[meepmorp]

> That would be interesting to witness. Apple's second trial their criminal behavior over eBooks would be a hoot.

What criminal behavior would there be in this instance? It's their platform and they're not convicted monopolists, so they can set their pricing however they like. If Amazon doesn't like it, they can take their ball and go home (and likely get Apple to cave, cause people seem to prefer Kindle to iBooks).

This is called capitalism.

[jonknee]

Well for starters since Amazon does not sell anything through Apple's platform (and indeed removed that ability because of Apple's new rules requiring a 30% cut), there would be no setting of pricing.

You're suggesting that Apple would somehow require Amazon to fork over 30% of every Kindle book sold as long as the purchaser has downloaded the Kindle for iOS app. That would be quite anti-competitive and would introduce a whole host of troubles over their approval process (they would also have to take 30% of HBO's revenue or kick out HBO Go, Watch ESPN would be gone, Netflix etc etc). Not to mention nearly impossible to audit.

[meepmorp]

> Well for starters since Amazon does not sell anything through Apple's platform (and indeed removed that ability because of Apple's new rules requiring a 30% cut), there would be no setting of pricing.

It would be setting pricing for the opportunity to make use of Apple's platform.

> You're suggesting that Apple would somehow require Amazon to fork over 30% of every Kindle book sold as long as the purchaser has downloaded the Kindle for iOS app. That would be quite anti-competitive and would introduce a whole host of troubles over their approval process (they would also have to take 30% of HBO's revenue or kick out HBO Go, Watch ESPN would be gone, Netflix etc etc). Not to mention nearly impossible to audit.

You're conflating an impractical suggestion with an illegal one here. It's a patently unworkable idea if the vendor in question doesn't use Apple's APIs for transaction processing, and it'd be stupid and tone deaf and a bad deal for their customers. But that's got nothing at all to do with legality.

Speaking of legality, would such a hypothetical move on Apple's part be illegal? Since Apple isn't a convicted monopolist, I don't think it is. And in this particular case, you'd have a difficult argument to make that Apple is meaningfully interfering with Amazon's ability to sell e-books, since they have (as you point out elsewhere in this thread) a booming business selling e-book readers, as well as content on other platforms (such as Android).

My post was merely questioning your assertion that instituting such a policy would be criminal behavior by Apple. So far, I don't see that it would be. Feel free to show me where I'm wrong.

[mehwoot]

> It's their platform and they're not convicted monopolists, so they can set their pricing however they like.

I can't speak for countries I don't live in (like the US), but where I live, this isn't actually the case. You'd think it would be, but it isn't.

[meepmorp]

Right, I'm only talking about how it is in the US. Also, note that this isn't an endorsement (or condemnation) of how we do things.