Comment by JakeTheAndroid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JakeTheAndroid | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know that it's entirely fair to say there is literally a single competitor. While Android is a single platform, you're free to get it from a range of vendors that all add their own flavor to Android. Some are really locked down, some are root by default. So you actually have a range of competing platforms even if they are powered by only 2 OSes.

And in the case of both devices (Apple and Android) you can still flash your own "competing" OS on the hardware. It's far easier to do this on an Android device than an Apple one, but the hardware is separate from the software you're running. But there are multiple mobile OSes not named Android or iOS.

What qualifies as a competitor, and what responsibility does Apple or Android have at creating new competitors? What actions are Google or Apple taking to actively stomp out mobile based OSes? Didn't Mozilla give it a shot? Didn't Ubunutu put out a mobile version of their OS? The lack of competitor for OSes seems like an odd argument to make. They exist even if they don't have marketshare, and there is no requisite business structure behind an OS in order for it to be a competing software. There are options. They may not be the single most accessible, and they may not meet your needs, but they exist.

This argument doesn't pass the "Would it work just as well as a defense of late-'90s Microsoft?" test. I would be willing to concede most of the facts you brought up, but none of that in any way mitigates the amount of control Apple holds. Nobody's saying it's Apple's fault that they're in a duopoly position in the phone space, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that position holds either. What is Apple's fault is that they're using their position in one market to force out potential competitors in other markets (e.g. in-app payments, and app distribution in general).

> This argument doesn't pass the "Would it work just as well as a defense of late-'90s Microsoft?" test.

What does this mean? Late 90’s Microsoft had more than 85% of the desktop PC market.

Early 2020’s Microsoft still has more than 85% of the Desktop PC market.

There is simply no comparison.

Apple doesn’t control the market. They don’t have anything like a monopoly.

They do have products that a lot of people think are category leading, but that isn’t the same thing as having ‘control’.

They also make a lot of profit, because people are willing to pay more for those products. But this is true of companies who focus on quality, regardless of scale.

It's not about percentages, it's about anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft leveraged their monopoly in the PC operating systems market to prevent competition in the web browser market.

Similarly, Apple and Google have leveraged their duopoly in the mobile operating systems market to prevent competition in the mobile application distribution market

Apple (52.4%) and Google (47%) control 99.4% of the mobile operating system market[1]. That's certainly much more than the 85% of the market that Microsoft had.

> They don’t have anything like a monopoly.

Colloquial definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[2]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...

[2] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

It’s not really obvious that any competitors are actually being excluded.

For the most part they aren’t trying.

Building a new mobile platform is expensive - probably billions of dollars of investment - and takes years.

There are actually quite a few companies who could do so if they wanted - e.g. Facebook, and yes, Epic.

But there is no reason to suppose they would be successful in any less time than it took Apple or Google.

I think you're saying that no competitors in the mobile platform market are being excluded. But the point is that Apple (and Google to a slightly lesser degree) are using their dominance in the mobile platform market to exclude competitors in other markets. For example, Epic have tried to make competing services in both stores and payments, and Apple prevented one and banned them from its platform for doing the other. That's what provoked their lawsuit.

Sure - but what we’re really talking about is Epic wanting to take part of the profit without doing the work to build the platform.

There are reasons why people trust Apple’s platform, and integrated payments are one of them.

My point is that Epic actually is a company that has the resources to compete directly if they wanted to.

Apple just isn’t the leader in games, and it would be great if Epic leveraged its position to build a real alternative platform, rather than just attempting to force its way into being a middleman in Apple’s platform.

That isn’t actually going to result in more platform competition.

> Sure - but what we’re really talking about is Epic wanting to take part of the profit without doing the work to build the platform.

Apple did nothing to create Fortnite, but they want about a third of the revenue from Fortnite. Epic did not create the iOS platform, and they are not asking for any of Apple's profits from the iOS platform. So your characterization of who's wanting profit without doing the work seems completely backwards to me. Apple's demands here are essentially rent-seeking.

> There are reasons why people trust Apple’s platform, and integrated payments are one of them.

As far as I know, Epic did not prevent people from paying through Apple's integrated payment platform. They simply offered an alternative.

> My point is that Epic actually is a company that has the resources to compete directly if they wanted to.

