this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
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Apple isn't on third party hardware.
They aren't controlling access to software on other manufacturers devices like Google is.
That's not actually true though.
Android is open source and many devices, mostly Chinese products, launch with custom Android builds completely free of Google services. This is not a Google constraint - manufacturers CHOOSE to use Android builds that use Google's services. Creating your own build simply stops you from integrating Google's services into the OS, which is actually a PLUS if you ask me.
Even if they WERE requiring it, that would have nothing to do with end user store front installation, which is already something you can do, as shown by the 2 non-Google app stores I have installed on my phone.
Again... I'm not defending Google as some kind of good company here. I'm simply stating there is no way to make an anti-competitivity argument against Google in mobile that doesn't apply at least as much to Apple. This is a nonsensical double-standard.
Because of their market dominance. That's what antitrust laws are about.
The fact that it's not just their own hardware completely changes the legal arguments in play.
https://source.android.com/license
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
"At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP)[5] and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run on the proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed,[6] most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS),[7] which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Firebase Cloud Messaging is used for push notifications. While AOSP is free, the "Android" name and logo are trademarks of Google, which imposes standards to restrict the use of Android branding by "uncertified" devices outside their ecosystem.[8][9]"
Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google.
Android itself DOES NOT require ANY concessions of ANY kind to Google. Maybe "opening the app store" means making Google's services available without requiring those concessions to Google, in which case, that both makes sense and is a great idea.
So, Google allows other OEMs to use their OS and tries to control how it's used = anti-competitive.
Apple doesn't let anyone else use their OS = totally fine?
Legally, yes. Dictating the rules for software on your own hardware is entirely legal, and extremely common.
Using your market position to dictate a cabal of other manufacturers' rules on their hardware is anticompetitive. They're using their market dominance with the play store to mandate a variety of hardware decisions and software decisions.
You're dictating the ToU of your software. ~~They have zero control over others' hardware.~~
No one is arguing that Google isn't anti-competitive, just that Apple is also anti-competitive, in a similar but even worse manner because its not even available to others...
That's incorrect. There are multiple requirements, both hardware and software, to be able to ship with the play store. That's the monopoly they're abusing, and that's what Epic is suing for.
What are the hardware requirements?
One example (of many) where their requirements have directly impacted the growth of a market is refresh rate. Android ereaders are excellent devices, but because of Google's arbitrary limitations, devices until recently (when the technology they impeded with their monopoly developed far enough to meet that restriction) were forced to require users to jump through multiple extremely convoluted hoops to enable the play store.
This made them almost entirely inaccessible to normal end users and almost certainly played a huge role in the availability of options. That's textbook anticompetitive.
It's not the only restriction, just the first to come to mind.
I honestly don't understand anything you said. There's a refresh rate requirement for Android? And the refresh rate requirement made it convoluted for people to enable the Play Store?
The play store is their monopoly that they abuse. There's a refresh rate requirement to distribute your device with the play store.
Otherwise, the user has to go to a Google website page from the device, sign into a Google account, and copy paste serial information of the device in order to be allowed to install the store. That's not something normal customers can do, and it massively impeded the growth of the Android reader space.
Is there? I've seen lots of Android e-readers that are way less. Maybe just because they're Chinese and don't give a shit. Presumably that requirement is to ensure a positive experience for Android users. Android is obviously not intended to be used for e-readers.
Regardless, a limitation of your OS is absolutely not in any way more anti-competitive than not distributing an OS at all. I feel like this is pretty straightforward...
You have to manually enable the play store on all of those devices. It's why they're so niche and only made by Chinese companies.
It's not in any way a limitation of the OS. It's a business decision that is using their market position as the only source of most Android apps in order to control what manufacturers are able to make and sell.
And again, your core concept isn't just flawed. It completely lacks understanding of what antitrust is. You can make decisions that only affect your own hardware. You cannot claim to be open and use that "openness" to make yourself the standard, then use that market position to pick winners and losers between your "partners" using that product, especially when you're also one of them. That's anticompetitive. Google wants all the benefits of being "open" while completely dictating the entire market.
Requiring a specific refresh rate for the OS to be installed isn't "in any way" a limitation of the OS? Not sure how you arrived at that.
No, I think you just don't understand that I am not having a legal discussion. I am having a rational discussion. If the law is irrational, then it is fucked and needs to be updated. Imposing rules that apply to businesses that are more competitive by sharing their IP (with caveats), then going back and saying that other businesses that operate in essentially the exact same space, but refuse to share any IP (anti-competitive), are exempt from such regulations, is fucked.
Neither of them are okay, and both should be regulated more heavily, but the fact that the more competitive one faces more penalties is fucked and just further enforces Apple's "walled garden" ideology, as well as encouraging other businesses to operate similarly.
It has nothing to do with the OS. It's for the play store. But again, a limitation of the OS would be something that the OS can't do, not the OS just refusing to allow hardware for business reasons.
Your opinion on rational is just as flawed. People should be able to make their own products. It's specifically pretending to be open to form a standard that multiple independent companies join in on, then unilaterally controlling that standard to make decisions for the entire market that's abusive.
There are many companies that do what Apple does and run closed operating systems on their own hardware. Apple built their market share on the strength of their walled garden providing an excellent development environment. It's not what a monopoly is. Controlling the behavior of hundreds of competing products is a monopoly.
Of course they should. You're intentionally missing the point. They should not be allowed to make their products anti-competitive and anti-consumer by preventing the user from installing the software they want to use, in order to funnel more money into their pockets and essentially extorting it from businesses that want to write software for its' customers with exorbitant fees.
And they shouldn't be allowed to do that either. And especially not if they become one of the top 5 wealthiest companies on the face of the Earth in the process.
And absolutely nothing about allowing users to install whatever software they want without paying extortionate and exorbitant fees to Apple impedes that strength.
Fucking el oh ol. There's simply no world where Google is a monopoly and Apple isn't, and the insinuation of such can only be described as fanboyism.
Controlling what happens on your systems is not anti-competitive. You can't just re-define words to mean something that's the exact opposite of what they are. The locked down system of Apple and consoles is their biggest value add. It's not "something I tolerate to buy an iPhone". It's why I buy an iPhone. They make so much money because their control of their own product makes it better. There is no such thing as a "monopoly" on your own hardware. It's literally impossible.
Google is a monopoly because they are controlling the behavior of competitors with their market position. That is always a monopoly. Controlling your own product never is.
That entirely depends on what part of "your systems" you're controlling. When you control how users of "your systems" can interact with other businesses, it absolutely is. When you say "if you want to create software that runs on our hardware, you have to adhere to all of our guidelines, no matter how absurd, and pay us 30% of any revenue received through this software" that's anticompetitive...
LOOOOOOOLOLOL okay so you're not just a fanboy, you're a shill!
Good talk. Bye bye now.