I can't help thinking that a lot of anticompetitive cases will be won outside the US now that the US is in all-out trade war with the rest of the universe.
tossandthrow · 17h ago
The US has shown absolutely no willingness to carry out antitrust cases the past many years - at a significant harm to a lot of people.
The implied corruption is likely not from these other countries that start making these cases now, but is a persistent feature of US governance.
whyenot · 13h ago
> The US has shown absolutely no willingness to carry out antitrust cases the past many years
Lina Khan's FTC brought cases again Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Mastercard, and more. They also prevented mergers (consolidations) in a lot of different industries. Could they have accomplished more? Certainly, but they did certainly did display a willingness to bring antitrust cases.
rtpg · 9h ago
It does feel like Lina Khan's FTC was much more willing to play the part in the adversarial system. Don't necessarily agree with every decision but was surprising to see how willing the FTC was to jump into things and make unpopular (to stakeholders at least) decisions
m463 · 11h ago
> Could they have accomplished more?
unfortunately a lot of these things are on an election cycle.
AnthonyMouse · 9h ago
One of the main problems in the US is that the US has an extremely broad antitrust statute:
> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is
hereby declared to be illegal.
> Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed
guilty of a felony, ...
It was passed in the era of robber barons and meant to be a strong hammer against anti-competitive practices. But because it was so broad, the courts kept chipping away at it over time through reinterpretation because by its terms it would prohibit a lot of things the courts didn't really want to get involved in policing, or they just made bad calls in years when the Court's majority wasn't that smart.
Meanwhile monopolists generally have a lot of money to pay expensive lawyers, so they structure their activities to fit within the loopholes the courts have carved out over the years and that makes it hard for an administration to hold them to account even when they have the will to do it.
Hyper-partisanship also makes this worse, because if everyone is convinced the other side is pure evil then they're going to try to undo anything the other party was trying to do without even considering what it is, which isn't compatible with long-term prosecutions that would have to span administrations.
FridayoLeary · 9h ago
The sentiment i picked up from HN is that she was more of an activist leader with a grudge against big corporations and that this clouded her judgement. The cases she bought were insubstantial and fell apart. She's a bad poster child for what the FTC should be.
ethbr1 · 5h ago
To me, a good regulator should be losing big cases.
If they aren't, it means they're not pushing the boundaries of their authority hard enough.
seydor · 16h ago
i thought it was strategic - to ensure global dominance in tech
AnthonyMouse · 9h ago
> i thought it was strategic - to ensure global dominance in tech
I don't like the way this is phrased because it nearly implies that doing this is an advantage to the US population.
"Preventing foreign dominance in tech" is plausibly a legitimate goal. Preventing a foreign tech monopoly is a good thing. But the assumption that this can only be achieved by a domestic one is the fallacy. A domestic monopoly is still a disadvantage compared to a competitive market with a multitude of domestic companies.
Unless you're an authoritarian that wants to leverage the monopoly for the purposes of e.g. censorship. But then you're an enemy whose goal is to harm even the domestic population.
mystraline · 9h ago
Why do you think Windows, MS Office, MSSQL, Azure, and other MS applications are used extensively in the federal government?
Its to prop up American businesses, and as a form of corporate welfare.
We see this a lot in various vertical industries. The USG could pay and make it free, but they would rather prop up proprietary software as long as its US based.
Not even being a monopolist matters.
AnthonyMouse · 4h ago
> Its to prop up American businesses, and as a form of corporate welfare.
You say that like it's an actual policy goal. You don't think it's because those companies donate to the campaigns of the politicians doing it? It's corruption.
mystraline · 3h ago
> You say that like it's an actual policy goal.
I do. There's reasons for that from previous employment that would indicate that as a policy goal.
Red Hat is also technically accepted by US Gov. Technically. But you need to use? They're bypassing all sorts of security shit with ongoing POAMs and doing their own thing.
And yes, I would agree that its corruption as well.
henryfjordan · 9h ago
A domestic monopoly might not be the only way to prevent a foreign monopoly, but it is a guaranteed way so it makes sense to let it proliferate.
Look at the state of the industry vertically. There's exactly 1 company that can produce the cutting-edge chip fabs, ASML. TSMC utterly dominates using the fabs to actually produce the chips. That's already 2 foreign-controlled horizontal monopolies on which the rest of the industry relies.
If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips. And so we encourage US mega-tech companies buying up all the GPUs, so those other monopolies aren't used to cripple us (or at least they'd cripple the whole chain if they tried).
AnthonyMouse · 5h ago
> A domestic monopoly might not be the only way to prevent a foreign monopoly, but it is a guaranteed way so it makes sense to let it proliferate.
It isn't in any way guaranteed, and you just listed an example of it failing. Intel used to be the world leader in fabs and now it's TSMC, because that's what happens if you let the domestic market consolidate until the incumbents feel they can rest on their laurels and then a foreign competitor throws down the gauntlet.
> If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips.
Or you need an actual diverse competitive market so that that sort of bullying doesn't work for anyone.
Suppose the GPU market had a dozen or more companies with significant market share and four of them were in the US. Then it doesn't matter where the other ones are, nobody can deprive the US of GPUs because the US can always get them from the US vendors or have them increase production.
It would mean that the US can't do the bullying anymore because then others could buy from the non-US vendors, but what is the rest of the world doing not causing that to happen on purpose?
FirmwareBurner · 16h ago
It is. Some members of congress somehow magically end up buying tech stocks right before they go to the moon or selling them right before tariffs hit.
It's as if they have some insider knowledge or something, and also a lot of skin in the game to protect these monopolies.
pnw · 14h ago
You can buy the Pelosi ETF (NANC) and enjoy the same upside!
dmoy · 12h ago
I just read the prospectus investment strategy, and it looks like it trails the trades by up to 30-45 days? Seems like the majority of that upside might be gone by then, no? They explicitly list that in Reporting Delay Risk.
Also I didn't see any info on whether the fund manager can beat hft et al to the punch once disclosure happens.
lazyeye · 12h ago
It would interesting to know how it performs relative to other index funds even with the delay risk. A few people have been saying Nancy is getting better returns than Warren Buffet
I compared it to .SPX, and the 12 month charts look almost identical.
dmoy · 6h ago
Which makes sense to me, 45 days is a loooooong time, and I kinda doubt this fund is cutting edge speed trading on disclosures when they do show up.
mikestew · 10h ago
…and enjoy the same upside!
No, you won’t. That ETF is a trailing indicator, and it’s trailing so far back it won’t even show up in the rearview mirror.
That, and if you load a comparison chart with .SPX, they look almost identical. No upside, and greater risk.
booleandilemma · 10h ago
Thank you for an honest comment in a world of so much grift.
