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Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

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Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#131

Post by michaelmrose »

Spivak wrote: post #98
holy_city wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And if that’s true, then where’s the line between that and “each app you purchase is purchased from its own little stall in this digital mall, which is owned and operated by the software author”? Is there one? To use your analogy, the line is if someone can set up their own shop outside the mall. As a consumer, if I have no way to avoid purchasing from a store inside a single mall then I'm effectively purchasing fro…

How do you resolve this with the fact that exclusives exist and are tolerated in just about every industry. You can only buy the new Jordan's from X stores, only available on PS4, exclusively at Target, etc. And places that sell things are well within their right to choose their vendors unless you want to demand that the BMV dealership be leglly required to sell Ford trucks if Ford desired. Put exclusivity and vendor…

The argument discussed was literally Apple trying to argue that you aren't their customer for the purpose of legal liability while you pay them money to install apps from their store on a device they configured to only be able to buy from their store.

This decision makes clear that legal weasels lost.

Understanding next steps requires constructing the argument correctly. One could ask why should Apple be forced to open "their" phone for example. This too would be weasel words because nobody on earth is asking Apple to open the phones in their pockets.

A more reasonable person might ask that Apple allow owners to control THEIR OWN PHONES.

You ask erroneously if BMW should have to stock ford Trucks. This isn't remotely analogous. This is asking if BMW owners ought to have to go to a BMW gas station, seek repairs only at BMW owned service stations. Listen to BWM approved music on BMW approved stereos.

Fundamentally using control of a users device after sale to maximize future revenue is inappropriate and the only remedy is to give users full control.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#132

Post by microcolonel »

jcranmer wrote: post #4

For those who don't want to read the opinion: SCOTUS holds that Apple can be sued for alleged monopoly of the Apple App Store. It does not decide whether or not this alleged monopoly exist. Interestingly, it's a 5-4 decision, with Kavanaugh writing the decision, joined by the 4 liberal justices. Probably the most unexpected alignment of the current term!

> Probably the most unexpected alignment of the current term!

Not so! There are many decisions by Kavanaugh that "liberals" (it's weird to me that they're called than in the U.S.) will have trouble predicting the opinions of conservatives [0].

“Who was best able to pretend to be the other?

The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as "very liberal." The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the care and fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives. When faced with statements such as "one of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal" or "justice is the most important requirement for a society," liberals assumed that conservatives would disagree.”

And they're probably even worse at this now than they were in 2012, if the inanity of the mainstream moral caricatures is anything to go by.

[0]: https://reason.com/2012/04/10/born-this-way

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#133

Post by binaryblitz »

NowThenGoodBad wrote: post #110
khawkins wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that he sided with the liberal justices in favor of Planned Parenthood was less expected [1]. Especially considering his hearings were plagued with disruptions and protests from pro-choice activists. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/10/supreme-court-plan...

If I had to guess, he knows that when things turn back around, he wants any and all reasons for people to be on his side. Keep a close eye on his decisions post 2020.

Supreme Court justices are appointed for life. There would be no reason to rule either way based on the election cycle. That's the whole point.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#134

Post by Fellshard »

pier25 wrote: post #115
derefr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you’re implying, but tweak one little thing and the answer seems vastly different: Instead of an Apple device, say you’re using a Google-manufactured Android device (something-or-other), and have installed a third-party App Store on it. But that third-party App Store turns around and uses Google Pay as its payment processor. All the same qualifications still apply: you essentially used a “Google POS device…

The difference is that the hypothetical third party Android App Store could use any payment service it wanted, or even the user could use any App Store it preferred. With iOS not only you can't buy from a third party, you can't even install an app that hasn't been signed by Apple.

I would argue the point of consumer choice is at device selection. If they choose the ecosystem with the heavy markup, when they had alternatives, then they are responsible for incurring their own additional costs. The information is public regarding app costs between devices and marketplaces. This seems to me a bad ruling based on that.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#135

Post by burfog »

hadrien01 wrote: post #105
davidu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that when compared to alternative, qualified, right-leaning candidates, he was the most moderate. This is just based on people I know who have worked with him and tried cases in front of him.

He's the second most right-leaning Supreme Court justice: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-conservative-is-bre...

