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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

#281

Post by robbrown451 »

Fellshard wrote: post #278
robbrown451 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a choice between two monopolistic platforms, frankly. Your purchasing decisions are not mutually exclusive with action from courts and legislators and voters and such. And, especially if you take into account that market theory as well as game theory tends to view individuals as rational agents pursuing self interest (1), a pure free market approach simply does not effectively curtail monopolistic and other…

As a user, I can freely sideload onto Android devices, or even use custom Google-free distributions. This argument is incomplete.

And a court would likely take that into account. They might even consider that you have the right to fabricate your own phone, and write the operating system from scratch.

Luckily courts take into accounts the barriers inherent in such things. If few enough people do such things because the difficulty of doing so makes them impractical for most people, they give appropriately low weight to such arguments.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#282

Post by PierceJoy »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #237
delinka wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this debate is interesting, but I don't expect Apple to be happy about the final outcome. A developer publishing solely on Apple's App Store (and relying solely on Apple features to provide functionality) has no direct access to the customer* - Apple prevents that fairly well. In this case, I feel like, as a consumer, I'm Apple's customer. I think courts, and especially juries, would agree. That said, I don't…

The app store is a monopoly because its the only app store you can use on an apple phone. There is no other way to find, pay for, or download apps as an apple phone user.

This argument fails because consumers have ample choice in what phones they want to use. You can just as easily purchase an Android phone and not have to play by Apple's rules.

Yes, Apple has a monopoly over iPhones. They do have a monopoly over phones.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#283

Post by milkytron »

mr_toad wrote: post #280
shmerl wrote: post #252

Can anyone now blast Apple on anti-trust grounds, for banning competing browsers in their store? When Apple want to sabotage universal adoption of certain technology (such as DASH for video streaming), they can avoid implementing needed components on the client side in their engine, forcing everyone who wants to target iOS (a sizable chunk of the Web market) to support their own technology instead of only something e…

On the one hand I dislike that Safari has a monopoly in iOS, but I fear the alternative is a de-facto monopoly for Chrome, which could be even worse.

What happened to Firefox?

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#284

Post by intopieces »

hmage wrote: post #124
intopieces wrote: post #109

If Apple were to be required to allow third party App Stores or side loading apps, could it legally deny interoperability with Apple services as a “security measure,” like a sandbox? For example, you can download a game, but it won’t hook into their gaming social network. No ability to share in iMessage, or sync data to iCloud. Basically cripple the apps so that for the end user it isn’t worth saving the money on the…

In my experience, if there's an option to ask same price everywhere, sellers will do that. So on app store it will cost (for example) 4.99$, and on third party app store without 30% cut, the developers will still set the price of 4.99$. The only kind of place I've seen prices less than MSRP is discount stores like cdkeys. For example, try to find microsoft windows that costs less than MSRP -- on all stores, first par…

If this is the case, I see no particular reason to go through the hassle of a 3rd party App Store or side loading on iPhone. But, my time vs $ saved equation is different from lots of people, so I suppose it would appeal to some users at even a 10% discount or less.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#285

Post by shmerl »

mr_toad wrote: post #280
shmerl wrote: post #252

Can anyone now blast Apple on anti-trust grounds, for banning competing browsers in their store? When Apple want to sabotage universal adoption of certain technology (such as DASH for video streaming), they can avoid implementing needed components on the client side in their engine, forcing everyone who wants to target iOS (a sizable chunk of the Web market) to support their own technology instead of only something e…

On the one hand I dislike that Safari has a monopoly in iOS, but I fear the alternative is a de-facto monopoly for Chrome, which could be even worse.

Firefox could be released for iOS if not for this ban.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#286

Post by chungleong »

lalos wrote: post #9

Question: How can Apple have a monopoly if a customer can decide to buy a competitor's phone to use as they please (Android, etc). That's where I get lost. The Windows/Netscape made sense since the claim was that Windows dominated the market almost completely (around 90% on those times?). Can I sue any other hardware device company (smart fridges, smart tvs, rokus) for monopoly since I can't load my own apps on them?…

That's why the suit will probably fail in the end. In terms of app selection, Android is not inferior to iOS. People aren't choosing Apple's products because they have no other choice. They're buying them BECAUSE Apple has tighter control over the platform. If the company conducts a survey asking iPhone users if they want Play Store on their phone, I suspect the vast majority would vote no. The choice to install malware isn't one that people want.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#287

Post by 3xblah »

"But Illinois Brick is not a get-out-of-court free card for monopolistic retailers to play anytime that a damages calculation might be complicated."

A reference to the American board game "Monopoly" and its "Get out of jail free" card. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#288

Post by anfilt »

chungleong wrote: post #286
lalos wrote: post #9

Question: How can Apple have a monopoly if a customer can decide to buy a competitor's phone to use as they please (Android, etc). That's where I get lost. The Windows/Netscape made sense since the claim was that Windows dominated the market almost completely (around 90% on those times?). Can I sue any other hardware device company (smart fridges, smart tvs, rokus) for monopoly since I can't load my own apps on them?…

That's why the suit will probably fail in the end. In terms of app selection, Android is not inferior to iOS. People aren't choosing Apple's products because they have no other choice. They're buying them BECAUSE Apple has tighter control over the platform. If the company conducts a survey asking iPhone users if they want Play Store on their phone, I suspect the vast majority would vote no. The choice to install malw…

Sorry since when is a closed platform a good choice? No one is saying you have to use an other App store. Apple is saying you can't even someone wants to.

The only option is to Jailbreak your own device. Yes your own device not Apples.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#289

Post by Mirioron »

eridius wrote: post #270
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is (allegedly) monopolising a market, which is not the same as skimming a percentage off transactions, and damages do not have to be estimated as a straightforward percentage of all transactions. A monopoly has structural implications which could disadvantage both customers and developers in ways that go beyond paying x% Apple Tax on each sale. For example - opportunity costs for both developers and customers,…

The problem with the "monopolizing a market" idea is the fact that "Apple devices" is not a meaningful market, and within the actual "smartphone" market Apple very clearly does not have a monopoly.

Why is "Apple devices" not a separate market when it comes to apps? Apps made for Apple devices can't be used on other devices without changes.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#290

Post by remarkEon »

Kye wrote: post #220
dang wrote: post #181

The opinion is here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-204_bq7d.pdf . (That was the posted URL, but it's usually best to find the highest-quality popular article on a story and then include a link to the "paper" in the thread. If anyone finds a better URL we can change it again—I just Googled until I found something that wasn't too annoying.)

SCOTUSBlog is my go-to source for all SCOTUS news and discussion. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/05/opinion-analysis-divided-...

The audio overlay with the transcript is always amazing.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-204

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