1over137 · 14h ago
Too bad the MER is so high at 0.74%.
Yeul · 13h ago
All those Silicon Valley types went to Washington to kiss the ring of the pope.
bl4kers · 5h ago
And give gold idols
ProofHouse · 16h ago
Precisely. Trump not smart enough to think about these retaliations. Would in some cases make tarrifs neutral
ahmeneeroe-v2 · 16h ago
Big Tech isn't exactly Trump's base. Trump collects wins[1] for his base at the expense of his non-supporters. Not sure how this makes Trump "not smart".
1 - Regardless of what you think of tariffs, his base largely considers them wins.
amanaplanacanal · 14h ago
They are gonna win so much they'll be completely indigent before it's over.
ahmeneeroe-v2 · 14h ago
That's their right.
No comments yet
ljlolel · 16h ago
Because he lives in a country. Going to war with half the people around you makes the whole country much poorer.
ahmeneeroe-v2 · 16h ago
Works both ways.
1659447091 · 13h ago
> Trump collects wins[1] for his base
Trump collects wins for himself and his base flip-flops along with him and his every whim.
It's not about smart or not, he doesn't care beyond what he can get from it. He doesn't care about any retaliations and he knows he has his base eating outta the palm of his hand. Smart doesn't play into any of it, it's not needed. The Project state takes care of the smarts part of the administration
ChocolateGod · 17h ago
You're also about to see a lot of the 'Brussels effect' due to the EUs DMA.
I think what might happen is all these other markets are going to end up “playing fair” while the US remains an abused ecosystem- because it’ll be the only place left Apple and Google can push their advantage.
gpm · 16h ago
I strongly doubt that US-Australia trade relationships played any role in the judges decision on this case (and, of course, everything else in this case occurred before Trump was even re-elected). Judges aren't in a role where they are negotiating, or particularly care about, international trade at all. Judges are intentionally separated from the political wing of the state in just about every western democracy.
maximus_01 · 8h ago
I agree with this. I think potentially someone may have suggested the federal court sit on the decision until the 10% tariff was confirmed a couple of weeks ago. Mostly because the announcement pre Tariff might have resulted in a long Truth Social post from DT followed by a knee jerk reaction. But I highly doubt it would factor into the decision.
Australia is also in the process of regulating platforms and I'd expect it to end up a little closer to Europe/Japan in the next couple of years anyway. They will watch to see what loopholes Apple/Google exploit and try to deal with that in the regulations upfront.
Important context for anyone not aware is that Australia is one of the few countries that US runs a large trade surplus with.
hopelite · 15h ago
In some ways you are probably right, however do not discount the fact that America’s relative weakness has opened up avenues for this type of action that otherwise would have likely not happened out of internal pressure due to concerns about that relationship, external pressure on the government to scuttle these kinds of efforts, and/or general lack of alternatives to the American market.
Especially with the rise and seeming power of BRICS there is surely a sense that the pressure is a bit off from the USA, America will be unwilling to add on to pressure against Australia that is close to core BRICS, etc.
Do not discount the rising awareness of the real weakness the “American” empire finds itself in suddenly.
xbmcuser · 16h ago
Lol at you believing courts or judges don't follow their countries dictates. Most of the time such cases would be routed to a judge that will do what is asked without making any noise.
xbmcuser · 15h ago
Where I come from, there is no need to route cases. I used to believe in Western justice systems, but as I've grown older, I've come to realize that much of the corruption money from Asia, Africa, and South America is parked in these same Western countries. Many of the corrupt officials who have fled their home countries are now living in these same Western countries, and in many cases, their families have been granted citizenship. The behavior of the ruling elite in Western countries tells me all I need to know about their justice systems. It seems that a large portion of the population has willingly, maybe unknowingly, put on blinders to their own countries' systems and behaviors.
whimsicalism · 15h ago
maybe wherever you are from that’s true, but not really in the developed anglosphere
shagmin · 15h ago
This stuff is true in the US to some extent.
whimsicalism · 15h ago
no it's not, but i get that it's "in" to hate on the US political structure. essentially all federal cases are randomly assigned
shagmin · 13h ago
I don't think it's widespread by any means but the US Supreme Court has been directly pulled into this exact topic.
I do think this is a great counterexample, but it is largely a bug in the law specific to patents that was closed in 2017. Even then, IIUC on appeal your case would still be randomized.
Yeul · 13h ago
In my country judges don't get elected. They pretty much sit in their ivory tower and fuck up anyone they want.
Which is part of the reason why the Netherlands is not a superpower.
dragonwriter · 13h ago
Judges don't get elected in the US (except for some state and local judges) and yet the US is a superpower. I don't think judicial selection plays a major factor in determining superpower status.
Can you name any country that has ever been a superpower where judges (of the national judiciary if it has separate judiciaries for constituent parts from the national one) were predominantly democratically elected?
camdroidw · 15h ago
Judiciary and law enforcement are some of the most corrupt people
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 17h ago
I think they would have been won regardless because the US has lacked the balls to enforce their own antitrust laws.
benoau · 17h ago
The DOJ is literally suing Apple for many of the same reasons right now -
That was the ‘old’ DOJ, Tim Apple was in the Oval Office a few days ago to pay tribute in gold… it got them exemptions from tariffs and I wouldn’t be surprised if the DOJ dropped this case soon.
Maybe, but if Trump wanted this to go away he's had a good 7 months to make that happen and he got a million dollars cash gift for his inauguration, certainly worth more than a gold bar trophy stand. This antitrust stems from a 2019/2020 congressional investigation into "Big Tech" that occurred during his first term too.
That investigation in 2019/2020 came from the Democrat-majority House Judiciary - not from the DOJ. The DOJ was likely investigating in the background but nothing of public substance actually happened until 2024 when they filed suit. And looking at the docket now, every one of the DOJ attorneys who had filed that initial suit in 2024 have left the DOJ.
Several states joined the suit so things very well may continue but the stench of corruption is pretty thick on everything the current DOJ touches.
saubeidl · 17h ago
The corruption is so out in the open, it's ridiculous.
It's so unsavory to see Tim Cook grovel like that. No backbone at all, what a pitiful human.
scottyah · 17h ago
Grovel? I thought it was making fun of the POTUS. What made it even funnier was that it'd go right over DT's head. Excellent messaging- pleases the wanna be monarch, shows investors that he's willing to work with any country's heads to ensure the success of Apple, and makes a mockery of the office with such a gaudy display.
mikeyouse · 16h ago
> Cook presented Trump with an engraved piece of glass designed by a former Marine Corps corporal who works at Apple. The base of the glass plaque was made of 24 karat gold, Cook said, as he set it up on the Resolute Desk in front of Trump. “You’ve been a great advocate for American innovation and manufacturing,” Cook told Trump. Apple, Cook said, is “going to keep making investments right here in America and we’re going to keep hiring in America.”
jen20 · 16h ago
And yet, the actual publicized investment plans are barely any different from what they were under Biden and likely would have been under Harris.
