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830 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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AriaMinaei ◴[] No.25135668[source]
Classic antitrust maneuver; divide and conquer, this time from Apple. Antitrust activists shouldn't let this dull their pencil.

The main issue is not the exorbitant commission rate. Apple is hurting the consumers via its anti-competitive behavior with regards to what apps people are and are not allowed to install on a device that they've paid for. They are blocking value creation up and down the stack in a manner that "if we can't extract it, you're not allowed to create it."

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kqvamxurcagg ◴[] No.25136053[source]
I have to agree you.

It's intolerable that Apple has been allowed to lockdown their device for 10 years, completely control the market for apps and when it looks like regulators will take action they reduce their price and claim to be acting in the interest of small business.

Third party app stores must be allowed. Apple should not be allowed to dictate what software I can and cannot have on my device.

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graeme ◴[] No.25137040[source]
Why not get another device? Third party app stores break the security model for regular users.

Smartphones have seen explosive growth because normal people can use them safely.

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AriaMinaei ◴[] No.25137238[source]
> Why not get another device?

This advice would work for clothes/home appliances/furniture and other competitive markets, but not to mobile OSes.

Mobile OSes are natural monopoly/duopolies. There isn't enough room in the world for 100 OSes for us to get a competitive market. There isn't even room for 3. There is barely room for 2 with great downside. Companies spend a lot of money developing an app for one OS and basically re-creating it for the other.

I'm looking at my phone's home screen. Most of these apps are available in the other OS too, with almost the exact same functionality, but completely different codebases. Each of these duplicate efforts represent anything from X×100K $ to X×10M $ of development cost. This is just part of the cost of having more OSes. And the consumer ultimately pays for these costs.

replies(1): >>25139026 #
toyg ◴[] No.25139026[source]
> not to mobile OSes

Arguably not to OSes in general. Each platform type (desktop, server, mobile) effectively has only a couple of realistic choices when it comes to the OS. The network effects are very strong and winners take all.

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1. vineyardmike ◴[] No.25147999[source]
Platform effects