They vertically integrated beyond the scope of the law.
Microsoft got in trouble for forcing their hardware suppliers to only ship windows machines. By taking the hardware in house, Apple does the same but it's legal.
Google loses an antitrust case for monopolizing app stores on Android. By making alternative app stores technically impossible, Apple doesn't have the same issue.
It really feels like the went mega-monopoly so hard that the law doesn't apply to them.
Apple has an absolute monopoly on its own platform.
They are certainly complying with the laws in this regard, but the reality is that anti-competition laws need to change to deal with companies of this scale and reach.
at the time Microsoft had > 90% market share of desktop PC operating systems. currently apple doesn't have even close to this market share for mobile handset/tablet operating systems.
remember, the anti-trust laws are meant to curtail abuses of monopolies. they are almost powerless when a company is not actually a monopoly. that's by design. when a company is not a monopoly the remedy to their abuses is to simply buy from their competitor.
Microsoft got hit for using their monopoly in one market (the market for operating systems) illegally to try to obtain better/monopoly status in another market (the market for web browsers.
If you have an evidence-based argument to make that Apple has a monopoly in the market for mobile operating systems and has illegally used it to try to obtain a monopoly in the market for web browsers, I would be intrigued to hear it.
(in other words, not every bundled web browser is automatically a violation of antitrust law; nor is every attempt to forbid something on iOS automatically a violation)
A sibling comment pointed out that you're wrong about the Microsoft case. You're also seemingly under informed about monopolies. One of the core issues in the Microsoft case was that they're a horizontal monopoly. Microsoft's monopoly affects all players in the market because a majority of the players use Microsoft's OS. They used that leverage against Netscape and many other companies.
Apple on the other hand has a vertical monopoly, they control the whole stack from hardware to software. While their influence on iPhones is absolute, they don't have outsize influence on other phone vendors. Also while popular iPhones don't have a majority of really any phone market.
Antitrust considerations are different for different monopoly types. Unless a company with a vertical monopoly also had a market monopoly position and used that position to actively influence/harm other companies it's really hard to legally pursue them. You can't fault a company for building their own products and trying to make money from selling them. If a Samsung washing machine has some cool feature when paired with a Samsung dryer, just because Samsung has a monopoly on Samsung appliances doesn't mean they're violating some antitrust laws.
If anything Google is in bigger danger of antitrust suits since they have a more horizontal position in the phone market. While they have token entries in the hardware market they're an OS and service provider. Which is likely why they're supportive is sideloading and alternate app stores, if they behaved like Apple but with a horizontal monopoly the DoJ would be all over them.
Microsoft had a monopoly on operating systems and were leveraging that to win the browser wars. Apple does not have a monopoly on smartphones and consequently cannot be using that monopoly as leverage. Monopolies aren’t even a problem in and of themselves, it’s leveraging them that’s generally illegal.
I was referring to the legal concept of monopoly, of which they have non, and Microsoft does (and was in fact, convicted for abusing it, independently in the US and in the EU).
(The kind of monopoly Apple has on the appstore, much like the Sony monopoly on the playstation, and Microsoft on the Xbox, is not AFAIK an antitrust target because non of them command a significant part of a market without alternatives; whereas Windows on a PC was an antitrust target because it does have that hold on a market, AND microsoft abused it to enter other markets).
How were they a monopoly if Apple had their own OS? As did many others?
Microsoft got hit for antitrust because of bundled software. What Apple does is far worse imo, not just bundling software, but the control over the store/devices is nuts.
Apple has a 100% monopoly it's AppStore on 2 billion devices though which $90,000,000,000 in trade is conducted. If that's not a market big enough to be considered for Anti-Competitive practices and illegally maintaining a monopoly then I don't know what is.
The argument "people can just buy an android" didn't work for Microsoft with the Internet Browser abuse.
Apple gets away with it because they don't have a monopoly. There's a large variety of non-Apple smartphones and tablets you can buy.
Microsoft's behavior was restricted because they were a monopoly. There were alternatives to Windows, but the court decided that they were sufficiently insignificant that Windows was effectively a monopoly. That changes the rules.
Windows market share at the time was about 95%, Apple's smartphone market share is in the neighborhood of 15-20%.
Apple can be said to be a monopoly according to at least some definitions of monopoly, more precisely, and at the very least - it has a legal monopoly on selling macOS due to copyright.
