this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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Serious question as I guess I am unaware - What does apple have a monopoly on?
edit - thanks to everyone for the detailed responses! Much appreciated
Apple engages in anti competitive practices, I'm not sure they need to be broken up as much as the US needs to follow the EU and mandate third party app stores, standard connectors, and interoperability.
The popular argument I've heard is that they have a vertical integration model which has been deemed monopolistic within other industries in the past.
The common example that would have been used is the old Hollywood studio system, when studios not only owned their lots where the movies were made, but they handled all of the distribution, owned most of the theaters where the films would premiere, owned their own film formats, and locked their big-name stars into contracts which had strict non-compete agreements.
It wasn't impossible to be an independent theater owner and have the ability to choose what films you wanted to show, but it was very hard and required accepting a number of conditions:
The studio system was eventually deemed monopolistic by the US Supreme Court in their ruling US v. Paramount, and that allowed independent theaters to thrive and for artists to switch to contract work without the strict non-compete agreements. But I have to say "the common example that would have been used," because the conservative-stacked Supreme Court revisited their ruling in US v. Paramount that banned the vertical integration model in Hollywood and decided it was no longer needed, so studios are once again free to resume those old practices if they wish.
So in the case of Apple, the monopoly criticism applies to their vertical integration model which draws some parallels to the old Hollywood studio system that was once deemed monopolistic:
For third-party app developers, it means that even if you have your own revenue model beyond Apple's involvement, you are not allowed to extend that to your iOS app without giving Apple their cut, which is why you see so many apps now just declaring that they are "for subscribers" without allowing you to subscribe in the app or giving instructions for where to subscribe. And it's not possible to publish an app on iOS without going through Apple's store and agreeing to their business model because Apple does not allow third-party app stores and heavily restricts sideloading.
Because Apple also gives preferential treatment to their own apps, it is hard to be "as good" as their own offerings, and there will always be a risk of Apple deciding to make some new category of app for a use case that third-parties currently satisfy but may get shut out of.
Ah, thank you for the sauce
Nothing, really. Usually in the USA Apple escapes this type of rulings because they don't have a monopoly on anything and/or because it's argued they build the hardware for which their software run on so there isn't anti competition (which in my opinion is pure bullshit, but what can I do?)
Rizz. /s