elected. It'll be these Donald Trump court cases all over again. What actually works for the right is free markets. Turns out if they just leave YouTube alone they get Rumble. If they ignore Twitter they get X. If Amazon makes a habit of booting right-wing sites, there will be a right wing version of Amazon. There are more than enough right wing media consumers for a free market to reward right-leaning content. Anti-trust will eventually lead to overregulation and lock in of companies hostile to the right in general and republicans in particular. There is a much better argument for anti-trust to try and defuse the risk of a vast an hasty flash-mob forming and doing something stupid, but as a political response it just isn't going to be effective.
      - 3y ago
- latexr 3y ago
  > big-tech abusing their market position as gatekeepers No no, you see, that is called “innovation”. And whenever the EU does anything to try to curtail those abuses of power, what they are doing is stifling innovation. Because as we all know, the one thing that matters in life is growth growth growth, particularly company growth, and there’s nothing more innovative than coming up with ways to exploit people’s privacy and attention for profit. And if you can get the ones exploited to rally in your favour, you’ve hit the jackpot. All hail corporate America, let’s raise a glass to the obscenely rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else, that is working out great. https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    > the one thing that matters in life is growth growth growth, particularly company growth, and there’s nothing more innovative than coming up with ways to exploit people’s privacy and attention for profit. But wait, there's more! The only reason growth is pushed for so hard is because most of the investors are retired or retiring soon and don't want to work any more. If the companies stop growing then their stock prices might go down. They gambled hard when they removed pensions from US companies and they can't lose the game before they die!
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > most of the investors are retired or retiring soon Where are you getting this? Baby Boomers are smoothly transitioning their share of stock ownership to younger generations [1]. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:127;series:Corporate%20equities%20and%20mutual%20fund%20shares;demographic:generation;population:all;units:shares;range:2004.2,2021.2 https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
      - withinboredom 3y ago
        I don't know if you are making a joke, because the data says the exact opposite. When the silent generation had 55% of the "total wealth" (and declining), boomers had 40% of the remainder, but now boomers have 55% (and climbing, instead of declining), and the younger generations only have 26% (combined). It looks like they are still hoarding (for lack of a better term) wealth than relinquishing it.
- drooopy 3y ago
  All I can think of is where we'd be as a species now, at least technologically, If Microsoft, Apple, IBM or even Commodore and Atari had similar abilities since the 70s to restrict what kind of software developers can make and publish for their platforms...
  - pavlov 3y ago
    There have always been walled garden software platforms. Nintendo is a very successful example from the Commodore/Atari era.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      Nintendos are specifically gaming devices, though. Smartphones are general purpose computing platforms.
      - paulmd 3y ago
        This is an artificial marketing distinction that you’ve bought into. And insofar as any particular apps exist or don’t on switch, it’s purely a result of gatekeeper decisions on the part of Nintendo - Nintendo keeps there from being an email client or an office suite and that’s the reason you perceive it as “just a gaming device”. They’ve gatekept successfully. This is the problem, there really isn’t a coherent threshold between switch and iPhone or a reason console vendors shouldn’t be equally considered general purpose devices other than marketing. You could plug in some usb peripherals and run office suites on a PlayStation just fine.
        Jensson 3y ago
        > This is an artificial marketing distinction that you’ve bought into No, nobody buys a nintendo to do banking on them. I bought a phone since I needed it to do banking. This is a real difference, not just a marketing distinction. > it’s purely a result of gatekeeper decisions on the part of Nintendo Yes, and that gatekeeper power ensures Nintendo isn't a general purpose device. If they allowed it to be a general purpose device like Apple did with phones then things would be different. Controlling such a major share of general purpose devices like Apple does is a serious issue. Controlling a share of gaming computing like Nintendo doesn't matter nearly as much, so therefore lawmakers aren't going after them to the same degree. It doesn't matter if technically they are the same, in practice one doesn't cause issues for society while the other one does.
- pokepim 3y ago
  [dead]
darklion 3y ago
Should a store be forced to stock a product that has “This product is significantly cheaper if you buy it directly from the manufacturer” printed on the front of the package?
- madsbuch 3y ago
  I better like the marketplace analogy: If I go into a marketplace, I can be told by merchants that we can make cheaper deals outside of the confines of a marketplace. If you want to stick to the "store" analogy, they Apple also needs to handle support, return cases and a lot more financial risk – A store stocks their own inventories and does not just facilitate transactions between two parties. The fact is that Apple store is not a store, it is a marketplace. And on a marketplace you can not censor people as easily.
