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| ▲ | Ajedi32 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | My phone that I purchased is not "their" platform. Better analogy would be if Wal-Mart sold me a fridge and then somehow managed to make it so I can only store groceries purchased from Wal-Mart in that fridge. Now if anyone wants to sell me groceries they need to sell them to me through Walmart, otherwise I can't refrigerate them. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | As long as you understood the limitations of the fridge you purchased, i.e. you weren't defrauded, what's the problem? Do you really need a nanny state to prevent you from making bad purchases?? | | |
| ▲ | ivell 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The problem currently is the duopoly. There are only 2 types of fridges we can buy. And both have the same conditions. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | There are many other computing devices that can run operating systems other than Android and iOS, including devices that can run completely unlocked versions of Android. You're just lying. | | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 2 days ago | parent [-] | | We're not talking about computing devices in general, we're talking about phones. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So am I? There's Linux phones and phones that run versions of Android that are completely decoupled from Google. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So your argument here is "Apple isn't a monopoly. The Fairphone is always ab option"? I'll keep pounding it in people's heads that 30 years ago Microsoft was hit over a web browser. It's a shame these days people would instead revert that and say "just download Netscape". If that worked, sure. But we have decades of market lock in showing it doesn't | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The flaw in the Microsoft comparison is that the web browser was installed in, what, 95% of actual computing devices? Remember phones and all of this other cool technology we have didn't exist. Today there are many phones to choose from. You can buy an iPhone, or a Pixel, or a Galaxy. You can even buy a more open-source style phone with open-source style stores just like any other generic product feature. There is a marketplace and there is competition, it's just that, unlike what so many people here seem to desire, locked-down stores are what the market prefers. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 2 days ago | parent [-] | | >Remember phones and all of this other cool technology we have didn't exist. I don't think phones and PCs compete against each other, though. A phone can act like a general computer, but a PC can't act like a phone. >Today there are many phones to choose from. We had Linux, mac, BSD and a few other OS's back in the day as well. If we're saying Windows is 95% of PCs back then, I don't think it's controversial saying Apple and Android are 95% of phones. Especially in a day and age where phones are now needed to act as verification for work and school and chat communications are expected to be snappy (so it's not like I can just opt out and go back to dumb phones). >locked-down stores are what the market prefers. That's why anti-trust isn't left to "what the market prefers". Yes, society will always waiver towards idyllic destruction if left ubchecked. People generally "like" monopolies. People yearn for that society on WALL-E where they do minimum work and get maximum dopamine. It's a quirk genes that benefitted us 1000 years ago that haven't adjusted to modern realities. Governments and non-monopoly businesses alike hate it, though. Don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. Don't want to have a single businessman hold the country hostage later and shift to a plutocracy as they abuse your citizens who work. That's why it's best to stop it much earlier and not when the company becomes a trillionaire. But now is the 2nd best time. |
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| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well they aren't a monopoly. They have what, ~50% market share? MS had 97% market share and were abusing their market dominance to push others out. Apple isn't doing this, so there isn't a valid comparison here. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Duopoly isn't a much better comparison here. It's big enough that both apple and Google should be addressed. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Seems like there are a relatively large number of competitors to Apple and Google. Eg. Samsung, Motorola, Lenovo, OnePlus, LG, HTC etc. Not to mention Asian brands. Duopoly might apply if those companies were using their combined dominance to collude and push other competitors out but that isn't really happening as evidenced by the amount of competitors that are in the market. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't think you're on the same frequency as the court proceedings here. Try to read those first to better understand the context here. You're doing the equivalent of saying "but Dell and HP make PC's". When the case is about Internet explorer. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You brought up the MS antitrust suite and I'm providing context as to why it's not relevant. |
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| ▲ | array_key_first 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The problem is that it obviously sucks. If you say "no it doesn't" - you're lying, you know it sucks. Obviously me only being able to refrigerate Walmart goods sucks. > Do you really need a nanny state This is a false dichotomy. The reason you're doing this is because you know the current situation sucks major donkey dick and nobody, including you, likes it. So to defend it you have to appeal to something even more sucky. It's the death rattle of a poorly constructed argument. You don't need a nanny state, quite the opposite! You need a freer market. When Walmart sells the evil fridge, which I can only assume has been hexed by a swamp witch, what they are actually doing is subverting the free market. They're cheating. Instead of competing by selling the best groceries or the best fridge, they're competing by artificially limiting their competition. They see the market, say "fuck that market, your market is only our stuff", and force your hand. They've created a soft monopoly. The misconception about free markets is that, if you just let them be, then they're good. Ha. Every free market player is actively devising every single plan imaginable to make the market less free. If Walmart could run behind you and lock the doors so that you have to buy their groceries, lest you starve to death, they would. Luckily, the "nanny state" stepped in, and we have a freer market because of it. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So the problem with your fridge example is that if the product was as bad as you say, nobody would buy it and thus there is no risk of a monopoly. If the product is so good that everyone wants it, there goes the rest of your pro-consumer argument. This whole argument is a neat trick, as you smuggle bad outcomes into a situation where there aren't any by pretending that everyone wants to buy the horrible product. If you want to make a case that monopolies that arise from consumers overwhelmingly choosing a preferential product are bad, go ahead, but don't construct an impossible scenario where everyone loses their minds and buys a product that provides purely negative value to them just cuz. | | |
