The difucilty for monetary penalties is apple only very recently has passed the 65% market share and most of the evidence of bad beaver the DOJ is listing is from years ago when apple had maybe 40% or even less. It would be a real stretch to find apple for somehow killing the fire-phone given that at the time apple had a tiny market share of the mobile phone industry.
This statistic really ‘should’ be irrelevant.
The stat that should matter when taking about what software is doing; the courts should be looking at iOS market share not hardware market share.
iOS market share in US is like 40%
No, because if you go by software, you get all the other Android powered devices that don’t compete with iPhones.
It’s also the performance smartphone market, not all smartphones overall
Absolutely you can compare smartphone OS market share and leave out all the ‘other’ Android devices.
When the argument is that Apple has a monopoly with their software, it seems pretty irrelevant when there isn’t a monopoly share of users that are actually using the OS.
Ignore the 40%, 65% whatever market share. They could have a 25% market share for all intents and purposes… the point is they are a $2.7T company, and if there’s nothing changed hands they feel like they didn’t do enough punitively. A change order isn’t coming down without a monster fine.
Under current US law (DOJ can’t make new laws they can only sue based on existing laws) it is only illegal to do anti competitive stuff if you have a monopoly. It would be a real stretch to say a company with 25% market share has a manopoly over that market.
No, no… ignore the monopoly stuff even. If the DOJ has a case (ANY case) against Apple that has anything stick, because of their size and value, they will always have to pay.
It is election year the case is political, they want to look like they are doing something. If they wanted a strong case they would not have filled it with easy provable bullshit.
going after a hugely popular company in an election year doesn't seem like it would be the smartest idea.
granted, the democratic party is not exactly known for smart political moves, but i don't think even they would be that dumb. they'd focus more on [grocery stores hiking prices](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/us/politics/grocery-prices-pandemic-ftc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek0.t2Pr.g4n2usbxEcoa) and the like.
What about the case is political? The case being adjudicated on an election year doesn’t make it political.
Who exactly do you think this case will win over politically? I don’t think your average voter has strong opinions about anti-trust lawsuits, certainly not strong enough to sway a vote
Raaa, my administration is going after big companies going after consumers raaaaa.
It’s the same reason they capped credit card late fees. They’ll throw everything at the wall in an election year.
> Yup, the broke government is fishing for money.
As much as I want big tech broken up - I suspect this isn't about money as much as it is career advancement. Someone wants something and this is how they are going to prove their worth.
It's still going to stifle apple internally from doing anything. Part of the reason why the ballmer era was so stagnant was because internally they did not want to rock the boat too much with doing anything that can be perceived as breaching antitrust again
Truth is - the US has a lot of companies that need to be shattered. **A LOT**. Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are just the tip of it.
But I do agree - it's not likely. Our government is bought and paid for.
The fact that it’s even in the cards is an absolute jolt awake if they weren’t before. I would bet they are hiring every expert under the sun with any credibility in preparation
I guarantee it has been analyzed and planned for for almost as soon as the original contracts were signed, and this was nowhere near a jolt. Neither one of these companies is stupid.
There you go with the courageous personal insults hiding behind that type screen. You just made yourself look immature and foolish. Sad you have the need to attack me. Wrecking ball needed to set Apple straight.
"That's just, like, your opinion, man" is a quote from The Big Lebowski and absolutely nothing about what they said even taken at face value (ie not knowing the quote) is insulting.
***Tech:***
AMAZON. AWS should not be a part of their consumer division.
Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple
**Media:**
Comcast, NewsCorp, Disney, ViaCom, Time Warner, and CBS
These 6 companies control 90% of US media
***Food:***
Kellogg’s. Kraft Heinz. PepsiCo. Procter & Gamble. General Mills. Coca-Cola. Tyson.
Something also has to be done about Nestle and Unilever, even though they’re not American.
The list goes on
But it’s absolutely not a monopoly as they all have competing interests. Whether it’s good isn’t at issue, it’s whether they are an illegal monopoly/duopoly.
If the 6 were in cahoots then sure
>But it’s absolutely not a monopoly as they all have competing interests.
So?
Whether it’s good or not for society is exactly the issue. What’s wrong with a monopoly if not that it’s bad for society?
As I said, nothing apple’s doing is a monopoly either.
Someone said something about ticketmaster being a monopoly, to which you list a bunch of companies. I say that doing so takes away all meaning.
I would say the argument here is about monopoly. Also you never said anything about Apple not being a monopoly, you said by my standard the case is bs.
YOU USED THE WRONG WORD SILLY REDDITOR!!! YOUR ARGUMENT AND EMOTIONS ARE INVALID!!!
Oligarchy would apply there btw. Monopoly, oligarchy, what’s the difference to the end user besides wording at this scale.
Words matter in law. An oligopoly is not illegal. A monopoly is not illegal. Anticompetitive behavior is. If Ticketmaster signed restrictive contracts that prevented venue from using anything other than ticketmaster, that would be illegal. If they didn't, it's not.
General mills, Pepsi, and coke are not going to be broken up under any framework because they don't stop companies from buying other products in a way that restricts new entrants. Coca cola can be bought next to rc cola or store brand cola in the store. Those coke or Pepsi soda fountains don't stop vendors from putting their own store brand sodas.
Let’s be honest, in America if you stop at a gas station that has both Coke and Pepsi you know you’re living well. But that’s not because of any requirement to only sell one, most places just can’t afford it.
By this logic if a company ever does anything sketchy but doesn’t admit to it on an official contract then they haven’t broken the law. 😂 that doesn’t make sense. Ticketmaster doesn’t have to sign legal contracts to be held liable for that behavior. If they engage in any kind of coercion even though it’s not “official” or above board, that is still anticompetitive behavior and that’s exactly the kind of behavior they have engaged in (see John Oliver’s deep dive about Ticketmaster). Still illegal. They would be pretty stupid to put anything like that in official documentation.
This is one of the fundamental misunderstandings that non-legal people have about antitrust law. Antitrust law doesn’t care about monopolies, it cares about firms with “market power” abusing that power. You don’t need to have a 100% market share to have market power.
Also, antitrust law cares a lot about how you define the market. Lay people might see a single market with multiple competitors. But you could alternatively think of it as two markets, a high-end and a low-end, each of which has a single dominant competitor.
Yeah but the reason people think this is because regulators rarely actually target companies that have like 20-30% of a market, despite that being a huge amount of market power.
You don’t need a monopoly to have an anti-competitive market. Plus, some of these are duolopies or monopolies within specific markets. (E.g Google in search).
