I'd hardly call it open. Whether or not you call Apple a monopoly, Apple and Google indisputably have a duopoly over mobile OS.
Moreover, Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.) And the craziest part is, our so-called antitrust laws allow Google to pay Apple $billions per year to be the default search engine in Safari. The duopolists openly conspiring.
> Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.)
What do you suggest we do over this ? Forbid some people to search on Google ? Or give each user X queries / day then say "please use another search engine; here are some alternatives ...".
The laws are against monopolies abusing their power. As long as it's trivial to change provider we are in the clear; but the trouble come if a company uses their position to gain an unfair advantage. For example if Google says "You have to un-index you site from bing otherwise we will apply a ranking penalty on your search results".
But "being the default choice with a trivial switch possible" is hardly an abuse of power.
Break it up! That's what you do with monopolies. That's what they did with Standard Oil. That's what they did with AT&T. That's what they talked about doing and should have done with Microsoft.
> but the trouble come if a company uses their position to gain an unfair advantage
Google has leveraged its search dominance to gain dominance in a number of other areas too. For example, whenever I do a Google Search in Safari (without my content blocking extensions running), I see a big popup that says "Google recommends using Chrome". That's an abuse of power. (And naturally, Google is the default search engine of Google Chrome).
Google AMP is an abuse of power, forcing websites to redesign themselves specifically for Google, on penalty of lower search ranking.
I've already mentioned how the two duopolists colluding is an abuse of power.
Google has been accused by Mozilla of systematically sabotaging Firefox in various ways, for example on YouTube.
MS is still "the best" in this case. Searching for Firefox on a fresh Windows install (with Edge) will show Chrome and Opera as first two options (keyword ads), then Firefox. And then, when you download the Firefox installer, you are announced that it could harm your device.
Defaults matter. Making Google the default everywhere will cause people to stick with Google, for the most part.
Why is it legal for the monopolist to pay other companies to help it keep its monopoly? If Google couldn't pay Apple or Mozilla to make Google Search the default on their respective browsers, perhaps we'd see other, better defaults, and maybe people would continue using those defaults, eroding Google's market dominance.
> But "being the default choice with a trivial switch possible" is hardly an abuse of power.
The ease of switching isn't all that matters. I suspect if you polled a representative sample of people, they would tell you they believed that Google is the only option for web search. At best, some might admit they've heard of Bing, and then only because it's been the default for IE/Edge for years.
It's not "web search", it's 'web search ADVERTISING'. There's definitely NOT a trivial way to switch to another provider, there isn't one (of equivalent scale, of course.)
I'm immediately reminded of how Google refused to port their YouTube app to Windows Phone back in the day, and when Microsoft cobbled one together itself, Google claimed that doing so violated its ToS.
A duopoly isn't a monopoly. Uber and Lyft coexisting is extremely different than just Uber existing, for example. Luckily, it's not even a duopoly since there are other mobile gaming options like the extremely popular Nintendo Switch.
>(I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.)
Because using an alternative, of which there are many, is as easy as typing in a different URL. They're all just inferior products and the market knows it.
>The duopolists openly conspiring.
Making a deal is not a conspiracy. It would be of concern if part of the deal was prohibiting switching to other search engines but nothing is stopping you from switching to Bing and having Google waste a few dollars of that deal.
Between Uber and Lyft you can make your choice every day. And at least here in this country taxis are still a realistic choice, not sure whether that applies to the US.
Between Apple and Android you have the choice only every couple of years. The rest of the time there is zero competition.
It maybe that the antitrust law is not well-written for this case. But nobody can claim their is a functional app market at the moment. Market meaning choice for the customer where to buy.
The issue is the definition of that market is fictional, and the nuances are in people’s heads. As soon as you write it down in legal terms, it becomes clear that it’s a very difficult thing to circumscribe without enormous government mandated regulations.
Like to me, the market IS functional - people can choose their mobile platform and get the apps available for that platform. More than that and we are legislating software distribution as a publicly regulated utility. Which to me is an overreaction to current market dynamics. Like we’ve not even had 20 years of smartphones and app stores out there and people act as if they’ve been around for a century.
> Between Apple and Android you have the choice only every couple of years. The rest of the time there is zero competition.
