81–90 of 388 posts
In my opinion Apple is already in the search business. At least Siri prevents a regular web search if Siri found the webpage I was looking for. It offers me directly the link to the page in the suggestions.
This is using Google’s API to provide the search result.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So do you feel that anything other than 100% market share counts as a monopoly? No I did not say that. I say, there's a healthy competition and there's no monopoly as people have viable alternatives and in many other countries people choose these alternatives and people where Apple is dominant do have the same alternatives to choose from. There's no such thing as "right of minimum market share" that Apple violates…
But do you honestly believe that a duopoly in which the two companies tightly collaborate provides a reasonable choice to the consumers?
In fact, I have no practical ability to change my e-mail address as I'm using it since 1st of April 2004 and Google does not offer me to keep the address if I want to switch to another provider.
My arguments are in defence of Apple, not Google. I can move away from Apple at any time but I can't do the same with Google.
#1 Why does there need to be a plaintiff? A trust affects consumers and society broadly detrimentally, not some specific competitor. The competitor google is likely trying to suppress is some theoretical startup anyway, they probably don't exist to sue.
#2 Why the focus on specific damages? The specific harm of such a trust are inherently unknowable.
The Google-Apple deal isn't new, and has been widely reported on. Google pays more to apple than 2nd place (MST/YAHOO) has ever delivered in topline revenue. Apple can (a)take pure profit with no effort or risk, (b)build a competing business with much worse best-case prospects, or (c) leave room in the market for someone else to try. It's not really a choice.
Meanwhile, Google's largest investments (eg chrome, android) are just an insourced version of the Apple-Google trust. Monopolistic deals and strategies aren't a side-show, they're the primary activity of these companies.
To me, it's increasingly obvious that monopoly issues are structural. It's not what Google/Apple do, it's what they are. Dealing with antitrust in an infraction->lawsuit manner, post facto, is a designed to fail structure.
IMO there are two choices, besides just accepting the prevalence of monopolies, cartels & trusts. (1) They can be broken up. (2) They can become "regulated monopolies," with a regulatory structure designed to prevent monopolistic harms before they happen. Yes, it will harm their profitability.
”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I always sort of hoped that Apple would either enter the market at some point or acquire DuckDuckGo and try to build out to a larger user base. I realise this is pretty unrealistic, as I'm sure there are far more people out there who would much prefer DDG to remain independent of a megacorp. I assumed the reason Apple haven't entered the market is that there's likely no way to make money at it without becoming…
Is there a way to run a profitable search engine without relying on advertising? Ex: Cloud search - https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/
Why is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google? As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1] [1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/
They're pivoting, so to speak.
Why is the plaintiff, California Crane School, suing Apple and Google? As far as I see, the plaintiff is not in the tech business, as they're a school that teaches how to operate cranes[1] [1] https://www.californiacraneschool.com/
They're pivoting, so to speak.
The whole structure of antitrust regulation is, by negligence or design, weird and weak. #1 Why does there need to be a plaintiff? A trust affects consumers and society broadly detrimentally, not some specific competitor. The competitor google is likely trying to suppress is some theoretical startup anyway, they probably don't exist to sue. #2 Why the focus on specific damages? The specific harm of such a trust are i…
so it seems to me that disastrously bad regulation has created self-sustaining monsters. which market worshiping politician would dare burst that multi trn-bubble?
”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…
But, the revenue Apple get from the deal/trust with Google is better than MSFT or Yahoo ever got by competing with them. It's also easy, risk free and pure profit. So, the deal essentially ensures that Apple will not compete.
Apple now also have an interest in maintaining their (alleged) trust. It's now in both parties interest to maintain Google's dominance of the space. It's also in both their interest to have a large ad market. Competition is not necessarily head-2-head. If Apple couldn't make money by funneling user to Google, they might prefer to just suppress ads. I'm sure if they asked users, users would want that. "Phone with fewer ads, ad-related tracking, etc.) is a potential selling point.
IANAL, and more to the point, I dislike both legal framework around antitrust and the intellectual framework implied by much of it. There's just a lot more to monopoly than either take into account.
Such deals are, IMO, evidence that monopoly^ in general is to the detriment of competition, innovation, churn and other such positive market outcomes. I also think more monopoly is concerning on "free culture" grounds, it perculates to politics/government, etc. Lets leave those aside though.
Apple & Google themselves were only able to innovate and prosper because monopolies did not yet control the microcomputer or the web. App stores, OTOH...
*Meant broadly. Read, Trust, cartel oligopoly, monopsony, bigness...