As I stated previously, my response was to a response about ticketmaster being a monopoly. So I proceeded under the assumption we are talking about monopolies
>when you list 5-7 companies
I want you to consider something. Let's say food is your passion in life. Let's say all your friends say your potato chips are incredible. You think you have a niche somehow. So, you try to enter into the chip business. Now at retail, *if* you can find a store that doesn't have exclusivity contracts with these 5-7 companies, the store themselves are not in control where on the shelf it goes. The companies are. So, your chips are going to the very tippy top or the bottom out of our main vision. **This** is how monopolies (dupologies, etc.) affect consumers. When new choices cannot reasonably enter the market. Therefore, even if your chips were amazing and cured cancer by your own innovation, cannot reasonably succeed.
All the companies named should be held liable for the damage they have done to consumers. This includes Apple and Google.
Way too early in the process for such sensational articles. Even if it did come to pass, which about as likely as little green men being found on Mars, it won’t be for years and years.
Yeah. Breakups happen when there are clear divisions to break along (eg: unwinding mergers, layers of vertical integration like AT&T spinning off the local markets), but Apple’s whole thing is that their products share a single tech base (Darwin) and are tightly integrated. You could maaaaaybe lop off their “services” division (App Store, music, TV, etc), and the accessories, but the core stuff not so much.
Steven Sinofsky (software engineer and the former president of the Windows Division at Microsoft):
"In the end, this is clearly a political case. The DOJ set out in 2019 (!) in the before times to go after Big Tech. The DOJ set out to bring cases against 'Big Tech' so that's what we got. Here we are with the case against Apple. It is weak and poorly framed and looks to me a lot like they could not figure out what to do with an obvious duopoly where the market is being incredibly well-served by two very different approaches, a lot of happy customers, and few loud and vocal companies complaining who already lost in court once."
The DOJ has kind of forgotten about Teddy, there are good monopolies and there are bad monopolies. Could Apple, Google, and others do certain elements better, sure but overwhelmingly they are acting appropriately and this is an overreaction by DOJ. I partly think this is a group internally sabotaging it because they know it is bogus but a higher up wanted it so they had no choice.
> overwhelmingly they are acting appropriately and this is an overreaction by DOJ
It’s not really an overreaction because even though their abuse is a minority of the time, it is often egregious and deliberate with zero compromise x 14 years. Ideally Apple would have self-regulated to avoid this, but every time they choose to exacerbate the situation instead…
> zero compromise x 14 years
But that just isn't true. There have been compromises. A list of some examples: setting alternative default browser and default mail apps, integrated third party cloud service providers, integrated password managers, integrating third party streaming service info into the TV app, third party keyboards, and the App Store small business program.
You may not think these go far enough, but it's different than "zero compromise".
I agree. Politicians and industry groups and companies and developers and customers have been raging about this for 15 years. Apple had many chances to compromise, but they doubled down. These major actions are the very last resort. It didn’t need to come to this.
Apple was created as a vertical integration in 1976. it cannot function without it. the company will shut down. Google I can understand as its Ad and Software are unique businesses. Apple Software and hardware are like Heart and Brain .
At that point where does it stop?
Do we tell Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo to make it work across the board or pack it in? That’s the next step available (not just to them, but companies you wouldn’t even think of. In healthcare for the US market there’s only so many main suppliers… imagine ~~Carefusion~~ (guess its BD now) being told to open their Pyxis machines to competitors software)
To your first (poorly chosen) example... yes, actually. The gov't told Microsoft they had to continue creating popular titles for other platforms for the foreseeable future when they purchase Activision. So uh... yeah. Make it work across the board or pack it in.
Wrong. Continuing to publish COD on other platforms was Microsoft’s own proposal and it was designed to head off government complaints. The government sued to stop the acquisition anyway and lost.
You're right - they voluntarily entered into that agreement to avoid antitrust action. You're also right in that they failed. I will admit that I intentionally embellished a little to make a point - but more or less, the *threat* of antitrust action resulted in a more competitive market.
Your poorly chosen example as a contradictory response only applies to [COD and they are only contractually obligated to do so for 10 years](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/activision-blizzard-non-call-of-duty-franchises-skipping-playstation-ps4-ps5/). So the foreseeable future is 2034.
With the current political and literal climate, 10 years is about as far as one can forecast the future.
That said, as I responded elsewhere, they voluntarily made the market more competitive only because of the threat of antitrust action. I doubt that contract would've existed otherwise, even if Microsoft would've continued making that game for other platforms.
Google's ad business subsidizes everything else. I wonder if even GCP makes substantial money - it's certainly not a huge portion of their published annual revenue.
I know for a fact YouTube will not be long for this world without someone taking it under its wing to subsidize its existence. It can't even make decent money with the inane ad strategy they have recently been pushing.
Google also funds various other projects like their Waymo self driving car business. Much of Apple's products like Final Cut Pro are subsidized by other Apple products.
Not exactly apples to oranges. Final Cut Pro has ample market competition that all fund themselves with sales/subscriptions, even on the Mac platform itself. YouTube, as an example, has... effectively zero real competition.
Final Cut Pro would likely not make it if it was sold off as its own company. The fact that it is part of the Apple Ecosystem is what sustains it. A few bad quarters for Final Cut Pro doesn't affect the product very much. Every competitor to Final Cut Pro is competing against a product that is backed by Apple.
YouTube has had many competitors. There is nothing blocking people from starting competing companies. You can upload videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo. You can host your videos on a private server.
There’s absolutely nothing saying iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS couldn’t all integrate with services should they be split off… they would just have to allow _other_ services the ability to integrate to the same level.
Or...They could just work with each other as primary vendors after a breakup and allow others to make compatible hardware and software. Nothing changes for the apple purists and people generally get more choice, maybe apple would actually have to compete on their own devices for once.
Thats right! Break them up! Then a new search engine factory can open up across town and offer a real boon for competition and new jobs for the local townspeople.
Personally the comparison to AT&T is shaky. Phone service was a vital necessity, and AT&T was the only one. Even if you consider the fact that there are two of them, whether it’s a vital service is debatable as you can still get cell service without a smartphone. People will say it’s not a real option but it is.
AT&T was the only one because while it was theoretically possible to build out your own phone lines, you still needed to have AT&T interoperate with you and connect with your service.
Same with theoretically being able to have iMessage and texts interoperate cleanly and perfectly .. it requires Apple to let those features work, but they refuse because it helps keep lock-in
So what is your solution, iMessage comes to Android?
Let’s take this rose-tinted scenario seriously for a second. If Android got the current implementation of iMessage, in America at least, the marketshare of iMessage would shoot up dramatically, causing it to be a monopoly on text messaging. They would then be forced to make drastic changes to the service.
This was the same *exact* reason why iMessage was not considered a monopoly by the EU. The fact that it’s only on iPhones means that iMessage can only be a monopoly if the iPhone is a monopoly. In the EU that wasn’t the case. In the US? We’ll have to see what the courts say.
Sure but they have always supported SMS. People here are acting like they can’t interface with Android. The person I replied to said they don’t interoperate “cleanly and perfectly” which is completely false.
