Hacker News Reader

Comment by redwall_hp | Hacker News Reader

Is there even a legal term for this sort of captive market scenario? Antitrust laws seem close in spirit, but people decades ago apparently couldn't have anticipated the sort of vendor lock-in that has become commonplace in the smartphone space.

It's like you had two paper mills that dominated the market, and they wanted to claim a percentage of every novel, newspaper, etc. printed on the paper they produced. Oh, and you can't use that paper you bought to write erotica or other things the company disapproves of.

View on HN

It's hard because most analogies fall apart when you look at the users having already paid hundreds of dollars just for the hardware up front.

You could compare it to Costco, where you have to pay just to get into the store, where Costco sells their own labels side-by-side with the competition. The big difference is Costco doesn't force you to pay with costco credit cards at the cash register.

In practice though most people I know do use a Costco branded credit card since it doubles as your membership card.

Costco (Canada at least) also only allows MasterCard for credit card payment. Prior to that it was exclusively Amex.

Which is fine - that's still the consumer's choice. It's a bit different if Costco took away that choice.

Even then it's not the same because you don't own the Costco store like you own your phone.

I think it's pretty much a textbook case for the antitrust laws. Now the only missing parts is the political will for Congress and US government to move forward.

Unfortunately since the MS antitrust trial, they've missed opportunity after opportunity to prevent monopolies or oligopoly of Big Tech companies so they might pass here as well.

The only unique thing is the scale. There’s nothing that Apple is doing that your grocery store, Ticketmaster venue, or mall owner isn’t.

Seems like a weird hill to die on for an email app to me. The market is saturated.

It's like having only two grocery stores in town, and your kitchen is only able to cook food from one or the other.

Or three console makers....

Because ripping people off by rent seeking is common it’s okay? It’s not okay to steal other people’s work when them building things for it means you sell more iPhones. Apple have this stuff completely backwards, stop there from being an App Store at all and see how many iPhones are sold.

All retailers “rent seek” by that definition.

Sure, but you can only visit one retailer. If there was store competition let Apple charge what they like...

Google and Steam both have potential competitors and they both charge 30%

Google doesn't meaningfully have potential competitors. Alternative stores are severely limited, e.g. they can't update apps in the background.

Is that a bad thing? If I’m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don’t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server.

But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it.

> Is that a bad thing? If I?m using an alternative to a the App Store, I definitely don?t then want an app to be able to run arbitrary code from a server.

If you like updating manually, don't give the store you use permission to do it manually. Why are you running software you don't trust anyway!

> But we have an alternate universe where users can install outside of the official store yet hardly anyone takes advantage of it.

See the post you replied to.

That’s the beauty of the App Store. I don’t have to to trust the app maker, just the operating system.

How do you know which app makers to “trust”?

Epic?

https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...

Zoom?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-defends-use-of-local-web-...

Google?

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/15235262?hl=en

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/googles-also-peddling-a-da...

The latter is just a great argument why alternatives to Google's app store shouldn't be able to do their job.

They don’t charge on top of services the way Apple does do they?

Yes Google has in app subscriptions.

Do they force you to use their in app subscriptions in the way Apple is? Can I still use my own subscriptions servcie - in fact I know the Answer because Spotify and Hey were not complaining about the Google Play Store.

You’re putting words in my mouth.

How would you write the rules to get what you want? It’s a complex question.

I used to always buy Mancini roasted red peppers for salads and sandwiches. My grocer did a strategic sourcing exercise and now carries a house brand and some other brand. Should they be compelled to carry Mancini?

WalMart requires that vendors be able to fill orders on tight timescales. If you can’t, your out. Is that ok?

Costco requires that I pay them to shop there. Is that ok?

My wife owned a mall kiosk, and part of rent was a cut of the gross. Is that ok?

Yeah, it is technically a cartel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com