Abuse of power problem for Apple?

[hestermofet]

Stop repeating that switching to Android is frictionless. It’s not. Many people have thousands of dollars invested in apps. You yourself said a big draw for you is how seamlessly iOS works with other Apple products and you get the same safe, private experience no matter what Apple product you use, without having to think about it. That can mean throwing away a hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in Apple products. Not literally, of course, but the big draw is how it all works together because of platform lock-in, so if you remove one piece, the rest of it loses a lot of value.

As the Starlink example demonstrates, switching ISPs can be a lot cheaper and easier. You can even pay for Starlink month to month to see if you like it before you switch.

 

[Galvanic]

Captain Pedantic to the rescue!

You're welcome! Happy to help correct something egregiously wrong.

So to the people who think this is ok...would you also be ok with...


Apple denying access to audio stack and thus blocking Spotify, etc. so that only Apple Music would work
Apple denying access to video stack and thus blocking Netflix, etc. so that only AppleTV would work
Apple denying access to GPS and thus blocking Google Maps so that only Apple Maps could be used
Apple denying access to Apple Pay and thus blocking Visa, Mastercard, etc. and only allowing Apple Card

etc.

Isn't leveraging success in one area to force success in another an abuse of power?

I might have problems with Apple doing those things, but my response would not be to agitate for government intervention, but to 1) lobby Apple to change what it's doing, and 2) if the response isn't sufficient in my estimation, switch to Android.

 

[ant1pathy]

Stop repeating that switching to Android is frictionless. It’s not. Many people have thousands of dollars invested in apps.

Citation required. That's a big claim, especially if it's dollars on software purchases and not media subscriptions or game loot boxes.

You yourself said a big draw for you is how seamlessly iOS works with other Apple products and you get the same safe, private experience no matter what Apple product you use, without having to think about it. That can mean throwing away a hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in Apple products. Not literally, of course, but the big draw is how it all works together because of platform lock-in, so if you remove one piece, the rest of it loses a lot of value.

You're suggesting a silly all-or-nothing scenario. Swapping out your iPhone for a Samsung doesn't make your laptop not work. And it's not platform lock-in it's platform integration, and of course you'd lose that when you, you know, leave the platform.

As the Starlink example demonstrates, switching ISPs can be a lot cheaper and easier. You can even pay for Starlink month to month to see if you like it before you switch.

The Starlink example is terrible. Satellite internet is a stopgap for people who don't have wired options or who have very low usage requirements. It's higher latency, lower bandwidth, and less reliable than a plain copper or fiber pipe.

 

[hestermofet]

Stop repeating that switching to Android is frictionless. It’s not. Many people have thousands of dollars invested in apps.

Citation required. That's a big claim, especially if it's dollars on software purchases and not media subscriptions or game loot boxes.

I didn't say anything about how many people specifically, just "many". I chose my words purposefully and precisely. Do you think there are NO people who have spent thousands on apps? I think this would fall under the category of "general knowledge" and doesn't require citation.

And game loot boxes are precisely the type of investment I'm talking about. What happens to those baubles you spent IAPs on when you can no longer play the game you bought them for? I mean, I could cite many articles on the prevalence of whales in free-to-play games vs the amount people typically spent on paid games, but again, general knowledge, so it would be a bit silly to demand I cite that. Just the fact that you know what I'm referring to when I use the term "whale" tells me this is general knowledge and doesn't require citation.

You yourself said a big draw for you is how seamlessly iOS works with other Apple products and you get the same safe, private experience no matter what Apple product you use, without having to think about it. That can mean throwing away a hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in Apple products. Not literally, of course, but the big draw is how it all works together because of platform lock-in, so if you remove one piece, the rest of it loses a lot of value.

You're suggesting a silly all-or-nothing scenario. Swapping out your iPhone for a Samsung doesn't make your laptop not work.

I did not say that. In fact I emphatically made clear "the rest of it loses a lot of value" not "stops working" and stated explicitly that you don't need to literally throw out your gear. Again, I chose my words purposefully and precisely.

And it's not platform lock-in it's platform integration, and of course you'd lose that when you, you know, leave the platform.

What is the difference between platform lock-in and platform integration? Can you explain? If you stop using an Android phone, does your Windows laptop become less useful? Your Android Wear watch becomes pretty useless though. If you switch from Xbox to PlayStation, does your TV lose features? Your Xbox controller chatpad becomes pretty useless though. If you switch from Coke to Pepsi, will you lose any friends?

The Starlink example is terrible. Satellite internet is a stopgap for people who don't have wired options or who have very low usage requirements. It's higher latency, lower bandwidth, and less reliable than a plain copper or fiber pipe.