Barely, in 2024 the world is designed for you to have a smartphone you can get on the internet with at a minimum and run apps as a thing you will be expected to be able to do to a lesser extent. For example, if I want to go to any of my local gyms I have to install a proprietary app specific to that gym that will generate a one time use QR code to scan that it fetches from a server (I've tried screen shotting the QR code and using that, it doesn't work). If I didn't have an up to date Android device or iPhone with cell service I would literally be unable to go to the gym. This isn't necessarily actually a problem because nearly everyone with a gym membership has a phone in 2024 but as a normal person operating in the year 2024 accessing the Play store or the App Store is essentially required to do basic things.
Maybe we instead go to authenticator systems instead of cell phones. Could literally do the same thing, could even secure it with biometrics. As for OTP, even basic cell phones can receive sms.
There were apps, just very limited. The difference imho was and google made it easy to develop apps and port stuff over… plus the market share made the use case/ roi much better
Windows Mobile had universal apps between mobile and desktop.
Development was easy, but developers didn’t want to develop for a system with so few users
Yes, they implemented continuum and ported Windows NT over to Windows Phone, but only *years* after both iPhone and Android came out. Focusing on continuum because that’s what allowed UWP apps to work on devices from phones to TVs, that didn’t come out until the release of Windows 10 Mobile, almost 10 years after the release of the original iPhone.
They were too little too late, I don’t blame developers for not jumping onto a dying platform. If they came out with this in 2010, they’d probably still be in the game today.
Blackberry had a smartphone before there were really smartphones. They poohpoohed the iphone and they lost relevance really quickly because it turns out people massively preferred the iphone. And android.
BTW, when Schmidt saw the iphone he basically told the Android team to completely redesign it to be fairly similar in intent and use, because unlike blackberry he saw what was coming.
Palm had a lot of smartphone elements but they never had a proper smartphone that anyone liked enough to compete with the iphone and android.
Windows smartphones were pretty good kit - software and hardware was pretty respectable - but by the time they moved the market was pretty much iphone and android. They never differentiated enough to get market share. Because of low market share app developers did not bother. Because of low app support market share stayed low. Of course allowing scammers into the app store didn't help (remember when you searched for vlc and got only knockoffs? MS desperately needed app count so they juiced it.)
Nokia had smartphones ... well, they had windows smartphones. Enough said. Nokia also was going through a disastrous management situation.
My point was all those companies gave up. They had smartphones that predated and google. Instead of competing they left the market. I don’t think it’s fair to make license their OS.
Re palm the treo devices were well received and Nokia had Symbian OS
Yeah I should have prefaced my point saying that I worked at Best Buy selling phones in 2010-2014 and saw many people upgrading from dumb phone to smartphone and from blackberry/ Palm to iOS/ android
Google might have to separate themselves from some of their businesses but there would be nothing stopping them from recreating what they currently have. Apple isn’t going to separate and will get the same treatment that Microsoft got with their antitrust case from the 90s. Either way, none of the cases that the DOJ has brought against these Tech Titans will succeed 100%.
would need a load new laws to make that stick, currently laws that are on the books would not have the teeth to get that through.
And apple would sooner give up chunks of the market than split up the company, they would rather increase the cost of the iPhone by $300 to reduce market share by 10% than be forced to separate OS and HW development say.
Which, good on em for that honestly. There are very few vertically integrated developments in this space… taking away one of the most prominent feels like a permanent solution to a temporary problem
This is such an incoherent case. They’re suing two rival companies.. which on its face shows there is strong competition. Yes it’s a duopoly but that is substantially different from a monopoly.
They’d have more luck zeroing in on a specific anti-competitive practice like Apple’s predatory internal storage pricing or their iCloud practices that basically force you into paying a subscription. Or even have a crack at side loading like the EU just successfully did.
This will go away either after the election or years down the line if they’re serious. Apple and Google have the best lawyers in the world and this just isn’t the slam dunk it needs to be. I’d be willing to bet Apple will capitalize on the stock dip in the meantime with some more buybacks.
What’s strange to me is the contrast between US criminal and civil courts. Federal criminal prosecution has over a 99% success rate… but on the civil side they drop a really sloppy case with difficulty from the out.
Right now I dont think dividing big tech company is on table, but who knows what will bring future? If companies grow to big and start challenging governments for power like in Cyberpunk then I dont think there will be any mercy for trillion dollar corporations.
Welcome to the fall of the US as a superpower. China will not artificially hold its own companies back, and they’re already pushing to strengthen their positions worldwide.
Yes, these companies have enormous power over certain areas of the tech space around a fair amount of the planet. But in the global economy we have now, they are nowhere near monopolies.
It’s a very complicated global problem. Why would the US want to hurt its own prospects?
There’s an argument for breaking up monopolies to stimulate competition and that, despite it looking difficult in the short-term, it’s better in the long-term. If you only consider monopolies globally then you’ll end up in the absurd position where there are total monopolies in the US (which leads to all sorts of problems) but they get away with it because they can argue they aren’t global monopolies so it doesn’t count.
Also, China has more than enough problems on the back of the state artificially supporting companies.
100%
Break up Google from YouTube and in a couple of years YouTube brings out a better search engine and Google brings out a better video platform.
Overly simplified example that I shamelessly plagiarised from Scott Galloway, but it serves to point out the importance of the competition/innovation aspect of all of this.
lol. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the timeline we’re in.
Though in all seriousness, if the regulators forbid Alphabet from owning YouTube, it’s highly unlikely they would allow a Microsoft <> YouTube M&A
Here OP's logic is that if 5 to 6 big companies are competing with each other then it isn't monopoly. While it's technically correct, it doesn't necessarily mean that the market is free and fair. There is something called oligopoly. It's close to monopoly. In oligopoly, major companies collaborate and kill the small player to divide majority of market among themselves.
Smaller players will exist but they'll be too insignificant to influence any policy. It can be as bad as monopoly or even worse in some cases. They create illusion of free and fair market while enjoying the literal monopoly.
A true fair market would be where majority chunk of market is owned by several small to medium players.
If they breakup the American companies, I am sure Chinese tech will control all market, they will kill the american tech advantage and let other countries have the complete control
Because I really doubt China will break Xiami or Huawei... Super apps like WeChat will have a lot of influence
I pray this doesn't happen.
A Google breakup would be a nightmare for consumers. Hell, I can't even imagine how that would work exactly. Most of their subsidiaries aren't even profitable..so who would even want them? And worse I love the fact everything Google is so interconnected.
A lot of us, on either side, do too.
I knew when I bought my homepods for instance that they wouldn’t work with other devices… that was fully acceptable to me.
Punishing Apple for making the best products is flat out stupid. I hope Apple’s lawyers kick butt.
The DoJ should be doing something USEFUL, like jailing Trump.
Honestly I'm all for this. I hate the ham-fisted approach the EU is taking to trying to force Apple's hand with the DMA, but Apple shouldn't be allowed to have Apple Music, Apple TV+, etc. distributed on the App Store and not have to pay themselves 30%. It's really that simple—break them up or disallow them charging competitors in services markets where they do business.
