Apple and Google 'Duopoly' to Come Under Scrutiny in the UK

[vipergts2207]

First we need to make it economically viable for a competitor to exist and be able to make a profit from their software, so get rid of the ability for software to be given away freely and funded by advertising.

We then need to make sure that horizontally integrated companies cannot use their power to squash a fledgling competitor by denying them access to certain products or services, so it should be illegal to prevent a competitor from making software that accesses the services of horizontally integrated services (I.e, make it illegal for a company to prevent another from making a YouTube client etc).

With these two measures there would be room for a competitor to both make a profitable software product and be able to offer software on that platform to access the most popular online services that people want to use.

We’d them have multiple different vertically integrated platforms, each offering their own vertically integrated features, with all of them having apps for the most popular services offered by horizontally integrated companies.

Not allowing ads to pay for content is basically telling poor people to go screw themselves. I also don’t see how that incentivizes people to jump on board a new ecosystem. It doesn’t address the near universal support for third party devices and services that iOS and Android have.

Your second suggestion could move the needle, but certainly isn’t a panacea and still doesn’t guarantee a real user base for an alternative ecosystem. I’m looking at Microsoft and am wondering how much more a company would have to do to be successful where MS failed in competing with Apple and Google.

 

[mrochester]

Not allowing ads to pay for content is basically telling poor people to go screw themselves. I also don’t see how that incentivizes people to jump on board a new ecosystem. It doesn’t address the near universal support for third party devices and services that iOS and Android have.

Your second suggestion could move the needle, but certainly isn’t a panacea and still doesn’t guarantee a real user base for an alternative ecosystem. I’m looking at Microsoft and am wondering how much more a company would have to do to be successful where MS failed in competing with Apple and Google.

Correct, but then the situation we’ve ended up in is because of the predatory pricing practices that eliminates competition. We either need to accept less competition but more equitable access or we need to accept more competition and less equitable access. You can’t have both as the company with the deepest pockets wins.

I think Microsoft would have been much more successful had certain horizontally integrated companies not been permitted to block access to their services.

 

[planteater]

I’m excited BlackBerry OS and Windows phones are coming back.

 

[Lategamer]

HomePod only working with Apple Music is anti-competitive.

Hardly. Any more than my cooker being unable to run fridge control software is uncompetitive.

Am I meant to cry that my television doesn't run any operating system or apps other than what the manufacturer installs?

Are we meant to wring our hands that our cars run invisible operating systems that are not under our control?

HomePod is hardware plus software. Integrated.

 

[tranceme]

about time.
their control over every phone on the planet needs to stop.

What are you hoping for?

 

[tranceme]

I’m excited BlackBerry OS and Windows phones are coming back.

Yes, bring back phones that sucked. There is reason they are not around. But, yes, bring that back to give some completion to others. Make Apple try harder.

 

[vipergts2207]

Hardly. Any more than my cooker being unable to run fridge control software is uncompetitive.

Am I meant to cry that my television doesn't run any operating system or apps other than what the manufacturer installs?

Are we meant to wring our hands that our cars run invisible operating systems that are not under our control?

HomePod is hardware plus software. Integrated.

Are there fridge control software companies actually trying to get you to install software on your cooker? And is there some benefit to you if you were allowed to do so?

Is the television manufacturer a monopoly or part of a duopoly?

Are any of the automakers a monopoly or part of a duopoly?

The HomePod likely wouldn't apply to anti-trust actions anyway because Apple isn't a dominant player in the smart speaker market. In fact, they did quite poorly at it, judging by the HomePod's discontinuation. My only point in mentioning the HomePod is that making it initially work with only Apple Music was anti-competitive, even if not illegal.

 

[One2Grift]

Among other things, perhaps put back doors into the phones encryption. That would be what governments intelligence services would want.

People railing against the App Store ecosystem are ignorant of what it was like on mobile before the App Store.

30% take? Ha. In 2007, we'd have jumped at that. App aggregators (App Stores) were taking 70-90% of cover price with zero guarantees of security, zero guarantees of compatibility and zero recourse for the consumer.