So because it's not a 1:1 alternative, that makes it not an alternative at all? It's still perfectly usable for most people, and actually of better quality than what many Americans have access to currently. Starlink is not like traditional satellite internet because it makes extensive use of ground stations, dramatically reducing latency and increasing throughput. Real world speeds are very competitive with fixed Internet speeds in the US: 97Mbps vs 115Mbps.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/08/ ... shock-you/

 

[analogika]

Seeing as there's sprawling discussion on three or so dumpster fires, all of which are only loosely related to the subject at hand, if at all, is it safe to summarise:

1.) The EU seems to think that anti-competitive behaviour needs to be regulated and/or sanctioned, that

2.) it is not necessary to this assessment of anti-competitive behaviour that the company in question be a "monopoly" by any definition, and

3.) some people seem to think that it is not the government's job to force companies to play fair with competition, and

4.) some people may think it's government's job, but don't see it warranted in this particular case.

Some people think 4.) but don't understand 2.), or want to argue 4.) anyway because America, despite 2.) not being a factor in the U.S.

Is that about where we stand on the actual topic?

 

[Echohead2]

Seeing as there's sprawling discussion on three or so dumpster fires, all of which are only loosely related to the subject at hand, if at all, is it safe to summarise:

1.) The EU seems to think that anti-competitive behaviour needs to be regulated and/or sanctioned, that

2.) it is not necessary to this assessment of anti-competitive behaviour that the company in question be a "monopoly" by any definition, and

3.) some people seem to think that it is not the government's job to force companies to play fair with competition, and

4.) some people may think it's government's job, but don't see it warranted in this particular case.

Some people think 4.) but don't understand 2.), or want to argue 4.) anyway because America, despite 2.) not being a factor in the U.S.

Is that about where we stand on the actual topic?

I think the issue with the US is..."given that this behavior might be seen as anti-competitive and be regulated out in the EU...is there any possibility that something similar might happen in US"

I guess there is also the whole "is it bad".

I believe SOME people on here are OK with it, solely because it is Apple doing it and would be up in arms if it were Google doing it. I also think that there are some who likely think it is bad solely because it is Apple.

My position is somewhere in-between....they don't block any of the other hardware on the phone...which makes this look especially bad. And I do think that if Apple just blocked Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Google Maps that tons of people would be very upset and have a problem with THAT.

 

[Echohead2]

Captain Pedantic to the rescue!

You're welcome! Happy to help correct something egregiously wrong.

It wasn't...but it also wasn't really the meat of the post and therefore not worth arguing over. That would be a different thread.

 

[Echohead2]

The Starlink example is terrible. Satellite internet is a stopgap for people who don't have wired options or who have very low usage requirements. It's higher latency, lower bandwidth, and less reliable than a plain copper or fiber pipe.

Could you explain? I believe their 200Mbs plan is like $99/month, which is competitive with my cable and faster than the fiber I have available. And I'm in a relatively city-ish area.

 

[md5crypto]

Anyone who willingly ensconced themselves in Apple's 'ecosystem' at this point has been fairly warned.

 

[md5crypto]

Stop repeating that switching to Android is frictionless. It’s not. Many people have thousands of dollars invested in apps. You yourself said a big draw for you is how seamlessly iOS works with other Apple products and you get the same safe, private experience no matter what Apple product you use, without having to think about it. That can mean throwing away a hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in Apple products. Not literally, of course, but the big draw is how it all works together because of platform lock-in, so if you remove one piece, the rest of it loses a lot of value.

As the Starlink example demonstrates, switching ISPs can be a lot cheaper and easier. You can even pay for Starlink month to month to see if you like it before you switch.

Only pros have thousands invested in apps like Adobe Creative Suite or something like that. I once made the mistake of making about $200 of IAP in Apple mobile games back around 2012-2013, never again.

 

[hestermofet]

My position is somewhere in-between....they don't block any of the other hardware on the phone...which makes this look especially bad. And I do think that if Apple just blocked Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Google Maps that tons of people would be very upset and have a problem with THAT.

But what about the opposite scenario, which has happened many times. Where FaceBook, Uber, Amazon or $_INSERT_GIGANTIC_SILICON_VALLEY_TECH_COMPANY_HERE gets to do stuff and have access to the hardware/software on a level that nobody else does?

 

[hestermofet]

sorry, duplicate post

 

[wco81]

Apple isn’t a monopoly and the EU isn’t saying they are. The EU is saying that you don’t have to be a monopoly to have market power that they consider illegal and will regulate. The obsession with the ‘monopoly’ designation as the unique and only trigger for regulatory action is a very uniquely American phenomenon.

You don’t have to argue that Apple is a monopoly to argue that they should be regulated, and EU regulation is not evidence that they consider Apple a monopoly.

That's the rub isn't it?

Apple chose a business model where they control their platform.

It's been a walled garden from the start.

EU consumers can choose Android, a more open platform and they've done so in overwhelming numbers.

Why is the EU/EC trying to force Apple to open up? After over 15 years of iPhone, a closed-platform? Because as Apple became more and more successful, they see all this money. They pursued other US tech companies before so Apple is the next logical target.


Specifically with Apple Pay, it's an infinitesimal percentage of all payment transactions. Most Europeans choose NOT to use mobile payments at all, even those who have smart phones. Cash and debit card usage absolutely dwarf NFC mobile wallets.