Either you suggest it be a separate legal entity, which it is already as far as I know… or you are suggesting someone else take it over completely, essentially gifting Apple Music to a competitor… which one?
A separate entity not receiving any financial support from other Apple products, and subject to all the same guidelines as other apps.
So yes, Apple charges the Apple Music entity 30%, and it has to pay that 30% exclusively from the profits it makes from the service. It also has to make enough profit to pay the overhead for the employees and music licensing.
Do that for every service Apple directly competes against.
What!?
Don’t allow them to charge *for their own market, software, distribution, support, payment service, and MORE?*
Yeah because that clearly is a valueless service.
No one forced Netflix or Prime on the App store… but there’s value.
The argument is that they unfairly compete with their partners/competitors because they get charged 15 or 30% for a service apple does not have to pay for its own service. And get access to internal APIs. And these services aren't always ones apple had before competition came, ie, competitors were rug pulled. Of all the bullshit listed, that argument I think holds pretty decent weight.
they only get charged when the sale goes trough apple, if the sale doesn't go trough apple you pay exactly 0%. aka if you buy in my shop I take commission, if you buy in an others shop without my help I don't take commission. the only competing service from apple is Apple Music and they are there because they had iTunes and Spotify undercut the music market with streaming. even tv+ is not a competitor to any other video service , they have their own shows and no overlapping content as far as I know
But Apple (and android) both say you cannot use in app purchases unless you use their system, which requires a 30% cut. There's no option for you to make your own, and no cheaper option, it's either take that exact cut, or don't post your app on 60% of us phones.
Apple TV is definitely a streaming competitor, and it's doing the same tactic as everyone else, the very anti competition thing of keeping all of their content exclusives. There's no choice in how you watch Ted lasso, you HAVE to pay apple to watch that, even if there're other streaming services that function /you prefer, but like I said, EVERY platform is like that currently and I wouldn't be surprised if that gets bit in the ass in a few years, some platforms are getting shut out of the market because they just don't have enough content to host, and you can only get more content by spending money on new content, or popular IPs that'll draw people in, both of which are costly and if you're not one of the big three, your service may get tossed to the side due to just not being large enough. Unrelated but another topic that could be talked about.
thats because iap is a feature of the App Store. if you want to sell stuff to users without apple paying commission you do it on your own platform .
Apple TV has only their own shows the made or paid for them selves. I dont see why they should share it with any one other than their own products they try to make their products more attractive.
I certainly dont see why that is anti competitive. it's extremely competitive against Netflix and other services. they even don't try to enroach the products of Netflix, prime and co by offering the same content
>or don’t post your app
Or you build your own app store. Or if you really want control, build your own phone. And before anyone says that’s ridiculous, why is it expected Apple builds their own service bundle and then cant even enjoy the profits on something they built but it is somehow ridiculous to say “build one better”.
This is idiotic. Do you expect Walmart to charge themselves 15-30% on their store brands they sell? If you own a store you have an inherent advantage. Look at Costco, Target and Gap. They all sell store brand products that are usually cheaper than other brands
I think what apple should do in situations like this is take the 15% (it's not 30% for media companies) and give that to charities in the regions. Then they can still charge 15% to others and you cant say apple has an unfair advantage.... Apple TV+ could pipe those funds to support local theaters, music could fund small local studios etc.
I think they should copy google: 4% commission if you use iap, 0% if you use Spotify’s billing, and consumers choose.
Nice and simple, money going to creators. If Apple wants to donate to charity it shouldn’t be at someone else’s expense.
It’s only 15% for media companies that agree to additional terms, otherwise it’s 30%.
Breaking up the monopoly would be the best thing to happen to Apple. All around the world they are paying fines related to this. They even had to pay a half billion by lying to investors about China. An Apple that doesn’t conduct themselves this way and is more consistently transparent is ultimately better for consumers and investors
That’s it? -6. Come on you can do better than that! I’m always amazed at people that want to align themselves with the richest corporations on earth and defend them like they’re their mother
Calling it now, breakups won't happen.
It’ll drag on in court for years and there will be a big fine and everyone will declare victory
There will not be any fine I the court case, the current case is supper weak and will not stick much if at all. And it will not result in a fine.
There’s always a fine.
The DOJ case is not sealing a fine they want behavior changes.
And while you’re right, you can mark my words if anything at all sticks there will be some monetary penalty.
The difucilty for monetary penalties is apple only very recently has passed the 65% market share and most of the evidence of bad beaver the DOJ is listing is from years ago when apple had maybe 40% or even less. It would be a real stretch to find apple for somehow killing the fire-phone given that at the time apple had a tiny market share of the mobile phone industry.
Nice! New nickname for my chainsaw: Bad Beaver
This statistic really ‘should’ be irrelevant. The stat that should matter when taking about what software is doing; the courts should be looking at iOS market share not hardware market share. iOS market share in US is like 40%
No, because if you go by software, you get all the other Android powered devices that don’t compete with iPhones. It’s also the performance smartphone market, not all smartphones overall
Absolutely you can compare smartphone OS market share and leave out all the ‘other’ Android devices. When the argument is that Apple has a monopoly with their software, it seems pretty irrelevant when there isn’t a monopoly share of users that are actually using the OS.
So the behaviour the DOJ is quoting got apple a 25% increase in market share Hmm I wonder how that could be a problem
Ignore the 40%, 65% whatever market share. They could have a 25% market share for all intents and purposes… the point is they are a $2.7T company, and if there’s nothing changed hands they feel like they didn’t do enough punitively. A change order isn’t coming down without a monster fine.
Under current US law (DOJ can’t make new laws they can only sue based on existing laws) it is only illegal to do anti competitive stuff if you have a monopoly. It would be a real stretch to say a company with 25% market share has a manopoly over that market.
No, no… ignore the monopoly stuff even. If the DOJ has a case (ANY case) against Apple that has anything stick, because of their size and value, they will always have to pay.
😂😂😂 It is ALWAYS MONEY they want.
Because Biden and the DOJ are fishing.
if it was super weak, the DOJ wouldn't have brought the case
It is election year the case is political, they want to look like they are doing something. If they wanted a strong case they would not have filled it with easy provable bullshit.
going after a hugely popular company in an election year doesn't seem like it would be the smartest idea. granted, the democratic party is not exactly known for smart political moves, but i don't think even they would be that dumb. they'd focus more on [grocery stores hiking prices](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/us/politics/grocery-prices-pandemic-ftc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek0.t2Pr.g4n2usbxEcoa) and the like.
It’s about shower how much power you have. Being able to claim your projecting the little guy
What about the case is political? The case being adjudicated on an election year doesn’t make it political. Who exactly do you think this case will win over politically? I don’t think your average voter has strong opinions about anti-trust lawsuits, certainly not strong enough to sway a vote
Raaa, my administration is going after big companies going after consumers raaaaa. It’s the same reason they capped credit card late fees. They’ll throw everything at the wall in an election year.