This is incorrect in two ways:
a) any particular individual (e.g. you) can switch between alternatives at any time. Nothing forces you to wait years…
b) there are new first time mobile users all the time and they can choose between these two alternatives (or smaller, much less successful platforms), and in the case of Android, between different device manufacturers
Seems like lots of freedom to me. If you’re thinking is that even given that there are only two reasonable options to choose from from a software point of view (Android and iOS), I’d be curious to know your solution. Is it to force some company to create a third alternative? Is it for the government to subsidize Microsoft to make Windows phones?
The Switch is not a substitute for an iPhone or Android phone, and I think this perhaps illustrates a problem with how we think about this issue.
Sure, if I have an iPhone or an Android phone, and I don't like the gaming landscape on either of those, I can get a Switch. But the Switch doesn't replace my phone. I can't toss the phone and now carry a Switch with me everywhere. (I also wouldn't want to carry a Switch everywhere; it's nowhere near as portable and doesn't fit in a pocket.)
So is it ok for a company to abuse their market position, if a consumer has the option to buy an additional device made by a competitor, and then have to lug around two devices, since the other device doesn't actually replace all the functionality of the original one? I would say no, it's not ok.
There was multilingual topic talking about some research not showing advantages. One advantage is that one has to learn how to describe something when you cant think of the word for it.
Fitting the definition of a monopoly is probably a lot harder than to ask what is undesirable about monopolies. If google or apple hold a monopoly isn't very interesting. We can easily agree that the motivation to innovate is not there if there is no real competitor. We are kinda blessed by there being 2 platforms but that they are like prisons for developers is not beneficial.
We are also blessed with the www in how incredibly open it is. With the phones we got entities that dictates the rules of the game. In stead of domain names the www could have been what these mobile application stores are: a web directory with enormous fees.
Before the www I tried to create a teletext page. We had countless TV channels each with their own text pages. Even the smallest TV stations wanted me to pay for hardware and charge an enormous monthly fee. They made it into a completely useless offer. It didn't have to be a monopoly to get there.
In the US rent-seeking percentage fees on transactions are quite normal, in the EU many just pay for the transaction. How large it is is quite irrelevant?
We are also blessed with a relatively open Android OS. For a new OS it is hard to get any of the other popular prison builders onthere.
Government should regulate where companies try to own and control things that are non of their business or clearly not theirs to own.
For example chat history or email is important for the legal process. People need to prove conversations happened. I just send a whatsapp screenshot to my boss where my previous manager approved my day off. I could easily doctor such an image. We have the technology to grant someone access to part of a conversation in a legally binding way, technology just didn't mature enough, its to childish to do those things.
To have corporate platform owners decide which company lives or dies is simply undesirable. They [may] do it without dialog and without explanation. A company should not be forced to put it self in that position.
People purchase mobile computer. Companies desire to offer software for their mobile computer. The manufacturer then gets to decide if they approve?
I buy a toaster, you make bread, the manufacturer disapproves of the bread? Or they desire 30% of the money?
Manufacturers can't stipulate which cartridges you have to use in your printer. They may have a preference (using their own brand) but they can't force you to. Car makers can't make you use a certain brand of fuel. Dishwasher manufacturer may not force you to use a specific brand of tablet. Coffee machines may not lock you into their preferred brand of coffee.
It's not a position that arises from logic, it is just that making the hardware created the possibility. It is quite unusual to force customers to not just buy specific coffee but also buy it from a specific store.
If we are going to allow that other manufacturers should be allowed to do the same. We should allow MS to force users to use Edge for everything. If you want to use libreoffice you can install a linux?
> For example chat history or email is important for the legal process. People need to prove conversations happened. I just send a whatsapp screenshot to my boss where my previous manager approved my day off. I could easily doctor such an image. We have the technology to grant someone access to part of a conversation in a legally binding way, technology just didn't mature enough, its to childish to do those things.
For whatsapp, they actually use the Signal protocol for messaging, which has built in deniability, so you can't use the cryptography it uses to prove a conversation happened, since any participant is able to falsify messages after the fact.
Messages should be the property of the sender and recipient. When we want or need it they should be on the record. The technology is almost 500 years old.
> Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.)
You seem to be under the misconception that it is illegal for Google to possess a monopoly over web search. This is not the case. It is only illegal if such a monopoly was obtained or maintained via anticompetitive means. If the monopoly was obtained via "growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident", then it is entirely legal.
Moreover, the government has done something about it when Google tried to use their monopoly over web search to obtain a monopoly in other markets via anticompetitive means.
> You seem to be under the misconception that it is illegal for Google to possess a monopoly over web search. This is not the case. It is only illegal if such a monopoly was obtained or maintained via anticompetitive means.