Nevermark · 16h ago
> the actual publicized investment plans are barely any different
On the contrary.
> The base of the glass plaque was made of 24 karat gold
My recollection, which may be way off, is Biden preferred fine grade silver dinner ware and free Uber passes...
It is amazing how quickly centralized power can not just become deeply and openly corrupt, but operate free of credible challenge. The centralization in this case being years of tightened coordination within one party, acting on all three branches. The internal leverage created by such processes provides a natural habitat for final consolidation by an opportunistic individual.
And suddenly the standards of governance are unrecognizable. The unsurprising result of successfully centralized power.
It has long occurred to me that by not having limits on party power (seat limits? term limits? Cross state limits? Cross branch limits?), the US Constitution left a huge power coordination loop hole, free of checks and balances.
That loophole holds up an eternal carrot of legal one party rule. Temporary one party rule in theory, but the constant drive for that grinds down bipartisanship and respect for any shared power.
No one party should ever have a dominant majority of congress, much less dominate all three branches.
At that point, in-party incentives overwhelmingly push party solidarity above any other issue.
(Another great side effect of party seat/term limits would be the breakup up of the party duopoly which even when "working" lowered the bar for each party to the floor, i.e. neither party needed to do much but not be the latest disappointing incumbent. And a duopoly is incapable of providing choices reflecting a complex reality. They are reduced to competing via team identification/shibboleths.
jen20 · 3h ago
I’m not entirely sure what you think you’re arguing for or against here.
Nevermark · 1h ago
For congressional seat/term limits on parties.
Lots of ways to achieve that. I am not going to pick here. That’s an interesting discussion in its own right. But simple examples that demonstrate limits: parties can only operate in 10 states or less (for congressional candidates). Or parties can only hold 30% or less of congressional seats in either house. Etc.
In the short run, it enforces bipartisanship,
In the long run, it kills long term incentives to attempt to achieve single party rule temporarily, permanent or effectively permanent. Which has been a very destructive incentive driving tremendous organized partisan efforts. (Even when not achieved, the pursuit kills bipartisanship and competition on policy, in pursuit of a lasting hold on power.)
And it would open up elections to more parties, more choices, and force more flexibility, adaptation and collaboration from all parties, instead of more two party polarization and entrenchment.
dragonwriter · 59m ago
> For congressional seat/term limits on parties.
Limits on parties like you discuss are a dumb idea, because they are trivially evaded by factional alliances that aren't formally parties.
OTOH, you wouldn't even need to have a reason to consider them if you simply had an electoral system that didn't lead to national duopoly frequently consisting of regional monopolies, e.g., if the legislative branch was elected in multiseat districts with a system structurally providing roughly proportional results, like Single Transferrable Vote.
The social technology of democracy has advanced since the 18th Century, but the most important parts of that advance, have been ignored in the US, at least at the federal level and statewide levels, though some local use is seen.
whimsicalism · 16h ago
Compared to Europe, the US has significantly more neutral enforcement of laws for domestic prize jewels. The EU, by contrast, barely enforces its own provisions (such as anti-bribery law) against shining European stars.
drdec · 15h ago
As a US citizen I am curious to hear examples of the EU holding back enforcement. That's not the sort of thing that would get reported here.
whimsicalism · 13h ago
Look at basically any example of a major EU company engaged in bribery, such as Airbus and Glencore
realusername · 15h ago
I don't know how you got to that conclusion, every single court case against a US giant is waived in the US.
See Boeing which got pardoned recently as another example.
While not perfect, the justice system seems usually more neutral in most EU countries.
whimsicalism · 13h ago
If you really want to talk aviation, Boeing pled guilty and settled and got fined billions of dollars and had to change safety practices. Compared to Airbus which was well known to be a major briber abroad and was protected in the EU until the US eventually brought FCPA action after it got ridiculously out of hand and EU regulators did nothing.
No comments yet
TheRealPomax · 17h ago
looks at all the cases that never happened even well before Trump got elected
You should probably be thinking that the only places they can be won is outside the US.
tiahura · 17h ago
The administration has indicated that the EU shakedown efforts are going to be addressed. It's reasonable to assume that EU crown jewels like LVMH are going to be subject to a reciprocal shakedown.
gausswho · 16h ago
Shakedown is their propaganda. What it actually is is proper market stewardship. The US now threatens other sovereignties to drop to its dysfunctional levels just so its own corporate zombies can continue trawling the world.
seydor · 16h ago
The administration has a particular affinity for luxuries and shiny objects. I dont think that's going to happen
Winsaucerer · 17h ago
I heard they are targeting Andromeda with the next round of tariffs.
ratelimitsteve · 17h ago
as long as they leave Squornshellous Zeta alone until I get my mattress
whimsicalism · 16h ago
Speaks a lot to the legal process outside the US if that is true..
barbazoo · 15h ago
I imagine much of not going after big tech was probably politics and the unwillingness to offend a major geopolitical and trading partner.
stego-tech · 17h ago
> “Well son, I think I speak for your mother and I when I say, UH DUHHHHHHH.”
Man, it just doesn’t work outside GIF form, but the point is the same. Anyone with two brain cells could understand how vertical monopolies are still monopolies, and the walled gardens created by Big Tech are just company towns customers pay into and can’t leave without enormous disruption. All of that came through rubber-stamped M&As that depleted the market of competition and, now that ZIRP is over and AI is riding high, depleted the market of well-paying jobs in the process.
Competition is efficient, in that it creates more jobs and more opportunities for money to flow between customers and businesses. When your goal is to have all the money, though, competition is bad and must be destroyed.
At least with tech we can force change through code instead of armed law enforcement like monopolies of old.
carlosjobim · 11h ago
They're not monopolies, they're acting anti-competitive. Which is worse. But words have real meanings, and should be used correctly.
hug · 6h ago
Apple has a monopoly on distributing apps to iPhones. That is a true statement, using the real meaning of monopoly, and is being used correctly.
You can disagree with whether or not that statement is a "real issue", in that you can buy a completely different phone and install apps provided by other vendors, but it doesn't take away any truthiness from the initial statement.
From my perspective, though, that monopoly is a real issue. Some 55% of the adult US population own an iPhone. A monopoly in a market made up of the majority of the US populace should be thoroughly examined.
dijit · 4h ago
I really don’t get why people are so bent out of shape about iPhones being a closed ecosystem.
But I am a game developer and console app distribution requires laborious requirements to ship anything meaningful, it’s just an ordinary part of playing the game.