Since they have a legal monopoly in some sense, it's not completely unreasonable to revisit how actions potentially prohibited by antitrust laws shold interact with legal monopolies. Especially when it comes to devices where changing device mandates you also change almost all apps (Which the legal monopoly profited of.) To sometimes significant cost, and inconvenience.
It's not entirely obvious that simply because Apple isn't the only seller of smart phones, that they can't be involved in anti-competetive behavio, and/or monopolistic behavior.By using their app store to extract considerable revenue by an questionably high transaction cost. It could be obvious because of precedent, but nevertheless, unless that judgement was made in resent years, and with the soaring costs of migrating your digital life, it's only as obvious as you make it to be if you narrow the scope of monopoly for physical to that where a single worldwide monopoly is the only business there is.
One can be safe to say that in penning the dictionary definition of monopoly, the author was probably not considering entire markets that would fit in a pocket, and where the good purchased in the market can only be used on the pocket device, and impossible to extract from the market to use in another setting!
Oh yeah, there have been antitrust cases against companies for not distributing software in their store. Despite HN posters opinions, Apple a monopoly isn’t defined by a company not distributing software they want - whether it be Apple or Google.
Is Apple even a monopoly though? In the Microsoft case Microsoft had 90+% of desktop market share. (And propped Apple up to create even a semblance of competition.) They were accused of leveraging that position to prevent manufacturers etc from getting out of line.
Apple, on the other hand shares the market with Android. Globally it's a minority share. Yes, in the US, Apple has a bigger market share than it has globally, but Android is a real competitor even there. So I'd suggest the two situations are quite different.
If it's not a monopoly (which would be fine by itself anyway), it's hard to make the case that they are leveraging that monopoly in unhallowed ways.
All that said, clearly the DOJ think they have a case, and I imagine they've spent a LOT of man-hours thinking about it and forming an argument. More than the no-time-at-all I've spent thinking about it.
Antitrust requires a monopoly position, which Apple doesn't have (but Microsoft did have). Apple are being dicks and should be smacked down for it in the market, but I doubt antitrust would stick.
Because they're not a monopoly on smartphones/tablets. Android is doing pretty well, by most accounts. Blackberry still isn't dead (though not for lack of RIM's trying). The IE antitrust case against Microsoft was because they held a monopoly on desktop computers, and tried to use that to build a monopoly on Internet Browsers.
Apple a monopoly on Apple devices, but that's fine. Saying that they have a "monopoly" here is like saying that Coke has a monopoly on the contents of Coke bottles, and they should be forced to fill some with Pepsi. Perhaps less glibly, that things like XBox should be forced to ship Mario, or that Microsoft must release Halo for the PS3. Just because we're used to anything with a CPU being "free for all developers to ship whatever they like onto" doesn't make it a right enforceable by law. If that's your preference, great - buy devices that support this. We do not want the government dictating policy in an area so young, and highly competitive.
If, in a few years, the iPad has become the tablet computer with 99% of the marketshare, there might be an argument for an antitrust case against App Store policies. But that looks very unlikely to be the case.
Microsoft had a very real monopoly on personal computers, and they engaged in illegal anticompetitive practices to maintain that real monopoly, illegal practices this simply wouldn't have worked in a fair market with real alternatives for consumers and manufacturers.
The only monopoly Apple has is a monopoly on iPhones. Their only interest is to make their product as attractive as possible in a market jam packed with innovative alternatives, and history is filled with instances where features are added to an OS at the expense of a previous 3rd-party add-on.
I don't think there is any comparison between Microsoft of the late 90s and any tech company today, when it comes to monopolies and anticompetitive behavior.
Microsoft at the time had a virtual OS monopoly (around 90% market share if I recall), and the court found that they were unlawfully leveraging an existing monopoly for advantage in a different market (web browsers). With less than 50% share, Apple does not have an OS monopoly, so the same logic does not apply.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of enacting laws to protect freedom on the web platform. But the Microsoft fact pattern just doesn't apply.
Microsoft got in trouble for forcing their hardware suppliers to only ship windows machines. By taking the hardware in house, Apple does the same but it's legal.
Google loses an antitrust case for monopolizing app stores on Android. By making alternative app stores technically impossible, Apple doesn't have the same issue.
It really feels like the went mega-monopoly so hard that the law doesn't apply to them.
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