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Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

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Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#51

Post by threatofrain »

COGlory wrote: post #40
scarface_74 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. There is no such thing as having to deal “fairly”. You are completely free to make different deals with different customers reason #1367 that HN commenters make horrible lawyers

Allow me to direct you to the Wikipedia entry on "collusion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion

That's not collusion. Collusion is a pattern of behaving between multiple competitors which has an end effect of coordinating on price. The policy focus on regulating collusion should be on patterns of behavior which reduces competitiveness in markets.

IMO there's a stronger policy argument for saying that Apple shouldn't be copy-pasting prices from other places like Playstation. That's much closer to collusion.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#52

Post by [deleted] »

scarface_74 wrote: post #46
dataangel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you really think the state controlling content is not going to be more restrictive than private corporations? Yes, because then app restrictions that violate free speech/press will get slammed by the supreme court.

Let me introduce you to a little state you might have heard of called Florida where the governor is punishing a company for criticizing a law that was passed and trying to expel a student group that is not pro-Israel. Or other states that make it a crime to boycott Israel. You think the app review process is Byzantine. Wait until you try to get 8 justices to review your app and how long do you think that will take?

[deleted]

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#53

Post by AnthonyMouse »

xattt wrote: post #10
echelon wrote: post #6

> And I think Apple should be receiving at least as harsh antitrust scrutiny as Google. They both deserve antitrust attention, but Apple is the far worse offender. The cellphone is more essential than the car, and here are these two companies basically owning and taxing the roads, fuel, destinations, activities, and in-car entertainment. And you can't upgrade or change anything.

It sounds like you're advocating to nationalize app stores, much like other public utilities should have or should continue to stay in public hands.

Nationalization and competition are hardly the same thing.

In one case you still have a monopoly, but operated by the state. This generally goes poorly. A state agency is only weakly accountable to voters and not really accountable to customers at all. This is only marginally better than a private monopoly, if at all.

In the other case you break a private monopoly and move to a competitive market. The competitors are directly accountable to customers, who can choose someone else if anyone tries to charge high fees or the customers otherwise don't like you.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#54

Post by COGlory »

threatofrain wrote: post #51
COGlory wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to direct you to the Wikipedia entry on "collusion" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion

That's not collusion. Collusion is a pattern of behaving between multiple competitors which has an end effect of coordinating on price. The policy focus on regulating collusion should be on patterns of behavior which reduces competitiveness in markets. IMO there's a stronger policy argument for saying that Apple shouldn't be copy-pasting prices from other places like Playstation. That's much closer to collusion.

Google paid potential competitors cash to not compete.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#55

Post by COGlory »

Pxtl wrote: post #47
COGlory wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blackberry, Tizen, Windows Phone, FirefoxOS. Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Alcatel, Nokia, LG. How does Google, running closed and un-licensable Android with no phone to put it on, compete?

Name one of those OSes that had a quality phone on the market with a zero-dollar-license OS in 2009. Android was first modern mobile OS to market that would run on 3rd party devices (unlike Apple and RIM). Tizen was 2013. Win phone was 2011, and had license fees to use it.

In this scenario (locked down like Apple), 3rd party devices aren't running Android.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#56

Post by threatofrain »

COGlory wrote: post #54
threatofrain wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not collusion. Collusion is a pattern of behaving between multiple competitors which has an end effect of coordinating on price. The policy focus on regulating collusion should be on patterns of behavior which reduces competitiveness in markets. IMO there's a stronger policy argument for saying that Apple shouldn't be copy-pasting prices from other places like Playstation. That's much closer to collusion.

Google paid potential competitors cash to not compete.

And this entire post is basically a question of "But what about Apple?" When Google licenses out Android they've essentially created an Android marketplace. Apple avoided this problem by not being open.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#57

Post by AnthonyMouse »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #27
echelon wrote: post #6

> And I think Apple should be receiving at least as harsh antitrust scrutiny as Google. They both deserve antitrust attention, but Apple is the far worse offender. The cellphone is more essential than the car, and here are these two companies basically owning and taxing the roads, fuel, destinations, activities, and in-car entertainment. And you can't upgrade or change anything.

The problem with Apple is that while they don’t have a monopoly on cellphones, they seem to have a monopoly on good cellphone experiences. Your choice is a couple of platforms that are closed but works decently well, and other more open platforms that are much more chaotic and poorer user experiences. Linux phones or android phones not running Google’s stack being examples of the latter.

That's not really the problem.

Suppose there were two cellphone platforms and they were both equally terrible, or equally good. But each one locked the customers out of their own property -- you have to use their app store, their cloud services, you can't install their operating system on anyone else's hardware or vice versa. Mandatory lock-in to all of their other services, competition impaired.

This is not okay just because there are two of them instead of one, because it's what causes there to be two of them instead of dozens. You can't enter the market without replicating the entire vertically integrated conglomerate because someone who makes only hardware, or an operating system, or an app store, can't use it with the existing ones.

It removes consumer choice, and each of the conglomerates could continue extending the stack in either direction until you have to buy your house and car and all of your groceries, appliances and media from the same company as you get your phone.

This is not the same thing as vertical integration. The same company could make a CPU and an app store without having them bound together so that you can't choose one without the other. You could choose to get everything from the same company, but you shouldn't be required to just because that's what the company wants.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#58

Post by omeid2 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #32
omeid2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more like complaining that Tesla wouldn't let you purchase electricity from a 3rd party that isn't sanctioned by Tesla.

And if you chose to buy a Tesla knowing they in advance?

As long as Tesla isn't approaching a dual-poly or worst a monopoly, that is on me.

But if the choice is between two car manufacturers because your work parking, your banks' branch access, your governments' departments driveways, the city halls where a lot of events are organised, and just about anywhere you want to go is designed to allow only cars from these two car manufacturers, then knowing "in advance" is pointless; because there is no real choice.

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#59

Post by jauntywundrkind »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #27
echelon wrote: post #6

> And I think Apple should be receiving at least as harsh antitrust scrutiny as Google. They both deserve antitrust attention, but Apple is the far worse offender. The cellphone is more essential than the car, and here are these two companies basically owning and taxing the roads, fuel, destinations, activities, and in-car entertainment. And you can't upgrade or change anything.

The problem with Apple is that while they don’t have a monopoly on cellphones, they seem to have a monopoly on good cellphone experiences. Your choice is a couple of platforms that are closed but works decently well, and other more open platforms that are much more chaotic and poorer user experiences. Linux phones or android phones not running Google’s stack being examples of the latter.

It feels silly to me to assess based on number of companies playing.

If the market were three or four companies all behaving exactly like Apple, there still is a clear & present need for government intervention, a clear "consumer harm" by creating technological intermediary overlords with total control over information technology.

Apple defenders love pointing out that there is choice, that folks can go to Android. But what if Android were just as lawful-evil malevolent a force?

Re: Tim Sweeney on why Epic did better against Google than Apple in court

#60

Post by omeid2 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #42
omeid2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're not completely free to make different deals with different customers, the imperative word here being "completely". For example, RRPs are generally considered illegal, you can't force your customers to sale at specified minimum price, and more crucially, you can't do it selectively.

So define your legal definition of “treating customers fairly”

Well, the exact definition depends on the jurisdictions, but just about any market has fair trading regulations that at least outline what is considered unfair treatment.
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