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    though it would be lovely to see apple buy 10.000 licenses to sell on their "shop"
  - Aloisius 3y ago
    Apple does handle returns and I'm not sure what support the average brick and mortar store offers. Stores don't necessarily own all their inventories (stock consignment) and some products are extremely low risk (e.g. phone cards, gift cards, digital goods, etc.) Calling it a marketplace seems odd considering unlike in traditional marketplaces, there are no competing merchants selling the same goods. There are no other merchants at all.
- rendall 3y ago
  The issue as I understand it is that Apple uses its dominance in hardware to direct users to its own music streaming service at the expense of a competing service. Your analogy does not fit.
  - EasyMark 3y ago
    They have a pretty competitive pricing range too. The combined TV, music, and a bit of encrypted disk space is fairly priced. I used to pay for Spotify separately, but when they raised prices a couple of times in a row. It made more sense to just get Apple TV and music for a decent price as I already was using the 50 GB iCloud package because google likely data mines Google Docs/drive. So don't assume everyone is just getting it because it's “there”.
zer00eyz 3y ago
Signal, Spotify... Find an average (non tech) IOS user, and try to get them to switch to these apps. Im guessing that there is a large intersection of "apple users" who also take their cars back to the dealership for oil changes and service. It's not stupidity, it's about creating an air of trust. Apple goes out of its way to keep customers trust (as do car dealers to an extent) because the money is in keeping a customer. As an aside, the source of this complaint being Spotify is interesting. I would love to know from artist who pays better between the two (because I dont think its spottify)
- matwood 3y ago
  There have been stories that Apple pays near the top of any streamers. How much of that gets to an artist remains a question.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    Probably because they don't have to pay themselves a 30% tax.
    - matwood 3y ago
      Spotify doesn't allow in-app sign ups, so they don't pay 30% either. Try again.
      - withinboredom 3y ago
        Where does spotify fit in here? If apple had to comply with it's own rules, do you think they would be able to continue to pay out more than the competition?
- ksec 3y ago
  At least before 2023, one could argue Spotify were paying 15% of their revenue to Apple on iOS hence they pay less to artist. Not too sure about 2024
vdaea 3y ago
Microsoft had an almost complete monopoly of the operating system on personal computers market back then. Apple doesn't even have 50% share in Europe.
- matwood 3y ago
  Yeah. MS was a completely different situation. They had something like 90%+ OS marketshare and were able to use the threat of cutting off a PC makers access to Windows in order to force them to use IE. Tbh, the case is more relatable to the case Google just lost than to Apple. In that case, Google cut secret deals to exclude phone manufactures from including other stores.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  As an app developer in the EU, my apps rarely target JUST the EU, but also the US and beyond.
- realusername 3y ago
  Why the market share would matter if there's no competion in the mobile space?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > if there's no competion in the mobile space? How did you come up with this?
    - realusername 3y ago
      What could be signs that Apple and Google are competing with each other on the mobile app space? The only tariff change ever made was made over a threat of an anti-trust lawsuit and copied straight over completely verbatim to the second company. And it's not like users of one store can try to shop to the other one anyways. Each user is captive of their respective store. On the hardware side sure, the competition is fierce and visible, on the software side I don't see anything at all.
- 3y ago
barelysapient 3y ago
Probably because Microsoft controlled 97% market share, but Apple controls about 20%.
- graemep 3y ago
  Depends how you define the market. The relevant definition here is users of Apple devices.
  - Aaargh20318 3y ago
    By that logic you can always make up a group in which a company controls 100% of the market. Walmart should be forced to sell competitors products because they control the whole market for Walmart customers.
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      If your only choice is to shop at Walmart, this sounds like a reasonable definition of a market.
      - Aaargh20318 3y ago
        But it’s not your only choice to shop in the App Store. Having an iPhone does not prevent my from buying an app from the Play Store on my Android phone, from buying a game from PSN on my PS5 or from buying a book from Amazon on my Kindle.
        withinboredom 3y ago
        Woah, I can install a game from PSN on my iPhone!? I must have missed that feature... /s We already know the players in the market will conspire to increase prices artificially if given the chance (United States v. Apple Inc., 952 F. Supp. 2d 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)). So, no, I don't believe these are actually one market because not even the players think it is one marketplace. They argue this exact illusion to keep anti-trust from applying to them, but behave as if it isn't a single market. All we need is for lawmakers to change what the definition of a market is, in order to deal with this loophole.