Ironically: all our games end up being better* optimised for all platforms because of the requirements and accessibility is not an afterthought. But hell, is it arbitrary sometimes to get a cert pass and it is definitely frustrating.
silverliver · 48m ago
Consoles are a monopoly too and I hope governments go after them next.
carlosjobim · 5h ago
Then I'd like you to give me an example of any company which is not a monopoly, with that same logic.
rafabulsing · 4h ago
Google does not have a monopoly on distributing apps on Android phones.
Microsoft does not have a monopoly on distributing software on Windows.
Hell, Apple itself does not have a monopoly on distributing software on MacOS.
Really, you could say the same about, AFAICT, every single major operating system that has ever existed, other than iOS.
hug · 4h ago
Sure, the example is any company that doesn't run a market, and any company where its marketplace is fungible with another marketplace. AirBnB may have four times the market cap of Vrbo, but their addressable market, both vendor and consumer, is the same set of people.
The monopoly that Apple controls is not Apple's goods, it's the control of the sale of goods of other vendors to consumers who have no comparable choice but to transact via Apple. The consumers are the people who would have to spend $1,000 to switch to a different market, and then have to re-purchase every good they'd purchased from the previous market.
It's not like Walmart, where the consumer can walk across the road to Target and buy the exact same thing at a similar price. Imagine if every time you wanted to switch which big-box store you shopped at they charged you a $500 entry fee and you had to re-buy all of your household electronics.
I would also, in a general sense, suggest that in the only obvious direct competitor market, Google does not exert monopoly power, because you can install F-Droid as an alternate marketplace. They are anti-competitive in other ways, though, to your earlier point.
carlosjobim · 4h ago
> consumers who have no comparable choice but to transact via Apple
A comparable choice would be to use a telephone from another maker. And they come for much less than $1000.
> Imagine if every time you wanted to switch which big-box store you shopped at they charged you a $500 entry fee and you had to re-buy all of your household electronics.
I'm imagining it, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Apple or Google or their conduct. When I buy a new car, any old accessories I have purchased for the old car will obviously not fit.
> AirBnB may have four times the market cap of Vrbo, but their addressable market, both vendor and consumer, is the same set of people.
Same for Apple. Vendors are free to develop for several platforms and users are free to have cell phones of different marks.
In this particular subject of search engines, Apple and Google have acted in an anticompetitive way with the bribe payments. That doesn't have much to do with monopolies.
This is unlikely for this particular case - lots of confidentiality claims etc. It's possible that the judgment will never be published.
9dev · 17h ago
It warms my heart to think about how much Thiel must hate to read this.
bootsmann · 16h ago
Well there are still quite some og tech monopolies left, but it does seem like the tide is starting to turn.
BrenBarn · 2h ago
And what will the punishment be? When the penalty for such practices is just that you have to stop, there's no reason for anyone to not do them as much as they can get away with. The penalties must be so ruinous that companies dare not engage in such behavior in the first place.
devinprater · 17h ago
Good. Maybe if everywhere else makes them do things right, they'll just give up and not region-lock the good stuff. Apple.
supermatt · 12m ago
Region locking isn’t going to stop anything. The cat is already out of the bag.
They don’t need to provide that service, but now it is evident that they are restricting their users choice to have that feature - and so they will need to permit a feature equivalent service from other vendors.
That is how it will play out. These walled gardens are being knocked down. They will just kick and scream as much as they can while it happens, harassing their users in the process. I just hope the fines get to their maximum as soon as possible - at least then we will be compensated for their asshole behaviour.
burnte · 15h ago
Probably not. Large corps are willing to bear the costs of maintaining a lot of control over customers just to keep them from being exposed to a competitor. If they ever open it up, it'll be due to laws, not change of heart on Apple's part.
quitit · 10h ago
This is a consequence of publicly listed companies.
They can't just go and eliminate a giant revenue stream because it would be morally right to do so. They need a court or a law to force them to do it, otherwise the board will be removed from their position for people who will maintain that revenue stream.
conductr · 4h ago
Not just that, the demand for growth and improving quarter over quarter results require they continue to expand those revenue streams. Enshittification is a result of inertia.
jlarocco · 12h ago
The benefits out weight the costs, or at least the people in charge perceive it that way.
cubefox · 17h ago
> Epic may have lost its antitrust battle against Apple in the U.S., but it won its lawsuit against Google, which was found to have built an illegal monopoly in the Android market.
Amazing. You can install third-party app stores on Android, just not via Google's own Play Store. Meanwhile, in iOS you can't even install third party browsers. Let alone third-party app stores. Or any apps outside Apple's App Store.
The iOS case is far more egregious. It seems the US courts are heavily biased in favor of Apple.
Workaccount2 · 16h ago
The craziest part of this is:
Apple wasn't a monopoly because they didn't share their platform with anyone
The judge in the Google case said that Android couldn't be compared to iOS because iOS is only available to Apple products.
So while I can kind of squint and see this, the obvious signal the court is sending is
"If you don't want to be monopolistic, don't open your platform to anyone".
anakaine · 11h ago
Do remember, however, that the judge is viewing this purely through a legal lens. That interpretation is probably quite an easy one to get to where if you have built a product and never allowed a competitors product in, and nor have you taken over someone else's by using unfair business practices then you're not a monopoly given the legal definition, not the dictionary definition.
From the point of defence of the dictionary definition, Android is huge in Australia, and outside the US generally.
mathiaspoint · 10h ago
Sure. If you claim something is open source and then make it impractical to use without closed source components you should get in trouble for that.
amelius · 16h ago
Huh, third party developers are what made iOS big ...
Workaccount2 · 16h ago
Hardware platform.
Which is even stranger because Samsung, by far the largest Android phone distributor, ships their phones with the galaxy app store on them.
bsimpson · 12h ago
From what I recall reading, it was a matter of market definition. They defined the Android app market to be all devices that run Android, and then said Google monopolized it; whereas the iOS market is just devices made by Apple.
I don't agree with the outcome, but that's the twist of logic that allows the more open ecosystem to be the one being attacked as a monopoly.
bootsmann · 16h ago
People complain about it here often, but the EU setting clear rules in the DMA is probably a significantly better way to ensure a level playing field instead of relying on judges and agencies to figure it out. Apple winning the case while Google lost theirs seems increasingly arbitrary.
GeekyBear · 16h ago
Walled gardens are not illegal under existing law. You have to change the law before walled gardens become illegal, as the EU did with the DSA.
Nintendo's various platforms, Microsoft's XBox, and Sony's PlayStation have been perfectly legal walled gardens for decades.
