[daevout]

I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple, but I'm glad to see all that unfairly amassed wealth benefitting even the lowest rungs of its corporate hierarchy through the unusual benefit of not being terminated at the drop of a hat. Bravo!

[sircastor]

> I can't think of a company more blatantly engaged in anti-competitive practices than Apple

In a world where Amazon, Meta, Google, Wal-Mart, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc exist, you think Apple is the most anti-competitive?

[daevout]

Amazon, Meta, Google are most certainly cut from the same cloth, only slightly smaller. For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive, but its practice of paying sub-subsistance wages and counting on government relief programs to make up the difference is so disgusting I don't know how to describe. Time-Warner, Comcast I'm not too familiar with, but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com, a site where their business is frequently ridiculed, which is certainly a step in the right direction and the model that should be applied broadly and forcefully to all of the above.

[culturestate]

> For Wal-Mart I can't think of anything strictly anit-competitive...

Wal-Mart might be the world's foremost practitioner of predatory pricing, not to mention the control they exert over their suppliers.

[thejammahimself]

> but as I understand they are under regulations that prohibit them from dropping your connection when e.g. they find you visiting ycombinatior.com

Was that a problem before?

[unity1001]

Yes. Frequently.

https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-bri...

[lmm]

Yes. I don't think any of the others would dare to run a platform as locked down as Apple, and if they tried then I don't think anyone would show up.

[scarface74]

Xbox?

How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store?

[lmm]

> Xbox?

Hmm, point. People tend to give video game systems more of a pass for historical reasons.

> How did Epic fair trying to get around the Play Store?

I assume they distributed non-Play Store APKs and it all quietly worked without any drama - that's how it is for Amazon, and how it's meant to work.

[scarface74]

It was a complete failure.

[lmm]

I mean, in terms of whether they succeeded as a business, sure. One competitor failing doesn't mean competition is impossible or unimportant.

[Lutger]

These companies you mention, at least the tech ones, are all way more open to third parties interfacing with whatever products they have or data they produce.

They are more like big city gangsters willing to do business with whomever as long as you pay them protection money, while Apple's ecosystem is like a gated community where you get shot at the door if you even so much as look like you can't afford to get in.

[acdha]

Do you have any examples of that? Facebook and Google seems open more in the roach motel sense - they get your customer volume but continually adjust the terms so you get less of the ad revenue (pivot to video, ad words’ declining payout, the need to pay for placement in search or adopt proprietary tools like AMP not to be pushed down the page, etc.).

[testfrequency]

Maybe ask the Vape companies or any developers who had their apps cloned what they think?

[Thorrez]

Are vape companies competing with Apple?

[arthurcolle]

Yes, I am not OP but obviously they are more anti-competitive if ONLY for their killing off support for progressive web apps over the last 3 or 17 releases of iOS/Safari

[culi]

I'm a big fan of PWAs, but this really seems like small fries compared to something like Walmart which has an internal planned economy many times larger than the Soviet Union ever achieved.

If you sell your product in Walmart they basically own everything about it. They deem how you make your product, the supply chain, the prices you charge, everything

And they use this incredibly granular level of control to run out any possible competition

[midoridensha]

I guess that's why Amazon, Best Buy, local grocery stores, etc. all went out of business.

Oh wait...

[pwinnski]

I think you meant that as sarcasm, but...

Fry's Electronics closed completely, while Best Buy keeps closing stores and laying people off at an accelerated rate[0].

Local grocery stores are almost extinct, as Walmart[1], Amazon, Kroger, and Albertson's crowd out or buy out everyone else.

It's a serious problem, your sarcasm notwithstanding.

0. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/business/best-buy-store-closu...

1. https://ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-ma...

[dmitriid]

This statement is a verifiable lie.

1. There's no such thing as PWA. There are a dozen or more standards, and everyone selects a different set of them to pretend they are oh so crucial.

2. Safari has supported the vast majority of standards that even Google deems as crucial for PWAs

3. Many of the "standards" some people on HN want are Chrome-only non-standards that are also opposed by Firefox

4. Actual people couldn't care less about PWAs because: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503

[scarface74]

Yes because PWAs are so great on Android, most companies only build iOS apps and tell Android users just to use their website.

[xvector]

In a world where when Apple puts a dialogue on your phone, that when they try track you with ads, they ask "allow us to enhance your experience?" whereas when other companies try to track you, they ask "allow <company> to track you across apps and websites?"

In a world when you can't even hint at the existence of a payment mechanism outside the App Store to get subscriptions?

It's not the most anticompetitive but it's definitely competing for the title in big tech.

[arthurcolle]

They single handedly killed PWA in iOS, they should get split up just for that

[dmitriid]

They didn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34543451

PWAs were never alive to begin with.

If they were there would be amazing world-shattering and paradigm-changing PWAs on Android which holds 71% of worldwide market share.

Oh wait. There are still none. For reasons obvious to anyone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34517503

[rimliu]

PWAs killed PWAs. The only people who want PWAs are the devs too lazy to learn anything outside half-baked react.

[culi]

they're slowly reversing course on this. It's not like PWAs ever had amazing support on other mobile OSes. The standard just isn't quite there

[scarface74]

And yes, that’s why there are so many great PWAs on Android…