They can allow third party apps to access the NFC but you know inevitably, competitors will demand that they get to show up automatically when you put the device near a POS terminal, rather than making users open up a specific app.

 

[wco81]

They own 100% of the iOS platform and are using that monopoly power to block all other competitors from accessing the platform.

Lots of companies own 100% of their platform and block other competitors from accessing that platform. That does not make them a monopoly anymore than Apple is. Fox owns 100% of its platform and does not let MSNBC broadcast their shows on Fox. MSNBC owns 100% of its platform and does not let Fox broadcast its shows on NBC. Hilton Hotels owns 100% of its platform and does not let Hyatt sell their rooms.

The "the iOS is the whole market" argument is profoundly wrong.

Which passage of EUROPEAN antitrust law, specifically, do you find to be in conflict?

Which European court case, specifically, found Apple to be a monopoly?

Why isn't BMW or Mercedes forced to let third parties access to the GPS and entertainment firmware of the car? Why are only they allowed to own 100% of their automobile OS platform?

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

No European companies don't have burdensome regulations imposed upon them by Vestager and her ilk, only big American companies do.

 

[wco81]

How is Apple a monopoly?

They don't have anything approaching 50% in any EU market.

Isn't this a pretty clear monopoly abuse?

Apple is not a monopoly.

They own 100% of the iOS platform and are using that monopoly power to block all other competitors from accessing the platform.

You can argue that Apple is not an absolute monopoly given their marketshare and the existence of other platforms, but that is obviously not the criterion applied here, so it's a pointless argument, no matter how true it is.

I don't know...I've hear now for like 14 years how Apple DOMINATES the smartphone market. Gets the vast majority of profits, sets direction for everyone, etc. So all of a sudden Apple doesn't dominate the market...they are just a bit player?

Tell me what's illegal about monopolistic power.


Is it based on market share or PROFIT share?

Apple makes more profits than any Android phone company. But Android users absolutely dwarf iOS users in the EU.

Do you have market power because of market share or profit share?

The things EU/EC want to regulate on iOS affect far smaller number of people than Android.

 

[wco81]

Some of the proposed remedies seems pretty common sense to me. Eliminating self-preferencing with APIs is fine. Might it slow innovation if it means you don’t have a private API period to tinker with and instead need to get the public API right from the get go? Sure, who cares. Avoiding self-preferencing in competing apps on your own platform - that seems pretty straightforward as well.

Uhhh.... me, the user? I care. If I wanted an Android phone I'd have bought one. I buy iOS specifically because of the platform lock-down. Legislating that iOS be more like Android reduces choices in the market, and is kind of a slap in the face to the people who deliberately voted with their wallets to patronize the platform with the set of tradeoffs they prefer.

Because you like the status quo doesn’t necessarily mean it’s just or pro-social. It only means that you perceive it to be benefiting you. That’s not a good standard from which to develop a legal framework. I love to have cheap goods delivered to my house by Amazon. But I also support regulating the shit out of their anti-social practices. It will likely be a net negative for me personally if those regulations are enacted.

There’s also an embedded assumption that consumer choice is an inherent good. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Surely if cotton were less expensive I’d have more choice in cheap shirts. That doesn’t justify a return to slavery. It’s totally fine if choices disappear as a result of regulating away an unjust anti-social practice.

——-
All that said, I don’t for a second buy into the notion that opening APIs or providing alternative app stores will negatively impact the Apple experience. I 100% but into the simplicity, clarity and privacy rationales for buying Apple products. I’m an all Apple household. I’m not all all afraid that regulation will change the things I love about Apple hardware and software.

Do companies have the right to set their own strategy and design their products and services accordingly?

Not if you're a big successful AMERICAN company operating in Europe apparently.

Why didn't EU/EC object to the Wall Garden for 15 years and now are trying to dictate how Apple needs to run their business?

EU/EC doesn't seem to have EVER imposed similar conditions, fines or remedies on European companies. Because they're above engaging allegedly anti-competitive practices?


Here's another example. In 2009, EU/EC required all chargers to standardize around micro USB for charger plugs.

How did this standardization benefit consumers? Did it lower prices? Did it reduce e-waste? Apparently there's no data on e-waste but we know phone prices are much higher than they were 13 years ago.

Now they are mandating USB-C.

So this is supposedly for consumer benefit but do you want government to dictate specs or design?

I suspect if there were still big European phone manufacturers and they objected to imposition of charger plug standards, this edict never gets issued. But most big phone makers now are American or Asian so no worries!

 

[Echohead2]

My position is somewhere in-between....they don't block any of the other hardware on the phone...which makes this look especially bad. And I do think that if Apple just blocked Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Google Maps that tons of people would be very upset and have a problem with THAT.

But what about the opposite scenario, which has happened many times. Where FaceBook, Uber, Amazon or $_INSERT_GIGANTIC_SILICON_VALLEY_TECH_COMPANY_HERE gets to do stuff and have access to the hardware/software on a level that nobody else does?