People railing against Apple AppStore/eco has almost nothing to do with competition(which Apple has a lot of). What this is is just anger. They don’t like Apple so they want it to be cut down somehow. When their arguments are ‘the AppStore makes too much money’ or ‘they can’t keep it walled’ and the venerable ‘Apple faithful are (fill in pejorative)’, it’s pointless to argue.
There’s choices. There’s Android and Apple. One provides the tight engineering loop to try to provide users a high level EoU experience. Another is open with more choice but also try to deliver high EoU experience. One set of users (Apple) routinely shows high satisfaction. Another set of users also reveals a solid level of user satisfaction—except there’s a vocal small percentage of these users who are incensed with the Apple side/users.
Assumptions on why that small slice of users are determined that Apple side ‘just can’t do it their own way!’? Anger?? Envy?? 😀😀

 

[planteater]

Yes, bring back phones that sucked. There is reason they are not around. But, yes, bring that back to give some completion to others. Make Apple try harder.

I was being sarcastic. I doubt here is much of anything in this world that would bring them back. But, having more completion would be a good thing in my opinion.

 

[MBAir2010]

What are you hoping for?

MAYBE to vote for a favorite baseball player WITHOUT a demanded GOOGLE account?
for one-

these 2 companies are control freaks and everyone is bending over deeper.
i hope that answered your question.

everyone else
just be careful these companies are taking turns trapping
younger and other people to sign up for an account that is not computer related.
and we are letting these people do this

 

[UKgaryb]

The government should be encouraging tech companies outside of the USA to prosper and hopefully bring viable alternatives to the market, that being said the monopolistic tenancies of the US tech companies are stiffing innovation - we need to legislate to stop companies being acquired for defensive purposes.

 

[One2Grift]

You can frame Android’s existence however you want, but that doesn’t mean Apple and Google aren’t a duopoly. The fact is that today Microsoft doesn’t have their own version of Android out there, so you’re not even coming at this from reality as it exists. Much of your argument comes down to, “well since some things Apple and Google do aren’t anti-competitive, then nothing they do is anti-competitive,” which is plainly absurd.

Again with the false dichotomy that fostering a more competitive environment has to result in less privacy, convenience, etc. You can design for both, it doesn’t have to be one or another. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as it were. Apple has significant monetary incentives to design things the way they have with regard to making it harder to use competitor services. Asking for a more competitive market environment is also not asking for the elimination of a platform. Not in the least. Making iOS more like MacOS is not a bad thing.

I’m not sure what pointing out unpopular products like Google+ and iWork is supposed to prove. Because not everything Apple or Google does is popular or catches on means they don’t ever act in an anti-competitive manner? That does not follow. The problem seems to be that you believe it has to be all or nothing or that Apple has to have monopoly/duopoly positions in every area they play in. Everything they do is anti-competitive or nothing is? Nonsense. If Google or Apple had come out with the most popular and dominant social network, they may have done things that were anti-competitive to hamper competitors through their market position. That’s kind of the crux of the issue here that you missed with this point. You can only unfairly use your market position through monopoly or duopoly power if you have said monopoly or duopoly in that area in the first place. Look at it through the opposite lens. If Facebook came out with a smartphone OS tomorrow with loads of restrictions on using competitor services that are clearly anti-competitive in nature, would regulators start looking at that as well? Unlikely because Facebook would have near zero market share in the space and wouldn’t have the ability to unfairly shape the smartphone ecosystem of half the market to their benefit. Apple and Google do have that ability, however. At the end of the day it’s not about an exact number of players in a space, but whether any or some of those players have a dominant position and if so are they abusing those dominant positions in an unfair way that precludes or makes competition extremely difficult?

Maybe you’re onto something! Prediction for 2023 is Apple iOS drops from 15% to 13.5%. Android will go from about 81% to 84%. (Both will grow some, Android much more, based on the market growing).
As I see it now rather clearly, with that minimum share of the market, Apple doesn’t need anything done to it. Limiting or breaking up the very small portion of thr only competitor to the behemoth? No.
Android OTOH should absolutely be broken into 3, all required to build new OS while they continue to sell original Android. (All 3 will still be bigger than Apple’s market share). And since Google has 90+% of web searches, a break into 3 on that front is needed too.
😀

 

[One2Grift]

MAYBE to vote for a favorite baseball player WITHOUT a demanded GOOGLE account?
for one-

these 2 companies are control freaks and everyone is bending over deeper.
i hope that answered your question.

everyone else
just be careful these companies are taking turns trapping
younger and other people to sign up for an account that is not computer related.
and we are letting these people do this

All large companies are control freaks. It’s peculiar that one would think a big business isn’t in the business of adding and keeping customers at each and every means at their disposal. Your one free month at (enter company name here) is that ‘control freak’ at its most basic.

