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At least in the U.S. business owners have the right to refuse service or turn away a customer to protect their patrons and business. That's the issue with all

At least in the U.S. business owners have the right to refuse service or turn away a customer to protect their patrons and business. That's the issue with all these providers. Every couple of weeks there's a story from someone whose Google account was suddenly closed with no way to access their emails or pictures again.

usr1106 3y ago
Yes, and that's why monopolies must die, in practice desolved by governments. Once you buy a smartphone today you and everybody who wants to do further business with you are at the mercy of a monopolist. For Apple 100%, for Google only 98% because you could side-load. But not a secure and practical solution today.
- adastra22 3y ago
  I don't think monopoly is the right word here.
  - subw00f 3y ago
    Yeah, duopoly is a better word.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Maybe, in the context of smartphones as a whole. In the context of the App Store (which TFA is about), Apple is a gatekeeper and this is an instance of vendor-lockin. Technically not the same as a monopoly (because, as you mention, you can always use Android).
  - criddell 3y ago
    How about oligopolist?
  - arlcode 3y ago
    True. I like the term "gatekeeper" the EU defines and uses. Combined with the "must be very big" requirement it better fits what is going on in the tech world.
    - usr1106 3y ago
      Vendor lock-in is what wecall it in the IT-sector.
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        Not really. Gatekeeping is applied because you must pay Apple the tax to access its customers; not use its tech.
        usr1106 3y ago
        I saw it from end-customer perspective. Somebody who buys an Apple device cannot choose other app stores, nearly the same with Android.
  - usr1106 3y ago
    So you change your smartphone every time you are not happy with Apple or Google Android? Yes, you have a choice once every couple of years while you might want to install an app several times a year. Free markets would also be the wrong word to describe the situation.
  - leereeves 3y ago
    I think monopoly is the right word because their really are two markets. A customer is only looking for either iOS or Android apps, and isn't going to choose an Android app if they have an iPhone, or vice versa (IOW, iOS apps don't compete with Android apps). Imagine only one company sold diesel fuel, and only one sold gasoline. Wouldn't you say they each had a monopoly?
    - adastra22 3y ago
      This is an example of vendor lockin, which is a troubling practice that needs to be stopped, but it is legally and practically distinct from monopoly as defined in antitrust legislation.
      - leereeves 3y ago
        We shouldn't limit our use of language based on laws written 100 years ago. It's pretty clear that those laws are inadequate to restrain the monopolies that exist now. Said another way, you might be right about US antitrust law, but when that law was written the technology didn't exist to create "vendor lock-in" on millions of products at once. I am curious about the example though, from a legal perspective. Would the only seller of gasoline have a monopoly, even if other fuels were available, and the only barrier to using them was the switching cost of buying a new vehicle? Edit: For what it's worth, wikipedia uses the word monopoly when "a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
        adastra22 3y ago
        It's not a monopoly though. My point is that there is a relevant technical difference, and we should be accurate in the words that we use.
  - philistine 3y ago
    The fact that every single company that wants to run code on my device needs to be in the good graces of Apple makes no sense. Why can I run code Apple loathes on my Mac ?
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    You are correct, although there’s plenty of room for Apple to engage in evil anti-competitive behavior without having a monopoly over any sanely defined market. EU regulators seem to think they’ve crossed that threshold!
  - 015a 3y ago
    Right; I think the correct frame is, major operating systems are utilities. They must be regulated the same way that all systemically important utilities are regulated; heavily. Monopolies are natural, and arguably desirable, with utilities; but they need to be subject to extremely strong regulation to maintain the right balance. The DMA was always phrased from the wrong perspective (which is just classic EU, they literally cannot ever get regulation right). The correct phrasing is: once a computer operating system achieves a certain level of market adoption (say, 50M+ active installations), it is designated as a systemically critical operating system. Among other regulations, one thing systemically critical operating systems must allow is the independent and unrestricted installation and execution of applications from the internet. Regulating the market (App Store) itself is just dumb. Apple should not be forced to have Epic Games as a customer. It destroys trust in the App Store's review process, and legitimately does from my perspective infringe on Apple's rights as a business to do business with partners as they please. There's a gulf of difference between "forcing the App Store to distribute some application" and "allowing that application to be freely distributed on the internet". Regulation should be specifically targeted toward the second situation; and leave the App Store alone.
    - ncruces 3y ago
      The EU did not compel Apple to have a comercial relationship with Epic. It is Apple who decided that third-party software distributers must comply with certain restrictions, and must sign a contract with them. And it was Apple which tried to prevent Epic from signing that contract, and who's now backtracking… before it's forced to do so by the EU.
