This is some EU-smelling shite.
U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. The first one I heard about[1] was IBM versus Memorex which was making IBM 360 "compatible" disk drives. IBM lost and it generated some solid case law that has been relied on in this sort of prosecution. In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of…
> This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. Maybe they should be. Our societies are ostensibly consumer-centric. It's about time our laws and organisations strongly sided with consumers against any opposition, especially against business.
Yes, historically the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and the Clayton Act (1914) define the roll of "regulated capitalism" rather than simply "free market capitalism". There has been a continuous battle between people who wanted to get infinitely wealthy by exploiting their dominance and the Government ever since.
I've had some great conversations with folks about why this form of "American Capitalism" is the most efficient economic engine with regard to an industrial economy. As a system, this, and a graduated taxation that provides a damping function on "infinite wealth" and feeds it into government services has the potential to create an economy where everyone has a chance to get rich, and everyone's basic needs are met. That combination maximizes participation in the economy and thus GDP.
The macroeconomics class I took spent several weeks on this relationship and the "Great Courses" economics class also talks about it.
The challenge is that rich men (typically its men) don't like being told they can't do something, or told they have to do something which will reduce their total wealth, and they respond by corrupting legislators into changing the rules.
It isn't "good" or "bad" per se, some people always eat all the cookies if they think they can get away with it. As a systems analyst though the system is an excellent study in 'tuning.' In theory, as a government maximizing GDP is a goal because the more GDP the more gets done the happier people are, etc etc. Technology strongly affected the rate of change of wealth, people who were middle class at a startup suddenly being in the top 10% in terms of wealth over the course of a few years, rather than a life time of work and savings. Others leveraging their wealth in technology startups having it rocket them into the 1%.[1] Something that the US system of laws does not do well is respond to changes "quickly" (my lawyer friends tell me that is a design feature not a bug). But as we saw with Microsoft's antitrust case they do respond eventually.
[1] Back in the dot com days there was an article in Wired about the "Billionaire Boys Club" which talked about members of the several VC firms whose net worth had ballooned to over a billion dollars.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#793Apple frustrates the hell out of me with their deceptive tactics to create walled gardens while pretending not to. They feign ignorance to keep you stuck and create the illusion of open doors out of their walled garden that are actually broken and they have no interest in fixing. I've been paying for iCloud for my wife's iphone for the last several months because of how difficult Apple makes it for us to export our p…
I simply installed Google Photos app and now every single iphone photo is automatically synced to my google account. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
I believe Google Photos visibly downgrades the quality of your images, so it is not a viable option if you care about preserving the originals.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#794For folks who don't have time to read a 90 page document, the case rests on specific claims, not just the general claim that iPhone is a monopoly because it's so big. Here are those claims: 1. "Super Apps" Apple has restrictions on what they allow on the App Store as far as "Super Apps", which are apps that might offer a wide variety of different services (specifically, an app which has several "mini programs" within…
Interesting, I've had 2 Garmin Smart Watches and never felt like Apple was restricting them. I am curious what things the iPhone does that others aren't allowed to do. Most of the differences between Garmin and Apple Watch seem like they were conscious decisions where they each decided to take a different direction. It's one of those weird things where it seems like the case has a bunch of holes. You can use an iPhon…
I've had friends that have trouble syncing their Garmin devices with syncing to their iPhone. I've wondered if this is caused by their wireless communication protocol that is proprietary and only available on other apple devices.
Airpods and other bluetooth Apple devices seamlessly sync with iPhones because of a wireless protocol they use that is only available on Apple devices. I forget what it's called, but this definitely limits connectivity of devices that aren't made by Apple.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#795It's wild to me to see people defending Apple in the comments here. 60% of Americans own a phone they're not allowed to install third party apps on, and the ONLY way to get apps is to pay a 30% fee to Apple on every purchase. Imagine if Windows allowed you to only install apps acquired through their store, and with the same 30% fee. Microsoft literally had a huge anti trust case against them for simply setting a defa…
What no one seems to be able to explain to my satisfaction is why this logic doesn't also apply to game consoles. The "well they sell it at a loss" argument is not persuasive. That's Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft's choice as a business, it's not the government's role to make their loss-leader business model possible.
Consumers are not terribly harmed by this because gaming is a leisure activity while smartphones are critical components of everyday life. Also, no game company has billions of users and there are several players with little moat who actually have to compete to win users so prices come down even if there isn't much cross OS play.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#796> The government even has the right to ask for a breakup… I really dislike statements like this. They could ask even without the “right to ask.” Having the “right to ask” doesn’t guarantee the request will be honored. How does this “right to ask for a breakup” actually affect the story?
But if they didn't have the right and asked there'd be almost no chance of success while if they do have the right to ask there's a positive chance of success. So of course it's meaningful. It's an available avenue and one worth mentioning.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#797The blue background on messages sent between two iMessage users has to be one of the most brilliant vendor lock-in strategies. It is an artificial form of discrimination. I feel a slight annoyance whenever a non-Apple user forms a group chat as I know that person will limit the messaging functionality. In my opinion, the "monopolistic" aspect of it comes down to the fact that they tied it into an otherwise open messa…
> The blue background on messages sent between two iMessage users has to be one of the most brilliant vendor lock-in strategies. It is an artificial form of discrimination. This is, always has been, and will always remain bullshit. The problem isn't the blue vs green background. It would be the same if the backgrounds were purple and gold, red and gray, or just both blue. The problem is the different capabilities bet…
Well, sure, "green and blue background" is a proxy for "SMS capabilites and iMessage capabilities".
People aren't protesting the actual primary colors of green or blue.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#798It's wild to me to see people defending Apple in the comments here. 60% of Americans own a phone they're not allowed to install third party apps on, and the ONLY way to get apps is to pay a 30% fee to Apple on every purchase. Imagine if Windows allowed you to only install apps acquired through their store, and with the same 30% fee. Microsoft literally had a huge anti trust case against them for simply setting a defa…
What no one seems to be able to explain to my satisfaction is why this logic doesn't also apply to game consoles. The "well they sell it at a loss" argument is not persuasive. That's Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft's choice as a business, it's not the government's role to make their loss-leader business model possible.
> What no one seems to be able to explain to my satisfaction is why this logic doesn't also apply to game consoles.
Sony is currently facing antitrust litigation in multiple jurisdictions over it; more generally, the fact that a particular other actor has not yet been successfully sued under a law for actions similar to those for which some actor is currently being sued does not mean the law does not apply to their actions. It just means they haven't been successfully sued yet.
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#799It seems like they do not like vertical integration
Re: U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
#800Earlier quoted context omitted.
This feels like it reflects similar actions taken against companies that are dominant in a market. The first one I heard about[1] was IBM versus Memorex which was making IBM 360 "compatible" disk drives. IBM lost and it generated some solid case law that has been relied on in this sort of prosecution. In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of…
> In the IBM case it opened up an entire industry of third party "compatible" peripherals and saved consumers a ton of money I’m curious what market opportunities the Apple suit could open up. - Xbox cloud game streaming - WeChat like super apps w e-commerce (X wanted to do this play but more likely Facebook Messenger and the like) - iMessage on android - a receipt tracking app or something directly tied into Apple P…
I would be happy if iMessage threads could be exported and saved.
if I was going to dream big, I would like to point the iCloud hooks to a personal server instead of apple in a meaningful way.