However, claiming to introduce an open platform and then using anticompetitive means to retain control of that "open" platform is plainly illegal under existing law, as Google found with Android and Microsoft found with Windows.
cubefox · 16h ago
First of all, I don't think Google ever made such a "claim". Moreover, what you are suggesting is that it is okay to do something bad if you say it's bad, but not to do something slightly bad if you say it's good. That's absurd. What Apple is doing with iOS is objectively much worse than what Google is doing with Android, irrespective of any alleged "claims".
GeekyBear · 16h ago
> First of all, I don't think Google ever made such a "claim".
They explicitly made the claim that Android was open on many occasions.
Remember when a major Android selling point was that Android was "open source" before they started moving all the updated versions of the developer APIs into the Play Store?
> What Apple is doing with iOS is objectively much worse than what Google is doing with Android, irrespective of any alleged "claims".
It’s objectively not despite what you claim.
Apple never promised you an alternative, you got exactly what you paid for. Google promised you an alternative and while you weren’t looking tried to strangle it in its crib.
You need to look past your fan bias.
cubefox · 9h ago
Google didn't "promise" anything.
> You need to look past your fan bias.
That's funny, considering that you are arguing that Android is worse than iOS, despite iOS being far more anti-competitive.
GeekyBear · 8h ago
Google didn't just claim that Android was open, they claimed that it was open source.
Then they used anticompetitive tactics against companies attempting to take advantage of that supposed openness to retain tight control.
They have been found guilty of doing this many times in many jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's XBox walled garden ecosystem remains perfectly legal.
This is because walled gardens are not illegal. Anticompetitive conduct in open markets is.
If you want walled gardens to be illegal, you have to do what the EU did and change the law.
theshackleford · 4h ago
Do you have reading issues? Because that’s not what I argued at all. I argued you can’t say one thing and then do another and it seems the courts agree.
benoau · 17h ago
US courts haven't really begun dismantling this status quo, but there's quite a few things going on that challenge it:
Is any of these realistically expected to result in the possibility of installing third-party apps and app stores, similar to Android?
benoau · 17h ago
All of them challenge Apple having exclusive app distribution, except the Epic injunction and the class action accusing Apple of doing a shit job.
ggreer · 15h ago
Apple is what, less than 20% of phone sales? So it's hard to see how that constitutes a monopoly. And if banning 3rd party apps is enough for a lawsuit, then why doesn't that apply to Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for their game consoles? Why doesn't it apply to Amazon's Fire tablets, or Kindles, or Huawei phones, or Oculus headsets? All of those devices have similar restrictions.
Unless customers are coerced or misled, or returns/refunds are difficult, I don't see the need for government intervention. Apple's software restrictions hurt the iPhone's market share. The same goes for charging high fees for app purchases. Customers and developers can (and often do) choose other devices for being less restrictive about what software can be run on them. If an informed adult chooses a locked down platform because they prioritize other features, why should the government stop them?
I can see an argument for requiring labeling (similar to warnings on cigarettes), but a total ban seems like overreach.
SomeHacker44 · 15h ago
I did some... Googling.... Anyway, it seems many sites estimate iOS as about 57% of the US market, not 20%.
Since the article is about an Australian court case and comments discussed the US & EU, I was using figures for the whole world, which seems to be 16-18% depending on the source.[1][2] Even if we restrict numbers to the US, 57% is rarely considered monopoly. You'd need significant barriers to entry, and the smartphone market has enough manufacturers that it would be hard to argue that such a barrier exists.
> Customers and developers can (and often do) choose other devices for being less restrictive about what software can be run on them
Well no, there's only two operating system with very similar policies and pricing. If there's any competition there, it's not obvious where.
The only pricing change ever made was made as a reaction of an antitrust lawsuit... Just that fact alone should be enough to raise some eyebrows.
ggreer · 13h ago
Similar policies and pricing? You can get Android phones for much cheaper than iPhones. And many smartphone manufacturers let you run whatever you want on their devices. The largest smartphone manufacturer in the world (Samsung) ships most of their phones with two app stores, and lets customers enable side loading with a few taps.
If you're talking about policies and pricing for developers, then why not apply that argument to app stores owned by Sony, Microsoft, & Nintendo? Those are much more restrictive than anything in the smartphone world. Heck, even Steam takes a 30% cut.
realusername · 12h ago
I'm talking from the point of view of app developers.
Sure I'm open to the idea that there's fierce competition on the hardware, on the software though, there's absolutely zero signs of it.
> then why not apply that argument to app stores owned by Sony, Microsoft, & Nintendo?
We do have signs that there's competition in the console world, if you want to make that parallel, when was the last time Google or Apple paid for an app exclusive similarly to game exclusives?
ggreer · 8h ago
Apple and Google make apps exclusive all the time. They just do it by acquiring the company that developed the app, then integrating the app's functionality into their OS. Examples for iOS include Siri, Dark Sky, Shazam, and Workflow. Google did it with Waze, and failed with Sparrow, Quickoffice, and a bunch of others. Samsung did it with LoopPay (which became Samsung Pay) and Viv (from the developers of Siri), which they turned into Bixby.
ZekeSulastin · 16h ago
Wasn’t the legal difference that Apple never said you could whereas Google did then added roadblocks?
immibis · 15h ago
AFAIK it was on the basis that Google pretends to be an open ecosystem, while Apple is pretty upfront about the fact they control everything you do with your device.
IncreasePosts · 13h ago
Why would the courts be biased in favor of one multi trillion dollar firm vs some other multi trillion dollar firm?
LoganDark · 16h ago
> Meanwhile, in iOS you can't even install third party browsers. Let alone third-party app stores. Or any apps outside Apple's App Store.
Apple did malicious compliance and only technically complied with the requirements in a specifically geo-restricted area (the EU) without allowing anyone else to benefit. (Although I think it was later ruled that they didn't actually manage to comply thanks to all the malice.)
betaby · 17h ago
What that ruling means in practice? 30% fee will be reduced?
elAhmo · 17h ago
Most likely nothing
kevingadd · 18h ago
> In a judgment that spanned 2000 pages, Australian Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach, ruled that Apple had a substantial degree of market power. The Judge said both Apple and Google had breached Section 46 of Australia’s Competition Act. The companies had abused their market power to stifle the competition. But, it wasn't all in favor of Epic Games. Beach rejected the claim that Apple and Google had breached consumer law, he also said that the companies had not engaged in unconscionable conduct.
2000 pages! I can see why the case took something like 5 years.
It sounds like a mixed ruling so Epic didn't get everything they wanted here, but if they're able to launch the Epic Games Store on iOS in Australia that's a pretty big win by itself.
lucianbr · 17h ago
While courts take years and write multiple volumes to justify any kind of measure at all, the corporations move fast and keep changing the way they extract value from society.
I'm not sure the system will ever catch up this way.