whynotminot 3y ago
Didn’t Microsoft win that case?
- lapcat 3y ago
  No.
  - whynotminot 3y ago
    Yes?
    - lapcat 3y ago
      You could read Wikipedia rather than asking on HN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
      - whynotminot 3y ago
        lol I did, which is why I replied skeptically because it says Microsoft had most of it overturned on appeal.
        lapcat 3y ago
        Did you read the part that said, "The case was remanded back to the D.C. District Court for further proceedings on this matter, with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly presiding." That's not a win. The case was ongoing, and likely would have gone to the Supreme Court eventually, though the court was too cowardly to take the case immediately. There was a settlement with the DoJ. You don't settle when you win and the other side loses.
        PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        sure you do, it's a question of the cost.
thought_alarm 3y ago
Microsoft gave discounts on Windows licenses to companies that agreed to stop purchasing Netscape client and server software, thereby choking off Netscape revenue streams. It forced Netscape to sell to AOL. Microsoft controlled 95% of the personal computer market, and they abused that position to put a competitor out of business because that competitor was a threat to their monopoly. How does that compare to Apple Music?
- concinds 3y ago
  Apple has non-monopolistic market share, but they bundle the Apple Music app on every iPhone (with nudges to subscribe, like the "For You" and "Browse" tabs), and they give Spotify a bad choice: either adopt IAP (with 30% cut) for subscriptions, or handle all subscriptions through the web, but they can't link to their website from their app. While you can subscribe to Apple Music directly in-app. The "bundling" issue is about where the similarities to Microsoft begin and end (I can't recall if "bundling" was part of the problem with IE in the US too, or only in Europe, where it was definitely an issue and led to the "browser choice" screen).
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    I've only ever owned an iphone (of the smartphones) and I've never felt a nudge to subscribe to their music app. the closest I've gotten is the notifications when you're not logged into apple cloud.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
Microsoft was beaten with a legal stick because they didn't bribe lawmakers, i.e. running a business without lobbying. Tech companies don't make the same mistake these days.
ViktorRay 3y ago
Your interpretation of the Microsoft case is incorrect. The DOJ wasn’t going to split Microsoft because it was a “gatekeeper.” There is no legal basis in US Law to do that. It was very close to splitting Microsoft because Microsoft was held to have monopolistic market share and was abusing its monopolistic position in operating systems to illegally and anticompetitively push their web browser. Violation of antitrust law. Legally in the United States you wouldn’t be able to do this with Apple today when applying that law because Apple does not have monopolistic market share. I don’t know what the iPhone’s market share in America is today but Microsoft had over 95 percent market share back then. Apple isn’t close to that today. In Europe the laws may be different. (Also for what it’s worth I’m not making an argument for whether Apple or Google or anybody shouldn’t or should be broken up. I’m just saying your interpretation of the DOJ’s position back then is not correct)
- lenkite 3y ago
  Apple already has >60% market share in the U.S. If that doesn't qualify for a monopoly, then I don't know what magic number will. And Apple has a strangulating choke-hold on their platform compared to Microsoft.
- Salgat 3y ago
  You don't have to have a monopoly to be guilty of anticompetitive behavior, a monopoly simply means it's easier to be anticompetitive. Apple in the US has a roughly 50% market share.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    I mean, every business is anti-competitive. The only time the authorities step in is when they dominate markets to a degree where competition no longer functions. iOS market share is strongest in the states I believe at 57%, which is certainly high but not even remotely approaching a monopoly.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >iOS market share is strongest in the states I believe at 57%, which is certainly high but not even remotely approaching a monopoly. Ackchyually you don't need to be a monopoly to warp the whole market in your favor. Windows was a monopoly back in the day with ~95% market share, but users could easily install any other apps and any other browser besides IE. The issue was many users stuck with IE because it was the default, but Microsoft wasn't blocking them from installing other browsers than IE or other apps not sold through their channels. Meanwhile, Apple might have only 57%-60% market share instead of ~95%, but unlike Microsoft, it's actively blocking users form installing any other browser that's not Safari based and any app that's not on the AppStore, therefore doing even more damage than Microsoft was doing back in the days. And speaking of iPhone market share, despite being it 57%-60% of the US right now, it's also the most wealthy and influential of the market, and looking at the demographics, it's at 87% amongst US teens, so it's safe to assume those teens will stick to iPhone when they grow up due to inertia and network effects, and then iOS market share will be close to 90%, therefore a guaranteed monopoly.
DinoCoder99 3y ago
[dead]

