Comment by realusername
4 years ago
> What anti-trust measures made Blackberry give up and switch to Android? Was it Apple's doing that Microsoft bought Nokia and Nokia imploded with Symbian and Maemo and inability to compete with iOS? [...] ?
The history of the mobile OS market is beside the point, I'm only stating facts about the current landscape.
> Apple have 27% of the mobile OS market.
And they are in a duopoly with Google with absolutly zero competition. If you want a proof of that, the only time their tariff ever changed was because of Epic Game's threat... of an antitrust lawsuit, you can't even make this stuff up.
> Simple as what? What do you expect, what do you want, anti-trust laws being applied to do? Magically conjour up a competitor from nowhere? Or just smash iOS in resentment for its success so you can have avoid having to suffer Android?
Yes exactly, smash both iOS and Android into multiple independent companies so that this broken market blocking the tech industry can function again.
> "And they are in a duopoly with Google with absolutly zero competition." "The history of the mobile OS market is beside the point"
It's not besides the point, it's important whether there's no competition because Apple crushed them unfairly in an anti-trust kind of way, or because all other competitors are completely and utterly incompetent. That there is a competing OS with many manufacturers customising and selling it and they collectively have the dominant market share by ~2x over Apple says that Apple is not a monopoly. "Duopoly with no competition, except the dozens of companies which outsell them by 2:1" is nonsensical.
> "if you don't like Android and iOS, well, you're screwed" "Yes exactly, smash both iOS and Android into multiple independent companies"
But I do like iOS. And I don't want you smashing iOS because you don't like it. Part of why it's good is because it's made by one integrated company. You already have Android from multiple independent companies - you can have it without Google services, where it's basically functionless, you can have it with Samsung UX or you can try Huaweii's build. Are you saying they're all bad (yes), that they all can't compete to make things better, but if the same happens to iOS that will somehow make it good? Of course it won't, it will make it just as bad in the same ways for the same reasons.
What's wrong with the Pinephone or Librem5 or all the other non-Apple non-Google phones? Why are you "screwed"? They can't compete because making a cutting edge device is hard and expensive.
> "because of Epic Game's threat... of an antitrust lawsuit, you can't even make this stuff up."
I'll check what Wikipedia has on that... "When Epic first released its Android client, it offered it as a sideloaded package rather than as a Google Play store app, as they did not want Google to take any revenue from the microtransactions in the game.[6] However, this resulted in a number of security concerns and numerous unscrupulous clones attempting to pass themselves off as the real Fortnite game in the Google Play store"
Yes, this sounds exactly what I expect, not techno-freedom-utopia but unregulated scamland, and why I'm objecting so hard in this thread. Followed by "Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly."
That sounds awesome, imagine the freedom to install apps from sources of your choosing, like sideloading ... hang on "and by April 2020, Epic discontinued the sideloaded version and placed the game on the Google Play store". Oh I guess he didn't really believe his own story at all, and wanted to benefit from Google's better reptuation and filtering on the Play store, while arguing that it shouldn't exist?
> It's not besides the point, it's important whether there's no competition because Apple crushed them unfairly in an anti-trust kind of way, or because all other competitors are completely and utterly incompetent.
There's network effects on mobile platforms, you could not make a new one even if you had 500 billion you could spend on it. The existing actors just prevent you to create a new one.
> But I do like iOS. And I don't want you smashing iOS because you don't like it
I don't like monopolies, I couldn't care less about the iOS interface. There's blatant market issues in the tech industry that need to be solved.
> What's wrong with the Pinephone or Librem5 or all the other non-Apple non-Google phones? Why are you "screwed"? They can't compete because making a cutting edge device is hard and expensive.
They have negligible market size and thus do not have an influence on the the mobile app market, that's not even an argument.
> Yes, this sounds exactly what I expect, not techno-freedom-utopia but unregulated scamland
You're missing the point completely, in a market with competition, you are supposed to act and react according to the competition, the only change Apple ever did was because of a real threat of antitrust lawsuit... That's basically admission.
> That sounds awesome, imagine the freedom to install apps from sources of your choosing, like sideloading ... hang on "and by April 2020, Epic discontinued the sideloaded version and placed the game on the Google Play store". Oh I guess he didn't really believe his own story at all, and wanted to benefit from Google's better reptuation and filtering on the Play store, while arguing that it shouldn't exist?
No, that just tells you that even the most popular game in the world could not make it outside the play store. That tells you that Google's claim that "you can sideload anyways" are just complete BS and that's hard proof that the restrictions they've put in place to make that option not suitable are working.
Additionally Google has prevented manufacturers to pre-install the Epic Store by using threats.
> "There's network effects on mobile platforms, you could not make a new one even if you had 500 billion you could spend on it. The existing actors just prevent you to create a new one."
First it's network effects, then it's the existing actors preventing you. Make your mind up.
> "I don't like monopolies, I couldn't care less about the iOS interface."
Then use a Pinephone. That nobody else you know uses it, and nobody develops for it isn't Apple's fault. Apple's 30% appstore cut isn't bringing people from Pinephone to iOS, if anything it should be pushing the other way. I know they have negligible market size - the point is Apple iOS has big market size by being good and your plan to respond to this is to make it bad from sour grapes.
> "You're missing the point completely, in a market with competition, you are supposed to act and react according to the competition, the only change Apple ever did was because of a real threat of antitrust lawsuit... That's basically admission."
Fortnite was not competing with Apple though? Epic gave people a way to buy Fortnite on Steam, and then a way to install Fortnite free on Android, and people didn't want that. So Epic came after Apple and blamed them, irrelevantly, and the judge was leaning to Apple's side.
> "No, that just tells you that even the most popular game in the world could not make it outside the play store."
That just tells you that app stores are doing something people really really really want.
> "That tells you that Google's claim that "you can sideload anyways" are just complete BS"
Except you can sideload anyways, as evidenced by the fact that you can. What it tells you is that /people don't want to/.
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