You mean 3rd parties? I'm not sure how I feel about it. In some sense it can be reasonable. This is what Apple should probably do in EU regarding the NFC. Partner with someone to have a second/alternative wallet that can access NFC. Google pay? Samsung Pay? Visa Wallet? I don't know...but then it would largely shut up the EU I imagine (maybe pick EU company to make them extra happy). Most will still use Apple Pay, but it is available.

 

[wco81]

True. I do think that the answer is ‘no - our legal frameworks shouldn’t be fixed in time and unresponsive to changing reality.’ While reasonable people can have reasonable discussions about what the regulatory framework should be, I find the pearl clutching at the very thought of new regulation to be pretty histrionic and ridiculous. The world works in vastly different ways now than it did when the current regulations were written. Of course we need to update.

I think it’s perfectly rational to ask why we would throw away time-tested regulations which have been vetted by the courts and are foundational parts of our legal jurisprudence in favor of a random rewriting that’s driven more by fads than anything logical.

See? Fun, but it’s a rhetorical gimmick, not an argument.

So what’s your argument? What makes you think that the current situation is similar enough to prior situations that new regulation is not needed?

Prior anti-trust regulation was based on the idea that certain amounts of market power were undesirable because they strangled the economic activity of others in an anti-social way. Are you arguing that platforms don’t have the economic power to strangle others activity? Or that the results of that strangling aren’t anti-social?

I’m not sure how you can argue that platforms like the App Store and Google Play don’t have market power that is on par with and in many cases much much greater than organizations that we as a society have chosen to regulate in the past. Does Apple really have less market power than Bell? Does Amazon have less market power than the railroads?

Margaret Vestager is head of an agency to regulate anti-competitive practices. They are using anti-trust law.

Sure they can regulate any company they want. Some have said they should use regulation to prevent monopolies. That must be the theory for them going after Apple, after prosecuting MS and Google.

It's kind of like ticketing motorists BEFORE they speed, before they commit a crime.

So EU/EC apparently believes we're in the Minority Report world.

Apple Pay is nothing globally. Mobile payments are a tiny tiny percentage of all payment transactions.

But some day, it may dominate payments so that must be prevented now! seems to be the logic.


In the early 2000s, there was a lot of hype about media player software. Remember Real Player, the company got huge stock market valuation at one time based on the hype. So the EU/EC anti-competitive agency required MS to release Windows without Windows Media Player bundled.

Hey guess what, media player software was NEVER a big deal. So that remedy didn't do dick. It wasted time and resources for no good reason.

What became important were companies like Youtube and Netflix. Hey when will those companies get special instructions from the EU/EC?

 

[Echohead2]

Apple isn’t a monopoly and the EU isn’t saying they are. The EU is saying that you don’t have to be a monopoly to have market power that they consider illegal and will regulate. The obsession with the ‘monopoly’ designation as the unique and only trigger for regulatory action is a very uniquely American phenomenon.

You don’t have to argue that Apple is a monopoly to argue that they should be regulated, and EU regulation is not evidence that they consider Apple a monopoly.

That's the rub isn't it?

Apple chose a business model where they control their platform.

It's been a walled garden from the start.

EU consumers can choose Android, a more open platform and they've done so in overwhelming numbers.

Why is the EU/EC trying to force Apple to open up? After over 15 years of iPhone, a closed-platform? Because as Apple became more and more successful, they see all this money. They pursued other US tech companies before so Apple is the next logical target.


Specifically with Apple Pay, it's an infinitesimal percentage of all payment transactions. Most Europeans choose NOT to use mobile payments at all, even those who have smart phones. Cash and debit card usage absolutely dwarf NFC mobile wallets.

They can allow third party apps to access the NFC but you know inevitably, competitors will demand that they get to show up automatically when you put the device near a POS terminal, rather than making users open up a specific app.

Except it isn't really a walled garden. It is an "open platform" for 3rd parties who follow the rules of course. The hardware is accessible to 3rd parties....all of the hardware EXCEPT the NFC. And by blocking it, they are using their position to establish themselves in another.

 

[Echohead2]

They own 100% of the iOS platform and are using that monopoly power to block all other competitors from accessing the platform.

Lots of companies own 100% of their platform and block other competitors from accessing that platform. That does not make them a monopoly anymore than Apple is. Fox owns 100% of its platform and does not let MSNBC broadcast their shows on Fox. MSNBC owns 100% of its platform and does not let Fox broadcast its shows on NBC. Hilton Hotels owns 100% of its platform and does not let Hyatt sell their rooms.

The "the iOS is the whole market" argument is profoundly wrong.

Which passage of EUROPEAN antitrust law, specifically, do you find to be in conflict?

Which European court case, specifically, found Apple to be a monopoly?

Why isn't BMW or Mercedes forced to let third parties access to the GPS and entertainment firmware of the car? Why are only they allowed to own 100% of their automobile OS platform?