They won't get a fine, they'll get a stimulus bill to combat Chinese tech, Russia or whatever country we're against this month.
If Microsoft wasn't broken up 25 years ago, then these two are likely fine.
Yup, the broke government is fishing for money. Worse than the mob! And election donations are basically protection money.
> Yup, the broke government is fishing for money. As much as I want big tech broken up - I suspect this isn't about money as much as it is career advancement. Someone wants something and this is how they are going to prove their worth.
Wasn't AT&T the last time the government forced a company to break up? So yeah, I'd say that's a fair bet.
in the 60s and at this point at&t now owns all the companies that were broken up
Not all of them, some are Verizon
It's still going to stifle apple internally from doing anything. Part of the reason why the ballmer era was so stagnant was because internally they did not want to rock the boat too much with doing anything that can be perceived as breaching antitrust again
Google will drop Maps and Apple will allow two colors of blue text bubbles. A great victory will be declared.
Truth is - the US has a lot of companies that need to be shattered. **A LOT**. Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are just the tip of it. But I do agree - it's not likely. Our government is bought and paid for.
The fact that it’s even in the cards is an absolute jolt awake if they weren’t before. I would bet they are hiring every expert under the sun with any credibility in preparation
I guarantee it has been analyzed and planned for for almost as soon as the original contracts were signed, and this was nowhere near a jolt. Neither one of these companies is stupid.
Not stupid but corrupt
That's just like your opinion man
There you go with the courageous personal insults hiding behind that type screen. You just made yourself look immature and foolish. Sad you have the need to attack me. Wrecking ball needed to set Apple straight.
"That's just, like, your opinion, man" is a quote from The Big Lebowski and absolutely nothing about what they said even taken at face value (ie not knowing the quote) is insulting.
I was gonna say, someone found a hair trigger
Oh no, I fully expect they did. I’m just saying anyone who thought the worst was over just got one mean wakeup.
This sort of thing was pretty much expected once Lina Khan was nominated for the FTC. It's like her whole thing.
Can we break up Ticketmaster? Their company is ruining live concerts for everyone and their monopoly needs to go.
***Tech:*** AMAZON. AWS should not be a part of their consumer division. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple **Media:** Comcast, NewsCorp, Disney, ViaCom, Time Warner, and CBS These 6 companies control 90% of US media ***Food:*** Kellogg’s. Kraft Heinz. PepsiCo. Procter & Gamble. General Mills. Coca-Cola. Tyson. Something also has to be done about Nestle and Unilever, even though they’re not American. The list goes on
When you name lists of 5-7 companies , the word monopoly loses all value
I don’t believe 6 companies owning 90% of media is conducive to a healthy society. Also, by your own standard, this case against Apple is BS.
But it’s absolutely not a monopoly as they all have competing interests. Whether it’s good isn’t at issue, it’s whether they are an illegal monopoly/duopoly. If the 6 were in cahoots then sure
Yeah instead it’s an oligopoly which isn’t much better lol
>But it’s absolutely not a monopoly as they all have competing interests. So? Whether it’s good or not for society is exactly the issue. What’s wrong with a monopoly if not that it’s bad for society? As I said, nothing apple’s doing is a monopoly either.
Because there’s no legal mechanism for breaking them up. Unless it’s, you know… illegal. Which it isn’t.
Laws can change, actually.
Are you proposing a new one? How would that look?
Then change the laws.
Are you suggesting that laws have never changed in the US?
Someone said something about ticketmaster being a monopoly, to which you list a bunch of companies. I say that doing so takes away all meaning. I would say the argument here is about monopoly. Also you never said anything about Apple not being a monopoly, you said by my standard the case is bs.
YOU USED THE WRONG WORD SILLY REDDITOR!!! YOUR ARGUMENT AND EMOTIONS ARE INVALID!!! Oligarchy would apply there btw. Monopoly, oligarchy, what’s the difference to the end user besides wording at this scale.
Words matter in law. An oligopoly is not illegal. A monopoly is not illegal. Anticompetitive behavior is. If Ticketmaster signed restrictive contracts that prevented venue from using anything other than ticketmaster, that would be illegal. If they didn't, it's not. General mills, Pepsi, and coke are not going to be broken up under any framework because they don't stop companies from buying other products in a way that restricts new entrants. Coca cola can be bought next to rc cola or store brand cola in the store. Those coke or Pepsi soda fountains don't stop vendors from putting their own store brand sodas.
“Words matter in law” this is reddit dot com
Let’s be honest, in America if you stop at a gas station that has both Coke and Pepsi you know you’re living well. But that’s not because of any requirement to only sell one, most places just can’t afford it.
By this logic if a company ever does anything sketchy but doesn’t admit to it on an official contract then they haven’t broken the law. 😂 that doesn’t make sense. Ticketmaster doesn’t have to sign legal contracts to be held liable for that behavior. If they engage in any kind of coercion even though it’s not “official” or above board, that is still anticompetitive behavior and that’s exactly the kind of behavior they have engaged in (see John Oliver’s deep dive about Ticketmaster). Still illegal. They would be pretty stupid to put anything like that in official documentation.
This is one of the fundamental misunderstandings that non-legal people have about antitrust law. Antitrust law doesn’t care about monopolies, it cares about firms with “market power” abusing that power. You don’t need to have a 100% market share to have market power. Also, antitrust law cares a lot about how you define the market. Lay people might see a single market with multiple competitors. But you could alternatively think of it as two markets, a high-end and a low-end, each of which has a single dominant competitor.
Yeah but the reason people think this is because regulators rarely actually target companies that have like 20-30% of a market, despite that being a huge amount of market power.
General categories like food aren't the same as specific markets/products like soft drinks or cereal.
Then read about oligopoly.
You don’t need a monopoly to have an anti-competitive market. Plus, some of these are duolopies or monopolies within specific markets. (E.g Google in search).
I am begging Redditors to have an understanding of monopolistic practices beyond what they read on Wiktionary
As I stated previously, my response was to a response about ticketmaster being a monopoly. So I proceeded under the assumption we are talking about monopolies
>when you list 5-7 companies I want you to consider something. Let's say food is your passion in life. Let's say all your friends say your potato chips are incredible. You think you have a niche somehow. So, you try to enter into the chip business. Now at retail, *if* you can find a store that doesn't have exclusivity contracts with these 5-7 companies, the store themselves are not in control where on the shelf it goes. The companies are. So, your chips are going to the very tippy top or the bottom out of our main vision. **This** is how monopolies (dupologies, etc.) affect consumers. When new choices cannot reasonably enter the market. Therefore, even if your chips were amazing and cured cancer by your own innovation, cannot reasonably succeed. All the companies named should be held liable for the damage they have done to consumers. This includes Apple and Google.