    - arlcode 3y ago
      While this is an interesting idea and I personally would welcome such regulation it probably wouldn't solve the problem the EU is trying to address. Android allows the installation of alternative app stores but Google still retains large effective control over the app market. I would argue that the EU recognised that and therefore regulated Operating systems and app stores because the former one isn't enough apparently. If things continue along this trajectory we may see the utility argument at the store level and at the OS level. Looking at how the electric power distribution industry is regulated it already works like this (at least here in Germany). On the one hand grid operators are heavily regulated (as you say) and must allow companies without infrastructure to resell power to end customers. On the other hand the actual owner of the last mile infrastructure is also forced to do business with all customers and has very little freedom to refuse(e.g. non-payment is a temporary valid reason). We may very well see something similar in the software distribution market since it's becoming such an integral part of life.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    The power of Apple and Google is literally monopoly power. As in, government-granted copyright and patents that allow the holders to restrain the conduct of competitors. Decades ago people were crying out against it, but nobody with power listened because they thought we just wanted to steal music[0]. Well, we did, but that didn't make us wrong. Now the world economy is owned by a handful of oligopolist-elected dictators who have maximally exploited the laws in question to make meaningful competition literally illegal. No, seriously, try and ship a phone without big tech's blessing. It won't work. Hell, Amazon and Microsoft both tried and failed. Everyone only writes apps for Google Play and iOS, and any attempt to make them work elsewhere is a criminal felony. [0] To be clear, their real concern was finding ways to legally bind China to pay us for "our IP" on pain of being shut out of world markets. Dictatorship is fractal.
  - zmmmmm 3y ago
    Conversation needs to shift to "market power" which is where the EU has gone. The fact that Apple shares the App store market with Android evenly in terms of users for example is meaningless when they nonetheless hold the vast majority of the influence through their market power.
galleywest200 3y ago
It is a double-edged sword. A right to refuse service is great when you have an unruly patron in a pub or restaurant that is ruining the evening for everybody else. But on the other side it is really easy for a company like Google to just kill your smaller company because they decided they do not want to allow you access to an account anymore.
- gopher_space 3y ago
  One of the more enjoyable aspects of this whole issue is watching people with a vested political interest in Apple's fundamental point of view criticize their dealings with Epic.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > But on the other side it is really easy for a company like Google to just kill your smaller company because they decided they do not want to allow you access to an account anymore. It sounds like the problem isn't Google being able to refuse service, but instead that Google doing that has the power to kill your smaller company. No one company should be allowed to have the power to decide which companies live or die.
  - thegrimmest 3y ago
    If you found a company that depends on Google APIs or products, that's a risk your company carries. I don't see why we need legislative intervention to mitigate such risks. If I founded a company that specializes in manufacturing Pokemon toys under contract, and Nintendo (for whatever reason) pulls the contract, it's perfectly normal for the business to no longer be viable and to be liquidated.
amelius 3y ago
Rules should be different if you're running a platform. A platform is essentially a market within the free market, so special regulative care is required.
IncandescentGas 3y ago
This is very problematic when monopolies are involved. “You are banned from Taco Bell for the rest of your life” is very different from “You are banned from all restaurants anywhere for the rest of your life.” If all restaurants are Taco Bell, is it reasonable to allow such bans by taco bell?
- giantrobot 3y ago
  Actual monopolies (utility companies forex) are required to do business with people. Utility companies which almost always are regional monopolies have to deal with customers so long as bills are paid. There's also processes for halting service in the case of non-payment. The utility can't cut your power because you were mean to them on Twitter. Apple is not a monopoly anywhere on the planet and has no such requirement.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    But it should have some of those requirements, because it's close enough to the space of being a monopoly.
Aldo_MX 3y ago
> At least in the U.S. business owners have the right to refuse service or turn away a customer to protect their patrons and business. But this is not about Apple's right as a company to refuse any business with Epic, they still have that right. This is about Apple not complying with a law that targets them due to their anti-competitive behavior; a law that requires them to give the means to operate an App Store competitor to anyone who requests it. Apple is the one who decided to require an Apple developer account in order to operate an App Store competitor, so they effectively gave up their right to refuse any business with Epic by adding this unnecessary requirement.

