About damn time. They should have never been allowed to grow so big in so many markets to become the only player. They're literally mentally crippling a generation of youngs that now don't know how technology works. I remember a young coworker at a technology company a while back remarking, upon finding another coworker's Android phone, "Oh wait, this is Android? Well, we're going to need a hacker to figure out how to use that thing," and he sat it back down, defeated. Wat.
I don't know what the criteria the FTC uses is, or what exactly Apple is accused of, but economically, I'd say that Apple and Google largely have different markets. There are Android users and iOS users. Because apps are not portable across these, a user's software library largely locks them into and constrains them to use the same platform, as shifting away from the platform would require throwing out their software library.
So if you're an iOS user, for example, there's really one app store out there that you can use. Android isn't really an option.
And I'd say that there's probably fertile ground for a company to have a monopoly position there.
I'm not sure that that's true, and that's why I pointed out that it's not clear what exactly Apple is accused of. That's what the title says -- and it's also wrong, I might add, in that having a monopoly is not illegal. Just places limits on some behavior that is then considered anticompetitive.
But the article text, for example, talks about the walled garden crossing multiple devices. If that's part of the complaint, then yeah, it can be an issue.
Here's some text from another article that quotes the DoJ:
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote in a press release.
Those are people who are gonna be selling in Apple's app store.
The DOJ claims Apple has used anticompetitive tactics, such as blocking innovative new apps and degrading how Android messages appear on iPhones, to maintain a monopoly on the smartphone market.
Not sure how a different color constitutes "degrading". Regardless, they don't have a monopoly outside the US. If their policies were effective, why do they only have a majority share in the US? 🤔
Do you think the color difference is just to mess with android users or something and is otherwise meaningless? It represents differences in abilities. The abilities are the "degraded" part.
Bullshit. The App Store is anti-competitive. The hardware is not. Wrong thing to attack. It will likely fail as a result.
I'm beginning to agree with a take I saw online. Someone said Lina Khan's tenure has been a failure because despite gesturing at all the right players, her FTC has failed to make progress because they're calling the wrong plays.
Someone said Lina Khan's tenure has been a failure because despite gesturing at all the right players, her FTC has failed to make progress because they're calling the wrong plays
All by design, it's only a failure to us stupid prolies. They're intentionally giving their corporate donors softballs that they know will never hurt their bottom line so that they can turn around come election season and say "Well, at least we tried!" and hope we don't look any further.
FWIW, I don't think this is failure is Khan's fault. She seems to have spent her professional career developing anti-trust philosophy. The only issue is that the FTC is the state mechanism to protect the wealth funnel and there's very little a individual can do within the Commission to protect consumers.
