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How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

arstechnica.com

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Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#181

Post by dragonwriter »

village-idiot wrote: post #102
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is what products people actually move to and from in response to Apple pricw changes; if there's a segment of buyers and price range in which Apple has pricing power—price changes do not cause such movement—Apple is an antitrust monopoly. Popular descriptive “markets” like “smartphones” often include many isolated submarkets and are not single markets in which competition exists. A major purpose of brnad m…

So your point is that there are no high priced smart phones other than Apple, therefore it’s a monopoly? Aside from being extremely silly, under this formulation Rolls Royce might be a monopoly, it lacks factual backing. There are plenty of android offerings that overlap Apple offerings in price, including the Pixel 3 and most of the Galaxy S10 series. If your point is that someone willing to spend $1k on a smart pho…

> So your point is that there are no high priced smart phones other than Apple, therefore it’s a monopoly?

Nope. My point to is neither “there are no high priced smart phones” (there are) not “it’s a monopoly” (I have no position on that question). You should be able to tell that because I say nothing similar to either of those anywhere in the post you are responding to.

My point is that the existence of other players in a particular popular framing of what the market is has very little to do with the anti-trust definition of “monopoly”, which has to do with empirical competition (what do consumers move to or from in response to, particularly, price changes), not how markets are popularly described.

> If your point instead is that any brand that builds up a “pocket market” via good products and marketing is an abusive monopoly that just be stopped

Again, no. Building a non-competitive market via branding or other means makes you a monopoly, not necessarily an abusive one. You still have to abuse that monopoly to be an abusive monopoly.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#182

Post by dev_tty01 »

henryfjordan wrote: post #109
dev_tty01 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple says nobody can run apps on their phone without handing them a 30% cut. False. You can pay for an app/service via the internet (side-pay). The app can be free on the app store. This is what Netflix does. Is it a bit of a hassle? Sure. This is the only part that has an optics problem even though it probably meets any legal thresholds. I do think Apple will get some pressure to make this process easier and that…

> From the consumer perspective, if one doesn't like the app store, buy a different brand of phone. There is no monopoly here from a legal or functional perspective. That is not how monopolies are defined. Apple says all apps for the iPhone must be signed by them and they must collect 30% of sales and in-app-purchases. The fact that they run an "App Store" means there is a market for iPhone apps. They control the mar…

I understand that Apple defines the narrow market for iPhone apps. That doesn't mean anything illegal is happening. Antitrust law doesn't say that the existence of a monopoly is illegal. There has to be harm, or exploitation, or price fixing, etc., for the courts to take action. A monopoly may just be the result of great execution by a company and it may not be in violation of any antitrust laws. Again, controlling a particular market may or may not be illegal.

Also, while it is true that Apple is controlling the marketplace for iOS apps, it does not control the market for smart phone apps in general. There is a good chance that that is sufficient for the courts to find no monopoly. As many of others have pointed out, there are many, many examples of narrowly defined monopolies. With a different definition, there is no monopoly.

Of course, none of us know what the courts and I get your concern. My point is that the simple control of a marketplace (created by Apple) for a specific product is not a sufficient condition for court action. The benefits to consumers could easily outweigh any concerns about control. Time (years) will tell.

Here is an interesting essay on press (public) perception of monopolies vs antitrust laws:

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2019/two-systems-be...

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#183

Post by throwaway2048 »

makapuf wrote: post #179
foobarian wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that there is a lot of focus on Qualcomm's strong-arm monopoly tactics. But that seems to me to work exactly as designed - patents are intended to literally grant a temporary monopoly to reward the holder for the expensive research work that otherwise wouldn't have happened. If Qualcomm won't license someone a patent for whatever reason, that is up to them. Clearly if customers are deciding to pay the price,…

I agree. If they alone in the world can make good modems well they can charge a lot for it. 3% seems ok with the value I get from the the modem compared to the whole phone. If not the market will price them out. The issue is not with clients but other suppliers (or lack theeeof). The issue is patents. And enforcing frand policies. Again if no other team in the world can deliver what they do why should they charge les…

The issue with patents is, no other team in the world is even allowed to try.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#184

Post by jjtheblunt »

sundvor wrote: post #6
Veen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which market does Apple have a monopoly?

