> Apple and Google are not exhibiting anti-competitive behavior when they moderate the marketplace.
It's not the moderation, it's the moderation combined with effectively gating the ability to run a competing marketplace.
Apple does this through linking all the components of the stack, their store requires their OS which requires their hardware, and their hardware requires their OS which requires their store. You can't compete on any single level because the whole paltform is a monolith.
Google does it slightly differently, but almost as effectively. They don't really care about the hardware, but they've moved portions of the OS to things that are distributed through their store. You can't completely remove the Play store without crippling a lot of OS features.
> They are not competing. What Apple product is competing with a random app they reject on the marketplace for a random reason?
Anti0copetitive behavior doesn't require they compete specifically, just that they prevent competition. But if you want a simple example, a web browser. You can't ship a competitive web browser because you're forced to use their core, for multiple reasons (can't JIT because of memory restrictions, but at a more fundamental level because you can't release an interpreter, which JavaScript engines are).
> It is not a question of competition. ... if they decide that they don't like you you are out of luck and might as well give up your business. That is where the harm comes from.
That's preventing others from competing. That's exactly the problem. Competition is a core attribute of our economic model, and preventing it causes that model to not work correctly. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, they're bad because they allow anti-competitive behavior to be exerted easily. Anti-trust laws exist not because we don't like companies making deals with each other, but because when those deals are anti-competitive, it goes against the economic model we have in place, and the public is harmed.
> Private companies should not control critical digital infrastructure, just like private companies should not control critical physical infrastructure.
That's true, and that doesn't require a monopoly to have happen. I think it's a weaker case though, since I don't think Apple or Android are really providing critical digital infrastructure, and if you do think of a mobile device (and software delivery on it) as critical infrastructure, then there is choice (that is, the complete failure of one allows a different systems to be used). I think of consumer harm a bit differently when considering critical paths, as that assumes a whole new platform/stack might be required depending on where the break is. That's not a strong conviction though, so maybe you're convince me otherwise.
> It's not the moderation, it's the moderation combined with effectively gating the ability to run a competing marketplace.
> Apple does this through linking all the components of the stack, their store requires their OS which requires their hardware, and their hardware requires their OS which requires their store. You can't compete on any single level because the whole paltform is a monolith.
I think this focus on Apple is missing the forest for the trees. For all but multi-billion dollar companies, Android is effectively no different from Apple, and they allow everything that Apple does not in this regard.
If Apple enables third party stores on iOS after this lawsuit, nothing will change for any of the small app store developers. The App Store will remain the place where >95% of the people get their apps. The same exact situation will apply: either get on the App store, or don't earn any money from your app and your business is doomed.
The only ones that will benefit from this change are the multi-billion dollar companies that have enough brand recognition to start a competing store. Then people will begrudgingly download the "Facebook store" to download the "Facebook app", and they will download the "Epic store" to download "Fortnite. For anything else, they will stick to the App Store.
The core problem is that most users do not want to use different digital stores. This is evident on other platforms where users have total freedom in choosing which store to use, yet they still end up flocking to the same store. For PC gaming, for example, everybody effectively uses Steam, and most people simply don't buy games that are not on Steam. The exception to this are large companies that have the brand-recognition to start their own store (Epic, Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, etc...). All smaller companies still rely on a single private company (Valve) to allow them on their store, or suffer a huge penalty in their income.
I think regulating the App/Play/etc stores themselves would be more beneficial, preferably modifying them to be based on open protocols without having an unnecessary middle-man take a 30% cut. I would like to see all these closed platforms opened up. That would be beneficial to all developers and all consumers.
I fear that if the result of this lawsuit is only that competing stores will be allowed on iOS nothing meaningful will change. It will be beneficial only to large multi-billion dollar companies, while effectively changing nothing for small developers and having a small negative effect for consumers.
> If Apple enables third party stores on iOS after this lawsuit, nothing will change for any of the small app store developers. The App Store will remain the place where >95% of the people get their apps.
I don't think so. A lot of very major name apps will likely immediately jump ship to a new store, or even band together to create the new store. If there's a different store you have to install to get Spotify, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Movies/Music, etc, that has much more favorable rates, then some developers will jump to it. Not all business models can even survive if Apple takes 30%. If Apple lowered its fees eventually because of that, which I think they would, then you're seeing exactly what harm their behavior was causing.
> The core problem is that most users do not want to use different digital stores.