fennecfoxy 3y ago

He he, it'll be tough for that to happen to Apple, as Apple has become a protected class in their customers' minds, imo.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Probably because unlike 25 years ago, US lawmakers and enforcers, realized a large chunk of their economic dominance is dependent on big-tech abusing their market position as gatekeepers, so they intentionally look away when they see how much of their GDP these companies bring in, not to mention aiding the US dragnet mass-surveillance capabilities being the icing on the cake. What else are they gonna do to earn $? It's not like the world is lining up to buy their ultra reliable and high quality cars and planes. Sorry for the tongue in cheek.

lapcat 3y ago
That's a nice sounding story, but what actually happened was that George W. Bush was awarded the Presidency after a 5-4 Supreme Court vote stopped the recount in Florida, and the Bush DoJ announced a slap on the wrist for Microsoft just a few days before 9/11, which wiped the story off the map, and everyone forgot. (I'm not suggesting a 9/11 conspiracy, by the way.)
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  So Bush is to blame for the war on terror AND for failing to regulate Microsoft? Wow, just when I thought that being a war criminal was enough of a reason to be hated, now comes the cherry on top.
- votepaunchy 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - lapcat 3y ago
    This very misleading. It was an unusual per curiam opinion, not attributed to specific justices. The anonymous author of the opinion, who turned out to be Kennedy, “included Souter, Breyer and Stevens as agreeing that there were equal protection "problems" without consulting them.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Equal_Protection_Clause_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore#Equal_Protection_...
- bsdpufferfish 3y ago
  I hadn't considered that people might still be complaining about Florida in 2000 in light of 2020.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    what happened in 2020?
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      accusations by Trump of getting the election stolen from him. Personally, I think there were shenanigans going on and we should be investigating them but I also feel like the hanging chads was a far bigger issue than the shenanigans that happened in 2020. I don't believe the election was stolen but I also don't believe it's everyone's imagination that some shady shit was going on in places. I suspect that kind of crap happens every election.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        Every election will have some shady stuff going on from all participating parties if it's big enough. But it's important to remember that every election has even more stuff going on that can look shady from the outside, but is absolutely normal on further inspection. 2020 was special because the sitting president (who has accused others of election and voter fraud against him in AFAIR every election he's been part of) has primed his emotionally invested base to expect fraud everywhere. They saw a bunch of things they thought were shady, part of which were caused by unrealistic expectations (e.g. "I can just show up and be Poll Watcher without registering beforehand"). If you are aware of shady going-ons that have not been investigated I'm open to hear them, but all the occurrences I've seen have been investigated and explained - but since many people aren't open to normal explanations, the fraud idea keeps and keeps on festering.
        PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        this is a contradiction. If every election has some shady things happen then it's not possible for every bit of shadiness to be explained as anything other than shadiness. So was there shadiness or wasn't there? A lot of it can be explained away, which is why I said the hanging chad issue was a bigger problem. but ALL of it? I don't think so, even at the time there were a few things that gave me pause.
tomas789 3y ago
Usually, I would not engage with this kind of conspiracy theory like comments but I think that this particular case has some merit. We are solid in a gray zone where we have to decide where are priorities are. Fair market vs tech dominance in US is a great example. Another one is carbon neutrality vs strong industry in EU. I’m sure there are so many others. It is just important to keep that in mind when building your business because we can easily slide from one side of this gray zone to the other.
- mjburgess 3y ago
  It's not a conspiracy theory, i'm not quite sure even how that term could possibly apply -- since this describes the ordinary practice of politics. The modern republican party does not support anti-trust enforcement, or indeed, most executive enforcement of anti-corporate regulations. So when they are in office, there isnt any. There's been some increasing bipartisan support for anti-tech anti-trust because republicans perceive them to be (largely accurately) biased towards the cultural left.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    The Republicans would be exposing the thinking that has resulted in them losing almost every culture war battle in the last ... I don't know how long. The bureaucracies enforcing anti-trust will lean left. Eventually there will be a bias of anti-trust action used to break up any companies that look to be helping Republican candidate elected. It'll be these Donald Trump court cases all over again. What actually works for the right is free markets. Turns out if they just leave YouTube alone they get Rumble. If they ignore Twitter they get X. If Amazon makes a habit of booting right-wing sites, there will be a right wing version of Amazon. There are more than enough right wing media consumers for a free market to reward right-leaning content. Anti-trust will eventually lead to overregulation and lock in of companies hostile to the right in general and republicans in particular. There is a much better argument for anti-trust to try and defuse the risk of a vast an hasty flash-mob forming and doing something stupid, but as a political response it just isn't going to be effective.