usr1106 3y ago

Yes, and that's why monopolies must die, in practice desolved by governments. Once you buy a smartphone today you and everybody who wants to do further business with you are at the mercy of a monopolist. For Apple 100%, for Google only 98% because you could side-load. But not a secure and practical solution today.

adastra22 3y ago
I don't think monopoly is the right word here.
- subw00f 3y ago
  Yeah, duopoly is a better word.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Maybe, in the context of smartphones as a whole. In the context of the App Store (which TFA is about), Apple is a gatekeeper and this is an instance of vendor-lockin. Technically not the same as a monopoly (because, as you mention, you can always use Android).
- criddell 3y ago
  How about oligopolist?
- arlcode 3y ago
  True. I like the term "gatekeeper" the EU defines and uses. Combined with the "must be very big" requirement it better fits what is going on in the tech world.
  - usr1106 3y ago
    Vendor lock-in is what wecall it in the IT-sector.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Not really. Gatekeeping is applied because you must pay Apple the tax to access its customers; not use its tech.
      - usr1106 3y ago
        I saw it from end-customer perspective. Somebody who buys an Apple device cannot choose other app stores, nearly the same with Android.
- usr1106 3y ago
  So you change your smartphone every time you are not happy with Apple or Google Android? Yes, you have a choice once every couple of years while you might want to install an app several times a year. Free markets would also be the wrong word to describe the situation.
- leereeves 3y ago
  I think monopoly is the right word because their really are two markets. A customer is only looking for either iOS or Android apps, and isn't going to choose an Android app if they have an iPhone, or vice versa (IOW, iOS apps don't compete with Android apps). Imagine only one company sold diesel fuel, and only one sold gasoline. Wouldn't you say they each had a monopoly?
  - adastra22 3y ago
    This is an example of vendor lockin, which is a troubling practice that needs to be stopped, but it is legally and practically distinct from monopoly as defined in antitrust legislation.
    - leereeves 3y ago
      We shouldn't limit our use of language based on laws written 100 years ago. It's pretty clear that those laws are inadequate to restrain the monopolies that exist now. Said another way, you might be right about US antitrust law, but when that law was written the technology didn't exist to create "vendor lock-in" on millions of products at once. I am curious about the example though, from a legal perspective. Would the only seller of gasoline have a monopoly, even if other fuels were available, and the only barrier to using them was the switching cost of buying a new vehicle? Edit: For what it's worth, wikipedia uses the word monopoly when "a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
      - adastra22 3y ago
        It's not a monopoly though. My point is that there is a relevant technical difference, and we should be accurate in the words that we use.
- philistine 3y ago
  The fact that every single company that wants to run code on my device needs to be in the good graces of Apple makes no sense. Why can I run code Apple loathes on my Mac ?
- bee_rider 3y ago
  You are correct, although there’s plenty of room for Apple to engage in evil anti-competitive behavior without having a monopoly over any sanely defined market. EU regulators seem to think they’ve crossed that threshold!
- 015a 3y ago
  Right; I think the correct frame is, major operating systems are utilities. They must be regulated the same way that all systemically important utilities are regulated; heavily. Monopolies are natural, and arguably desirable, with utilities; but they need to be subject to extremely strong regulation to maintain the right balance. The DMA was always phrased from the wrong perspective (which is just classic EU, they literally cannot ever get regulation right). The correct phrasing is: once a computer operating system achieves a certain level of market adoption (say, 50M+ active installations), it is designated as a systemically critical operating system. Among other regulations, one thing systemically critical operating systems must allow is the independent and unrestricted installation and execution of applications from the internet. Regulating the market (App Store) itself is just dumb. Apple should not be forced to have Epic Games as a customer. It destroys trust in the App Store's review process, and legitimately does from my perspective infringe on Apple's rights as a business to do business with partners as they please. There's a gulf of difference between "forcing the App Store to distribute some application" and "allowing that application to be freely distributed on the internet". Regulation should be specifically targeted toward the second situation; and leave the App Store alone.
  - ncruces 3y ago
    The EU did not compel Apple to have a comercial relationship with Epic. It is Apple who decided that third-party software distributers must comply with certain restrictions, and must sign a contract with them. And it was Apple which tried to prevent Epic from signing that contract, and who's now backtracking… before it's forced to do so by the EU.
  - arlcode 3y ago
    While this is an interesting idea and I personally would welcome such regulation it probably wouldn't solve the problem the EU is trying to address. Android allows the installation of alternative app stores but Google still retains large effective control over the app market. I would argue that the EU recognised that and therefore regulated Operating systems and app stores because the former one isn't enough apparently. If things continue along this trajectory we may see the utility argument at the store level and at the OS level. Looking at how the electric power distribution industry is regulated it already works like this (at least here in Germany). On the one hand grid operators are heavily regulated (as you say) and must allow companies without infrastructure to resell power to end customers. On the other hand the actual owner of the last mile infrastructure is also forced to do business with all customers and has very little freedom to refuse(e.g. non-payment is a temporary valid reason). We may very well see something similar in the software distribution market since it's becoming such an integral part of life.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  The power of Apple and Google is literally monopoly power. As in, government-granted copyright and patents that allow the holders to restrain the conduct of competitors. Decades ago people were crying out against it, but nobody with power listened because they thought we just wanted to steal music[0]. Well, we did, but that didn't make us wrong. Now the world economy is owned by a handful of oligopolist-elected dictators who have maximally exploited the laws in question to make meaningful competition literally illegal. No, seriously, try and ship a phone without big tech's blessing. It won't work. Hell, Amazon and Microsoft both tried and failed. Everyone only writes apps for Google Play and iOS, and any attempt to make them work elsewhere is a criminal felony. [0] To be clear, their real concern was finding ways to legally bind China to pay us for "our IP" on pain of being shut out of world markets. Dictatorship is fractal.
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  Conversation needs to shift to "market power" which is where the EU has gone. The fact that Apple shares the App store market with Android evenly in terms of users for example is meaningless when they nonetheless hold the vast majority of the influence through their market power.

