[ethbr0]

Or, you know, you just fund people to jump ship: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respawn_Entertainment

The industry as a whole would be a lot better off if platform-studio vertical integration were banned, and strict financing-only co-ops set up as counterweights to EA/Activision accumulation.

[scarface74]

So no company that owns a platform should be able to release its own software? Should a platform owner be able to fund a third party studio to produce content? Should the courts force a game maker to support all platforms?

[ethbr0]

IMHO, no, yes, no.

The intent is to prohibit platforms from leveraging their greater capital reserves to purchase and permanently acquire (and platform-limit) those who make software, thereby decreasing competition between platforms and increasing profits.

There's never been an industry where this worked well for the consumer or society. See: ATT, IBM, Microsoft, Apple.

[scarface74]

Microsoft released Word and Excel on Macs before it was released on its own platforms and has been available on Macs for 40 years. PowerPoint started on the Mac. An Office 365 subscription works across Macs, Windows, iOS and Android.

Apple has never had anywhere near a monopoly on any platform. AT&T had a government mandated monopoly.

What major software company has Apple acquired aside from NeXT?

[ethbr0]

Microsoft has always had a love/hate obsession with monopolization. In the early days, they were famous for stating that strategically they wanted to be the platform people-who-were-not-MS made software money on, because that was how you became a dominant platform.

But of course that buckled at various times (first with proto-Office vs 1-2-3 & WordPerfect, then with the 90s dominance / Encarta-era smorgasbord of random MS software).

Excel was released on Mac because Microsoft wasn't confident in directly challenging 1-2-3 (on DOS) or early-Windows capabilities. And ultimately, it was exactly the fact that Microsoft owned the OS that allowed them to dominate in office apps and browsers in the 90s/00s.

Apple has had a monopoly on two device platforms (iPods, then iOS) and has abused both of them to its own profit.

ATT didn't have a government mandated monopoly: it had a series of every-few-decades consent decrees in which it bargained with the US government to avoid being nationalized. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment

Apple has acquired a substantial amount of software and developers. They just tend to do so at the nascent product stage (vs Google and MS acquiring later). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisit...

[scarface74]

> Apple has had a monopoly on two device platforms (iPods, then iOS) and has abused both of them to its own profit.

iOS is not a monopoly with 50%. We had a real judge during the Epic vs Apple case say as much.

Encarta was also available for the Mac.

[ethbr0]

>> Central to antitrust cases is the appropriate determination of the “relevant market.” Epic Games structured its lawsuit to argue that Apple does not compete with anyone; it is a monopoly of one. Apple, by contrast, argues that the effective area of competition is the market for all digital video games in which it and Epic Games compete heavily. [...] Ultimately, after evaluating the trial evidence, the Court finds that the relevant market here is digital mobile gaming transactions, not gaming generally and not Apple’s own internal operating systems related to the App Store. [...] Having defined the relevant market as digital mobile gaming transactions, the Court next evaluated Apple’s conduct in that market. Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. While the Court finds that Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinarily high profit margins, these factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal. The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market. The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.36...

The App Store is an absolute monopoly in the market of software sales on iOS devices.

That the court defined the relevant market otherwise isn't contradictory.

Antitrust law of 1890 just isn't well-suited for keeping modern globally networked platforms competitive.