    - 3y ago
latexr 3y ago
> big-tech abusing their market position as gatekeepers No no, you see, that is called “innovation”. And whenever the EU does anything to try to curtail those abuses of power, what they are doing is stifling innovation. Because as we all know, the one thing that matters in life is growth growth growth, particularly company growth, and there’s nothing more innovative than coming up with ways to exploit people’s privacy and attention for profit. And if you can get the ones exploited to rally in your favour, you’ve hit the jackpot. All hail corporate America, let’s raise a glass to the obscenely rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else, that is working out great. https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
- withinboredom 3y ago
  > the one thing that matters in life is growth growth growth, particularly company growth, and there’s nothing more innovative than coming up with ways to exploit people’s privacy and attention for profit. But wait, there's more! The only reason growth is pushed for so hard is because most of the investors are retired or retiring soon and don't want to work any more. If the companies stop growing then their stock prices might go down. They gambled hard when they removed pensions from US companies and they can't lose the game before they die!
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > most of the investors are retired or retiring soon Where are you getting this? Baby Boomers are smoothly transitioning their share of stock ownership to younger generations [1]. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:127;series:Corporate%20equities%20and%20mutual%20fund%20shares;demographic:generation;population:all;units:shares;range:2004.2,2021.2 https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      I don't know if you are making a joke, because the data says the exact opposite. When the silent generation had 55% of the "total wealth" (and declining), boomers had 40% of the remainder, but now boomers have 55% (and climbing, instead of declining), and the younger generations only have 26% (combined). It looks like they are still hoarding (for lack of a better term) wealth than relinquishing it.
drooopy 3y ago
All I can think of is where we'd be as a species now, at least technologically, If Microsoft, Apple, IBM or even Commodore and Atari had similar abilities since the 70s to restrict what kind of software developers can make and publish for their platforms...
- pavlov 3y ago
  There have always been walled garden software platforms. Nintendo is a very successful example from the Commodore/Atari era.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    Nintendos are specifically gaming devices, though. Smartphones are general purpose computing platforms.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      This is an artificial marketing distinction that you’ve bought into. And insofar as any particular apps exist or don’t on switch, it’s purely a result of gatekeeper decisions on the part of Nintendo - Nintendo keeps there from being an email client or an office suite and that’s the reason you perceive it as “just a gaming device”. They’ve gatekept successfully. This is the problem, there really isn’t a coherent threshold between switch and iPhone or a reason console vendors shouldn’t be equally considered general purpose devices other than marketing. You could plug in some usb peripherals and run office suites on a PlayStation just fine.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        > This is an artificial marketing distinction that you’ve bought into No, nobody buys a nintendo to do banking on them. I bought a phone since I needed it to do banking. This is a real difference, not just a marketing distinction. > it’s purely a result of gatekeeper decisions on the part of Nintendo Yes, and that gatekeeper power ensures Nintendo isn't a general purpose device. If they allowed it to be a general purpose device like Apple did with phones then things would be different. Controlling such a major share of general purpose devices like Apple does is a serious issue. Controlling a share of gaming computing like Nintendo doesn't matter nearly as much, so therefore lawmakers aren't going after them to the same degree. It doesn't matter if technically they are the same, in practice one doesn't cause issues for society while the other one does.
pokepim 3y ago
[dead]

darklion 3y ago

Should a store be forced to stock a product that has “This product is significantly cheaper if you buy it directly from the manufacturer” printed on the front of the package?