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

No European companies don't have burdensome regulations imposed upon them by Vestager and her ilk, only big American companies do.

Can you buy non-BMW parts?

Didn't Nodia have apps? I know my LG flipphone did. 3rd party apps.

 

[wco81]

Ignoring all that discussion,
One interesting thing I'd like to address is the Apple Fan Drawer statement that "Apple needs it's closed ecosystem to Innovate."
Does anyone have an actual concrete example of that statement being true.

Apple certainly does drive a lot of innovative uses of hand held computing, but in almost all cases, Google is a fast follower. Apple came out with apple pay First true enough, but Google pay was right behind them. I don't hear any significant complaints about google pay on Android's open platform.

So is there anything, anything at all that Apple has done that actually depends on their lock in?

My guess is there maybe some social and business advantages, especially with something like Apple pay where the banks were more willing to agree, but at the end of the day, it has meant nothing from a technology perspective.

I cited the example above. In 2009, EU/EC mandated that all charger cables support the micro USB plug. It wasn't mandatory and Apple continued to ship proprietary charger cables in the EU but included a micro USB adapter.

First it was the 30 pin plug and then they developed and shipped the Lighting plug after this 2009 EU/EC edict.

Lighting is superior to micro USB and all USB plugs except possibly USB-C.

It's reversible so USB-C copied that design.

Now EU/EC are requiring USB-C for phone charger cables.


Personally I wouldn't care that much if Apple used USB C for iPhones. However, USB C plug is bigger, both slightly wider and thicker. So maybe they can't produce as thin designs with USB C vs. Lightning. Or maybe one type of port is easier for achieving water resistant.

My fear is Apple goes all wireless charging only, because a wireless charging pad or puck is much larger to pack for travel than either USB-C or Lightning cables.

 

[Echohead2]

Here's another example. In 2009, EU/EC required all chargers to standardize around micro USB for charger plugs.

How did this standardization benefit consumers? Did it lower prices? Did it reduce e-waste? Apparently there's no data on e-waste but we know phone prices are much higher than they were 13 years ago.

Now they are mandating USB-C.

So this is supposedly for consumer benefit but do you want government to dictate specs or design?

I suspect if there were still big European phone manufacturers and they objected to imposition of charger plug standards, this edict never gets issued. But most big phone makers now are American or Asian so no worries!

Take off the tinfoil hat.

The standardization of charger port is freaking fantastic. And apparently wasn't going to happen unless forced. Though now they are "leaning in" and not including chargers or cables or both because "EVERYONE" has them. Which was the plan.

Maybe you don't remember the horror days of dang near every phone (not every phone manufacturer) having a unique charger port. I need a charger...I have an LG 380...oh you have the 360?...great....oh...they changed the port. Great, now I gotta pay $30 for a new one.

I suspect that either the EU has done this kind of thing to EU companies before and you just don't know about it....or maybe EU companies aren't as jackasses as US companies.

 

[wco81]

I would argue that the success of the App Store model in general was in large part due to trust and low friction between intent and action to purchase, to say nothing of the hard line stance taken with the carriers regarding their fiddling with the phone stack as a whole. No carrier branding, no carrier software, no carrier approval, etc. Apple built the platform because of the inherent tradeoffs of their model, not in spite of it.

So the initial success and transition to modern smartphones was enabled in part by the lockin.
I might be willing to agree with that, so 15 years ago, the platform's nature was able to revolutionize mobile computing,

However, once that transition occurred, the advantages of the platform seem rather less?

It may be that some subset of people are more willing to do things on the phone because of it, but that subset wouldn't be all apple users much less all mobile computer users.

It's not whether the Walled Garden has advantages or leads to more innovation.

Does a company have the right to choose a business strategy or design products in ways they see fit?

Or do they have to submit to government agencies telling them how they should alter their strategy and design their products?


Given that there are market alternatives that EU consumers have overwhelmingly chosen? Android dominates the number of users in the EU, so the Walled Garden isn't a common thing there.

People who want open platforms can vote with their wallets and have done so.

But apparently the government there doesn't find that good enough, they want to micro manage design and business decisions.

 

[wco81]

Stop repeating that switching to Android is frictionless. It’s not. Many people have thousands of dollars invested in apps. You yourself said a big draw for you is how seamlessly iOS works with other Apple products and you get the same safe, private experience no matter what Apple product you use, without having to think about it. That can mean throwing away a hundreds of thousands of dollars investment in Apple products. Not literally, of course, but the big draw is how it all works together because of platform lock-in, so if you remove one piece, the rest of it loses a lot of value.

As the Starlink example demonstrates, switching ISPs can be a lot cheaper and easier. You can even pay for Starlink month to month to see if you like it before you switch.

Cite for the bolded?

I don't think many people are spending thousands, even hundreds, on apps.


EU has had cheaper Android phones for a long time, like 10 years ago you could get 99 Euros Andorid phones.


Now you're saying Apple has to become more like Android because it's a hassle for consumers to switch?