That's yet to be seen on mobile, since users effectively don't have a choice.
> For PC gaming, for example, everybody effectively uses Steam, and most people simply don't buy games that are not on Steam.
This is rapidly changing with (surprise) the Epic Games Store. They're giving much better cuts of sales, and also heavily subsidizing/advertising to get people in (there's a free game every week). IIRC, they also have some (timed?) exclusives that aren't Epic developed. The weight behind Steam is great, and I don't necessarily want another place to look for games I've bought (I also have a bunch in GOG), but I think the competition is very healthy. It actually caused Steam to change the revenue cut from a flat 30% to 25% after the first $10 million, and 20% after $50 million. Epic Games Store charges 12%.
> All smaller companies still rely on a single private company (Valve) to allow them on their store, or suffer a huge penalty in their income.
Less true as every month goes on. There's a lot of independent sellers on the Epic Games Store now. Keep in mind, if you play Fortnite, you have the Epic Games Store. At 250 million players across all platforms, that's a large player base of both PC and mobile users. It's obvious why they're pushing a store, and that's because they are in the somewhat unique position to immediately be able to capitalize on it. If they offered the same 12% cut they do on PC to Apple's 30%, I could see a lot of game developers jumping platforms. Especially the developers that already have PC games so have a relationship.
> I think regulating the App/Play/etc stores themselves would be more beneficial, preferably modifying them to be based on open protocols without having an unnecessary middle-man take a 30% cut. I would like to see all these closed platforms opened up. That would be beneficial to all developers and all consumers.
Someone has to run the platform these are discoverable and distributed through, and they're going to want money to do so. A store vetting what is sold has real benefit. Just look at how crappy a job Amazon has been doing because they held the position that they weren't responsible for what was sold. That's likely to change real quick now that Amazon is required to handle returns for products sold through misinformation (just like every other physical department store).
> I fear that if the result of this lawsuit is only that competing stores will be allowed on iOS nothing meaningful will change. It will be beneficial only to large multi-billion dollar companies, while effectively changing nothing for small developers and having a small negative effect for consumers.
Even if it's large multi-billion dollar companies, that can mean real and immediate change for users and developers. Competition means that they'll naturally try to draw more customers (as that's one of the way they make their millions), so they'll do what they can to draw inventory and people.
Put another way, do you really think Walmart and Target would be quite as cheap as they are if they didn't have to compete with each other, and operated in a vacuum? They'd only have to be a slightly cheaper that the local department stores while being more convenient because they have more stuff. Instead, Target has to compete with Walmart, which is usually really low.
It's not the moderation, it's the moderation combined with effectively gating the ability to run a competing marketplace.
Apple does this through linking all the components of the stack, their store requires their OS which requires their hardware, and their hardware requires their OS which requires their store. You can't compete on any single level because the whole paltform is a monolith.
Google does it slightly differently, but almost as effectively. They don't really care about the hardware, but they've moved portions of the OS to things that are distributed through their store. You can't completely remove the Play store without crippling a lot of OS features.
> They are not competing. What Apple product is competing with a random app they reject on the marketplace for a random reason?
Anti0copetitive behavior doesn't require they compete specifically, just that they prevent competition. But if you want a simple example, a web browser. You can't ship a competitive web browser because you're forced to use their core, for multiple reasons (can't JIT because of memory restrictions, but at a more fundamental level because you can't release an interpreter, which JavaScript engines are).
> It is not a question of competition. ... if they decide that they don't like you you are out of luck and might as well give up your business. That is where the harm comes from.
That's preventing others from competing. That's exactly the problem. Competition is a core attribute of our economic model, and preventing it causes that model to not work correctly. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, they're bad because they allow anti-competitive behavior to be exerted easily. Anti-trust laws exist not because we don't like companies making deals with each other, but because when those deals are anti-competitive, it goes against the economic model we have in place, and the public is harmed.
> Private companies should not control critical digital infrastructure, just like private companies should not control critical physical infrastructure.
That's true, and that doesn't require a monopoly to have happen. I think it's a weaker case though, since I don't think Apple or Android are really providing critical digital infrastructure, and if you do think of a mobile device (and software delivery on it) as critical infrastructure, then there is choice (that is, the complete failure of one allows a different systems to be used). I think of consumer harm a bit differently when considering critical paths, as that assumes a whole new platform/stack might be required depending on where the break is. That's not a strong conviction though, so maybe you're convince me otherwise.