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In time, the market will self-correct if Apple behaves poorly enough. But I think it's important to remember that self-correction might take a long time. We're

by mcav 17y ago

In time, the market will self-correct if Apple behaves poorly enough. But I think it's important to remember that self-correction might take a long time. We're dealing with platforms -- large systems to which people commit their data. We're also dealing with a two-faced community: developers and consumers. It's going to take a lot more than unfair developer treatment to get many people to switch away from iTunes. Apple generally makes excellent products; combine that with the iTunes ecosystem to get a combo bonus. People aren't likely to switch to a platform they perceive as inferior; Apple won't drop the ball on creating good combinations of hardware and software any time soon. Even if a superior product arrives, consumers must commit to migrating their applications, data, music, etc. It's going to take a lot more than a restrictive and unfair developer platform to get the market to correct itself. Look at the Windows Vista debacle: despite many unhappy consumers, I don't see a whole lot of people switching away for that reason alone. Anecdotally, the only time I see people switch away from Windows is when they're enticed by buying a Mac instead -- and they cite Apple's software more often than Windows's flaws.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Absolutely. These things take a long time to work themselves out. There's also a case to be made, which is made by every monopoly, that having a single player actually advances things in the public interest. In other words, by having Apple control so much, the future of smartphones in general is actually advanced much farther than if they didn't. I don't buy this argument as a general rule, but parts of it do seem to make sense. After all, getting 40 individual players to agree on a standard is a lot harder than getting one company to do so. Perhaps the natural state of the technology industry is to slowly swing between monopolies and openness. During times of monopolies, de facto standards get adopted and interfaces stabilized. During times of openness, innovation rules and paradigm changes are made. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just that it looks like a pattern might be setting up.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with you but I hope you at least understand that the world you describe hasn't existed since Teddy Roosevelt picked up "The Jungle" in 1906. Since then Government has made a business out of trying to manipulate the market in a way that speeds along the positive aspects and eliminates the negative ones. A trend we all know has reached epic proportions with the current bail outs. So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly. We are where we want to be. The poster asked the question of should government intervene. To say that "government will intervene whether we want to or not" is to engage in circular reasoning. One supposes that in order to ask the question, there must be a choice for the answerer to make. I also have heard this "those were the old times" argument quite a bit lately, and its wearing thin for me. To some degree, yes, government has intervened and mucked around with markets. But to a larger degree it hasn't. And the decision to muck around or not, last I checked, was a political one, not done simply because times have changed. It's very much debatable whether government intervention in various markets constitute a good or bad thing. Teddy was a smart man. So was Jefferson. We continue to find and address these issues as we can, doing the best with what light we have.
    - TomOfTTB 17y ago
      It would be circular logic if "Government Intervention" was a single thing rather than a designation that applies to a myriad of things. My issue with your line of reasoning is that it's academic. You're making an argument based on a model of Monopoly = Government Intervention and that's not where we are anymore.

by mcav 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Absolutely. These things take a long time to work themselves out. There's also a case to be made, which is made by every monopoly, that having a single player actually advances things in the public interest. In other words, by having Apple control so much, the future of smartphones in general is actually advanced much farther than if they didn't. I don't buy this argument as a general rule, but parts of it do seem to make sense. After all, getting 40 individual players to agree on a standard is a lot harder than getting one company to do so. Perhaps the natural state of the technology industry is to slowly swing between monopolies and openness. During times of monopolies, de facto standards get adopted and interfaces stabilized. During times of openness, innovation rules and paradigm changes are made. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just that it looks like a pattern might be setting up.

TomOfTTB 17y ago
I'm not disagreeing with you but I hope you at least understand that the world you describe hasn't existed since Teddy Roosevelt picked up "The Jungle" in 1906. Since then Government has made a business out of trying to manipulate the market in a way that speeds along the positive aspects and eliminates the negative ones. A trend we all know has reached epic proportions with the current bail outs. So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly. We are where we want to be. The poster asked the question of should government intervene. To say that "government will intervene whether we want to or not" is to engage in circular reasoning. One supposes that in order to ask the question, there must be a choice for the answerer to make. I also have heard this "those were the old times" argument quite a bit lately, and its wearing thin for me. To some degree, yes, government has intervened and mucked around with markets. But to a larger degree it hasn't. And the decision to muck around or not, last I checked, was a political one, not done simply because times have changed. It's very much debatable whether government intervention in various markets constitute a good or bad thing. Teddy was a smart man. So was Jefferson. We continue to find and address these issues as we can, doing the best with what light we have.
  - TomOfTTB 17y ago
    It would be circular logic if "Government Intervention" was a single thing rather than a designation that applies to a myriad of things. My issue with your line of reasoning is that it's academic. You're making an argument based on a model of Monopoly = Government Intervention and that's not where we are anymore.