> Google and Apple compete against each other, so there is no monopoly.
They effectively have a monopoly over their customers from other customers and can leverage that monopoly to control their vendors.
And Google and Apple secretly working together as "one company" literally defines trust behavior:
'After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."'
That's actually quite exactly the behavior you expect from a competitive duopoly. In a duopoly, I know that if I lower prices, you'll match. Operating at the Nash Equilibrium isn't anticompetitive.
I'm not disagreeing with the conclusion -- I agree that they are colluding -- but the logic isn't right.
I'll tell you a secret. Game theory and economics is mostly voodoo wrapped up in statistical mumbo-jumbo. In other words, if economists could explain what is happening, why are they poor and have to go to work to make living?
I'll tell you another secret: Basic economics works pretty well and isn't very hard.
Economists are poor because there isn't any competitive advantage. Any competently-run business of any significant size should have plenty of people able to apply basic economics. Engineers who don't learn basic econ are at a disadvantage, on the other hand.
What is basic economics for you? The supply and demand model which only works if you assume 2 to 10 things (depending on the author), where atleast 1 of them is completely irrational or doesn't reflect reality?
> have been caught colluding before on trying to keep software engineer salaries low.
Wow they are really bad at this then. 200-400k without even requiring a college degree is pretty wild. It’s about what my brother made as a doctor and he had an undergraduate degree, medical school, an internship, a residency program…
Without the price collusion engineers might make 600-800K. Not sure why you are defending a Trillion dollar company illegally working with another Trillion dollar company to lower worker wages. The reason software engineer salaries remain high despite big tech collusion is that startups not in on the deal were willing to pay higher, which forces big tech to continue paying for talent.
not sure why doctor wages are brought up, supply and demand determines prices. Google and Apple tried to artificially distort the labor market
I judge compensation based on what value people bring to society. I look around at the world created by software engineers and I'm not impressed. For every dystopian nightmare being foisted upon us, you have an "engineer" saying "Yes sir and what else would you like us to do to them?" to their higher ups at these trillion dollar companies. I'm sure hitman pays well also but I don't have to root for them to get higher wages.
The people that are archetechting the dystopian nightmare are capturing the excess value here, not sure why you think that's somehow a better situation.
Every former co-worker who I've talked to when they left Google did so for at least a 20% bump in total comp. The few Googlers I've talked to who left for Apple got equal or even a little less total comp.
Anecdotal, but once you get some years of Big Tech experience under your belt, I do think you become comparatively more valuable to smaller companies.
The law is interpreted according to different standards over time. NPR has a really interesting 3 part podcast series that explains how antitrust laws have been applied over time. Marketshare was the significant metric at one time but more recent judges have used impact/harm to consumers based on price. Under recent case law, if the consumer is still able to get the good cheaply, you can basically own the entire market.
"The Law" is pretty patchy, inconsistent and self contradictory. A lot of them are old. A lot of definitions are sketchy. There aren't many precedents, and the normative precedent of what doesn't get prosecuted is vast and confusing.
>> You don't need a monopoly for antitrust, but it sure makes for a stronger case.
The realities of being a primary OS, App Store, or browser vendor today are both more significant, and more well known than in the 90s. They have financial consequences many times greater.
I don't see how you can come to an intelligible concept of monopoly, market power and such with a general, legal-friendly theory of monopoly. The logic needs to be reversed.
NEW UNDERPANTS PLAN:
0. Forget about proving a monopoly exists to strengthen your case that X is acting as a trust.
1. Use evidence that X is acting as a trust, as to make the case that monopoly exists instead.
2. ???
3. Profit.
The problem is that we don't have a step 2. What happens when markets mature into an monopoly dynamic? We need an answer, because some have.
You should read the actual page before you comment!
From the article: After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."
I've once worked for a large corporation that got hit hard by antitrust. Think a few tens of billions of dollars. Why? A seller was caught giving freebies if they bought their products. That's it. That's all it took.
I know because due to that incident we had to follow online formation every god damn month about antitrust. You don't have to have a "monopoly" to trigger antitrust legislation. The mere mention of "deals" or "cooperation" or "understanding" in the same conversation that involves competitor can be enough evidence to cause huge trouble.
What? Antitrust isn't solely about marketshare and having a monopoly. You can behave in anticompetitive ways that break antitrust laws without having a monopoly.
They both offer a highly integrated platform for mobile computing. One offers devices as well, the other relegates that part to other companies, but anyone in the market for a mobile phone today effectively will pick between those two options that do pretty much the same things with similar UX. That totally looks like competition to me.
They do indeed compete but doesn't Apple have a monopoly on IOS with it's app store and Google on Android with PlayStore?
At least on Android you can install you own market if you're so inclined. I have yet to find an alternative app store for ios though(might be just me not knowing where to look though).
Edit: Forgot to add that when you're talking about Apple vs G I don't see it as 1 big "smartphone" market. It's 2 different ones. Apple hardware running iOS vs generic hardware running Android.
They effectively have a monopoly over their customers from other customers and can leverage that monopoly to control their vendors.
And Google and Apple secretly working together as "one company" literally defines trust behavior:
'After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."'