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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

#301

Post by adrianratnapala »

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!

> 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!

It isn't really. It's just the standard partisan split, albeit with one guy "crossing the floor". Such crossing is common but since most of the media is incapable of understanding anything but partisan point scoring, they portray the Justices as partisan hacks, which they are not.

Heck, they aren't even that good at tracking point-scores, since the most common score at SC United (states) is 9-0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_term_opinions_of_the_Supr...

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#302

Post by hermitdev »

DannyBee wrote: post #25
dmix wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's argument was that 3rd parties set the prices on their platform not them (app developers), so they shouldn't be held liable for the monopolistic effects this creates.

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.

I don't think this true. Look at your bank statements after a purchase from the App Store. You're not billed by the developer of the app, youre billed directly by Apple, so under Illinois Brick, and users do already have standing (obligatory not a lawyer).

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#303

Post by zwkrt »

chj wrote: post #300
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.)

A very good read. I didn't expect a court opinion could be written in such clear language.

Almost all SCOTUS opinions are like that, dissenting views are also really good reading material.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#304

Post by chj »

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…

This is indeed the elephant in the room. All app developers, except spotify, are too terrified to directly confront with Apple. That's the chilling effect of a true monopoly.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#306

Post by ulkesh »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #301
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!

> 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! It isn't really. It's just the standard partisan split, albeit with one guy "crossing the floor". Such crossing is common but since most of the media is incapable of understanding anything but partisan point scoring, they portray the Justices as parti…

While I agree that much of the time they do try to rule based on law, it is clear that precedent is being looked at as mere suggestions by this new court. I wonder what the score will be when the challenges to Roe hit their bench.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#307

Post by rubidium »

milkytron wrote: post #283
mr_toad wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It looses everywhere it competes with Chrome... much as I hate to say it.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#308

Post by posterboy »

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!

No, it rules exactly that it exists or not. That's a tertiary logic, although not a legit figure of speech. I mean, if they didn't rule that the monopoly doesn't exists, which would have stopped the motion, and neither decided that monopoly was a fact, then they decided for or.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#309

Post by wildmusings »

ulkesh wrote: post #306
adrianratnapala wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! It isn't really. It's just the standard partisan split, albeit with one guy "crossing the floor". Such crossing is common but since most of the media is incapable of understanding anything but partisan point scoring, they portray the Justices as parti…

While I agree that much of the time they do try to rule based on law, it is clear that precedent is being looked at as mere suggestions by this new court. I wonder what the score will be when the challenges to Roe hit their bench.

That's not something unique about "this new court". The Court has never been all that respectful of precedent. From the Lochner era (reading a right to expansive freedom of contract into the constitution), to the "switch in time that saved nine" (vastly expanding the definition of 'interstate commerce' such that Congress could regulate anything), to the Warren court (which invented whole-cloth a slew of social and criminal justice rights), the Court has often gone in radical new directions and overruled previous decisions.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#310

Post by eridius »

gowld wrote: post #272
eridius wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's the app market for iPhone users.

"iPhone users" isn't a general market category.
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