App Store, in their ios ecosystem.

So they have a monopoly on selling their own product, essentially, I imagine would be the counter-argument?

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#185

Post by village-idiot »

darkpuma wrote: post #157
zaroth wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s their market! Only Apple can make an Apple App Store for the Apple iPhone. Every company deserves a “monopoly” on their own product, unless they are a common carrier, a designation which is based on the government enabling them to exist through preferential treatment in the first place. Apple created the Apple iPhone and they should be allowed to determine its destiny, as long as other companies are also allowed…

> "Every company deserves a “monopoly” on their own product," Why?

Because anything else is silly. Am I allowed to release a Ford car because allowing Ford to have a monopoly on Ford cars is unjust?

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#186

Post by village-idiot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #181
village-idiot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your point is that there are no high priced smart phones other than Apple, therefore it’s a monopoly? Aside from being extremely silly, under this formulation Rolls Royce might be a monopoly, it lacks factual backing. There are plenty of android offerings that overlap Apple offerings in price, including the Pixel 3 and most of the Galaxy S10 series. If your point is that someone willing to spend $1k on a smart pho…

> So your point is that there are no high priced smart phones other than Apple, therefore it’s a monopoly? Nope. My point to is neither “there are no high priced smart phones” (there are) not “it’s a monopoly” (I have no position on that question). You should be able to tell that because I say nothing similar to either of those anywhere in the post you are responding to. My point is that the existence of other player…

That's a lot of words that take literally no stance on the issue. You've slowly shifted back to an incredibly vague definition of a market and an incredibly vague definition of what an abusive monopoly is. At this point it's literally impossible to discuss the issue with you, because the definitions have become uselessly broad.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#187

Post by village-idiot »

sigstoat wrote: post #176
village-idiot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? You can still side load. Developers do it all the time. The approval process is only for distributing your private app to hundreds of people using Apple’s servers and hardware.

look, buddy, i'm with you on the monopoly issue, but this whole side loading thing is bullshit. i don't think these mechanisms work the way you think they do, and they're certainly not reasonable for even expert users to keep an app up to date on their device. it just isn't legally relevant.

Having side loaded apps personally, I'm not really sure why you're so pissed off.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#188

Post by aey »

Retric wrote: post #150
aey wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents don’t last forever, and there are a dozen ways to solve each problem. Apple is sitting on 200b in cash. What would be great for consumers if they spent some of their cash on 6g networks before they turn into a sovereign wealth fund.

Apple is not a carrier and they don’t own spectrum. So, they would need to buy one expand 6g networks. Anyway, such verticals integration is unlikely to be good for consumers.

Qualcomm doesn’t own spectrum either. Apple should be investing in tech, not in cash. It’s crazy to think of tech companies sitting on that much cash. At this rate, apple will have 1T in the bank in 15 years.

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#189

Post by godzillabrennus »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #155
zelon88 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Intel sell that though? Selling toast isn't easy when you let the customer borrow your bread and butter. To put it another way, Apple took their ball and went home. No soup for them!

Intel has a track record of selling off assets that end up being valuable in the future.

Basically Intel is trying to give away their market share like IBM did.

FYI - IBM handed Microsoft and Intel a big chunk of market share because who would ever want a personal computer...

Re: How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years

#190

Post by wmf »

ncmncm wrote: post #159

After reading through the comments quarreling about whether Qualcomm and Apple are acting within their rights to charge monopoly-sized rent where they can, and do, it's hard for me to fathom the depths of confusion Americans are reduced to whenever these topics come up. First and foremost: when you are as big as Qualcomm and Apple are in their respective spheres, you don't need rights. You have POWER, which is far, f…

Offenses against us are entirely ignored...

Meanwhile everybody else is saying that US antitrust law is concerned entirely with consumer harm and not with competition. Although in this case the consumer harm seems to be that a >$750 phone costs ~$20 more than it might otherwise.

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