madsbuch 3y ago
I better like the marketplace analogy: If I go into a marketplace, I can be told by merchants that we can make cheaper deals outside of the confines of a marketplace. If you want to stick to the "store" analogy, they Apple also needs to handle support, return cases and a lot more financial risk – A store stocks their own inventories and does not just facilitate transactions between two parties. The fact is that Apple store is not a store, it is a marketplace. And on a marketplace you can not censor people as easily.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  though it would be lovely to see apple buy 10.000 licenses to sell on their "shop"
- Aloisius 3y ago
  Apple does handle returns and I'm not sure what support the average brick and mortar store offers. Stores don't necessarily own all their inventories (stock consignment) and some products are extremely low risk (e.g. phone cards, gift cards, digital goods, etc.) Calling it a marketplace seems odd considering unlike in traditional marketplaces, there are no competing merchants selling the same goods. There are no other merchants at all.
rendall 3y ago
The issue as I understand it is that Apple uses its dominance in hardware to direct users to its own music streaming service at the expense of a competing service. Your analogy does not fit.
- EasyMark 3y ago
  They have a pretty competitive pricing range too. The combined TV, music, and a bit of encrypted disk space is fairly priced. I used to pay for Spotify separately, but when they raised prices a couple of times in a row. It made more sense to just get Apple TV and music for a decent price as I already was using the 50 GB iCloud package because google likely data mines Google Docs/drive. So don't assume everyone is just getting it because it's “there”.

zer00eyz 3y ago

Signal, Spotify... Find an average (non tech) IOS user, and try to get them to switch to these apps. Im guessing that there is a large intersection of "apple users" who also take their cars back to the dealership for oil changes and service. It's not stupidity, it's about creating an air of trust. Apple goes out of its way to keep customers trust (as do car dealers to an extent) because the money is in keeping a customer. As an aside, the source of this complaint being Spotify is interesting. I would love to know from artist who pays better between the two (because I dont think its spottify)

matwood 3y ago
There have been stories that Apple pays near the top of any streamers. How much of that gets to an artist remains a question.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  Probably because they don't have to pay themselves a 30% tax.
  - matwood 3y ago
    Spotify doesn't allow in-app sign ups, so they don't pay 30% either. Try again.
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      Where does spotify fit in here? If apple had to comply with it's own rules, do you think they would be able to continue to pay out more than the competition?
ksec 3y ago
At least before 2023, one could argue Spotify were paying 15% of their revenue to Apple on iOS hence they pay less to artist. Not too sure about 2024

vdaea 3y ago

Microsoft had an almost complete monopoly of the operating system on personal computers market back then. Apple doesn't even have 50% share in Europe.

matwood 3y ago
Yeah. MS was a completely different situation. They had something like 90%+ OS marketshare and were able to use the threat of cutting off a PC makers access to Windows in order to force them to use IE. Tbh, the case is more relatable to the case Google just lost than to Apple. In that case, Google cut secret deals to exclude phone manufactures from including other stores.
withinboredom 3y ago
As an app developer in the EU, my apps rarely target JUST the EU, but also the US and beyond.
realusername 3y ago
Why the market share would matter if there's no competion in the mobile space?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > if there's no competion in the mobile space? How did you come up with this?
  - realusername 3y ago
    What could be signs that Apple and Google are competing with each other on the mobile app space? The only tariff change ever made was made over a threat of an anti-trust lawsuit and copied straight over completely verbatim to the second company. And it's not like users of one store can try to shop to the other one anyways. Each user is captive of their respective store. On the hardware side sure, the competition is fierce and visible, on the software side I don't see anything at all.
3y ago

barelysapient 3y ago

Probably because Microsoft controlled 97% market share, but Apple controls about 20%.

graemep 3y ago
Depends how you define the market. The relevant definition here is users of Apple devices.
- Aaargh20318 3y ago
  By that logic you can always make up a group in which a company controls 100% of the market. Walmart should be forced to sell competitors products because they control the whole market for Walmart customers.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    If your only choice is to shop at Walmart, this sounds like a reasonable definition of a market.
    - Aaargh20318 3y ago
      But it’s not your only choice to shop in the App Store. Having an iPhone does not prevent my from buying an app from the Play Store on my Android phone, from buying a game from PSN on my PS5 or from buying a book from Amazon on my Kindle.
      - withinboredom 3y ago
        Woah, I can install a game from PSN on my iPhone!? I must have missed that feature... /s We already know the players in the market will conspire to increase prices artificially if given the chance (United States v. Apple Inc., 952 F. Supp. 2d 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)). So, no, I don't believe these are actually one market because not even the players think it is one marketplace. They argue this exact illusion to keep anti-trust from applying to them, but behave as if it isn't a single market. All we need is for lawmakers to change what the definition of a market is, in order to deal with this loophole.

whynotminot 3y ago

Didn’t Microsoft win that case?