A quick look at the numbers show the mobile os market actually has close to a monopoly. Worldwide, Android is expected in 2023 to be within 2.8% of having 90% of the mobile os market (almost as much as their search business). It’s close to approaching the 2000 pc os market of Windows 90%, Apple single digits. Back then we should have gone after Apple the pc bit os player?
Who in their right mind thinks in 2023 a mobile os business that has 12.5% WW market share (down 1% in preceding 2 years) has any business being mentioned with Android-Google business. The world runs on Google Android, while iOS is a small side actor that at least provides another choice to consumers.
Any mobile OS anti competitive or regulation implementation work is a Google thing. Trying to pick apart the relative bit player is odd isn’t it? Break Android into 3 companies that continue to sell Android while required to produce a new interop OS. All 3 are still bigger and more dominant than Apple. Break up their search business too. Search in an integral part of the internet. Right?

 

[MacBH928]

How would you split them? I can see a greater argument for splitting AOSP away from Google than iOS from apple.

I do not know how the law works but I would say for one they can have a different App Store on iOS, for Google probably split Android from the Search Enginge

 

[MBAir2010]

All large companies are control freaks.

does not matter, wrong is wrong

everyone else:

why does someone who wants to partake in
say.....
vote for an MLB player in the upcoming all star game
need a google account to do so?

that is just wrong and Google taking advantage of this system.
and this needs to be stopped.

 

[Philip_S]

I understand the intent behind this (duopolies don't exactly encourage competition), but I don't know what governments can really do about this.

Forced unbundling, demergers, or confiscatory fines.

Possibly requiring apple distinguish between apps blocked from running on iOS for security violations or lying in their privacy policies (which is illegal), and apps they decline to market through their app store for commercial reasons.

Possibly treating app store operators as vendors and publishers for liability under all consumer and media law (there's been some talk about doing that to amazon for physical goods), and imposing worthwhile statutory warranties on software.

Where is the investigation over the VHS vs Betamax video recording systems?

VHS wasn't locked down, and the DVD and BluRay patents were made available on what lawyers and politicians considered a reasonable approximation of FRAND terms.

Mobile phones have always been controlled. Mobile phones have always been expensive. Mobile apps have always been expensive. Mobile phones have always had a walled garden - only it was Nokia, Erriccson, Motorola, Verizon, AT&T, etc. And the developers were sure not making the money then they are now.

That doesn't mean that's good for consumers. Would you be happy if laptops were locked down as hard as phones are just because they happen to have something functionally equivalent to dialer.exe pre-installed?

Neither platform has blocked third-party apps from getting into their ecosystems - barring some obvious things like porn, obvious malware, or illegal activities.

One of those things is not like the others

Fees to developers even in places there is competition are consistent and arguably fair.

Consistent fees are considered a sign of insufficient competition in the UK, EU, Australia, and some other markets, especially if their cost bases and other revenue streams are not consistent. IDK if the UK carried over that rule, but at the EU federal level and in Australia companies deciding not to even pretend to compete is considered anti-competitive.

Apple locks it's hardware to only allow iOS. Not abusive. Mac are locked to only allowing MacOS - would that be considered abusive?

IMO, yes. Publishing details on the level of the Woz-era Apple manuals probably shouldn't be compulsory (though it should be encouraged), but completely locked bootloaders shouldn't be allowed if people can figure our enough to make software technically compatible.

No one is asking for this except developers and tech-types who want to feast on backup data. Disgusting.

Or people who have what are otherwise all-MS shops. Being able to send the encrypted data files to an arbitrary host would be convenient, especially if the encryption was managed as part of the OS backup service rather than the storage provider. After all, you can store encrypted backup sparse bundles

$28k equates to about $13.70/hour.
Around here places like McDonald's pays more than that.so around here (Bay Area) that's not it.

In the bay area, would you even be able to get a room in a share house for $30k with a reasonable commute? Depending on which stats you believe, a single room appears to cost $1100-$1800/month.

Considering everything nowadays runs with CPU's and operating systems (your car for example) these sort of cases have no merit. Apple clearly sells a product that is a closed ecosystem, they make the hardware and software, and therefore there's no choice but theirs. BMW sells you a car that has al sorts of infotainment software running to let you operate the car incl it's stereo etc, no one is asking them to allow Mercedes's software onto it, or only get the BMW software via a BMW dealer or authorised reseller... we all accept that, Apple, in my view operates the same way so why are we complaining we can't get our software from elsewhere? Now if I was selling an open architecture , it's a different story, then I invite competition. Apple doesn't,and I for one, think that's a good thing, and the reason things 'just work'.

