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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

#31

Post by pentae »

DannyBee wrote: post #10

I wrote comments on this case here in the past, and not gonna rewrite them, so here is the TL;DR: This was not unexpected but precedent was on Apple's side. Apple was basically playing the "whoa, we don't sell apps, we just make an app store. They buy apps from the developers" card. This is technically true. In that situation, Illinois Brick/etc would normally say consumers cannot sue you, only app developers can. Mo…

> Apple was basically playing the "whoa, we don't sell apps, we just make an app store. They buy apps from the developers" card. This is technically true.

How is it technically true? Apple collects the payment and takes a cut. Yes, the developer gets to set their prices, but I don't see this as any different to manufacturers of products setting their cost price for retailers, who then go and apply their markup to it.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#32

Post by kevin_b_er »

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

Yes. The entire crux of Apple's argument is that you aren't Apple's customer.

The true motives of a corporation often come out in court.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#33

Post by beart »

davidu wrote: post #21
charliemil4 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: friends, apologies for upsetting... first, I find the accusations horrendous. I am more just amused that K chose to write the opinion. Politics is a funny game. It’s hard to swallow, but we need a third constitutional convention because this stuff is wrecked in the us.

Prior to the confirmation insanity, Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides. All the confirmation hearings did was potentially radicalize him to the right. One of the best things about being a supreme court judge is that he no longer has to care about being reappointed or elected. He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

> Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides

What is this based on? Everything I've read up to today, even ignoring the confirmation events, has indicated that Kavanaugh is not a desirable choice for those on the left side of the political spectrum.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#34

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#35

Post by simonh »

For those downvoting bitwize, get a life. This is an accurate and impartial explanation of the arguments actually at stake in the legal case, clarifying an ambiguity in the post it's replying to.

Apple has two possible customers in this issue - the developers it provides distribution services to and the consumers that buy the apps. The point in question is which of these two customers has standing to sue on the basis of the specific harm in question. Under US law the answer cannot be both.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#36

Post by ltbarcly3 »

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?…

To my understanding, anti-trust laws are generally designed to discourage the ability of companies to use success in one area to capture customers and thus have monopolistic pricing ability in another area.

In this case I think it is going to be a hard sell to demonstrate an anti-trust issue, but "A vertical arrangement may violate the antitrust laws, however, if it reduces competition among firms at the same level (say among retailers or among wholesalers) or prevents new firms from entering the market."[1]

I think claiming that Apple has some kind of monopoly on the smartphone market is a nonstarter, since they are well below 50% of the smartphone market in every country, including the US.

It's not clear that Apple's policies reduce competition among firms at the application creator level. However, Apples policies clearly do prevent new firms from entering the market. For example, Apple has explicit rules forbidding entire classes of apps that it believes compete with it's own services.

I think you might be able to make the following case, although the lack of an actual monopoly makes it more difficult (but not impossible) to frame it as an anti-trust issue: The levels of this vertical integration are 1. selling phone hardware 2. providing phone operating systems 3. reselling of applications (app stores) 4. production and sale of applications (app developers). Apple doesn't allow competing app stores at all on the hardware it sells, so it's clearly using it's control of a large segment of the smartphone hardware selling market in a way that discourages competition in the application store market.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#37

Post by criddell »

sethhochberg wrote: post #19
kbf wrote: post #15

How can Apple’s App Store prices be monopolistic if the App Store has driven software prices so low that a lot of developers are having a hard time making money? Before the App Store, software licenses for Mac software could be priced in the $40-$70 range for software that might have had feature parity with what you get in a $3-$10 app on iOS these days. That’s not even taking into account the fact that paying for a…

Nobody has ruled on whether the practices are actually monopolistic or not - this ruling just allows a suit against Apple to proceed, which will then make that determination about their business practices. The debate in this case was all about whether the end user was Apple's customer (thus able to sue Apple directly) or the developer's customer.

There's nothing illegal about having a monopoly, is there? Don't you have to abuse that power before regulators step in?

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#38

Post by jpmattia »

davidu wrote: post #21
charliemil4 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: friends, apologies for upsetting... first, I find the accusations horrendous. I am more just amused that K chose to write the opinion. Politics is a funny game. It’s hard to swallow, but we need a third constitutional convention because this stuff is wrecked in the us.

Prior to the confirmation insanity, Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides. All the confirmation hearings did was potentially radicalize him to the right. One of the best things about being a supreme court judge is that he no longer has to care about being reappointed or elected. He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

> He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

As of last week, Rasmussen (a conservative polling firm) was sampling support for impeachment of Kavanaugh.

It's possible that Kavanaugh is completely ignoring the topic, and has dedicated himself to the high-minded topic of jurisprudence. It's also possible that he is aware of such polling and is building support should the winds change.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#39

Post by [deleted] »

bena wrote: post #29
davidu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to the confirmation insanity, Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides. All the confirmation hearings did was potentially radicalize him to the right. One of the best things about being a supreme court judge is that he no longer has to care about being reappointed or elected. He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

That's an interesting rewriting of history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_Supreme_Court_...

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#40

Post by davidu »

joezydeco wrote: post #30
davidu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to the confirmation insanity, Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides. All the confirmation hearings did was potentially radicalize him to the right. One of the best things about being a supreme court judge is that he no longer has to care about being reappointed or elected. He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

But I've seen some speculation that after all the awfulness of the confirmation hearings accusing him of being a hard-right leaning justice that he would actually try (consciously or not) to show he's not locked into that mindset.

That certainly could be true. I like to believe supreme court justices remember that with that role comes with the truest ability to be impartial and unbeholden.
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