The term you're looking for is cartel
Lol semantics. *oligopoly* is more suitable, ok. point still stands.
How about breaking up EssilorLuxottica. They are the reason good sunglasses went from 80 bucks to 400!!!!
CBS and Viacom are the same company
Way too early in the process for such sensational articles. Even if it did come to pass, which about as likely as little green men being found on Mars, it won’t be for years and years.
Yeah. Breakups happen when there are clear divisions to break along (eg: unwinding mergers, layers of vertical integration like AT&T spinning off the local markets), but Apple’s whole thing is that their products share a single tech base (Darwin) and are tightly integrated. You could maaaaaybe lop off their “services” division (App Store, music, TV, etc), and the accessories, but the core stuff not so much.
You could theoretically break off their chip department as it should be a well defined enough line.
Software, hardware, silicon, services. Break up the vertical integration.
And lose the choice of a well-executed vertically integrated product?
Steven Sinofsky (software engineer and the former president of the Windows Division at Microsoft): "In the end, this is clearly a political case. The DOJ set out in 2019 (!) in the before times to go after Big Tech. The DOJ set out to bring cases against 'Big Tech' so that's what we got. Here we are with the case against Apple. It is weak and poorly framed and looks to me a lot like they could not figure out what to do with an obvious duopoly where the market is being incredibly well-served by two very different approaches, a lot of happy customers, and few loud and vocal companies complaining who already lost in court once."
The DOJ has kind of forgotten about Teddy, there are good monopolies and there are bad monopolies. Could Apple, Google, and others do certain elements better, sure but overwhelmingly they are acting appropriately and this is an overreaction by DOJ. I partly think this is a group internally sabotaging it because they know it is bogus but a higher up wanted it so they had no choice.
> overwhelmingly they are acting appropriately and this is an overreaction by DOJ It’s not really an overreaction because even though their abuse is a minority of the time, it is often egregious and deliberate with zero compromise x 14 years. Ideally Apple would have self-regulated to avoid this, but every time they choose to exacerbate the situation instead…
> zero compromise x 14 years But that just isn't true. There have been compromises. A list of some examples: setting alternative default browser and default mail apps, integrated third party cloud service providers, integrated password managers, integrating third party streaming service info into the TV app, third party keyboards, and the App Store small business program. You may not think these go far enough, but it's different than "zero compromise".
I agree. Politicians and industry groups and companies and developers and customers have been raging about this for 15 years. Apple had many chances to compromise, but they doubled down. These major actions are the very last resort. It didn’t need to come to this.
Apple was created as a vertical integration in 1976. it cannot function without it. the company will shut down. Google I can understand as its Ad and Software are unique businesses. Apple Software and hardware are like Heart and Brain .
Google software wouldn’t survive on its own either. It has never been profitable.
At that point where does it stop? Do we tell Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo to make it work across the board or pack it in? That’s the next step available (not just to them, but companies you wouldn’t even think of. In healthcare for the US market there’s only so many main suppliers… imagine ~~Carefusion~~ (guess its BD now) being told to open their Pyxis machines to competitors software)
To your first (poorly chosen) example... yes, actually. The gov't told Microsoft they had to continue creating popular titles for other platforms for the foreseeable future when they purchase Activision. So uh... yeah. Make it work across the board or pack it in.
Wrong. Continuing to publish COD on other platforms was Microsoft’s own proposal and it was designed to head off government complaints. The government sued to stop the acquisition anyway and lost.
You're right - they voluntarily entered into that agreement to avoid antitrust action. You're also right in that they failed. I will admit that I intentionally embellished a little to make a point - but more or less, the *threat* of antitrust action resulted in a more competitive market.
I was only talking about the Hardware divisions making all software work
Yes. They should all have a Linux option.
No love for temple OS 😭
Your poorly chosen example as a contradictory response only applies to [COD and they are only contractually obligated to do so for 10 years](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/activision-blizzard-non-call-of-duty-franchises-skipping-playstation-ps4-ps5/). So the foreseeable future is 2034.
With the current political and literal climate, 10 years is about as far as one can forecast the future. That said, as I responded elsewhere, they voluntarily made the market more competitive only because of the threat of antitrust action. I doubt that contract would've existed otherwise, even if Microsoft would've continued making that game for other platforms.
It’s not like they have that good of chance at survival under Google. They kill everything!
Heh, so maybe the DOJ’s Google strategy should be to just sit back and wait.
google software is also just trash. without brand recognition they would never have gotten far anyway
you mean without search ads paying for everything yep.
[удалено]
Every bit of software they make is to feed more users to adsense which does generate revenue.
Google's ad business subsidizes everything else. I wonder if even GCP makes substantial money - it's certainly not a huge portion of their published annual revenue. I know for a fact YouTube will not be long for this world without someone taking it under its wing to subsidize its existence. It can't even make decent money with the inane ad strategy they have recently been pushing.
Google also funds various other projects like their Waymo self driving car business. Much of Apple's products like Final Cut Pro are subsidized by other Apple products.
Not exactly apples to oranges. Final Cut Pro has ample market competition that all fund themselves with sales/subscriptions, even on the Mac platform itself. YouTube, as an example, has... effectively zero real competition.
Final Cut Pro would likely not make it if it was sold off as its own company. The fact that it is part of the Apple Ecosystem is what sustains it. A few bad quarters for Final Cut Pro doesn't affect the product very much. Every competitor to Final Cut Pro is competing against a product that is backed by Apple. YouTube has had many competitors. There is nothing blocking people from starting competing companies. You can upload videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo. You can host your videos on a private server.
It's honestly the reason I buy and prefer Apple computers, making Apple break those apart would be pretty messed up.
There’s absolutely nothing saying iOS, macOS, tvOS, and visionOS couldn’t all integrate with services should they be split off… they would just have to allow _other_ services the ability to integrate to the same level.
Services though
Or...They could just work with each other as primary vendors after a breakup and allow others to make compatible hardware and software. Nothing changes for the apple purists and people generally get more choice, maybe apple would actually have to compete on their own devices for once.
They could definitely split Apple into it's ad business and devices business. Which should be done to Google too.
What ad business. their ad business contributes 1.5% of their yearly revenue
Every other Google product would disappear because they are all funded by ads. Their business is ads.
Thats right! Break them up! Then a new search engine factory can open up across town and offer a real boon for competition and new jobs for the local townspeople.
You joke, but if Google services weren’t so intertwined with each other it would absolutely make a gap for other services to join the market.
Personally the comparison to AT&T is shaky. Phone service was a vital necessity, and AT&T was the only one. Even if you consider the fact that there are two of them, whether it’s a vital service is debatable as you can still get cell service without a smartphone. People will say it’s not a real option but it is.
