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Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

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Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#201

Post by xenadu02 »

grawprog wrote: post #196
braythwayt wrote: post #67

Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. Which one is is? Apple is like T…

>Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. What about 3? Apple's products…

> underpowered

Are you positing that someone manufactures a better and faster SOC for mobile devices?

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#202

Post by mtgx »

braythwayt wrote: post #67

Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. Which one is is? Apple is like T…

Call it monopoly, monopsony, or neither of those.

At the end of the day it's about a company's abuse of power against users and smaller competitors, and that's what matters. If you get confused when this begins being called "monopoly" because you have a different idea of what a monopoly is, then stop calling it that.

It's about an abuse of power, pure and simple, and the bigger the company and its stranglehold on its users and developers, the more it can abuse that power. Government, the people's representatives (at least in theory), should have every right to deal with that.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#203

Post by mrep »

wheelie_boy wrote: post #184
simion314 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we could get side loading on console.

The fixed hardware that is long-lived and affordable is possible because the hardware manufacturer subsidizes it, especially at the beginning. If they were not able to rely on money from game sales, the hardware would be much more expensive. An alternative way for companies to make money manufacturing gaming hardware is to keep the prices low until there are a lot of great games for the system, and then jack up the h…

And it is anti-competitive business model. By selling the consoles at such a low price that you cannot make a profit on them and then relying on a volume of game sales to effectively extract your rent from, it by design limits the number of companies that can compete that way because there is a limited number of game sales.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#204

Post by grawprog »

xenadu02 wrote: post #201
grawprog wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. What about 3? Apple's products…

> underpowered Are you positing that someone manufactures a better and faster SOC for mobile devices?

>And then there's the whole culture of snobbery surrounding Apple and their products that has existed since at least the mid-late 90's about how superior Apple products are to everything else always that's just kind of grated on me...well since then.

>Are you positing that someone manufactures a better and faster SOC for mobile devices?

Thanks for proving my point.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#205

Post by cforrester »

Hello71 wrote: post #194
joefourier wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only heard of this happening in the US and Canada. Outside of North America, everyone uses Whatsapp, which supports group messaging on every platform. I'd be curious to know why it hasn't penetrated into those countries.

It has not been my experience that everybody in China uses WhatsApp.

Do you suppose they mostly use WeChat there?

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#206

Post by rocqua »

olliej wrote: post #30
m463 wrote: post #2

so: - monopoly: the only seller - monopsony: the only buyer So app store customers can only buy from apple. And the app developers can only sell to apple.

PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, sega, ... are the same: You can only sell for those devices with manufacturer licensing (that includes profit sharing and mandatory annoyances like “achievements”), and consumers can only buy games licensed by those manufacturers. The only difference is that PC developers haven’t experienced that before. It seems like this would have been established in the 80s/90s, so I’m surprised we’re…

Game consoles are not an important part of almost the entire population. Smartphones are. Hence, they get more visibility. Moreover, smartphones tend to be more critical in our lives. Hence, they get more priority.

Hence, people might not have thought it was worth it / important before, but they do now.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#207

Post by smhenderson »

grawprog wrote: post #196
braythwayt wrote: post #67

Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. Which one is is? Apple is like T…

>Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument: 1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it. 2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c. What about 3? Apple's products…

I don't disagree with your opinions on Apple and their products but what in your list of bad things about them is actually illegal?

Apple's products are overpriced and underpowered, locked down devices sold as fashion statements or 'lifestyle' accessories that are more like toys for rich people than the miniature computers they're supposed to be.

There is nothing illegal about selling rich people toys or dumbing down a device to make it appeal to a certain type of customer.

I have never really cared for Apple products in general and also think they are over priced for what you get but for me that just means I don't buy them, I don't really begrudge them making money off a customer base I just don't fit into.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#208

Post by viklove »

simias wrote: post #134
teekert wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has to do with the fact that the US (and Canada) very early on had unlimited texting plans, and iMessage would make use of that (iPhones just send texts for iMessages in absence of a data connection). WhatsApp can only use data, which is cheaper and used to be unlimited (that's gone) in the EU. In contrast, texting was and still is insanely expensive in the EU (per byte it is staggering even, compared to n…

>WhatsApp can only use data, which is cheaper and used to be unlimited (that's gone) in the EU. In contrast, texting was and still is insanely expensive in the EU (per byte it is staggering even, compared to normal data). You need to specify where in the EU, because it doesn't mirror my experience in France for instance. Data used to be very expensive while there were no shortages of plans with near-unlimited texts.…

You really don't need to specify where in the EU, because there are vastly more people in France communicating regularly with people in other neighboring countries. If you need to specify where in the EU, then you need to specify where in the US as well, because France is about the size of a single US state.

Americans mostly talk to other Americans, who also have unlimited texting plans. French people are probably talking to people who live in Belgium, Germany, the UK, Spain, etc. who will all encourage them to use WhatsApp.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#209

Post by selectodude »

ubermonkey wrote: post #154
p49k wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is not like Tesla; iPhones are often touted as a “luxury brand” but the truth is that they offer products of quality that are roughly in proportion to their pricing, and their high margins are due to better/more efficient operations than their competitors. A phone is such an essential tool in one’s life and priced low enough that it makes sense to invest in a product that is of good quality. Most people can aff…

>you don’t lose a lifetime of app purchases, movies, songs and books when switching products That's a really alarmist (and counterfactual) way of framing this. Yes, if you change computing platforms, you generally need to replace software. OH NO. I don't see a need for regulatory intervention based on that. Deciding to ditch the iPhone for an Android has utterly no bearing on your ability to watch TV or movies purcha…

Apple Music even works on Android and the app is pretty darn good.

Re: Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it

#210

Post by ubermonkey »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #200
ubermonkey wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While this is certainly true, computers and especially mobile ones need to allow consumers to run whatever software they want period. GOOD LORD NO. Apple's curation of the iOS environment is a FEATURE for me, not a bug. It leads to drastically increased stability and security, and means I don't have to sysadmin my telephone. I'll fight whoever suggests this is a good model for the desktop, but on the phone it's EXAC…

> Apple's curation of the iOS environment is a FEATURE for me, not a bug. It leads to drastically increased stability and security, and means I don't have to sysadmin my telephone. That's fine. So why shouldn't it be possible to install apps on iOS via Google Play or Amazon, and if you trust only Apple you could just not use those? > Uh, no. Android phones are generally CHEAPER, so why does it take "money" to leave i…

It could be possible, but I see no reason to compel it. If you want other stores, use a different platform.
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