An overwhelming number of EU consumers have already chosen Android over iOS and that's been the case for all of the time modern smartphones have been available.

So switching is not the big of an issue for EU consumers.

 

[wco81]

Seeing as there's sprawling discussion on three or so dumpster fires, all of which are only loosely related to the subject at hand, if at all, is it safe to summarise:

1.) The EU seems to think that anti-competitive behaviour needs to be regulated and/or sanctioned, that

2.) it is not necessary to this assessment of anti-competitive behaviour that the company in question be a "monopoly" by any definition, and

3.) some people seem to think that it is not the government's job to force companies to play fair with competition, and

4.) some people may think it's government's job, but don't see it warranted in this particular case.

Some people think 4.) but don't understand 2.), or want to argue 4.) anyway because America, despite 2.) not being a factor in the U.S.

Is that about where we stand on the actual topic?

The EU Parliament just passed the Digital Markets Act. It will go into effect in 2023. It bars "gatekeepers" from engaging in certain anti-competitive practices.

So they finally realized using antitrust laws was dubious and they enacted this new legislation, which is partly for the benefit of Spotify, which is the largest music streaming company in the world.


BTW, can anyone put content on Spotify to stream on their platform or does the DMA not apply to them because they're not an American company?

 

[Louis XVI]

I guess there is also the whole "is it bad".

I believe SOME people on here are OK with it, solely because it is Apple doing it and would be up in arms if it were Google doing it. I also think that there are some who likely think it is bad solely because it is Apple.

My position is somewhere in-between....they don't block any of the other hardware on the phone...which makes this look especially bad. And I do think that if Apple just blocked Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Google Maps that tons of people would be very upset and have a problem with THAT.

I'm OK with it, though I like to think my rationale is a bit more nuanced than Apple=good and Google=bad.

As an end user, I like having a choice between the iOS and the Android philosophies. iOS is a bit more integrated, curated, and locked down, the old "walled garden." Android is more DIY, customizable, anything goes. To date, I've chosen the iOS route, because I generally like how Apple has drawn its boundaries and regulated the OS. Moreover, since the Android option remains, I don't see how I'm harmed by Apple's decisions regarding where to build their walls or how high to build them; if I ever disagree, I can always just hop to Android.

Since Android already exists, there's no need to make iOS like Android. Doing so would give me as an end user (I hate the term consumer) less choice, as the carefully curated resort of iOS wouldn't really exist anymore; there would only be variations of the Android jungle.

 

[bigsnake499]

As long as everybody and I mean every platform plays under the same rules then I'm OK with it. if forced to open up Wallet functionality, they need to make sure they get their pound of flesh some other way plus make sure they scare you half to death if you want to switch to another wallet.

 

[ev9_tarantula]

As long as everybody and I mean every platform plays under the same rules then I'm OK with it. if forced to open up Wallet functionality, they need to make sure they get their pound of flesh some other way plus make sure they scare you half to death if you want to switch to another wallet.

The idea that there will be bazillions of dodgy wallet apps isn't based on reality. There aren't many alternative wallet apps on Android with EMV NFC capabilities, because to offer such services there is a whole load of financial regulation to deal with, and you need to get payment service companies and banks onboard. It's not the kind of app some kid is going to make sat in their basement. In the UK there's Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and Barclays have their own app. AFAIK none of the other major UK banks do contactless payment apps. Not even the challenger banks like Monzo and Starling (and they are some of the leading Fintech players in Europe) do EMV NFC payments from their own app.

Basically anyone wanting to use NFC for EMV payments is going to be well funded, technically capable, and heavily regulated.

 

[hestermofet]

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

No European companies don't have burdensome regulations imposed upon them by Vestager and her ilk, only big American companies do.

Just to provide historical context, Nokia DID have an open platform with Symbian. I can still write to this day apps for Symbian S60 and S90 using readily available third party tools, compile them to run, and then sell them to end users, without requiring me to pay 30% to Nokia. In fact, there are still app stores with millions of users to buy S40 apps because they are written in Java J2ME which is to this day a popular language for dumb phones. Opera AS (the browser company) runs one of these stores.

So that’s a terrible example. Those apps could include payment apps, and there were several of them. Including making payments via SMS. Payment apps were usually published by mobile carriers, because you would be billed directly to your account.

Ericsson didn’t have their own smartphone platform, but they used a just as open variant of Symbian when they teamed up with Sony, a non-European company. And again, I can still to this day write and sell UIQ apps without either Sony or Ericsson’s blessing. Ericsson never dominated any market as far as I’m aware, nor did SonyEricsson.

Your entire criticism is based on a categorically false reading of history.

 

[wco81]

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

No European companies don't have burdensome regulations imposed upon them by Vestager and her ilk, only big American companies do.

Just to provide historical context, Nokia DID have an open platform with Symbian. I can still write to this day apps for Symbian S60 and S90 using readily available third party tools, compile them to run, and then sell them to end users, without requiring me to pay 30% to Nokia. In fact, there are still app stores with millions of users to buy S40 apps because they are written in Java J2ME which is to this day a popular language for dumb phones. Opera AS (the browser company) runs one of these stores.