That is a year old, guessing based on what he did before being appointed. His actual votes put him much closer to the middle.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#136

Post by DannyBee »

macleginn wrote: post #83
DannyBee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is mostly irrelevant to this part of the case, which was about standing. Your parent comment (which is getting downvoted) is correct. Under previous precedent (Illinois Brick), only app developers would have standing to sue, and that is what apple argued should happen here.

How can this be irrelevant to this part of the case if this is precisely why, as per Apple, end users don't have standing? The court rejects this argument and points out that who sets the prices is actually a technicality, which is less important than who buys from whom.

The parent comment is not talking about standing in a meaningful way. It talks about whether Apple should be "liable for the monopolistic effects"

"liable for the monopolistic effects" != standing. Standing is literally about "who has the right to sue at all".

Not whether they are liable or not. That comes later.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#137

Post by [deleted] »

kolbe wrote: post #126
khawkins wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fact that he sided with the liberal justices in favor of Planned Parenthood was less expected [1]. Especially considering his hearings were plagued with disruptions and protests from pro-choice activists. [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/10/supreme-court-plan...

It shouldn't be surprising. Nothing about his testimony or judicial history indicated he would be particularly conservative on women's rights.

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#138

Post by DannyBee »

bradstewart wrote: post #57
DannyBee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's technically true because there is no real intermediary in apple's case (the "retailer" in your example). It's illusory. (this is also what the court found) Also keep in mind that various kinds of price fixing by manufacturers (IE forcing retailers to sell at a certain price) are also subject to antitrust arguments. It's simply no longer "per-se" illegal. For a long time, the precedent was that various forms of p…

How is there no "real" intermediary? To purchase a product I go to an Apple owned-and-operated store, give Apple my credit card, and receive an item that's been packaged and signed by Apple tools from an Apple server.

I mean (as the court did) intermediary between apple and the consumer. Which you yourself have shown is illusory :)

Apple's claim is in large part that the transaction is not between them and the consumer, but they are basically just off to the side somewhere. Again, in historical precedent like Illinois Brick, that is most certainly correct, and you can bet money the app store was structured in precisely the way it was to try to fall under that precedent.

However, that illusion of being off to the side is clearly false from a practical perspective, as you have shown, and in the end, that is what lost them the case.

Apple took the precedent to the logical extreme, and when you do that, you run the risk of the supreme court saying "yeah, actually, that goes against what we were trying to accomplish in the first place be". Which they did here: in the abstract, they actually say "yeah, we get it, but that that makes no sense in practice".

(Hopefully lyft/uber/etc are paying attention, because they seem to expect the courts to let them take their "we're just app makers" argument to the logical extreme in a different legal context)

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#140

Post by blendergeek »

derefr wrote: post #28
cabaalis wrote: post #5

Am I reading correctly that this argument has now been going on for 8 years, or at minimum nearly 6? [1] An argument about who I am buying from when I type my credit card into Apple's system, click a purchase button on an Apple device, and then use the results of that purchase solely on Apple devices? [1] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-204

I see what you’re implying, but tweak one little thing and the answer seems vastly different: Instead of an Apple device, say you’re using a Google-manufactured Android device (something-or-other), and have installed a third-party App Store on it. But that third-party App Store turns around and uses Google Pay as its payment processor. All the same qualifications still apply: you essentially used a “Google POS device…

> tweak one little thing

> [you] have installed a third-party App Store on it.

I believe that is more than "one little thing". Here is why: Plantiffs say that Apple's decision to be the sole source of apps for the iPhone is monopolisitc. In your scenario, the purchaser is buying apps from a third party, not affiliated with Google. So, no, a third party cannot be possibly "legally Google". Critically in your scenario, "you were just using an arbitrary Android device" and "Google, to them, is just the payment-processor they chose to use" and most critically "they could have just-as-well used PayPal or Stripe." So, I believe the facts of your case are very very far from the facts of the Apple case.

Hypothetical Google Case: - Third Party App Store - Multiple competing payment solution

Actual Apple Case: - Only one app store by order of manufacturer/OEM/OS Vendor - Only one payment processor (who is the app store)

In the scenario with Google, google is no more involved in the purchase than mastercard is in your purchase at Walmart.

In the scenario with Apple, the app developer is no more involved with your purchase than the book author is on Amazon (when you buy directly from Amazon). You purchase FROM APPLE.

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