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Apple fights to keep DOJ antitrust suit from reaching trial

(www.theverge.com)
80 points thunderbong | 2 comments | 21 Nov 24 00:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.415s | source
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blackeyeblitzar ◴[21 Nov 24 00:12 UTC] No.42199597[source]▶
> Apple has argued the case against it is overly speculative and amounts to a “judicial redesign” of the iPhone. It’s sought to downplay its own influence, saying the government doesn’t allege a large enough smartphone market share to add up to monopoly power. It characterizes the third-party developers who claim they’ve been harmed as “well-capitalized social media companies, big banks, and global gaming developers.”

The word “monopoly” means different things in law and everyday use. To most people, Apple is a monopoly - it just means a company that is unjustifiably large and powerful and relatively immune to competition and pressure. We need to change the law to reflect this new reality, that anti trust isn’t just about monopolies but other large companies too.

The second bit, where they try to characterize developers abused by the App Store as powerful big capital is laughable. Even if they were, what are they next to Apple’s control over app distribution and their war chest of capital, which exceeds virtually all VC firms?

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slibhb ◴[21 Nov 24 02:02 UTC] No.42200323[source]▶
> The word “monopoly” means different things in law and everyday use. To most people, Apple is a monopoly - it just means a company that is unjustifiably large and powerful and relatively immune to competition and pressure. We need to change the law to reflect this new reality, that anti trust isn’t just about monopolies but other large companies too.

In other words the "new antitrust" is just people who dislike big, successful companies trying to bring them down a peg. Apple is "large and powerful" because it sells products people love. Why is that unjustifiable?

Apparently the DoJ is pressuring Google to sell Chrome. But if you don't like Chrome due to all the tracking, you can just use a Chromium-derived browser (or just Chromium)! Punishing Google (or Apple) because they make good products that people like is beyond stupid.

The biggest irony in all of this is that AI is shaking things up in a major way. New entrants like OpenAI and Anthropic may very well end up beating Apple and Google in various markets over the next few years. The government is picking a time of intense competition and uncertainty to go after these companies.

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1. echelon ◴[21 Nov 24 04:01 UTC] No.42200965[source]▶
> Punishing Google (or Apple) because they make good products that people like is beyond stupid.

These companies are squeezing blood out of every company in existence, and there is no way out.

This racket hurts consumers, because there's no competition. Competition is impossible.

Apple and Google are an invasive species that have destroyed the ecosystem diversity, and now it's time for the government to step in and restore balance.

> big, successful companies

Disney is a big, successful company. Apple and Google are Blunderbores [1]. They control nearly all of computing. I can't think of a way you aren't paying them. They have their grubby hands on every part of the funnel, taxing it piece by piece.

They force you to pay for search, they force you to pay to deploy software, they tax your business transactions, they steal information about your business transactions, they keep you from forming a customer relationship yourself. They control what technology you use, they force you to make unscheduled updates, they prevent you from updating on your own or making your own choices.

They're Blunderbores, and the world is their kingdom until we cut them down a notch.

[1] If we don't have a better term than monopoly, let's use this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunderbore

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2. dismalaf ◴[21 Nov 24 04:29 UTC] No.42201130[source]▶
> They control nearly all of computing.

Ummm, what? What about Microsoft that has a stranglehold on corporate computing? IBM, SAP, TSMC, ASML all dominate certain aspects of computing. Nvidia? Meta has a near monopoly on social networks (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram).

I personally do think Apple behaves very anti-competitively but none of these are actual monopolies IMO (ASML might be the closest but only because no one else has figured out how to do what they do).