galleywest200 3y ago

It is a double-edged sword. A right to refuse service is great when you have an unruly patron in a pub or restaurant that is ruining the evening for everybody else. But on the other side it is really easy for a company like Google to just kill your smaller company because they decided they do not want to allow you access to an account anymore.

gopher_space 3y ago
One of the more enjoyable aspects of this whole issue is watching people with a vested political interest in Apple's fundamental point of view criticize their dealings with Epic.
autoexec 3y ago
> But on the other side it is really easy for a company like Google to just kill your smaller company because they decided they do not want to allow you access to an account anymore. It sounds like the problem isn't Google being able to refuse service, but instead that Google doing that has the power to kill your smaller company. No one company should be allowed to have the power to decide which companies live or die.
- thegrimmest 3y ago
  If you found a company that depends on Google APIs or products, that's a risk your company carries. I don't see why we need legislative intervention to mitigate such risks. If I founded a company that specializes in manufacturing Pokemon toys under contract, and Nintendo (for whatever reason) pulls the contract, it's perfectly normal for the business to no longer be viable and to be liquidated.

amelius 3y ago

Rules should be different if you're running a platform. A platform is essentially a market within the free market, so special regulative care is required.

IncandescentGas 3y ago

This is very problematic when monopolies are involved. “You are banned from Taco Bell for the rest of your life” is very different from “You are banned from all restaurants anywhere for the rest of your life.” If all restaurants are Taco Bell, is it reasonable to allow such bans by taco bell?

giantrobot 3y ago
Actual monopolies (utility companies forex) are required to do business with people. Utility companies which almost always are regional monopolies have to deal with customers so long as bills are paid. There's also processes for halting service in the case of non-payment. The utility can't cut your power because you were mean to them on Twitter. Apple is not a monopoly anywhere on the planet and has no such requirement.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  But it should have some of those requirements, because it's close enough to the space of being a monopoly.

Aldo_MX 3y ago

> At least in the U.S. business owners have the right to refuse service or turn away a customer to protect their patrons and business. But this is not about Apple's right as a company to refuse any business with Epic, they still have that right. This is about Apple not complying with a law that targets them due to their anti-competitive behavior; a law that requires them to give the means to operate an App Store competitor to anyone who requests it. Apple is the one who decided to require an Apple developer account in order to operate an App Store competitor, so they effectively gave up their right to refuse any business with Epic by adding this unnecessary requirement.