So that’s a terrible example. Those apps could include payment apps, and there were several of them. Including making payments via SMS. Payment apps were usually published by mobile carriers, because you would be billed directly to your account.

Ericsson didn’t have their own smartphone platform, but they used a just as open variant of Symbian when they teamed up with Sony, a non-European company. And again, I can still to this day write and sell UIQ apps without either Sony or Ericsson’s blessing. Ericsson never dominated any market as far as I’m aware, nor did SonyEricsson.

Your entire criticism is based on a categorically false reading of history.

Symbian had 65% market share in the mid 2000s and 1 out of 2 smart phones shipped were Nokias.

Back in mid-2007, Nokia and Symbian were on top – Symbian had 65 percent of the smartphone market, while one in every two phones sold worldwide carried the Nokia logo. The pairing was a European success story, with Helsinki-headquartered Nokia making durable, innovative hardware, and London-based Symbian designing software that helped take phones into a world beyond simply making calls and sending texts.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-b ... as-future/


But they failed to build up an app ecosystem.

You don't use phones to sell ecosystems, you use ecosystems to sell phones. Symbian had always embraced and encouraged third-party developers, making an attempt to woo them in 2005 through Symbian Signed , an initiative that gave third-party apps the Symbian stamp of approval without the need to get them checked out by a testing house – making the whole process of getting apps into users' hands cheaper, quicker and easier. By the time that the iPhone launched, there were 10,000 apps available for the Symbian platform.

However, "as it turns out, after-market software sales for Symbian smartphones remained low", according to an academic paper authored by former Symbian exec David Wood and San Jose university professor Joel West.

And while 10,000 apps is no mean feat, it did take over seven years for Symbian to reach that milestone, while Apple hit its first 100,000 in a little over a year after releasing the first SDK for iOS.

What aided Apple and hobbled Symbian was the same phenomenon: the app store. Apple made it easier for consumers to buy apps by opening a single storefront, a feat Symbian never managed, although Nokia did open the Ovi store in 2009 to sell Symbian apps – notably behind Apple's iOS, Android and RIM's BlackBerry OS, which got their app stores in 2008. The Ovi brand was discontinued later that year, with the store taking on the Nokia mantle instead.

But for all that, why did people who purchase Nokia smart phones, some of which approached $1000 even back then, only have the choice of running Symbian?

Especially since Symbian failed to attract significant app support, 10,000 apps in several years vs. 100k apps in the first year of the App Store?


EU/EC should have forced Nokia to permit other OSes to access their devices. Microsoft would have happily released Windows for those phones, which at the time were the best hardware.


But we know the answer, EU/EC isn't going to force a European company which was dominant at the time to let an American competitor like MS encroach on a European success story.

Gates himself didn't like that Symbian drew cooperation between Nokia, Ericsson and others. He'd have happily supported Nokia and Ericsson phones. Of course this was the same time when the EC/EU was preoccupied with making MS unbundle browsers and Windows Media Player, the latter action completely unnecessary because media player software never became a big market despite the hype.

 

[hestermofet]

I don’t understand your argument. First you complain why did the EU not force Nokia to open up their ecosystem when they were the dominant platform, and then you were proven wrong, their platform is indeed as open as can be, your argument is…….?

They didn’t build up an app ecosystem? What does that have to do with the EU regulating companies in a dominant position in the market? It had a failed app ecosystem, big deal, it’s not like failure is illegal, and requires regulation.

Or that why did the EU not require Nokia to allow you to install an alternative OS? Not only is that a shifting of goalposts, that is false too. There is nothing stopping someone from installing an alternate OS on a Nokia phone. That is categorically false too. There are several Nokia phones that enthusiasts developed alternate OSs for, often with Nokia’s explicit blessing. My Nokia N900 runs the Linux distro PostmarketOS instead of the Maemo that Nokia preinstalled. I installed Jolla Sailfish on my N9 instead of MeeGo that Nokia shipped on it. PostmarketOS was created initially for Nokia phones because the barriers to install alternate OSs on Nokia phones are non-existent.

Microsoft didn’t create a version of Windows Phone for the N9 (one of the last non-WP Nokias) not because they weren’t allowed but because installing third party OSs on mobiles is something that customers are not used to doing. Far easier to just have an official partnership with them and get WP to be the default OS.

You are wrong, wrong, wrong, so stop digging your hole deeper.

 

[wco81]

Why didn't Nokia and Ericsson allow other OSes than Symbian to be loaded on their phones?

 

[hestermofet]

Why didn't Nokia and Ericsson allow other OSes than Symbian to be loaded on their phones?

They did. I just explained that, with examples. I personally am running alternate OSs on two Nokias that I own.

 

[wco81]

Why didn't Nokia and Ericsson allow other OSes than Symbian to be loaded on their phones?

