'Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one....' That Razor guy...
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Apple Agrees to Provide Executive to Testify At Upcoming App Store Senate Hearing
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Not to mention that almost anything not connected to getting more monies or monies for re-election (its ALL about that PERMANENT JOB in DC) is usually quite above their education level. Listen enough and you'll see....
It would be great if the hearings provided committee members who are actually knowledgeable about technology. The last hearings were embarrassing in how ignorant committee members were and how it was only about creating a circus instead of actually learning or hearing what the tech executives had to say.
Have you examined what happens to a regulated industry?
You want something regulated go after cable and telecoms giants instead of targeting ecosystems created by tech companies allowed to evolve technology without government oversight. You know the ones that keep raising prices for internet and TV access each year and the FCC which casted a blind eye towards any consumer price protection.
I don’t think they know how to start, honestly.
Part of the reason why big tech got to be so big in the first place is because they do offer legitimately superior user experiences which draw users to their platforms. This is in contrast with say, carriers, who face little competition and are thus able to get away with charging higher prices and poor quality of service.
The challenge will be in regulating big tech without actually making the experience worse for the end user. Take google for example. You can’t tell them to be less good at search results. That would be a net negative for users.
Same thing with Apple. The very things that developers like Epic are complaining about are the exact things that consumers love because they make the whole integrated experience so seamless for us.
And anti-competitive laws in the US ultimately focus on whether harm has been done to the consumer, not to smaller businesses. In this regard, unless the very nature of said law is changed altogether, I simply do not see any such lawsuit going anywhere, or any progress being made in the US for the next couple of years at least.
Congress is simply out of its depth here.
I think this is a great summary. Government action regulating iOS or the AppStore effectively reduces consumer choice.
And the lock-in argument is a pretty bogus one-- it's just an attempt to invert the reality that customers see value in keeping their status quo. When Apple moved their MacBook Pros to USB-C connectors, you didn't hear people complain that the USB alliance has them "locked in" to USB-A, you hear people say they don't want to bear the expense of changing something that worked well enough even if the new model has features they may otherwise like.
This goes double for applications like Fortnite which is free to install on any platform and is funded by purchasing Epic arcade tokens which can be transferred across mobile platforms.
and all of your new phone purchases (android or iOS) will be monetized in a way to make up for the lost revenue due to the regulations, hampering the user experience.
congratulations, you played yourself.
And who says they won't appoint Cleetus from Janitorial Services, or Pedro from Cafeteria Services?
If I was Tim Cook, I'd do exactly the above... as a middle finger to the Senate.
Not that difficult really. Congress has access to some very smart lawyers. Break up Google and Facebook so they can’t just buy up the competition. Open the iOS AppStore to competitors. Prohibit deals that allow Google to be the default search engine. I’m sure there are plenty of other things. Every one of these things would benefit consumers by increasing choice and competition.
None of those would benefit consumers, kill innovation. How did the break-up of AT&T result in better choice for the consumers with cell phone service, price, speed and coverage? Much of the world is far ahead of the US with that.
You are advocating breaking up companies that made markets that aren't even monopolies. I am not for that type of governmental overreach.
How naive to think that congress understand the technology enough to make those regulations. When it's become apparent in recent hearings they do not even know who supplies what service!
Then its lawyers should be the ones asking the questions, not the mouthpieces.
Choice does not necessarily equal competitive pricing for the consumer.
Explain exactly, point-by-point how you see an open OS improving things for us, the consumers. Change our minds.
Eh, banning default search engines would probably decrease competition by instantly killing Mozilla/Firefox. Then all the big browser players on desktop would be Chrome based.
This is the issue. I pay for an iPhone because of the closed environment. Let’s be real here, hardware wise there are FAR cheaper and BETTER android phones out there. I pay the price for an iPhone due to the environment only.
This typically needs to be approved by government entities. When Microsoft bought Bethesda, it needed to go through approval processes.
Why break up a company? Just add more restrictions when companies want to buy others
This was meant to be a quote from @Abazigal
DUDE....this is the US Congress! Not Academia....you get what ("they") paid for.....'They' want mental midgets....
I didn’t understand your comment. If they stopped default search engines more people might choose an alternative to Google. That’s why Google pay Apple $12bn a year to be their default. No other search engine can compete with that.
Ideally yes but they already bought the competition so what you’re saying is like closing the door after the horse has already bolted. Big tech is too big and needs to be broken up.
I don't agree. US has already lost manufacturing, now let's break up tech so we make sure the US is the worlds followers and not the worlds leaders in tech. Nope.
Big tech should remain as regulated as it is today. Not exempt from oversight, but also not worrying about the ability to operate in a lawful manner.
For the 12B, duckduckgo is my default search engine. If I want google, I open safari and type in google.com. Simple. Nobody is stopping Apple customers from making that change, it's not like there isn't an option, which would be anticompetitive.
it’s simple. if a new law causes a cut app store revenue by 50%, Google/Apple will figure out a way to nickel and dime you to keep shareholders happy
They may not be able to compete on price, but if the product is better, Apple would switch in a heartbeat.
I could see the entire “default search engine” argument if Apple didn’t give the user an option when setting up the phone for the first time. But they do, and as an informed consumer, I’ve always selected duck duck go.
This isn’t “limiting user choice”, the user has a choice of 5 different search engines, both at initial setup and subsequently. Google are paying Apple for a ”check mark” next to their name in the list from opening the box to initial setup only. And given that it’s a competitive tender process in the first instance, the competition decided that it wasn’t worth their money….that’s the free market at work.
You don't break up the companies. You prevent them from being approved.
Facebook says WhatsApp deal cleared by FTC
Facebook Inc said U.S. regulators have cleared its $19 billion acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp, even as the Federal Trade Commission warned the two Internet companies on Thursday that they must not backtrack on commitments to user privacy.
EU approves Microsoft’s $7.5 billion Bethesda acquisition
The approval clears the way for Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass plans.
www.theverge.com
What can be done to fix this? Hmm.....Don't approve Facebook's WhatsApp acquisition or Microsoft's Bethesda's acquisition! Breaking up the tech companies won't do any good. The gaming "company from Microsoft due to being broken up" could still buy out Bethesda.