I said, "And the craziest part is, our so-called antitrust laws allow Google to pay Apple $billions per year to be the default search engine in Safari. The duopolists openly conspiring." But you chose to completely ignore that and accuse me of misconception.
> Moreover, the government has done something about it when Google tried to use their monopoly over web search to obtain a monopoly in other markets via anticompetitive means.
You said: "I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this."
But nothing you've described is necessarily illegal so I think my point about your misconception stands. It might be anticompetitive (in your opinion) but that does not mean it is actually a violation of the law.
> "necessarily illegal"? So... it might be illegal?
That will depend on the outcome of the several current ongoing lawsuits and has not been established at this stage. I mean, just look at this case. A lot of people decided what Apple was doing was illegal after Epic filed suit and it turned out they were wrong.
> You didn't answer my question: "What have they done?"
I don't think there's much "right and wrong" in the court system. There's so much arbitrariness and even politicalization among judges. Just look at the Supreme Court.
The judge in the Epic trial, YGR, invented a whole new market concept out of thin air, "digital mobile gaming transactions", a market that neither side in the case argued for. I thought that was complete crap and a bad decision. What's the legal basis for a judge inventing a market? This seems like a classic case of judicial overreach.
One of the weirdest things about that market definition is that the App Store is not a game store. Of course there are a lot of games that make a lot of money in the App Store, but there are a ton of non-games in there too. (Also, WTF is "digital" supposed to mean? Are there analog mobile gaming transactions?)
I also thought, to be honest, that Epic's lawyers in the case were not great and seemed not fully prepared or technically knowledgeable. And some of the toughest questions for Apple were asked by YGR rather than by Epic.
"Entering into long-term agreements with Apple that require Google to be the default – and de facto exclusive – general search engine on Apple’s popular Safari browser and other Apple search tools."
That was precisely my complaint! So if I have a misconception, then apparently the Department of Justice also has the same misconception.
> The judge in the Epic trial, YGR, invented a whole new market concept out of thin air, "digital mobile gaming transactions", a market that neither side in the case argued for. I thought that was complete crap and a bad decision. What's the legal basis for a judge inventing a market? This seems like a classic case of judicial overreach.
This actually happens all the times in antitrust cases. Almost always the plaintiff argues for a very narrow market and the defendant argues for a very wide market. Then the judge has to come in and look at actual consumer behavior to decide what the relevant market actually is.
> One of the weirdest things about that market definition is that the App Store is not a game store. Of course there are a lot of games that make a lot of money in the App Store, but there are a ton of non-games in there too. (Also, WTF is "digital" supposed to mean? Are there analog mobile gaming transactions?)
I agree that the relevant market probably should have included all app transactions and not just gaming transactions but frankly it would not have changed the outcome of the case.
> That was precisely my complaint! So if I have a misconception, then apparently the Department of Justice also has the same misconception.
The way your original comment was phrased implied the problem was with having 93% market share in the first place. I was simply pointing out that's not illegal unless it was obtained or maintained through anticompetitive means. It remains to be seen whether such browser payments will be considered anticompetitive in the eyes of the courts.
> This actually happens all the times in antitrust cases. Almost always the plaintiff argues for a very narrow market and the defendant argues for a very wide market. Then the judge has to come in and look at actual consumer behavior to decide what the relevant market actually is.
That's not the issue. The issue is that the judge invented a market that nobody considered to be a market before the trial. The judge didn't refer to any other market analysis or economic literature but simply pulled "digital mobile gaming transactions" out of her ass.
> The way your original comment was phrased implied the problem was with having 93% market share in the first place. I was simply pointing out that's not illegal unless it was obtained or maintained through anticompetitive means.
> The issue is that the judge invented a market that nobody considered to be a market before the trial.
Not true. I'll just quote from the ruling:
"Epic proposed two single-brand markets: the aftermarkets for iOS app distribution and iOS in-app payment solutions, derived from a foremarket for smartphone operating systems. Apple, by contrast, proposed the market for all video game transactions, whether those transactions occur on a smartphone, a gaming console, or elsewhere. The district court ultimately found a market between those the parties proposed: mobile-game transactions—i.e., game transactions on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets."
I mean you said the judge made up a market out of thin air but what actually happened was she agreed with Apple's market definition minus gaming consoles.
>I'd hardly call it open. Whether or not you call Apple a monopoly, Apple and Google indisputably have a duopoly over mobile OS.
