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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

#311

Post by eridius »

Mirioron wrote: post #289
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.

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.

Many apps are available exactly the same on Android as well, and nearly all apps have at least some equivalent on Android. The fact that an iOS app isn't literally compatible with Android, you can't take the exact same binary and use it on an Android phone, doesn't mean that iOS is a separate market category. You may as well say that UPPAbaby strollers are their own market category because UPPAbaby stroller accessories don't work on other strollers.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#312

Post by luckylion »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #210
luckylion wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The right side of history" is for politicians to pursue, not for judges. They aren't supposed to make policies or create laws, their job is to apply the laws. If they do their job correctly, and you disagree with the constitution and therefore also with their decisions, that should never be an issue for them.

The supreme Court primarily hears important cases where there are strong and reasonable legal arguments on each side. The idea that they can just apply the law in these cases is a bit unrealistic. It's just not that clear cut in the majority of SC cases.

Sure. But it's still their job, even if it's hard. "What will the media think of me, if I decide X" would certainly make it easier, but fortunately doesn't seem to have become the guiding principle yet.

It's strange that the idea that judges shouldn't decide by (future) popularity gets downvoted. At times I don't understand this community at all. Is that a "I believe that my opinion will rule supreme in 20 years, so judges should submit to it now and just ignore the constitution"-thing?

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#313

Post by sgustard »

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…

The "vote alignment by ideology" view on this page linked elsewhere is instructive.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/05/opinion-analysis-divided-...

Basically in order from left to right numbered 1-9 the majority on this case were 1-4 and 6. So it's only one step away from being a fully partisan split.

>"they portray the Justices as partisan hacks"

I leave it up to others to decide whether scoring each justice on a left-to-right continuum is any more nuanced than this.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#315

Post by kbenson »

eridius wrote: post #311
Mirioron wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many apps are available exactly the same on Android as well, and nearly all apps have at least some equivalent on Android. The fact that an iOS app isn't literally compatible with Android, you can't take the exact same binary and use it on an Android phone, doesn't mean that iOS is a separate market category. You may as well say that UPPAbaby strollers are their own market category because UPPAbaby stroller accessori…

> You may as well say that UPPAbaby strollers are their own market category because UPPAbaby stroller accessories don't work on other strollers.

I wouldn't say UPPAbaby strollers are their own market, but I would say UPPAbaby stroller accessories are their own market, at least if they have and act on a legal way to prevent all others from making and selling accessories that interact with their strollers.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#316

Post by shmerl »

rubidium wrote: post #307
milkytron wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to Firefox?

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

It doesn't matter if it can't be even released there. That's the whole point. Apple don't compete on merit, they use monopolistic tactics to ban competition.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#317

Post by michaelmrose »

Spivak wrote: post #172
michaelmrose wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 op…

Look I want to have full control of my devices but I don't think owning the physical hardware entitles you to any rights other than you may do with the device as-is as you please. If we decide that designing a toaster to only accept $vendor's bread is illegal that's all well and good but the justification for such a law will be that it's monopolistic behavior, not that the end user owns the toaster.

The thing is that fundamentally you can in software undermine any degree of real ownership.

Say I sell you a car outright. I decide to push an update that bricks the car and pops up a window on the in dash entertainment with an offer to re enable it for a monthly fee or an offer to buy it back for pennies on the dollar.

I think we can agree that I basically just stole your car and offered to rent it to you.

My ability to control the heart of your device means we can either

- spend the next century litigating in what fashion and circumstances I am and am not allowed to fuck you and to what degree while hoping that the side with the deepest pockets doesn't win most rounds

- pretend that the dysfunctional hand of the free market is capable of solving a complex societal problem this time

- admit that the privileges and rights that we already acknowledge and value implicitly must include the right to access and modify the software included or they can literally be taken away wholly or in part for the increasing percentage of things that include a chip.

I think this is true implicitly but am entirely open on the idea of spelling this out explicitly in terms of additional laws and lawsuits.

Are you really on the side of the weasels?

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#318

Post by michaelmrose »

chii wrote: post #291
parthdesai wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As long as they're not false or misleading So either Apple is misleading us when they say we are their customers or they are flat out lying to get out of a lawsuit. Can't have your cake and eat it too, mate.

If you own a shopping centre, and rent out the spaces to shops, do shoppers at those stores count as customers of the store, or of the shopping centre owner?

Potentially both? At least if I want my customers to imagine so because thinking I value them inspires them to spend more money I wouldn't say out loud that they weren't

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#319

Post by michaelmrose »

gwright wrote: post #69
analognoise wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably Walmart has been examined for as a monopoly but because in every case that was examined they decreased prices to consumers, no action was taken. I hate that they use federal money to subsidize their workforce' paychecks (non-living wages, supplemented by food stamps), but...they're great for the consumer.

How could it be any other way? To the extent that government benefits increase I would expect hourly wages to go down for those beneficiaries. This would be the nature result of a competitive market place.

I doubt you comprehend how absurd this situation is. Benefits are inversely proportional to income meaning that a below survivable wage requires people on the verge of not being able to eat to actually step down in pay in order to take the natural progression of an increase in wages.

In order to avoid this you just don't let people pay less than a minimum survivable hourly wage so they can't force the government to subsidize them.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#320

Post by millstone »

pier25 wrote: post #268
Fellshard wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incoherent, non sequitur. Again, we're talking about two different categories of devices: general computing vs. non-general. At the moment, smartphones are non-general, insofar as they are not made for user programmability from the device itself. Secondly, that MS case is a different matter than the one cited here, and does not map well onto this case. Thirdly, the major precedent of the original ruling appea…

1. Apple advertised the iPad (which is also an iOS device) as a laptop replacement. 2. My point is not to compare the two cases, legally speaking, but you argued that "consumers are well aware of those constraints on purchase". Well, consumers were well aware of the limitations of Windows and that didn't change the fact that Microsoft was charged with unlawful monopolization. 3. Sorry, I'm not sure what you are refer…

A key finding was that Microsoft had a monopoly on the PC OS market, with marketshare > 90%. If 90's Microsoft had Apple's marketshare today, <50% in US, the judgement would have been absurd.
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