UK Begins Market Investigation into Apple and Google's Mobile Dominance

[wanha]

They are just as bad. Dictating how we live our lives. And lot of things already have gone/do go wrong as a consequence of their politics.

While I agree that governments are terribly imperfect and not free of selfish interests (i.e. corruption), they are still absolutely vital for our lives.

Do you think without a government no one would dictate your life? That you'd be free to do and think however you like?

LOL

Without a government, there is no legal system and no laws. What there would be is... anarchy, where anyone can do whatever they want to whoever they want, assuming they can get away with it.

Rape, murder, stealing... none of it would be illegal without a government.

All you would have is the jungle rule of "might makes right".

Protecting yourself or your loved ones would require you to find allies to bond with to protect yourself. After all, the only way to protect yourself against a hostile group is to belong to a large enough group yourself.

But... whatever allies you bond with, you are forced to adopt whatever beliefs and customs they have, and it's not like there's going to be a ton of allies to choose from.

The strongest groups will likely begin to dominate smaller ones, meaning everyone needs to belong to one of the large ones.

And if you think your freedoms are limited by governments now, wait until you belong to a militia who doesn't give a crap about human rights.

What I am suggesting is that although governments are terribly imperfect, democratic governments are the very thing that create and protect our freedoms.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Very true. I’d bet several someone’s at Cingular lost their jobs over that deal, too. Just too different from the practices of the day.

On the contrary, being the only carrier that was smart enough to enable the features required for the iphone to be a runaway success, at full price AND subsidized, which then lead to a significant increase in subscribers even just in the first year, they were very likely quite handsomely rewarded.

Checked a few articles and completely forgot that the deal was sealed a year before the phone even shipped. And, as it was Sigman (CEO) working directly with Steve Jobs, no, he didn’t lose his job One of the things that folks take for granted these days, Visual Voicemail, was created as part of the partnership. And, from what I read, it wasn’t so much that Cingular was in dire straits, it was just the right GSM product at the right time and the deal was such that both sides would benefit handsomely.

 

[SFjohn]

The timeline here is incorrect, Eric Schmidt stayed on Apple’s board for another two years after Android’s first public beta release, leaving meetings whenever there was a potential conflict of interest.

Only when the FTC raised concerns regarding the ties between both companies, he resigned in 2009.
Shortly afterwards Arthur Levinson, who had also been serving both boards for years, gave up his seat at Google’s.

Thanks for the extra detail, but I was not “incorrect”. I stated the CEO left after Android was released (2 years after is still “after”). I made no statement that he left because of Android’s release… however Jobs did vow to would destroy android.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Not quite. All carriers were open to talks with Apple to offer the iPhone. But ALL except for Cingular demanded control over the preinstalled apps, contract pricing, and carrier branding on the device

I wasn't limiting my point to the US market.

Apple purposely decided to start off with a strategy of having one exclusive carrier in almost all of their early markets. And they demanded unprecedented control over marketing, distribution and pricing, at close-to-zero margins on the device for these carriers.

Apple developed a groundbreaking touch user interface and mobile web browser. It wasn't dubbed the "Jesus phone" for nothing. They were lots of carriers around the world that wanted to carry that phone, being willing to give the proverbial arm and a leg to have it. And enough who would have done (and eventually did) without branding. The suggestion that "no carrier, except 1, wanted to allow it on its network" is baseless.

exactly thats competing within the Apple Market.

If that market is big enough and there are too few alternative, legislators and regulators may limit what Apple is allowed to do - even if they created that market.

 

[Philip_S]

Apple and Google should form a union. If a country wants to play with hard rules, then Apple and Google can collectively pull out of the country. Imagine a country left without iOS and Android in 2023. Let's see how fast their citizens overthrow their government.

Pulling out means not owning anything in that country. That includes subsidiaries, but more importantly to those two companies it also includes copyrights, patents, trademarks, database rights, and so on. They could sell the country-specific rights to other companies, but then those companies would want to licence it out to make their money back. That means there’d be a completely legal operation selling Hackintoshes in the UK, for example, and they’re unlikely to ask many questions about where their customers might be planning to take them. ETA: they’d also have Apple and Google over a barrel if they ever wanted to return to the market.

I also don’t get why you’re supporting big business over a more or less democratic government.

 

[Philip_S]

What I don’t understand about “investigations” like this, is that they’re seemingly viewing a market as if Apple and Google harmed its citizens to get to the point where their platforms are the only options people have.