Some of the proposals for legislation floating around, including from American congress critters, would have forced things like car infotainment system to be opened up if they had any capability for installing or modifying software.

Being forced to define open APIs to break out services does more to slow innovation. It takes years for standards bodies to agree on standards and then even longer to agree on changes to them.

Requiring publication of APIs to interested third parties on the same timetable as telling internal dev teams, and giving the same warning of deprecation, would not significantly slow innovation.

It sounds like you are saying that it’s ok to do ‘anti-competitive’ stuff as long as you don’t become too successful!

If you're not very successful, you can't achieve anything much through anti-competitive behaviour.

So the solution in the supermarket arena is the same as the solution in the operating system arena, have more of them competing with one another. Regulations should create the market conditions that allow competing operating systems to exist and have a fair shake. That way developers can shop around and work with different combination of ecosystems based on the agreements they can make with them to sell their wares.

I suspect if they do anything the answer will probably be horizontal splits. The new international rules about proper country by country reporting will make that easier by forcing clearer transactions between organisational units, and even the Thatcher government was happy to use horizontal splits to create opportunities for competition.

 

[wanha]

Forced unbundling, demergers, or confiscatory fines.

Possibly requiring apple distinguish between apps blocked from running on iOS for security violations or lying in their privacy policies (which is illegal), and apps they decline to market through their app store for commercial reasons.

Possibly treating app store operators as vendors and publishers for liability under all consumer and media law (there's been some talk about doing that to amazon for physical goods), and imposing worthwhile statutory warranties on software.

VHS wasn't locked down, and the DVD and BluRay patents were made available on what lawyers and politicians considered a reasonable approximation of FRAND terms.

That doesn't mean that's good for consumers. Would you be happy if laptops were locked down as hard as phones are just because they happen to have something functionally equivalent to dialer.exe pre-installed?


One of those things is not like the others

Consistent fees are considered a sign of insufficient competition in the UK, EU, Australia, and some other markets, especially if their cost bases and other revenue streams are not consistent. IDK if the UK carried over that rule, but at the EU federal level and in Australia companies deciding not to even pretend to compete is considered anti-competitive.

IMO, yes. Publishing details on the level of the Woz-era Apple manuals probably shouldn't be compulsory (though it should be encouraged), but completely locked bootloaders shouldn't be allowed if people can figure our enough to make software technically compatible.

Or people who have what are otherwise all-MS shops. Being able to send the encrypted data files to an arbitrary host would be convenient, especially if the encryption was managed as part of the OS backup service rather than the storage provider. After all, you can store encrypted backup sparse bundles

In the bay area, would you even be able to get a room in a share house for $30k with a reasonable commute? Depending on which stats you believe, a single room appears to cost $1100-$1800/month.

Some of the proposals for legislation floating around, including from American congress critters, would have forced things like car infotainment system to be opened up if they had any capability for installing or modifying software.

Requiring publication of APIs to interested third parties on the same timetable as telling internal dev teams, and giving the same warning of deprecation, would not significantly slow innovation.

If you're not very successful, you can't achieve anything much through anti-competitive behaviour.

I suspect if they do anything the answer will probably be horizontal splits. The new international rules about proper country by country reporting will make that easier by forcing clearer transactions between organisational units, and even the Thatcher government was happy to use horizontal splits to create opportunities for competition.

well that comment was clearly a labor of love

 

[mrochester]

Forced unbundling, demergers, or confiscatory fines.

Possibly requiring apple distinguish between apps blocked from running on iOS for security violations or lying in their privacy policies (which is illegal), and apps they decline to market through their app store for commercial reasons.

Possibly treating app store operators as vendors and publishers for liability under all consumer and media law (there's been some talk about doing that to amazon for physical goods), and imposing worthwhile statutory warranties on software.

VHS wasn't locked down, and the DVD and BluRay patents were made available on what lawyers and politicians considered a reasonable approximation of FRAND terms.

That doesn't mean that's good for consumers. Would you be happy if laptops were locked down as hard as phones are just because they happen to have something functionally equivalent to dialer.exe pre-installed?