| ▲ | array_key_first a day ago | parent [-] | | The key is you don't tell consumers. A pre-requisite for a free market is consumer choice, which deception naturally undermines. And don't even say "well the EULA..." no, doesn't count. | | |
| ▲ | samdoesnothing a day ago | parent [-] | | Consumers leave bad reviews and people stop buying the product. | | |
| ▲ | array_key_first 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think everyone knows most reviews are bullshit. Look, you're describing how it should work, and I agree. But how it actually works is far, far different. No, first the product is introduced with no ads. You sign a EULA that might contain language around ads, but guess what - the EULA is 100 pages long and nobody is reading that shit because we have jobs and families. The product gets glowing reviews, probably because it's cheap and subsidized by the mega-corp (aka sell product at a loss for market capture). Then, the product enshittifies from under your feet. There's nothing you can do at that point, because you already bought it. Your "market", so to speak, is 1. You were deceived. You thought you were buying a fridge, but really you were just licensing access to a fridge. But say you didn't buy it. Even then, you're fucked. There's no trustworthy online reviews, well, anywhere basically. And it's just not reasonable to expect consumers to do hours of research prior to buying anything. No, I should be able to go to the store and ascertain the quality and nature of the product. But I can't, so I get tricked and hoodwinked. This is all very purposeful. Companies know if they're honest about their products that consumers might look at the competition. So everyone just scams and lies. Even multi-billion dollar multi-nationals are basically running scams at this point. And guess what? All their competition is doing it, too. Because if your competitor is scamming, you have no choice but to be a con artist yourself, lest you become irrelevant. |
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| ▲ | bogwog 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Serious question: how many black turtlenecks do you own? | | |
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| ▲ | bigyabai 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Just like Wal-Mart and Kroger You've been repeating this flawed comparison for years. It's getting really stale. The App Store is markedly unlike Wal-Mart or Kroger, in that a user cannot buy one thing from one store and another thing from the other. This would be like buying a Kroger-branded car and then being forbidden from entering the Wal-Mart parking lot. The problem with the App Store is not Apple's control over it and the Apple-branded experience - it is the exclusion of alternative and competing schemes that could naturally drive down their own prices. If Wal-Mart or Kroger did this, they would be in the same hot water as Apple. Probably quite a bit worse, since people understand the commoditization of groceries better than software. > That's a much more interesting and important "problem" to solve No it's not. The industry has no interest in overturning it, if there was commercial demand for an innovative third platform then we'd see one. The crux of this issue is Apple becoming a services company and then denying competing services from competing on equal grounds. It cannot get any clearer than that. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > You've been repeating this flawed comparison for years. It's getting really stale. Well I've been repeating it because it's still true. > The App Store is markedly unlike Wal-Mart or Kroger, in that a user cannot buy one thing from one store and another thing from the other. You're just shifting around a definition of store to fit your argument. If you want to be consistent, it's more like you can't go in to Kroger and demand to buy products sold at Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart prices. You're in a different store. > No it's not. The industry has no interest in overturning it, if there was commercial demand for an innovative third platform then we'd see one. So the market is clearly saying "this works and we like it". It's just that the lawyers and accountants want to shift which giant corporation gets to keep more of whatever fee percentage. > The crux of this issue is Apple becoming a services company and then denying competing services from competing on equal grounds. It cannot get any clearer than that. Equality will never exist on these platforms, nor is equality necessarily something that's desired. Every company on earth that operates any sort of marketplace or store sets rules and boundaries that restrict competition. You're just mad about Apple/Google doing it because some algorithm decided it was an important issue for you. Do you know why that's true? Because you're sitting here arguing about Apple/Google doing it and not every other company doing it. Even worse is that these changes that you champion have resulted in no price reductions, no "innovation", and have degraded features that I personally like and enjoy. | | |
| ▲ | bigyabai 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > it's more like you can't go in to Kroger and demand to buy products sold at Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart prices. You don't have to. Kroger and Wal-Mart are completely commoditized options providing the same service. There is fundamentally no difference from buying at one store vs the other; you can do both. If someone goes into Kroger demanding to buy Wal-Mart products at Wal-Mart prices, they're in luck; Wal-Mart exists. There is no lock-in to either store or the options they provide. You're describing a boogeyman that doesn't exist because the greater grocery market is functional and competitive. The same opportunity does not exist for customers of the App Store. Apps themselves are entirely commoditized; it's only the App Store that is a deliberate monopoly. That has been consistent since the launch of the iPhone and packaging of iOS applications as infinitely reproducible .IPA files. > So the market is clearly saying "this works and we like it". That's how most monopolies work, yes. Unfortunately, "the market" won't be asked to testify to whether or not they like or enjoy a monopoly, but whether it causes anti-competitive damages. > You're just mad about Apple/Google doing it because some algorithm decided it was an important issue for you. I cannot parse what you're even trying to accuse me of in this sentence. This is the Y Combinator forum. We discuss monopolies like AdSense and the App Store because they harm the economy, not because Instagram Reels showed me a Louis Rossman short. |
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