Plus, if a regular citizen without deep pockets breaks the law, somehow it never takes years and thousands of pages to convict them. I can easily believe it's not about the complexities of the case, but the depth of the pockets.
If it really was "just a complex situation", you would expect equal percentages of simple and complicated cases for regular joes and huge corporations, no?
joshuacc · 17h ago
> If it really was "just a complex situation", you would expect equal percentages of simple and complicated cases for regular joes and huge corporations, no?
Obviously not. Regular joes almost always have relatively simple situations relative to multinational corporations, otherwise they wouldn't be regular joes.
abtinf · 17h ago
The more irrational the law, the more words must be said about it.
Same for religious philosophies.
IIAOPSW · 17h ago
If length of ones writing is a measure of irrationality, everyone who's ever written a thesis must be absolutely unhinged.
add-sub-mul-div · 17h ago
They might be the first to agree with you.
bigyabai · 17h ago
Not really? The court likes having as much salient evidence as it can get.
jmyeet · 17h ago
Amazon already handles purchases on iOS and Android via their own payments infrastructure for physical good. Apple and Google carve out a weird exception for "digital" goods so you can't, for example, buy Kindle books directly on an app. You get directed to a website.
There is absolutely no reason sufficiently large companies can't handle their own payment infrastructure. You should be able to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ without paying the Apple Tax.
A 30% cut is somewhat defensible for small companies that have no payments infrastructure or simply don't want to manage that. There are all sorts of compliance issues. There's something to be said for a seamless user experience.
But 30% for a large company becomes a huge incentive for large companies to attack you in the courts (as Epic did or prodding Attorneys-General to file suit) or by lobbying governments.
I've consistently said that courts and/or governments will end up dismantling the app store monopolies because of the payment monopoly and it'll be far, far better for Apple and Google in the long term if that happens on their terms, not the terms set by courts and governments.
Qualify certain providers to handle their own payments and take 0-5% to pay for things like malware scanning, distribution, etc and you've addressed the strongest monopoly argument (ie payments) and reduced the financial incentive for competitors to attack you.
Attacking you could even risk your qualified payments partner status and you could lose that privileged position. It's such an easy win.
andrekandre · 7h ago
> There is absolutely no reason sufficiently large companies can't handle their own payment infrastructure. You should be able to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ without paying the Apple Tax.
its not only that (an annoying tax) but its actively harmful to some customers/businesses where the payment flow isnt one-person-one transaction; some businesses have multiple accounts per customer or have trial periods incompatible with appstore's in-app purchase model and people get confused, to say nothing about the bugs this causes on the backend...
Imustaskforhelp · 16h ago
ah yes australia court finds that every 60 seconds, a minute passes!
How amazing!
/satire of course
The implied corruption is likely not from these other countries that start making these cases now, but is a persistent feature of US governance.
Lina Khan's FTC brought cases again Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Mastercard, and more. They also prevented mergers (consolidations) in a lot of different industries. Could they have accomplished more? Certainly, but they did certainly did display a willingness to bring antitrust cases.
unfortunately a lot of these things are on an election cycle.
> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.
> Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, ...
It was passed in the era of robber barons and meant to be a strong hammer against anti-competitive practices. But because it was so broad, the courts kept chipping away at it over time through reinterpretation because by its terms it would prohibit a lot of things the courts didn't really want to get involved in policing, or they just made bad calls in years when the Court's majority wasn't that smart.
Meanwhile monopolists generally have a lot of money to pay expensive lawyers, so they structure their activities to fit within the loopholes the courts have carved out over the years and that makes it hard for an administration to hold them to account even when they have the will to do it.
Hyper-partisanship also makes this worse, because if everyone is convinced the other side is pure evil then they're going to try to undo anything the other party was trying to do without even considering what it is, which isn't compatible with long-term prosecutions that would have to span administrations.
If they aren't, it means they're not pushing the boundaries of their authority hard enough.
I don't like the way this is phrased because it nearly implies that doing this is an advantage to the US population.
"Preventing foreign dominance in tech" is plausibly a legitimate goal. Preventing a foreign tech monopoly is a good thing. But the assumption that this can only be achieved by a domestic one is the fallacy. A domestic monopoly is still a disadvantage compared to a competitive market with a multitude of domestic companies.
Unless you're an authoritarian that wants to leverage the monopoly for the purposes of e.g. censorship. But then you're an enemy whose goal is to harm even the domestic population.
Its to prop up American businesses, and as a form of corporate welfare.
We see this a lot in various vertical industries. The USG could pay and make it free, but they would rather prop up proprietary software as long as its US based.
Not even being a monopolist matters.
You say that like it's an actual policy goal. You don't think it's because those companies donate to the campaigns of the politicians doing it? It's corruption.
I do. There's reasons for that from previous employment that would indicate that as a policy goal.
Red Hat is also technically accepted by US Gov. Technically. But you need to use? They're bypassing all sorts of security shit with ongoing POAMs and doing their own thing.
And yes, I would agree that its corruption as well.
Look at the state of the industry vertically. There's exactly 1 company that can produce the cutting-edge chip fabs, ASML. TSMC utterly dominates using the fabs to actually produce the chips. That's already 2 foreign-controlled horizontal monopolies on which the rest of the industry relies.
If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips. And so we encourage US mega-tech companies buying up all the GPUs, so those other monopolies aren't used to cripple us (or at least they'd cripple the whole chain if they tried).
It isn't in any way guaranteed, and you just listed an example of it failing. Intel used to be the world leader in fabs and now it's TSMC, because that's what happens if you let the domestic market consolidate until the incumbents feel they can rest on their laurels and then a foreign competitor throws down the gauntlet.
> If you want any sort of control in the industry (and not be bullied for access like we do to China), you need to be the biggest buyer / operator of those chips.
Or you need an actual diverse competitive market so that that sort of bullying doesn't work for anyone.
Suppose the GPU market had a dozen or more companies with significant market share and four of them were in the US. Then it doesn't matter where the other ones are, nobody can deprive the US of GPUs because the US can always get them from the US vendors or have them increase production.
It would mean that the US can't do the bullying anymore because then others could buy from the non-US vendors, but what is the rest of the world doing not causing that to happen on purpose?
It's as if they have some insider knowledge or something, and also a lot of skin in the game to protect these monopolies.
Also I didn't see any info on whether the fund manager can beat hft et al to the punch once disclosure happens.
https://x.com/HawleyMO/status/1919738880204345581
No, you won’t. That ETF is a trailing indicator, and it’s trailing so far back it won’t even show up in the rearview mirror.
That, and if you load a comparison chart with .SPX, they look almost identical. No upside, and greater risk.
1 - Regardless of what you think of tariffs, his base largely considers them wins.
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Trump collects wins for himself and his base flip-flops along with him and his every whim.
