[hyko]

Apple’s position is clear and legal, and it’s how the economy works including the proposed hey.com business model. There’s no antitrust violation here, so pay your fees or go somewhere else. Apple don’t owe hey.com a place in the App store, just like hey.com doesn’t owe me a free email address @hey.com.

[Okkef]

I wish I could downvote you. What apple is doing is much worse than microsoft ever did, and they deserve to get a big antitrust lawsuit against them.

Just because their own rules say 'everybody owes us money' doesn't mean that it's legal.

[hyko]

These aren’t Apple’s rules–they’re ours. It’s the parameters of a free marketplace and flows from the idea of legal ownership of property. Apple has a minority share of the smartphone market, so antitrust does not apply. Antitrust a specific remedy to prevent monopolistic abuses.

If I build a high end hotel and the fee is $10,000 a night to stay there, you can’t apply to the Supreme Court to have your bill reduced. It’s my hotel and I can set the price to whatever I damn well please because it’s a free market.

[take_a_breath]

This analogy makes no sense. It’s not a business to consumer issue. The problem is Apple running their own marketplace and inconsistently applying the rules they have created for that marketplace.

If the hotel opened a food court and treated the vendors like this, it might be an apt analogy.

[hyko]

Well, let’s use the food court analogy then: whoever owns the food court is permitted by law to set whatever rental prices they choose for their tenants (provided they aren’t discriminating against people based on certain characteristics). They don’t have to be consistent, because the food court is their property and they have very wide discretion over how it is used. Fair? No. Legal? Yes!

[take_a_breath]

I think it’s legality is up for discussion (that’s the discussion people are currently having). Because your analogy still falls short because the hotel now opened their own stall in the food court and is competing in the marketplace.

What are they doing with the proprietary data from other marketplace competitors?

[belltaco]

The consumer owns the phone, not Apple, so that's a bad analogy.

[IncRnd]

>> Apple has a minority share of the smartphone market, so antitrust does not apply.

That's literally an Apple to Oranges comparison. Market share is not a requirement for illegality under the Sherman Act, as an example.

[hyko]

This made me smile :D

[IncRnd]

:)

[newbie578]

You are absolutely right. I real feel disappointed I cannot downvote him. People are so deluded by Apple fanaticism and "free market" that we shouldn't even touch a monopol with a stick.

[hyko]

I’m no Apple or free market fanatic, I’m just explaining that these attacks are going nowhere under our legal and financial system. They are pipe dreams that come round every twelve months or so, and will remain that way unless we radically change the nature of legal property. This particular one is out of the hey.com marketing budget, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

[imtringued]

This isn't about money. If the app had free registration inside the app it would pass the guidelines.

[fierarul]

But 50% of the smarphone market users might want to install software on they own property which Apple has clearly shown to be quite possible, if only Apple wouldn't stand in the way as the sole gatekeeper.

It might not be specifically anti-trust violation, but if Ford behaved the same as Apple there would be 1-2 cars to pick from world wide!

[richardwhiuk]

Apple is about 20% of the market, not 50%.

This isn't anti-trust.

[gokhan]

Duopoly is almost equally bad in such a big market imo.

[Daishiman]

That's not the interpretation of antitrust.

[newbie578]

In the U.S. they are. So it is anti-trust.

[kstenerud]

Bell didn't owe rival companies use of their phone lines, either... Until the 1974 antitrust lawsuit [1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._AT%26T

[hyko]

But this case is not relevant, because Apple faces robust and significant competition from Android smartphones (though I would argue perhaps not in wearables).

[dragonwriter]

Antitrust competition is not measured primarily by marketshare but market power, of which the main measure is pricing power, the propensity of people to shift from one offering to another of prices change. With regard to the App Store, would the people — app sellers — whom Apple charges for the service start to move to an alternative if Apple increased prices even incrementally, either expressly in terms of dollars charged or effectively by more-expensive-to-comply-with other terms?

No? Looks a lot like a monopoly, in antitrust terms, then.

What are effectively independent, descriptively similar, side-by-side markets that people don't move between in response to pricing changes aren't the same market for antitrust purpose, even if conventional media coverage labels them the same market and talks about marketshare in the combined market.

[kstenerud]

"Section 1 of the Sherman Act is violated when an unreasonable restraint of trade within an oligpoly results from a firm's course of action which serves to exclude competition from that market."

- United States v. Griffith, 334 U.S. 100 (1948)

There have been a number of bench decisions based on barriers to entry and market entrenchment to prohibit this sort of behavior by oligopolies, even if the Sherman act didn't specifically mention them.

[shafyy]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you should put more time in understanding how the basics of economics and works to understand why monopolies or duopolies are bad for societies. I'm sure there are some great online lectures to be found on economics 101.

[hyko]

No offence taken, we are all students :) Monopolies (and duopolies, where there is collusion) can be bad for society, which is why we have specific exceptions in law to deal with them. Apple doesn’t hold a monopoly position in the smartphone market. In fact, they don’t even hold a majority position in the smartphone market. This is like going after Dr Pepper with antitrust...it’s never going to happen.

[newbie578]

You should check your facts then :) As of May 2020, iOS is 52% of marketshare in North America ;) https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/north-amer...

[hyko]

Thanks for the link, that is a good resource. I was wrong about them having a minority market share in the U.S., they’re more popular than I thought! They are still far from a monopoly position. Looks like it’s a roughly 70/30 split globally, though that’s not relevant for U.S. antitrust law (may be more relevant in Europe).