431–440 of 1001 posts
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>They're on the wrong side of history. Say that to their market cap. Seems a lot of people appreciate what comes with that drawback. Revealed preferences can be a sonuvabitch.
Yep, this is an unpopular HN opinion, but I actually like Apple's walled garden. It's safe, it's friendly and I don't have to worry.
Apple is writing their own death sentence here. Beeper Mini's case will definitely be used against them when their anti-monopoly case inevitably comes about: 1. Forcing a monopoly when they force-migrated their users to iMessage 2. Maintaining said monopoly by keeping third parties out Best thing they could do is put third party clients into a MFI like program and loads of red tape.
A case against a monopoly with a minority market share. Good luck with that!
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> But… shouldn’t mostly everyone here view needing the EU to force the behaviour of a US company kind of against the entire supposed benefit of the US system and the purpose of the domain this forum is hosted on? European here. From my POV it seems as if the USA have forgotten that for a truly free market to exist, there needs to be serious oversight to prevent capitalism from devolving into "corporate Darwinism" - a…
Where are you coming up with these theories? A capitalist economy needs the government for some very key laws like upholding private property rights but how does that extend to "mandating interoperable message systems"?
By simply looking at the general state of the US economy that has lost competition across the board over the last decades as large companies consolidated to form extremely large behemoths that dominate their respective markets (e.g. Boeing for aircraft, Microsoft for computer operating systems and office software, Meta for social media, Walmart for groceries, Google for search, Cargill/Tyson/JBS in agriculture, AA/Delta/Southwest/United in airlines), use both legal and illegal (such as wage collusion) tactics to cement their marketshare, and extract ruinously low purchase prices from their vendors. This shit used to be different, with lots of competition and resulting innovation, not even a few decades ago.
> A capitalist economy needs the government for some very key laws like upholding private property rights but how does that extend to "mandating interoperable message systems"?
Easy. Apple has a very popular product that they (ab)use to push its users to push their friends to get themselves iPhones. Breaking up their stronghold over iMessage would allow Android users to communicate on their devices with people who own iPhones, and it would lead to a flurry of competing messenger applications.
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So "monopoly" as a single entity controlling a single market is a simplistic view of the issue at hand. Anti-trust is far broader than that, where any anticompetitive action can be subject to anti-trust lawsuits/regulatory action. So the legal argument would be that, because Apple allows for a single messaging app, and interacting with that app requires an iphone, they're effectively preventing messaging app competit…
> Apple allows for a single messaging app Do you mean that Apple doesn't allow third-party SMS apps? Because there are lots of messaging apps on iOS.
Apple Messages is not an SMS application; it's an internet messaging application that falls back to SMS messages when communicating with any non-iOS device. There are some situations where there may be no data network and, maybe, it falls back to sending an SMS message to another iOS device but this is pretty rare.
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So "monopoly" as a single entity controlling a single market is a simplistic view of the issue at hand. Anti-trust is far broader than that, where any anticompetitive action can be subject to anti-trust lawsuits/regulatory action. So the legal argument would be that, because Apple allows for a single messaging app, and interacting with that app requires an iphone, they're effectively preventing messaging app competit…
> Apple allows for a single messaging app Do you mean that Apple doesn't allow third-party SMS apps? Because there are lots of messaging apps on iOS.
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This aspect is ignored, because it's clear that Apple blocks third-party clients to maintain its dominant position in the US (social unacceptability of green bubbles among teens). If cost was the problem, they could offer a subscription.
It's pretty clear why they don't want an android iMessage app. In this case, what beeper enables (if successful) potentially is to use Apple's infra for future communication between android to android phones, or android to iMessage groups, while on Apple's infra and dime. Beeper will likely collect a fee for it as well. Thats not a position Apple would want to be in.
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> A security hole existed that permitted Beeper to pretend to be your Apple device. _An_ Apple device. Not _your_ Apple device.
"Hey, I'm /u/ceejayoz's new iPhone! Bwahahahahahaha. Ahem. I promise I'm really the iMessage client you're expecting. Start sending me a copy of all their potentially sensitive messages." Again, how do we not classify that as a security issue?
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They're either going to keep getting their access cut, or sued into bankruptcy. You can't really piggyback off another companies service in violation of their TOS without things working out poorly for you IMO.
>sued into bankruptcy Good luck with that. I'd like to see this play out in court with a technically inclined judge. Be careful what you wish for.
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>They're on the wrong side of history. Say that to their market cap. Seems a lot of people appreciate what comes with that drawback. Revealed preferences can be a sonuvabitch.
I will say that to their market cap. Such an insane capitalization on digital sales can only be achieved by extinguishing the alternatives your platform can host. It's a regressive featureset that can (apparently) only be reversed through legislative demands a-la Digital Market Act. Many, many companies have had huge market caps while funding anti-humanist or exploitative processes. Given Apple's scale you almost hav…
Apple's market cap is built on something like 80% hardware sales by revenue.
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How is this an actionable anti-trust issue? iMessage doesn't even register as a messaging platform in the minds of most users globally. In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms. Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service? The purpose of anti-trust is to increase competition and prevent unlawful monopolies. Apple…
> In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms Maybe because it comes preinstalled?