It's not about smart or not, he doesn't care beyond what he can get from it. He doesn't care about any retaliations and he knows he has his base eating outta the palm of his hand. Smart doesn't play into any of it, it's not needed. The Project state takes care of the smarts part of the administration
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en
Australia is also in the process of regulating platforms and I'd expect it to end up a little closer to Europe/Japan in the next couple of years anyway. They will watch to see what loopholes Apple/Google exploit and try to deal with that in the regulations upfront.
Important context for anyone not aware is that Australia is one of the few countries that US runs a large trade surplus with.
Especially with the rise and seeming power of BRICS there is surely a sense that the pressure is a bit off from the USA, America will be unwilling to add on to pressure against Australia that is close to core BRICS, etc.
Do not discount the rising awareness of the real weakness the “American” empire finds itself in suddenly.
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/g-s1-28919/supreme-court-judg...
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/judg...
https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/03/27/judge-shopping-expl...
Which is part of the reason why the Netherlands is not a superpower.
Can you name any country that has ever been a superpower where judges (of the national judiciary if it has separate judiciaries for constituent parts from the national one) were predominantly democratically elected?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A...
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/06/tech/congress-big-tech-an...
Several states joined the suit so things very well may continue but the stench of corruption is pretty thick on everything the current DOJ touches.
It's so unsavory to see Tim Cook grovel like that. No backbone at all, what a pitiful human.
On the contrary.
> The base of the glass plaque was made of 24 karat gold
My recollection, which may be way off, is Biden preferred fine grade silver dinner ware and free Uber passes...
It is amazing how quickly centralized power can not just become deeply and openly corrupt, but operate free of credible challenge. The centralization in this case being years of tightened coordination within one party, acting on all three branches. The internal leverage created by such processes provides a natural habitat for final consolidation by an opportunistic individual.
And suddenly the standards of governance are unrecognizable. The unsurprising result of successfully centralized power.
It has long occurred to me that by not having limits on party power (seat limits? term limits? Cross state limits? Cross branch limits?), the US Constitution left a huge power coordination loop hole, free of checks and balances.
That loophole holds up an eternal carrot of legal one party rule. Temporary one party rule in theory, but the constant drive for that grinds down bipartisanship and respect for any shared power.
No one party should ever have a dominant majority of congress, much less dominate all three branches.
At that point, in-party incentives overwhelmingly push party solidarity above any other issue.
(Another great side effect of party seat/term limits would be the breakup up of the party duopoly which even when "working" lowered the bar for each party to the floor, i.e. neither party needed to do much but not be the latest disappointing incumbent. And a duopoly is incapable of providing choices reflecting a complex reality. They are reduced to competing via team identification/shibboleths.
Lots of ways to achieve that. I am not going to pick here. That’s an interesting discussion in its own right. But simple examples that demonstrate limits: parties can only operate in 10 states or less (for congressional candidates). Or parties can only hold 30% or less of congressional seats in either house. Etc.
In the short run, it enforces bipartisanship,
In the long run, it kills long term incentives to attempt to achieve single party rule temporarily, permanent or effectively permanent. Which has been a very destructive incentive driving tremendous organized partisan efforts. (Even when not achieved, the pursuit kills bipartisanship and competition on policy, in pursuit of a lasting hold on power.)
And it would open up elections to more parties, more choices, and force more flexibility, adaptation and collaboration from all parties, instead of more two party polarization and entrenchment.
Limits on parties like you discuss are a dumb idea, because they are trivially evaded by factional alliances that aren't formally parties.
OTOH, you wouldn't even need to have a reason to consider them if you simply had an electoral system that didn't lead to national duopoly frequently consisting of regional monopolies, e.g., if the legislative branch was elected in multiseat districts with a system structurally providing roughly proportional results, like Single Transferrable Vote.
The social technology of democracy has advanced since the 18th Century, but the most important parts of that advance, have been ignored in the US, at least at the federal level and statewide levels, though some local use is seen.
See Boeing which got pardoned recently as another example.
While not perfect, the justice system seems usually more neutral in most EU countries.
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You should probably be thinking that the only places they can be won is outside the US.
Man, it just doesn’t work outside GIF form, but the point is the same. Anyone with two brain cells could understand how vertical monopolies are still monopolies, and the walled gardens created by Big Tech are just company towns customers pay into and can’t leave without enormous disruption. All of that came through rubber-stamped M&As that depleted the market of competition and, now that ZIRP is over and AI is riding high, depleted the market of well-paying jobs in the process.
Competition is efficient, in that it creates more jobs and more opportunities for money to flow between customers and businesses. When your goal is to have all the money, though, competition is bad and must be destroyed.
At least with tech we can force change through code instead of armed law enforcement like monopolies of old.
You can disagree with whether or not that statement is a "real issue", in that you can buy a completely different phone and install apps provided by other vendors, but it doesn't take away any truthiness from the initial statement.
From my perspective, though, that monopoly is a real issue. Some 55% of the adult US population own an iPhone. A monopoly in a market made up of the majority of the US populace should be thoroughly examined.
But I am a game developer and console app distribution requires laborious requirements to ship anything meaningful, it’s just an ordinary part of playing the game.
Ironically: all our games end up being better* optimised for all platforms because of the requirements and accessibility is not an afterthought. But hell, is it arbitrary sometimes to get a cert pass and it is definitely frustrating.
Microsoft does not have a monopoly on distributing software on Windows.
Hell, Apple itself does not have a monopoly on distributing software on MacOS.
Really, you could say the same about, AFAICT, every single major operating system that has ever existed, other than iOS.
The monopoly that Apple controls is not Apple's goods, it's the control of the sale of goods of other vendors to consumers who have no comparable choice but to transact via Apple. The consumers are the people who would have to spend $1,000 to switch to a different market, and then have to re-purchase every good they'd purchased from the previous market.
It's not like Walmart, where the consumer can walk across the road to Target and buy the exact same thing at a similar price. Imagine if every time you wanted to switch which big-box store you shopped at they charged you a $500 entry fee and you had to re-buy all of your household electronics.
I would also, in a general sense, suggest that in the only obvious direct competitor market, Google does not exert monopoly power, because you can install F-Droid as an alternate marketplace. They are anti-competitive in other ways, though, to your earlier point.
A comparable choice would be to use a telephone from another maker. And they come for much less than $1000.
> Imagine if every time you wanted to switch which big-box store you shopped at they charged you a $500 entry fee and you had to re-buy all of your household electronics.
I'm imagining it, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Apple or Google or their conduct. When I buy a new car, any old accessories I have purchased for the old car will obviously not fit.
> AirBnB may have four times the market cap of Vrbo, but their addressable market, both vendor and consumer, is the same set of people.