Why is that relevant? That was not the question before the court. However, to prove an illegal duopoly you have to show collusion. IANAL, but I think it is unlikely anyone could show enough collusion between Apple and Google to reach the threshold of an illegal duopoly.
With a duopoly you don't need direct collusion, you can exercise monopoly power just by watching what your "competitor" is doing. You don't have to meet behind closed doors to fix prices, you just set your prices to be exactly equal to your competitor. Or if the market is segmented in some way, and one competitor enters a specific segment, the other one can focus on other segments. Like say Lyft focusing on cities that don't already have Uber, and vice versa, to reference another comment.
> you can exercise monopoly power just by watching what your "competitor" is doing
That is not a monopoly, which implies that the market is controlled by only one company. Not two. “Monopoly” is not just something you say when you don’t like a company. Also, a monopoly in itself is not necessarily illegal or problematic. The real issue is a company abusing its market power, which does not require anything like a monopoly.
> You don't have to meet behind closed doors to fix prices, you just set your prices to be exactly equal to your competitor.
Then it is not collusion. It’s just a poorly functioning market, or something that cannot work as a free market (some natural monopolies are like that).
> Whether or not you call Apple a monopoly, Apple and Google indisputably have a duopoly over mobile OS.
In mobile gaming, Apple and Google are the largest participants, but not the only participants. We have the Switch, the Steam Deck, and other smaller companies as well.
Neither my switch nor my steam deck fits inside of my pants pocket. They are also not the device that dominates almost every human beings life. Cellphones and their evolution of smartphones is probably the single biggest technology revolution we had in a very long time. It's bigger than the invention of computers and the PC. While PCs changed work life for a huge population, smartphones are owned by 86% of humans.
Having a huge market share by itself is not a problem. If you just make a hugely popular product that more people buy without coercion or exploitation, that's fine. It's just people making that choice, and they are free to do so.
What that does do is create an increased onus on the company holding that position not to abuse it. So that kicks the can down the road to disagreements about what constitutes abuse, but just being popular isn't a crime. You'd need to demonstrate actual harm to consumers.
In the case of search, the web search market and the mobile phone market are two different markets. You can't constrain Google from doing commercial deals with other companies in different markets, just because it's search product is hugely popular. Again you'd have to demonstrate harm to consumers.
I'm not saying there isn't any harm, just this is the situation. Only once we have the issue properly framed can we discuss whether there's harm.
>Apple and Google indisputably have a duopoly over mobile OS.
A duopoly is not a monopoly. Unfortunately, anti-trust law seems to only be concerned with monopolies, and totally ignores duopolies and oligopolies.
>The duopolists openly conspiring.
Exactly.
>Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.)
This isn't quite a monopoly (Bing does exist, you know), plus it's free (or "free").
It doesn't help when the competition is so awful, though. See yesterday's article and discussion about DDG. Many times, monopolies (or near-monopolies, or duopolies) arise because the competition is so inept and incompetent.
A monopoly is where there is a single player that has enough power to manipulate the market. Despite Bing existing, Google can manipulate traffic by altering its search results and due to it having 93% of the search share, it can manipulate it's position to direct people to one site over another or kill a site by no longer including it in results.
That would be Googles solution so that it could show meaningful competition and Bing would be a credible alternative.
My solution would be to fine them 25% of their total revenue every time we see market manipulation due to Google altering search results.
If we have no evidence of that, then I don't see a problem with the current situation.
As for Epic, they have plenty of alternative platforms to use. The fact that they don't target the Steam Deck because Tim Sweeney is petty makes me have very little sympathy for their argument.
It genuinely sounds like you are generally not aware of the common definitions of the words you’re using. You seem to just be…intuiting them, and using that as the basis for some sort of legal argument.
> Moreover, Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.)
There are other free search engines. Also Google makes money as an advertiser, not as a search service. Search itself has always been free, even before Google existed.
I can’t tell if you are trolling or not. Both of those are alive and well. Since at least the early 1990s, there have been free search engines. eg: Archie, Infoseek, Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, etc…
I'd hardly call it open. Whether or not you call Apple a monopoly, Apple and Google indisputably have a duopoly over mobile OS.
Moreover, Google indisputably has a monopoly over web search: ~93% market share. (I'll never understand why we've done nothing legally about this.) And the craziest part is, our so-called antitrust laws allow Google to pay Apple $billions per year to be the default search engine in Safari. The duopolists openly conspiring.