Comment by generj
2 years ago
I think it’s interesting this is one of the first large anti-tech anti-trust lawsuits that has actually materialized since the FTC/DOJ signaled interest in going after these giants.
Perhaps the case is less complex and this could be brought earlier? Or there were some really damning things in discovery proving other justifications Apple has (security, performance, etc) are secondary to punishing competitors products.
The case for consumer harm is much more vague than what other firms are doing in my view. iMessage incompatibility with Android group texts is going to be remedied and maybe deserves a slap on the wrist.
The Google monopoly seems way worst and straightforward to me. Why it isn’t addressed first and why does everyone seemingly ignore them and obsess with Apple is a mystery to me.
It has been already pursued and is being addressed. There's just a lot less divisiveness/attention in such cases:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...
https://apnews.com/article/google-android-play-store-apps-an...
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-wraps-up-antitrust-case-aga...
Note in some of these were chased even though Google has been less restrictive than Apple (e.g. on the Play Store payment case Google has always allowed 3rd party app stores on Android).
It's just incomparable.
Sms - android choose 100 apps that can deal with SMS, iOS - one app, no one else can touch SMS
Phone - same
Wallet - any app can be a payment wallet, my own bank, privat24 has this functionality - iOS, only Apple can use NFC
Photos - only iCloud can sync them
The list goes on
But you can still buy an Android phone, iOS is only around 65% in the US (way less in the rest of the world btw). Compare with Google with the Chrome platform (> 90%) and Search engine (> 90%). Try being a web dev without Chrome or a web business without Google, way harder than having an Android phone (like the rest of the world do btw). Apple abusing its power is one thing, but Google has a way bigger monopoly.
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The downsides to the apple monopoly are much more straightforward. "Apples iMessage policy lead to this kid being bullied and because of that they did x" is a much easier sell than whatever sound bite you can come up with about google.