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by AnthonyMouse 2049 days ago
> The iOS/App Store monopoly arguments are one thing, but 10% is a monopoly now?

It goes the other direction. If you want to develop for iOS you have to get a Mac even if you don't want one.

Moreover, this behavior is objectionable regardless of market share, because a platform excluding alternative stores segregates that platform into a different market. If you're a developer whose customers use a Mac, and Apple starts operating the Mac App Store the same as the iOS one, it doesn't matter that they have 10% market share because that 10% of the PC market is 100% of your app customers and the relevant market isn't PCs, it's app distribution to a given customer base.
2 comments
johncolanduoni 2049 days ago
That argument applies to literally any product that another business wants to built their own product on. I don’t see how that doesn’t turn into every business being required to make the business model of every other business whose products are built on theirs work in perpetuity. If you make a commercial OS, are you arguing you can’t ever remove any feature in a future version if it would make another company’s product impossible to upgrade?
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AnthonyMouse 2048 days ago
It's not about removing a feature, it's about keeping it there but monopolizing access to it. If the feature goes away entirely, that's fine. And then somebody else can come back and implement it themselves.

But if the company gives themselves access to that feature and not anybody else (even with the permission of the device owner), and restricts anyone else from reimplementing it, that creates a monopoly which they would then be abusing by restricting what competing app developers can do.

Security is the owner of the device controlling what runs on it. Monopoly abuse is the manufacturer of the device doing so against the will of the owner of the device.

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musicale 2048 days ago
> It goes the other direction. If you want to develop for iOS you have to get a Mac even if you don't want one.

Very annoying that you can't use an old Lisa development system like the ones Apple required for the original Macintosh.

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