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0 pointscoldtea6y ago0 comments

How many times this old wives tale will have to be repeated till people understand what went on then, and how it's nothing like it's now?

Microsoft then had a monopoly on desktop OSes at the time, at 95+ (close to 97%, in fact).

Apple has a paltry sub-50% share of mobile OSes.

The "But they have 100% share on their own products" is not an argument, as far as the law is concerned, as monopolies are not judged this way. That's the same reason why you can't legally force McDonalds to also sell Burger King burgers, or GAP to sell Banana Republic clothes...

And even MS monopoly position wasn't the issue (having a monopoly naturally is not illegal). The issue was it used its monopoly position to threaten and bribe OEMs to not work with competitors.

0 comments

gamblor9566y ago

Apple has a monopoly on iOS devices. An iApp only runs on iOS, so it's irrelevant that Apple is a minority of the mobile market because that's not the market being analyzed for the antitrust issues.

root_axis6y ago

This logic makes no sense. Using your reasoning Nintendo is a monopoly because only Nintendo devices will run Nintendo games.

gamblor9566y ago

Nintendo is a monopoly with respect to Nintendo games (but not Nintendo devices, since you can buy those all over).

Monopolies aren't inherently illegal. See e.g., patents and copyrights, which are legally granted or protected monopolies.

What is illegal is anti-competitive practices. This doesn't require a dominant or even majority market position--authorities in the US and EU have gone after companies with relatively small market shares that engaged in anti competitive actions (though they haven't done so in many years).

1 more reply

m_ke6y ago

iOS revenue is 2x larger than android. There might be more cheap android phones out there but Apple has the majority of high income individuals.

coldteaOP6y ago

Which is not relevant. Monopoly is defined on a market, not on income segments (and even if it mattered, still on the high income individuals iOS is hardly above say 70%).

Someone could sell cars for $5K and have 99% of the car market in a small city of 1000 people, while another one sells a single car for 100M and has 20 times the other's revenue. It's still the cheap car guy that has the monopoly.

m_ke6y ago

Revenue based market share is more relevant than unit market share for most businesses. Apple pulls in 2/3 of the revenue in the mobile app ecosystem and gets to act as a gatekeeper between most consumer startups and their potential customers.

1 more reply

damnyou6y ago

Of course it's relevant. A definition of monopoly that only relies on raw unit numbers is obviously incomplete.

Antitrust is about power, and Apple has a lot of it.

1 more reply

vgetr6y ago

So...?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointscoldtea6y ago0 comments

How many times this old wives tale will have to be repeated till people understand what went on then, and how it's nothing like it's now?

Microsoft then had a monopoly on desktop OSes at the time, at 95+ (close to 97%, in fact).

Apple has a paltry sub-50% share of mobile OSes.

And even MS monopoly position wasn't the issue (having a monopoly naturally is not illegal). The issue was it used its monopoly position to threaten and bribe OEMs to not work with competitors.

0 comments

gamblor9566y ago

Apple has a monopoly on iOS devices. An iApp only runs on iOS, so it's irrelevant that Apple is a minority of the mobile market because that's not the market being analyzed for the antitrust issues.

root_axis6y ago

This logic makes no sense. Using your reasoning Nintendo is a monopoly because only Nintendo devices will run Nintendo games.

gamblor9566y ago

Nintendo is a monopoly with respect to Nintendo games (but not Nintendo devices, since you can buy those all over).

Monopolies aren't inherently illegal. See e.g., patents and copyrights, which are legally granted or protected monopolies.

1 more reply

m_ke6y ago

iOS revenue is 2x larger than android. There might be more cheap android phones out there but Apple has the majority of high income individuals.

coldteaOP6y ago

Which is not relevant. Monopoly is defined on a market, not on income segments (and even if it mattered, still on the high income individuals iOS is hardly above say 70%).

m_ke6y ago

1 more reply

damnyou6y ago

Of course it's relevant. A definition of monopoly that only relies on raw unit numbers is obviously incomplete.

Antitrust is about power, and Apple has a lot of it.

1 more reply

vgetr6y ago

So...?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse