It was basically a person that took on the largest monopoly in the world, and won.
What we have today is a significantly larger momentum against tech monopolies.
Look at some of the practices that brought the case forward:
"An office boy working at the Standard Oil headquarters was given the job of destroying records which included evidence that railroads were giving the company advance information about refiner's shipments.[85] This allowed them to undercut the refiners"
Does that sound familiar? Google knows everything that happens on your phone; and they can just undercut every other successful app if they wish so? Or how Amazon can simply analyze all the sales and create their own version of the successful products?
She lost, she didn't win. Tarbell's confrontation with Rockefeller & Standard Oil and the legal actions of the authorities did the exact opposite of taking down Standard Oil. Standard Oil became even larger and more powerful. JD Rockefeller's family got far richer afterward. The Standard split itself into a more potent back-office interconnection of separate state chartered monopolies. No longer was there one monopoly controlled by Rockefeller, but numerous, all operating in concert as an oligopoly behind the scenes. The strings continued to be pulled by the Rockefellers just the same (which you can read about in eg Titan by Ron Chernow). It's the Sorcerer's Apprentice outcome that people were so afraid of in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Tarbell accomplished very little other than some harm to Rockfeller's reputation by exposing a few corners of that empire.
Breaking up Ma Bell into baby Bells just created regional monopolies instead a national one. This was largely before my time, though. I've heard anecdotally that consumer prices went up as a result, but I don't know for certain.
I was negatively affected by AT&T being forced to divest their cable internet business, leading me to become a long-time Comcast customer through no desire of my own. Now, I'm back with AT&T with fiber to the home. Before AT&T ran fiber (just within the last 2 or 3 years), it was a choice between Comcast/Xfinity or terrible DSL.
"The strings continued to be pulled by the Rockefellers just the same (which you can read about in eg Titan by Ron Chernow). It's the Sorcerer's Apprentice outcome that people were so afraid of in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Tarbell accomplished very little other than some harm to Rockfeller's reputation by exposing a few corners of that empire."
Yeah, right, Rockefeller's family got richer but the influence of the founders rarely lasts more than a few generations before either the company goes belly-up or it settles into the position of an also-ran.
Sometimes it isn't true but it's more often than not the case with companies that have come to power and riches on a new wave of tech where the founders were instrumental in developing the tech. There are hundreds of examples. Let me list just a few:
* Baldwin Locomotive Works: if you'd said to anyone in the U.S. in 1900 that this famous company would eventually go belly-up in a couple of generations then they'd have said you were mad and would have escorted you to the asylum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Locomotive_Works.
* The Stanley Rule & Level Co. Also around 1900 many would have almost said the same about Stanley, today it's hardly even an also-ran (it now just packages tools made by others). In the latter half of the 19th Century, Stanley along with other parts of New Britain's manufacturing sector was known as the Patent Center of the world. Stanley, had hundreds of patents and one of the key innovators of the time, Justus A. Traut, whose patents Stanley used, was known as the Patent King. Today, few techies would have ever heard of Justus Traut let alone know what he did for the U.S. tool industry.
https://datamp.org/patents/search/xrefCompany.php?source=xre...
https://www.datamp.org/patents/search/xrefPerson.php?id=124
https://eaiainfo.org/2018/01/06/trauts-model-shop-chamfer-pl... (BTW, note the quality of the patent drawings, all of Traut's patents are of this quality.)
* Marconi Company, aka the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company. The once famous Marconi company was one of the biggest and most important electronic companies in the world, it's now long defunct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marconi_Company.
* RCA/Radio Corporation of America. Another Guglielmo Marconi operation with the once legendary/infamous David Sarnoff at its helm—it too is now defunct (1986). Not long ago this was the biggest electronics company in the world. For starters, by about 1970, RCA was the principle equipment supplier to over 80% of all radio and TV stations in the U.S. alone (supplying complete turnkey operations). RCA built everything from semiconductors—transistors, ICs (e.g.: its famous 4000 series CMOS) to broadcast videotape recorders to satellites and everything in between. Now there's nothing left but scraps—the best of which were picked up by other companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA. (BTW, I'm quite familiar with this company as I once worked for it, excellent job it was too.)
Like it or not, Microsoft, Google and Apple will most likely go the same way for the very reason that those I've listed above have. In the end, history is against them surviving. Their tech will get tired and outdated and they will not adapt quickly enough (it's especially so with high tech after the founders leave or die off).
If you're a Microsoft, Google or Apple devotee then this seems an inconceivable outcome, for others it cannot come soon enough. However, the majority of the population couldn't give a damn either way.
You can't reach them without paying Apple tax. You can't write software and be done with it - you have to make their arbitrary reviewers happy and wait for releases. No matter what your business is.
They also keep you from forming a relationship with the customer. You don't get an email or anything. You're on their payment rails most of the time, which significantly increases risk.
One press of a button, and your business is obliterated.
Imagine if every car was either Ford or Tesla, and Tesla charged your destinations 30% on everything you do. Every bagel you buy, or every concert you attend.
Margins are tight as it is. Apple makes it substantially harder. Before Apple, people were satisfied with websites and Windows programs. Now everything has to be an App.
Isn't this article about Korea? Anyway.
> You can't reach them without paying Apple Tax
And? If it's that bad just don't do business with iPhone users. Can you not make money on the other 50% of users who use Android? If so that's kind of telling on its own. Or is it that you want your own business to be more lucrative? The thing is what is happening is that Apple is passing costs on to developers instead of consumers, and as a developer you don't like that. As a consumer, I love it. If they stop passing those costs and stop collectively bargaining against developers for me then the cost of the iPhone goes up.
> Margins are tight as it is. Apple makes it substantially harder. Before Apple, people were satisfied with websites and Windows programs. Now everything has to be an App.
Maybe you just don't have a good enough business model? If it comes to having fewer apps on the Apple App Store or having multiple stores, as an iPhone user I prefer fewer apps for sure.