> Apple just isn’t the leader in games, and it would be great if Epic leveraged its position to build a real alternative platform, rather than just attempting to force its way into being a middleman in Apple’s platform.

Your suggestion is that if somebody wants to sell things to users who happen to be on smartphones without paying into the duopoly's protection racket, they should simply develop their own hardware supply chain and manufacturing capabilities, phone operating system, mapping and GPS software, email software, ditto for every other piece of software that is table stakes for a phone — and do all of this to a level of quality sufficient to compete with companies whose primary businesses are doing these things — and then finally develop whatever it was they wanted to sell in the first place.

This is not a reasonable position, and even if Epic is in a position to do it (which I'm not sure if they are), most companies aren't, and it is not reasonable to demand every company develop its own phone.

It's also bad for users, because then they'd have to buy a phone for every app.

It is much more reasonable to just not allow smartphones to be the 21st century equivalent of a company town where employees are paid in scrip.

> Your suggestion is that if somebody wants to sell things to users who happen to be on smartphones without paying into the duopoly's protection racket

Obviously not. It’s not a protection racket.

I’m suggesting that it would be better for consumers if we had more competition at the platform level - then we wouldn’t have a duopoly, and we would have more pressure for the platforms to compete an innovate.

You list a bunch of technologies that have already been developed and can be integrated. I said it would take a billion dollars, so we’re on the same page.

> because then they'd have to buy a phone for every app.

Don’t be silly. Popular apps are available on more than one platform.

Yes, there would be exclusives - games especially, but that is no different to how it is now.

For all your complaining, you seem to be arguing very hard that we should be stuck with the duopoly you claim to dislike.

We deserve better than forcing both users and developers alike to deal with a bunch of additional middlemen within the duopoly.

I'm not saying we should be stuck with the duopoly. I'm saying that we factually are stuck with the duopoly, and we're more likely to get results from regulating the duopoly than we would from pointing at random video game companies and demanding they make a better phone to break up the duopoly.

> we factually are stuck with the duopoly

We are only stuck if nobody thinks it’s worth creating an alternative. The ‘duopoly’ has only existed for around 5 years so far. It’s bizarre to consider regulating such a short lived phenomenon instead of encouraging new entrants, particularly when there are so many deep pocketed companies that want a piece of the market.

We’re not talking about a random video game company. We’re talking about Epic, a multi-billion dollar transnational enterprise that could easily afford to invest the time and money Apple and Google did to build their platforms.

Epic is vastly more profitable now than Apple was when they developed the iPhone. Let’s not deceive anyone that they are some small games company.

If you want to guarantee that we continue with the duopoly, the best way to do that is to take away the incentive for companies that could compete, to actually do so, by giving them a piece of the duopoly’s revenue stream.

Why are you excluding the feature phone market? Obviously the smartphone market cannot support an infinite number of incompatible options, but you always have the option to have a feature phone with Java ME applets. Significant portions of the world rely on those, and believe it or not they do their banking and so on with apps on those devices too.

What does the Android vs Apple vs Featurephone marketshare look like?

>Apple doesn’t control the market. They don’t have anything like a monopoly.

This part is entirely irrelevant in the EU

Microsoft was a supplier accused of abusing its market share to disadvantage other suppliers. They did not get prosecuted for being popular.

Apple is not a supplier. They only sell directly to consumers. They don’t even try to make their app store available on competing phones, even if it is technically possible.

> Apple is not a supplier. They only sell directly to consumers

Nitpick: Apple Music competing with Spotify is remarkably similar to the Microsoft case. (Epic's case is weaker.)

Apple sells the computer. There is a reason Microsoft got prosecuted for those 90s contracts and not Gateway. OEMs have the right to decide what software they install at the factory.

Apple Music is available in the Google Play Store but I don’t know of any credible accusation that Apple has tried to get Google to kick Spotify out.

PC market share.

But Apple doesn’t take a cut on my Spotify subscription, afaik.

Me: Nobody's saying it's Apple's fault that they're in a duopoly position in the phone space, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility that position holds either. What is Apple's fault is that they're using their position in one market to force out potential competitors in other markets.

You: Microsoft did not get prosecuted for being popular.

How does that response follow at all?

It’s not illegal or wrong to use your position in one market to enter and compete in other markets. If it was, Disney Plus would be illegal, and so would fresh groceries in Target. That’s not what Microsoft got in trouble for.

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