I'm totally fine with this, but I wish they would do the same thing with Apple. Google's platform, at the very least is open and I can run my own apps.
One could ask, "How is Apple a Monopoly, and do they abuse that position?". In my view it is, since you can't have a business or build connected hardware without an iOS app. And as for abusing that position for gaining market share, there are just too many examples starting with say, watches.
Apple doesn't have a similar position in any space though, or do they? In terms of market share they're not even the biggest player in the smartphone market, they sit below 20 % (the most profitable 20 % though).
Google, in comparison, absolutely dominates the search and ad markets and sucks all oxygen out of them to keep any competition from springing up by controlling distribution and limiting choice. They e.g. paid vast amounts of money to Apple to make sure users don't get a free choice of search engine.
If you wanted to compare the Apple Watch with this it would mean that Apple would make exclusive deals with all stores (online and IRL) selling watches so that consumers would only see Apple watches everywhere they go and would need to look in the basement or on an obscure subpage to find any watches from a different manufacturer. Clearly that's not the case.
That said I'm not a fan of Apples walled garden either, I think this should be addressed (and in the EU it is being addressed). It's ridiculous to have this super powerful hardware and I can only run sanctioned apps on them instead of being able to install any kind of software I like.
just because they have a high percentage, it doesn't mean they should be pushed to divest it. Google is likely found to be severely abusing it's powers beyond what you can actually see on the surface
> Google is likely found to be severely abusing it's powers beyond what you can actually see on the surface
Yes agree. But we know Apple does the same. I don't think divestment is a good solution for Apple, but there is a clear concentration of market power that causes problems.
> Apple doesn't have a similar position in any space though, or do they?
Apple has exclusive control over a market (AppStore), which has almost 2 million different products (Apps), 820,000 suppliers (app publishers) and over 1.3 billion customers (active iPhone users) which conducts more trade ($1.1 trillion) than the entire GDP of Luxemburg.
The relevant market for them is smartphones and smartphone apps, and again, Apple doesn't have a monopoly there. Most markets have concentration effects and players that dominate the market to a certain degree, that doesn't automatically make them a monopolist, it depends on how they got there and what exactly they do to keep or build out their position in the market. By your definition Valve is a monopolist in the gaming market due to their size and dominance, but that's likely not true either.
Anticompetitive behavior would be if they used their power to make it more difficult for people to buy Android phones e.g. by entering into exclusivity deals with cell service providers or electronics stores so that you could only find Apple products there (i.e. T-Mobile would only sell iPhones with their contracts and you wouldn't find any Android phones except in some small speciality shops out of town). That's what Google is doing in its markets among other things, i.e. pay tons of money to ensure all virtual store fronts are only stocked with Google products and everything else is hidden behind.
Apple does of course show anti-competitive behavior to a degree, i.e. they purchase the entire production capacity of the most advanced semiconductor fabs to have exclusivity and preserve their edge, but again there are still other players in that market and competition still seems possible. If you want to compare that to what Google is doing in the search and ad space it would translate to them locking up almost all semiconductor suppliers in exclusivity contracts for 10 years so that no other company could ever build any advanced chips in large numbers.
> The relevant market for them is smartphones and smartphone apps
The relevant markets includes, but is not limited to that.
> Anticompetitive behavior would be if they used their power to make it more difficult for people to buy Android phones
Anti-competitive behaviour includes, but is not limited to that.
Either way regulators are taking action.
US Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets[1]
The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market[2]
> By your definition Valve is a monopolist in the gaming market due to their size and dominance
Well, no. You can install games on your computer however you want.
If Steam was the only possible way to do so, then yeah I would say Valve had a monopoly.
(It's worth noting that Apple has already gotten in trouble for this - the EU has fined them billions and forced them to allow alternative app stores. Hopefully US regulators take inspiration and force them to do the same domestically.)
> Android exists, and as long as its a viable choice, Apple isn't a monopoly.
Not only is Apple a monopoly, they become one, and maintain it illegally.
US Justice Department Sues Apple for Monopolizing Smartphone Markets[1]
The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market[2]
Just to be clear, the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit but they have not actually won it. Until a judge or jury rules in their favor (and appeals are exhausted) you cannot cite the mere existence of a lawsuit as proof of anything. Keep in mind that Epic also filed a lawsuit claiming Apple was a monopoly but could not prove it in court.