They did. I just explained that.

Where?

You could run Windows on those phones?

Or Palm?


I bought a Nokia around 2006. I don't know if it had Symbian on it yet but the browser and the UI navigation was terrible though it was one of the few phones at the time which had Wifi.

 

[hestermofet]

Why didn't Nokia and Ericsson allow other OSes than Symbian to be loaded on their phones?

They did. I just explained that.

Where?

You could run Windows on those phones?

Or Palm?


I bought a Nokia around 2006. I don't know if it had Symbian on it yet but the browser and the UI navigation was terrible though it was one of the few phones at the time which had Wifi.

Nokia N9 and N900. Lumias can run Android. If you read the Wiki page on the N9, you can see a very short list of all the OSs ported to it. It is by no means exhaustive.

So it’s Nokia’s fault that HP or Palm didn’t develop a version of WebOS for Nokias, now? Can you install Windows 11 on an M1 Mac? Is that because Apple doesn’t allow it, or because MS hasn’t developed a version licensed for M1 Macs?

Just because nobody developed an alternative OS for Symbian phones doesn’t mean Nokia didn’t allow it. There are no technological restrictions in place to disallow it. There’s probably a project to install alt OSs on an especially popular model, I’m just unaware of it.

Where are you going to move the goalposts to next? Why didn’t Nokia include a crisp $100 bill in the box of every one of their phones?

 

[wco81]

Why didn't Nokia and Ericsson allow other OSes than Symbian to be loaded on their phones?

They did. I just explained that.

Where?

You could run Windows on those phones?

Or Palm?


I bought a Nokia around 2006. I don't know if it had Symbian on it yet but the browser and the UI navigation was terrible though it was one of the few phones at the time which had Wifi.

Nokia N9 and N900. Lumias can run Android. If you read the Wiki page on the N9, you can see a very short list of all the OSs ported to it. It is by no means exhaustive.

So it’s Nokia’s fault that HP or Palm didn’t develop a version of WebOS for Nokias, now? Can you install Windows 11 on an M1 Mac? Is that because Apple doesn’t allow it, or because MS hasn’t developed a version licensed for M1 Macs?

Just because nobody developed an alternative OS for Symbian phones doesn’t mean Nokia didn’t allow it. There are no technological restrictions in place to disallow it. There’s probably a project to install alt OSs on an especially popular model, I’m just unaware of it.

Where are you going to move the goalposts to next? Why didn’t Nokia include a crisp $100 bill in the box of every one of their phones?

No it's the fault of the EU and EC, the competition agency that Vestager heads now.

Why didn't she or her predecessors make companies with huge market power at the time allow other OS vendors access to it in the mid 2000s?

I know that Nokia later cut a deal with MS and Android was back ported to some of those devices.

I'm referring to the mid 2000s when Nokia had all that market power.

Why didn't the EU/EC make them open up as they're doing now to Apple?

 

[hestermofet]

Holy fuck you are dense. Why would the government need to force a company to allow something they already allow? How come this story isn’t about the EU forcing Apple to allow third party apps on their store? Because you already can.

Just like you could install an alternate phone on your Nokia at the height of their popularity. Just because nobody wanted to doesn’t mean that nobody could.

 

[wco81]

Holy fuck you are dense. Why would the government need to force a company to allow something they already allow? How come this story isn’t about the EU forcing Apple to allow third party apps on their store? Because you already can.

Just like you could install an alternate phone on your Nokia at the height of their popularity. Just because nobody wanted to doesn’t mean that nobody could.

They were ported in the mid 2000s? When Nokia was at the peak of its market power?

Prove it, you're full of shit. Android was BACK-ported, something in the 2010s.

Android in its present form as a multi-touch OS didn't even exist in the mid 2000s.

Stop fucking lying.

 

[hestermofet]

I’m full of shit? You are the one who came in here blowing a bunch of hot air about how Symbian was a closed platform, how they didn’t allow third party payment apps, and as you were consistently proven wrong over and over again, moved the goal posts ever further. You are a fucking idiot.

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

Is there anything there about installing alternate OSs? Nope. So shut the fuck up, and stop accusing others of lying.

 

[wco81]

I’m full of shit? You are the one who came in here blowing a bunch of hot air about how Symbian was a closed platform, how they didn’t allow third party payment apps, and as you were consistently proven wrong over and over again, moved the goal posts ever further. You are a fucking idiot.

Why wasn't Nokia or Ericsson, when they dominated mobile phones, forced to open up Symbian or their mobile OSes at the time, to third parties. Pretty sure they also had a mobile payment system using SMS. Did they allow third parties access to it?

Is there anything there about installing alternate OSs? Nope. So shut the fuck up, and stop accusing others of lying.

You tried to pretend like Nokia phones had alternative OS options around 2005.

You can't back that up can you, liar?


The point is, it's a stupid requirement for a govt. to impose on a company, just like them now requiring Apple to open up NFC access.

But they won't apply the same requirement to a European company as they would to an American company.