Same for Apple. Vendors are free to develop for several platforms and users are free to have cell phones of different marks.
In this particular subject of search engines, Apple and Google have acted in an anticompetitive way with the bribe payments. That doesn't have much to do with monopolies.
Per: https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD1236/2020/act...
They don’t need to provide that service, but now it is evident that they are restricting their users choice to have that feature - and so they will need to permit a feature equivalent service from other vendors.
That is how it will play out. These walled gardens are being knocked down. They will just kick and scream as much as they can while it happens, harassing their users in the process. I just hope the fines get to their maximum as soon as possible - at least then we will be compensated for their asshole behaviour.
They can't just go and eliminate a giant revenue stream because it would be morally right to do so. They need a court or a law to force them to do it, otherwise the board will be removed from their position for people who will maintain that revenue stream.
Amazing. You can install third-party app stores on Android, just not via Google's own Play Store. Meanwhile, in iOS you can't even install third party browsers. Let alone third-party app stores. Or any apps outside Apple's App Store.
The iOS case is far more egregious. It seems the US courts are heavily biased in favor of Apple.
Apple wasn't a monopoly because they didn't share their platform with anyone
The judge in the Google case said that Android couldn't be compared to iOS because iOS is only available to Apple products.
So while I can kind of squint and see this, the obvious signal the court is sending is
"If you don't want to be monopolistic, don't open your platform to anyone".
From the point of defence of the dictionary definition, Android is huge in Australia, and outside the US generally.
Which is even stranger because Samsung, by far the largest Android phone distributor, ships their phones with the galaxy app store on them.
I don't agree with the outcome, but that's the twist of logic that allows the more open ecosystem to be the one being attacked as a monopoly.
Nintendo's various platforms, Microsoft's XBox, and Sony's PlayStation have been perfectly legal walled gardens for decades.
However, claiming to introduce an open platform and then using anticompetitive means to retain control of that "open" platform is plainly illegal under existing law, as Google found with Android and Microsoft found with Windows.
They explicitly made the claim that Android was open on many occasions.
Remember when a major Android selling point was that Android was "open source" before they started moving all the updated versions of the developer APIs into the Play Store?
https://medium.com/@coopossum/how-open-source-is-android-8d1...
It’s objectively not despite what you claim.
Apple never promised you an alternative, you got exactly what you paid for. Google promised you an alternative and while you weren’t looking tried to strangle it in its crib.
You need to look past your fan bias.
> You need to look past your fan bias.
That's funny, considering that you are arguing that Android is worse than iOS, despite iOS being far more anti-competitive.
Then they used anticompetitive tactics against companies attempting to take advantage of that supposed openness to retain tight control.
They have been found guilty of doing this many times in many jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's XBox walled garden ecosystem remains perfectly legal.
This is because walled gardens are not illegal. Anticompetitive conduct in open markets is.
If you want walled gardens to be illegal, you have to do what the EU did and change the law.
- DOJ antitrust case going to trial soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024)
- 2021 Epic injunction that Apple defied followed by 2025 Epic injunction that recently forced Apple to allow links to competing payment options: https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/apple_epic_lies_possi...
- Open Markets Act from 2020 has some new life: https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/25/bipartisan-open-a...
- App Store Freedom Act from 2025: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3209...
- 2011 class action on excessive fees going to trial next year: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4178894/in-re-apple-iph...
- 2025 class action on excessive fees: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70356851/korean-publish...
- 2025 class action for monopolizing app distribution: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/gkvlagedmpb/...
- 2025 class action for doing a shit job of monopolizing app distribution: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70526762/shin-v-apple-i...
Unless customers are coerced or misled, or returns/refunds are difficult, I don't see the need for government intervention. Apple's software restrictions hurt the iPhone's market share. The same goes for charging high fees for app purchases. Customers and developers can (and often do) choose other devices for being less restrictive about what software can be run on them. If an informed adult chooses a locked down platform because they prioritize other features, why should the government stop them?
I can see an argument for requiring labeling (similar to warnings on cigarettes), but a total ban seems like overreach.
Example: https://backlinko.com/iphone-vs-android-statistics
1. https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insight/post-insight-re...
2. https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/
Well no, there's only two operating system with very similar policies and pricing. If there's any competition there, it's not obvious where.
The only pricing change ever made was made as a reaction of an antitrust lawsuit... Just that fact alone should be enough to raise some eyebrows.
If you're talking about policies and pricing for developers, then why not apply that argument to app stores owned by Sony, Microsoft, & Nintendo? Those are much more restrictive than anything in the smartphone world. Heck, even Steam takes a 30% cut.
Sure I'm open to the idea that there's fierce competition on the hardware, on the software though, there's absolutely zero signs of it.
> then why not apply that argument to app stores owned by Sony, Microsoft, & Nintendo?
We do have signs that there's competition in the console world, if you want to make that parallel, when was the last time Google or Apple paid for an app exclusive similarly to game exclusives?
Apple did malicious compliance and only technically complied with the requirements in a specifically geo-restricted area (the EU) without allowing anyone else to benefit. (Although I think it was later ruled that they didn't actually manage to comply thanks to all the malice.)
2000 pages! I can see why the case took something like 5 years.
It sounds like a mixed ruling so Epic didn't get everything they wanted here, but if they're able to launch the Epic Games Store on iOS in Australia that's a pretty big win by itself.
I'm not sure the system will ever catch up this way.
Plus, if a regular citizen without deep pockets breaks the law, somehow it never takes years and thousands of pages to convict them. I can easily believe it's not about the complexities of the case, but the depth of the pockets.
If it really was "just a complex situation", you would expect equal percentages of simple and complicated cases for regular joes and huge corporations, no?
Obviously not. Regular joes almost always have relatively simple situations relative to multinational corporations, otherwise they wouldn't be regular joes.
Same for religious philosophies.
There is absolutely no reason sufficiently large companies can't handle their own payment infrastructure. You should be able to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ without paying the Apple Tax.
A 30% cut is somewhat defensible for small companies that have no payments infrastructure or simply don't want to manage that. There are all sorts of compliance issues. There's something to be said for a seamless user experience.
But 30% for a large company becomes a huge incentive for large companies to attack you in the courts (as Epic did or prodding Attorneys-General to file suit) or by lobbying governments.
I've consistently said that courts and/or governments will end up dismantling the app store monopolies because of the payment monopoly and it'll be far, far better for Apple and Google in the long term if that happens on their terms, not the terms set by courts and governments.
Qualify certain providers to handle their own payments and take 0-5% to pay for things like malware scanning, distribution, etc and you've addressed the strongest monopoly argument (ie payments) and reduced the financial incentive for competitors to attack you.
Attacking you could even risk your qualified payments partner status and you could lose that privileged position. It's such an easy win.