And yet Android, which is more open than Apple in all respects, is a monopoly.
I really don't think you can give a rational explanation other than the courts are mentally troubled. They should have cracked down on both Epic cases or neither.
Is the Google Play Store not the overwhelmingly dominant app market on Android? Yes, they are less restrictive and allow the potential for other app stores to exist, but based on market capture of their respective platforms I believe they are pretty comparable. I am struggling to find numbers to corroborate this, but Google has recently lost a case asserting that their Play Store dominance constituted a monopoly - which seems like it should certainly apply to Apple as well.
The argument as to whether smartphones or the Apple App Store is the better definition of a market has been done to death at this point, right? IMO it would be more good faith to just reference the fact that this is a currently entrenched and impossible to reconcile matter of… opinion? Definition?
I think a lot of people aren't aware that monopolies are not illegal in the US. It is completely legal to run a business that is a monopoly.
What is illegal are anti-competitive practices that a business might employ in an attempt to create or maintain a monopoly. A business that violates these laws might already be a monopoly, or it might not be one.
> It's ridiculous to have this super powerful hardware and I can only run sanctioned apps on them instead of being able to install any kind of software I like.
Buy different hardware then. You know these things when you buy the device. It isn't a secret. If the device doesn't meet your needs, there are alternatives that do. The fact that there are adequately substitutable products available other than iPhone destroys any concept of "monopoly." Saying Apple has a monopoly on iOS is ridiculous -- they _are_ iOS.
Aston Martin doesn’t sell enough cars to be a problem for society. Apple has pretty high market share. I don’t really think they are a monopoly (because I can’t see the point of view that takes a single Apple Store as “the market”), but I think it is obvious that they have more impact than Aston Martin.
Nobody needs an Aston Martin to perform well enough at their job. I've been in multiple situations where being a Linux user put me at a disadvantage because everything else at a company assumes Apple.
Granted, the appropriate response is to demand a Mac from this company, but it still highlights that a Mac isn't a luxury item the same way an Aston Martin is
Yes it is, they are the only supplier on the market for MacOS hardware. In the market for Linux or Windows, hardware is priced at a competitive level.
You may argue that the relevant market is for "computers" as a whole, however it can be argued that bundling hardware and software to charge high prices is a classic monopoly behavior nonetheless.
Companies cannot be forced to sell their operating systems distinct from hardware if they choose not to. That's a ridiculous expectation. There is no market for macOS, only Macs, and that market is the broader PC market, which Apple is nowhere near monopoly power
Saying Apple has a "macOS hardware" monopoly is like saying Dyson has a "Dyson motor monopoly"
Companies get to choose what their products are, full stop
MacOS is also an operating system or a platform. Tesla isn't really a platform.
But... funny you brought up Tesla, because Tesla also had this exact problem! Tesla had the supercharging network, which they own and manufacture. But superchargers aren't just a product, they're a platform.
Tesla had a monopoly on superchargers, until they pre-emptively opened up the network and open sourced the connector. If they hadn't, IMO it was extremely likely they would've been forced, eventually.
More like, "why does the software I'm required to use mean there's only one hardware manufacturer I can buy from?" Or, "why does the part I need to repair my tractor only get provided by one manufacturer?"
No, that's textbook price discrimination, aka standard pricing everywhere. Have you looked at the prices for add-ons for cars? Or even for pizza toppings?
There's no world in which you can tell me Apple has a monopoly on laptops. C'mon.
Apple are creating a walled marketing garden with their new privacy features too. If a person pays for iCloud storage of any time they get placed onto the Apple VPN and their IP address resolves one of two or three different values for any given country.
This makes web tracking and attribution impossible to anyone who is not Apple. Users might be happy with it but I think it is similar anti-competitive behaviour to what Google are doing.
The App Store is one consideration, and the hardware ecosystem another. I personally think both are problems. The ability to cast audio from my device to another is less supported now than they were back when things had audio auxiliary jacks.
Apple today discontinued the lightning to 3.5mm converters, but I’m more referring to things like the apple exclusive airplay, proprietary Bluetooth codecs, etc
One could ask, "How is Apple a Monopoly, and do they abuse that position?". In my view it is, since you can't have a business or build connected hardware without an iOS app. And as for abusing that position for gaining market share, there are just too many examples starting with say, watches.