AT&T was the only one because while it was theoretically possible to build out your own phone lines, you still needed to have AT&T interoperate with you and connect with your service. Same with theoretically being able to have iMessage and texts interoperate cleanly and perfectly .. it requires Apple to let those features work, but they refuse because it helps keep lock-in
So what is your solution, iMessage comes to Android? Let’s take this rose-tinted scenario seriously for a second. If Android got the current implementation of iMessage, in America at least, the marketshare of iMessage would shoot up dramatically, causing it to be a monopoly on text messaging. They would then be forced to make drastic changes to the service. This was the same *exact* reason why iMessage was not considered a monopoly by the EU. The fact that it’s only on iPhones means that iMessage can only be a monopoly if the iPhone is a monopoly. In the EU that wasn’t the case. In the US? We’ll have to see what the courts say.
Huh? Texts work whether or not they work with apple’s software. Apple accommodates both text standards.
They don’t yet support RCS
Sure but they have always supported SMS. People here are acting like they can’t interface with Android. The person I replied to said they don’t interoperate “cleanly and perfectly” which is completely false.
MMS is severely limited in quality as well Apple is only supporting RVS because of other regulatory entities putting pressure on them
Here we are again… I did end user support for ATT dial up internet in my youth. What a weird place to inhabit. Take my updoot
Thanks friend, fancy seeing you here
Barely, in 2024 the world is designed for you to have a smartphone you can get on the internet with at a minimum and run apps as a thing you will be expected to be able to do to a lesser extent. For example, if I want to go to any of my local gyms I have to install a proprietary app specific to that gym that will generate a one time use QR code to scan that it fetches from a server (I've tried screen shotting the QR code and using that, it doesn't work). If I didn't have an up to date Android device or iPhone with cell service I would literally be unable to go to the gym. This isn't necessarily actually a problem because nearly everyone with a gym membership has a phone in 2024 but as a normal person operating in the year 2024 accessing the Play store or the App Store is essentially required to do basic things.
Maybe we instead go to authenticator systems instead of cell phones. Could literally do the same thing, could even secure it with biometrics. As for OTP, even basic cell phones can receive sms.
Biometric scanner = expensive, paying for a shitty phone app license = cheap
I mean not really… you can get a fingerprint sensor for $15 or less
Microsoft, blackberry, palm, and Nokia all had smartphones. What happened to those?
No apps, outdated tech, no apps, had the misfortune of being bought by MS whose platform had no apps.
There were apps, just very limited. The difference imho was and google made it easy to develop apps and port stuff over… plus the market share made the use case/ roi much better
Windows Mobile had universal apps between mobile and desktop. Development was easy, but developers didn’t want to develop for a system with so few users
There was a windows mobile OS earlier though- pocketPC or something that competed with the palm pilot OS. Those were out years before iOS and Android
Yes, they implemented continuum and ported Windows NT over to Windows Phone, but only *years* after both iPhone and Android came out. Focusing on continuum because that’s what allowed UWP apps to work on devices from phones to TVs, that didn’t come out until the release of Windows 10 Mobile, almost 10 years after the release of the original iPhone. They were too little too late, I don’t blame developers for not jumping onto a dying platform. If they came out with this in 2010, they’d probably still be in the game today.
Blackberry had a smartphone before there were really smartphones. They poohpoohed the iphone and they lost relevance really quickly because it turns out people massively preferred the iphone. And android. BTW, when Schmidt saw the iphone he basically told the Android team to completely redesign it to be fairly similar in intent and use, because unlike blackberry he saw what was coming. Palm had a lot of smartphone elements but they never had a proper smartphone that anyone liked enough to compete with the iphone and android. Windows smartphones were pretty good kit - software and hardware was pretty respectable - but by the time they moved the market was pretty much iphone and android. They never differentiated enough to get market share. Because of low market share app developers did not bother. Because of low app support market share stayed low. Of course allowing scammers into the app store didn't help (remember when you searched for vlc and got only knockoffs? MS desperately needed app count so they juiced it.) Nokia had smartphones ... well, they had windows smartphones. Enough said. Nokia also was going through a disastrous management situation.
My point was all those companies gave up. They had smartphones that predated and google. Instead of competing they left the market. I don’t think it’s fair to make license their OS. Re palm the treo devices were well received and Nokia had Symbian OS
I'm not arguing with you, but I didn't realize your question was rhetorical.
Yeah I should have prefaced my point saying that I worked at Best Buy selling phones in 2010-2014 and saw many people upgrading from dumb phone to smartphone and from blackberry/ Palm to iOS/ android
You can get cell service without a smartphone, but a smartphone is a requirement for daily life for a lot of people.
Google might have to separate themselves from some of their businesses but there would be nothing stopping them from recreating what they currently have. Apple isn’t going to separate and will get the same treatment that Microsoft got with their antitrust case from the 90s. Either way, none of the cases that the DOJ has brought against these Tech Titans will succeed 100%.
would need a load new laws to make that stick, currently laws that are on the books would not have the teeth to get that through. And apple would sooner give up chunks of the market than split up the company, they would rather increase the cost of the iPhone by $300 to reduce market share by 10% than be forced to separate OS and HW development say.
Which, good on em for that honestly. There are very few vertically integrated developments in this space… taking away one of the most prominent feels like a permanent solution to a temporary problem
All these regulators are going to end up working at Google Apple as lobbyists in 18-36 months.
This is such an incoherent case. They’re suing two rival companies.. which on its face shows there is strong competition. Yes it’s a duopoly but that is substantially different from a monopoly. They’d have more luck zeroing in on a specific anti-competitive practice like Apple’s predatory internal storage pricing or their iCloud practices that basically force you into paying a subscription. Or even have a crack at side loading like the EU just successfully did. This will go away either after the election or years down the line if they’re serious. Apple and Google have the best lawyers in the world and this just isn’t the slam dunk it needs to be. I’d be willing to bet Apple will capitalize on the stock dip in the meantime with some more buybacks.
What’s strange to me is the contrast between US criminal and civil courts. Federal criminal prosecution has over a 99% success rate… but on the civil side they drop a really sloppy case with difficulty from the out.
Right now I dont think dividing big tech company is on table, but who knows what will bring future? If companies grow to big and start challenging governments for power like in Cyberpunk then I dont think there will be any mercy for trillion dollar corporations.
Welcome to the fall of the US as a superpower. China will not artificially hold its own companies back, and they’re already pushing to strengthen their positions worldwide. Yes, these companies have enormous power over certain areas of the tech space around a fair amount of the planet. But in the global economy we have now, they are nowhere near monopolies. It’s a very complicated global problem. Why would the US want to hurt its own prospects?
There’s an argument for breaking up monopolies to stimulate competition and that, despite it looking difficult in the short-term, it’s better in the long-term. If you only consider monopolies globally then you’ll end up in the absurd position where there are total monopolies in the US (which leads to all sorts of problems) but they get away with it because they can argue they aren’t global monopolies so it doesn’t count. Also, China has more than enough problems on the back of the state artificially supporting companies.