Remember that most countries haven’t gone as far as America has in accepting the terrible friedmanite idea that the only consequence of anti-competitive practices that matters is higher consumer prices in the short to medium term.

Australia and Italy, and maybe eventually the EU, aren’t happy about all the closed system marketplaces charging about 30% and not having their profits on that driven down by competition, for example. There’s also issues like google’s dominance allowing them to push things like AMP, which gives them more ability to spy on web users.

What’s stopping them from investigating Windows and macOS as a duopoly?

Because those platforms are much more open and so there’s less opportunity for practices that harm competition and markets. If they keep inching them towards being closed platforms eventually they’ll get the same attention.

 

[I7guy]

Remember that most countries haven’t gone as far as America has in accepting the terrible friedmanite idea that the only consequence of anti-competitive practices that matters is higher consumer prices in the short to medium term.

Australia and Italy, and maybe eventually the EU, aren’t happy about all the closed system marketplaces charging about 30% and not having their profits on that driven down by competition, for example. There’s also issues like google’s dominance allowing them to push things like AMP, which gives them more ability to spy on web users.


Because those platforms are much more open and so there’s less opportunity for practices that harm competition and markets. If they keep inching them towards being closed platforms eventually they’ll get the same attention.

On the buy side consumers always pay more when a product sale is restricted - drugs are a perfect example. On the sell side sellers always more when competition is restricted.

Now open up the floodgates. Sellers will start to see their revenue evaporates as anybody can legally or illegally sell their product (copyrighted or not) as the sell side is no longer restricted. Consumers maybe pay less or nothing but the quality now becomes dubious. It’s a slow spiral death for all involved.

 

[jmgregory1]

Remember that most countries haven’t gone as far as America has in accepting the terrible friedmanite idea that the only consequence of anti-competitive practices that matters is higher consumer prices in the short to medium term.

Australia and Italy, and maybe eventually the EU, aren’t happy about all the closed system marketplaces charging about 30% and not having their profits on that driven down by competition, for example. There’s also issues like google’s dominance allowing them to push things like AMP, which gives them more ability to spy on web users.


Because those platforms are much more open and so there’s less opportunity for practices that harm competition and markets. If they keep inching them towards being closed platforms eventually they’ll get the same attention.

You do realize that most retailers of hard goods mark up products we all buy by far more than 30%. And then there are commodity food products that have single digit markups. Every reseller of product is a closed loop in some way, as they decide what items they’re going to sell, and at what rate they’re going to sell them at. Why should Apple or Google have to sell some app or hard good that they don’t want to?

What I think every country needs to do in order to minimize the income disparity is to go back to the high corporate tax rates of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, and then bolster or re-build social services, education, infrastructure, etc. with the money collected.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Consumers maybe pay less or nothing but the quality now becomes dubious. It’s a slow spiral death for all involved.

I'm very happy with the ecosystem of third-party for macOS. And so are millions of other users.
I don't hear much calls for Apple to shut down third-party developers and limit app distribution to their Mac App Store.

You do realize that most retailers of hard goods mark up products we all buy by far more than 30%

You do realise that software applications that get downloaded digitally aren't hard goods sold in brick-and-mortar stores? The download of a software application costs fractions of cents.

Why should Apple or Google have to sell some app or hard good that they don’t want to?

If two companies controlled 95% of the sales for "commodity food products" countrywide, I guarantee they'd be regulated - and if need be, forced to sell things they don't like.

 

[gregmancuso]

On the contrary, being the only carrier that was smart enough to enable the features required for the iphone to be a runaway success, at full price AND subsidized, which then lead to a significant increase in subscribers even just in the first year, they were very likely quite handsomely rewarded.

Checked a few articles and completely forgot that the deal was sealed a year before the phone even shipped. And, as it was Sigman (CEO) working directly with Steve Jobs, no, he didn’t lose his job One of the things that folks take for granted these days, Visual Voicemail, was created as part of the partnership. And, from what I read, it wasn’t so much that Cingular was in dire straits, it was just the right GSM product at the right time and the deal was such that both sides would benefit handsomely.

I meant specifically that Cingular had to agree to no carrier branding on the phone and no control over the UI, OS, or installed apps. It was a significant change to the norm at the time. And in most cases to this day (looking at the small stack of non-Appel devices on my desk all have carrier branding).