lapcat 3y ago
No.
- whynotminot 3y ago
  Yes?
  - lapcat 3y ago
    You could read Wikipedia rather than asking on HN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
    - whynotminot 3y ago
      lol I did, which is why I replied skeptically because it says Microsoft had most of it overturned on appeal.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        Did you read the part that said, "The case was remanded back to the D.C. District Court for further proceedings on this matter, with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly presiding." That's not a win. The case was ongoing, and likely would have gone to the Supreme Court eventually, though the court was too cowardly to take the case immediately. There was a settlement with the DoJ. You don't settle when you win and the other side loses.
        PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        sure you do, it's a question of the cost.

thought_alarm 3y ago

Microsoft gave discounts on Windows licenses to companies that agreed to stop purchasing Netscape client and server software, thereby choking off Netscape revenue streams. It forced Netscape to sell to AOL. Microsoft controlled 95% of the personal computer market, and they abused that position to put a competitor out of business because that competitor was a threat to their monopoly. How does that compare to Apple Music?

concinds 3y ago
Apple has non-monopolistic market share, but they bundle the Apple Music app on every iPhone (with nudges to subscribe, like the "For You" and "Browse" tabs), and they give Spotify a bad choice: either adopt IAP (with 30% cut) for subscriptions, or handle all subscriptions through the web, but they can't link to their website from their app. While you can subscribe to Apple Music directly in-app. The "bundling" issue is about where the similarities to Microsoft begin and end (I can't recall if "bundling" was part of the problem with IE in the US too, or only in Europe, where it was definitely an issue and led to the "browser choice" screen).
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  I've only ever owned an iphone (of the smartphones) and I've never felt a nudge to subscribe to their music app. the closest I've gotten is the notifications when you're not logged into apple cloud.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

Microsoft was beaten with a legal stick because they didn't bribe lawmakers, i.e. running a business without lobbying. Tech companies don't make the same mistake these days.

ViktorRay 3y ago

Your interpretation of the Microsoft case is incorrect. The DOJ wasn’t going to split Microsoft because it was a “gatekeeper.” There is no legal basis in US Law to do that. It was very close to splitting Microsoft because Microsoft was held to have monopolistic market share and was abusing its monopolistic position in operating systems to illegally and anticompetitively push their web browser. Violation of antitrust law. Legally in the United States you wouldn’t be able to do this with Apple today when applying that law because Apple does not have monopolistic market share. I don’t know what the iPhone’s market share in America is today but Microsoft had over 95 percent market share back then. Apple isn’t close to that today. In Europe the laws may be different. (Also for what it’s worth I’m not making an argument for whether Apple or Google or anybody shouldn’t or should be broken up. I’m just saying your interpretation of the DOJ’s position back then is not correct)

lenkite 3y ago
Apple already has >60% market share in the U.S. If that doesn't qualify for a monopoly, then I don't know what magic number will. And Apple has a strangulating choke-hold on their platform compared to Microsoft.
Salgat 3y ago
You don't have to have a monopoly to be guilty of anticompetitive behavior, a monopoly simply means it's easier to be anticompetitive. Apple in the US has a roughly 50% market share.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  I mean, every business is anti-competitive. The only time the authorities step in is when they dominate markets to a degree where competition no longer functions. iOS market share is strongest in the states I believe at 57%, which is certainly high but not even remotely approaching a monopoly.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >iOS market share is strongest in the states I believe at 57%, which is certainly high but not even remotely approaching a monopoly. Ackchyually you don't need to be a monopoly to warp the whole market in your favor. Windows was a monopoly back in the day with ~95% market share, but users could easily install any other apps and any other browser besides IE. The issue was many users stuck with IE because it was the default, but Microsoft wasn't blocking them from installing other browsers than IE or other apps not sold through their channels. Meanwhile, Apple might have only 57%-60% market share instead of ~95%, but unlike Microsoft, it's actively blocking users form installing any other browser that's not Safari based and any app that's not on the AppStore, therefore doing even more damage than Microsoft was doing back in the days. And speaking of iPhone market share, despite being it 57%-60% of the US right now, it's also the most wealthy and influential of the market, and looking at the demographics, it's at 87% amongst US teens, so it's safe to assume those teens will stick to iPhone when they grow up due to inertia and network effects, and then iOS market share will be close to 90%, therefore a guaranteed monopoly.

DinoCoder99 3y ago

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