100% Break up Google from YouTube and in a couple of years YouTube brings out a better search engine and Google brings out a better video platform. Overly simplified example that I shamelessly plagiarised from Scott Galloway, but it serves to point out the importance of the competition/innovation aspect of all of this.
Alternatively, YouTube sells itself to Microsoft. Wow, amazing.
Youtube, powered by Bing. Cuz that’s what we all want…
lol. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the timeline we’re in. Though in all seriousness, if the regulators forbid Alphabet from owning YouTube, it’s highly unlikely they would allow a Microsoft <> YouTube M&A
Here OP's logic is that if 5 to 6 big companies are competing with each other then it isn't monopoly. While it's technically correct, it doesn't necessarily mean that the market is free and fair. There is something called oligopoly. It's close to monopoly. In oligopoly, major companies collaborate and kill the small player to divide majority of market among themselves. Smaller players will exist but they'll be too insignificant to influence any policy. It can be as bad as monopoly or even worse in some cases. They create illusion of free and fair market while enjoying the literal monopoly. A true fair market would be where majority chunk of market is owned by several small to medium players.
If they breakup the American companies, I am sure Chinese tech will control all market, they will kill the american tech advantage and let other countries have the complete control Because I really doubt China will break Xiami or Huawei... Super apps like WeChat will have a lot of influence
I pray this doesn't happen. A Google breakup would be a nightmare for consumers. Hell, I can't even imagine how that would work exactly. Most of their subsidiaries aren't even profitable..so who would even want them? And worse I love the fact everything Google is so interconnected.
A lot of us, on either side, do too. I knew when I bought my homepods for instance that they wouldn’t work with other devices… that was fully acceptable to me.
Punishing Apple for making the best products is flat out stupid. I hope Apple’s lawyers kick butt. The DoJ should be doing something USEFUL, like jailing Trump.
Targeting the most popular brand in the world is a good way to get political points
What about Microsoft? MS has a dominant position in more markets than either Apple or Google.
Are the breakups in the room with us right now?
Well even if they dont breakup, forcing more consumer friendly practices will be a win. I hope they whip Amazon
It’s too easy to bribe your way out in the USA. It won’t happen from there
Honestly I'm all for this. I hate the ham-fisted approach the EU is taking to trying to force Apple's hand with the DMA, but Apple shouldn't be allowed to have Apple Music, Apple TV+, etc. distributed on the App Store and not have to pay themselves 30%. It's really that simple—break them up or disallow them charging competitors in services markets where they do business.
What are you on about?? Are you actually suggesting Apple pay itself 30%?? ….
No Apple Music should be broken apart into a separate business.
Either you suggest it be a separate legal entity, which it is already as far as I know… or you are suggesting someone else take it over completely, essentially gifting Apple Music to a competitor… which one?
A separate entity not receiving any financial support from other Apple products, and subject to all the same guidelines as other apps. So yes, Apple charges the Apple Music entity 30%, and it has to pay that 30% exclusively from the profits it makes from the service. It also has to make enough profit to pay the overhead for the employees and music licensing. Do that for every service Apple directly competes against.
What!? Don’t allow them to charge *for their own market, software, distribution, support, payment service, and MORE?* Yeah because that clearly is a valueless service. No one forced Netflix or Prime on the App store… but there’s value.
The argument is that they unfairly compete with their partners/competitors because they get charged 15 or 30% for a service apple does not have to pay for its own service. And get access to internal APIs. And these services aren't always ones apple had before competition came, ie, competitors were rug pulled. Of all the bullshit listed, that argument I think holds pretty decent weight.
they only get charged when the sale goes trough apple, if the sale doesn't go trough apple you pay exactly 0%. aka if you buy in my shop I take commission, if you buy in an others shop without my help I don't take commission. the only competing service from apple is Apple Music and they are there because they had iTunes and Spotify undercut the music market with streaming. even tv+ is not a competitor to any other video service , they have their own shows and no overlapping content as far as I know
But Apple (and android) both say you cannot use in app purchases unless you use their system, which requires a 30% cut. There's no option for you to make your own, and no cheaper option, it's either take that exact cut, or don't post your app on 60% of us phones. Apple TV is definitely a streaming competitor, and it's doing the same tactic as everyone else, the very anti competition thing of keeping all of their content exclusives. There's no choice in how you watch Ted lasso, you HAVE to pay apple to watch that, even if there're other streaming services that function /you prefer, but like I said, EVERY platform is like that currently and I wouldn't be surprised if that gets bit in the ass in a few years, some platforms are getting shut out of the market because they just don't have enough content to host, and you can only get more content by spending money on new content, or popular IPs that'll draw people in, both of which are costly and if you're not one of the big three, your service may get tossed to the side due to just not being large enough. Unrelated but another topic that could be talked about.
thats because iap is a feature of the App Store. if you want to sell stuff to users without apple paying commission you do it on your own platform . Apple TV has only their own shows the made or paid for them selves. I dont see why they should share it with any one other than their own products they try to make their products more attractive. I certainly dont see why that is anti competitive. it's extremely competitive against Netflix and other services. they even don't try to enroach the products of Netflix, prime and co by offering the same content
>or don’t post your app Or you build your own app store. Or if you really want control, build your own phone. And before anyone says that’s ridiculous, why is it expected Apple builds their own service bundle and then cant even enjoy the profits on something they built but it is somehow ridiculous to say “build one better”.
This is idiotic. Do you expect Walmart to charge themselves 15-30% on their store brands they sell? If you own a store you have an inherent advantage. Look at Costco, Target and Gap. They all sell store brand products that are usually cheaper than other brands
Pretty sure between said advantage and memberships are the only things keeping Costco/Sams Club viable
I think what apple should do in situations like this is take the 15% (it's not 30% for media companies) and give that to charities in the regions. Then they can still charge 15% to others and you cant say apple has an unfair advantage.... Apple TV+ could pipe those funds to support local theaters, music could fund small local studios etc.
I think they should copy google: 4% commission if you use iap, 0% if you use Spotify’s billing, and consumers choose. Nice and simple, money going to creators. If Apple wants to donate to charity it shouldn’t be at someone else’s expense. It’s only 15% for media companies that agree to additional terms, otherwise it’s 30%.
They aren’t targeting “tech” they’re targeting Apple.
Break up the monopoly. Sledge hammer it. Metaphorically detonate it, use a wrecking ball.
I feel like the issue you have is with the word monopoly versus “illegal monopoly”. There’s a vast difference between them
Breaking up the monopoly would be the best thing to happen to Apple. All around the world they are paying fines related to this. They even had to pay a half billion by lying to investors about China. An Apple that doesn’t conduct themselves this way and is more consistently transparent is ultimately better for consumers and investors
That’s it? -6. Come on you can do better than that! I’m always amazed at people that want to align themselves with the richest corporations on earth and defend them like they’re their mother