One of those things is not like the others

Consistent fees are considered a sign of insufficient competition in the UK, EU, Australia, and some other markets, especially if their cost bases and other revenue streams are not consistent. IDK if the UK carried over that rule, but at the EU federal level and in Australia companies deciding not to even pretend to compete is considered anti-competitive.

IMO, yes. Publishing details on the level of the Woz-era Apple manuals probably shouldn't be compulsory (though it should be encouraged), but completely locked bootloaders shouldn't be allowed if people can figure our enough to make software technically compatible.

Or people who have what are otherwise all-MS shops. Being able to send the encrypted data files to an arbitrary host would be convenient, especially if the encryption was managed as part of the OS backup service rather than the storage provider. After all, you can store encrypted backup sparse bundles

In the bay area, would you even be able to get a room in a share house for $30k with a reasonable commute? Depending on which stats you believe, a single room appears to cost $1100-$1800/month.

Some of the proposals for legislation floating around, including from American congress critters, would have forced things like car infotainment system to be opened up if they had any capability for installing or modifying software.

Requiring publication of APIs to interested third parties on the same timetable as telling internal dev teams, and giving the same warning of deprecation, would not significantly slow innovation.

If you're not very successful, you can't achieve anything much through anti-competitive behaviour.

I suspect if they do anything the answer will probably be horizontal splits. The new international rules about proper country by country reporting will make that easier by forcing clearer transactions between organisational units, and even the Thatcher government was happy to use horizontal splits to create opportunities for competition.

Anti-competitive behaviour might not make you any more or less successful but we need to establish whether anti-competitive behaviour is permitted or not. We can’t have a rule that says it’s ok to engage in anti-competitive behaviour as long as you don’t get too successful! The behaviour is either permitted, or not, regardless of how successful you are.

 

[Philip_S]

Anti-competitive behaviour might not make you any more or less successful but we need to establish whether anti-competitive behaviour is permitted or not. We can’t have a rule that says it’s ok to engage in anti-competitive behaviour as long as you don’t get too successful! The behaviour is either permitted, or not, regardless of how successful you are.

Normally the laws are written as "don't harm competition" or "don't harm consumers", rather than "don't do X". The latter has the advantage of clarity, the former has the advantage of catching anything companies dream up without needing an amendment, but it does mean there's an element of "no harm, no foul".

You could use both approaches together: "X, Y, and Z are illegal, and so is anything else which harms competition", which does generally happen but the lists take a long while to update. Banning anything which is anti-competitive for large companies but not small ones would mean that, for example, the laws against tied pubs (passed by Thatcher) and the expected laws breaking up PubCos to separate real estate from food and beverage wholesalers wouldn't be able to exist without banning some individual pub selling exclusively its own beer.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Why should it be incumbent on any business to facilitate their customers' departures?

There really is no real problem with that now. I can sell my iPhone and buy a Samsung. Heck - I could get one for free; there is always some carrier giving one model or another away.

Both Apple and Android have built-in data imports tools. Both platforms have the basic apps. Both platforms offer for purchase third-party apps that extend the platforms. Some of these apps are made by developers who support both platforms. Of these some of the licenses will transfer between platforms. But what about those developers that do not allow multi-platform license? Or developers who only support one platform. Should the developer be forced to gift users licenses? Should they be forced to change their business models and develop for a platform they do not with to? Should Apple or Google be forced to refund all your app purchases because you want to move the other side of the fence?

This does nothing to improve life for consumers.

And there reason the comments are all about a 3rd or more OS is the complaint is the Apple / Google duopoly. That would be iOS / Android. If you look at phone manufacturers there are a lot more than two options.

Then why are so many Apple users feeling trapped by not being able to easily transfer media that they have paid rights to play etc as an example. While there may be ways around it, it should be relatively simple and not convoluted etc etc

This is the whole point of these reviews to ensure consumers are not unduly penalized or treated by unfair practices

It's no different in swapping many services, government watchdogs ensures consumers rights and ease of freedom of choice

Government polices amongst other things are there to make sure business do not unduly hinder customers departures or maybe where you live you're rights are not protected to the same degree

 

[PowerMac5500]

Deleted

 

[George Dawes]

Smacks of hypocrisy , why didn’t they investigate microsoft and intel for their total monopoly of the pc market for the last 30 years ?

 

[yaxomoxay]

Smacks of hypocrisy , why didn’t they investigate microsoft and intel for their total monopoly of the pc market for the last 30 years ?

Microsoft was investigated.