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> Are you sure about that? Certain as I can be, without having seen the cards. Apple is a company about margins; you see it in their hardware profitability, bu

> Are you sure about that? Certain as I can be, without having seen the cards. Apple is a company about margins; you see it in their hardware profitability, but also in Tim Cook's service initiative. They fought Dutch regulators over this for months preceding the regulation, and it's not a stretch to say the DMA and DSA is a direct legislative response to Apple's wanton behavior. Apple can move literal mountains, when it aligns with their incentive of increasing profit margins. Anything that falls outside that purview ends up sidelined or worse-yet, lobbied against. > So for me everything that Apple does to keep a walled garden is what actually keeps me as a customer and helps their bottom line. That's great, and Apple has every right to provide you a differentiated experience. I've been a historical Apple customer, and I still keep a Magic Trackpad around because it's mostly quite good. But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly because it benefits us. Happy IE users or Bell Telephone customers aren't an argument against antitrust action, and it's ultimately entirely tangential to how legal they are. Consider how Apple behaves in hardware, sponsoring dubious Chinese labor to make shareholders happy. They set industry-leading profit margins by sparing no expense in their exploitation of labor and parts manufacturing. Is it legal? They say so. But of course Apple would, and they have no incentive to ever stop the squeeze if shareholders cheer them on. They will behave just as insidiously with software, and if you do not treat their every action with that scrutiny then you'll pave the road to hell with good intentions. I want businesses to be good people. I want God to run a killer froyo stand. But men are fickle, and Apple has been a swindling bastard of a company ever since Jobs cheated Woz out of $4,500 over an Atari contract.

roamerz 3y ago
> But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly because it benefits us. Does 20.1 percent market share constitute a monopoly?(2023 Forbes) Seems like people have plenty of choices of what kind of cell phone to purchase. >treat their every action with scrutiny Is that not what the free market does? When companies make poor choices customers punish them. (Budweiser 2023)
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  The issue isn't the size of Apple's market share, it's the tying between their hardware, the OS software, and app store, such that if you choose to buy their phone, you also are locked into their app store. Apple is not subject to market forces because Apple is not a capitalist entity, it is a feudalist one. It is not a merchant buying metal and glass to turn into phones, it is a feudal lord that has put a gate on the river that anyone passing buy has to pay 30% in order to open.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    > if you choose to buy their [device], you also are locked into their [software ecosystem]. Other than desktop computing, this describes nearly everything sold to consumers. For people in the Hacker News audience, desktop computing would feel like a gargantuan exception, but for most other people it isn't. Android is a partial exception, but one gets the sense from Google's recent behaviour that openness is an unwelcome vestige of its open source beginnings.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      It's not an exception. Binary distribution is the norm - Apple founded their business on that norm, found success in it, fostered it and continues to support it on MacOS. The App Store style of distribution is not a replacement for it, especially when the escape hatches for developers cost an annual fee and still has limitations. If it takes legislation to change that, so be it. This is not the future for computing that anyone wanted. If there's a good reason iOS can't run third-party software, now's the time to fix it. Otherwise, Apple might have to find a new economic zone to invest in.
      - simondotau 3y ago
        If your life revolves around desktop computers, I can see why you would think it’s the norm.
        3y ago

roamerz 3y ago

> But you and I aren't entitled to a sustained monopoly because it benefits us. Does 20.1 percent market share constitute a monopoly?(2023 Forbes) Seems like people have plenty of choices of what kind of cell phone to purchase. >treat their every action with scrutiny Is that not what the free market does? When companies make poor choices customers punish them. (Budweiser 2023)

kmeisthax 3y ago
The issue isn't the size of Apple's market share, it's the tying between their hardware, the OS software, and app store, such that if you choose to buy their phone, you also are locked into their app store. Apple is not subject to market forces because Apple is not a capitalist entity, it is a feudalist one. It is not a merchant buying metal and glass to turn into phones, it is a feudal lord that has put a gate on the river that anyone passing buy has to pay 30% in order to open.
- simondotau 3y ago
  > if you choose to buy their [device], you also are locked into their [software ecosystem]. Other than desktop computing, this describes nearly everything sold to consumers. For people in the Hacker News audience, desktop computing would feel like a gargantuan exception, but for most other people it isn't. Android is a partial exception, but one gets the sense from Google's recent behaviour that openness is an unwelcome vestige of its open source beginnings.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    It's not an exception. Binary distribution is the norm - Apple founded their business on that norm, found success in it, fostered it and continues to support it on MacOS. The App Store style of distribution is not a replacement for it, especially when the escape hatches for developers cost an annual fee and still has limitations. If it takes legislation to change that, so be it. This is not the future for computing that anyone wanted. If there's a good reason iOS can't run third-party software, now's the time to fix it. Otherwise, Apple might have to find a new economic zone to invest in.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      If your life revolves around desktop computers, I can see why you would think it’s the norm.
      - 3y ago