The point is not about whether users can handle multiple app distributions. What I see is that some apps may choose to only be available on one app distribution, forcing users to use a specific app distribution. Does anyone protect the choice from some of us who "choose" to stay in the walled garden? Quite a hypocrite to those developers who dreamed themselves to be a destructor. And honestly, it is even not enough to target the general developers who infringe on the user's privacy, how can legislators frivolously "regulate" the platform first?
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Apple Fails in Bid to Dismiss Cydia Creator's Amended Antitrust Lawsuit
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Yup, like "exclusivity rights" to a distributed app. If the EU or another government wants fair access, then those types of contracts should be outlawed. If that is done, I wonder how quickly those alternate distribution models will go away.
So? Most U.S. momoply/antitrust cases are tried in courts below the Supreme Court. Again, monopolies are generally considered anything over 50% share.
I can't speak to everything Apple has been doing behind the scenes legally or illegally over the years but a ruling in one case doesn't necessarily mean other cases with different parties, evidence, circumstances, etc. couldn't rule differently. There's also the possibility of cases being overturned one way or another.
Additionally, sometimes market conditions change over time (e.g., a company reaching monopoly power or greater monopoly power however that may be defined in a region or case) even if a company's business practices more or less remained the same. All else constant, a company with 20% share can be viewed very differently in the courts than a company with 60% share or a company with 60% share may be viewed differently than a company with 95% share, etc.
It will be interesting to see how these things play out.
There's always the possibility of future competition (Bill Gates had been making that argument for decades) but what's relevant is the state of the marketplace at the time in question.
The view some have is that Apple has monopoly power in mobile OS and is blocking app store competition. They feel that multiple app stores (and/or easier sideloading) should be allowed on iOS. It's about allowing app stores to be setup "next door", not directly inside the App Store. If Microsoft were to require that apps for Windows had to be purchased/downloaded through the Microsoft Store, they would face similar scrutiny and lawsuits.
You can replace low quality battery from unknown source for iPhone.
You can take the risk of using some non-original parts of a car to save money, but there are still thousands of essential parts you can only get from the car manufacturer.
Just because a license or contract term exists doesn't mean that the license/contract term(s) is/are legal. Even if parties freely 'agree' to the terms of the license, it doesn't mean that the license/contract will survive judicial review.
And that is what this trial is about. Are Apple's terms and conditions (pertaining to app distribution) legal? Is Apple restricting legal trade (between Cydia, its app developers and end-users who are willing to pay for the apps/tweaks)? I would say yes, Apple is indeed restricting trade, and is monopoly App Store operator. The question is, is Apple's restriction of trade illegal? macOS doesn't suffer from this kind of lock down and iOS is based on macOS.
And then the other point about 'clear licensing terms.' What if a license or contract at your job required you to work on Saturdays and Sundays and not get paid. You could agree to work there for the money if you're broke, but that contract would likely be found illegal if of the parties challenged its legality in court. Only time will tell what the judicial system will say about Apple's terms and conditions, but I for one, who liked what Cydia offered, am glad to see judicial review of APple's terms and conditions.
And if the courts find in favor of Apple, then so be it, but at least the conversation/trail took place.
Monopolies are NOT generally considered anything over 50% share. As Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 documents 65% is the bare minimum and "the Supreme Court has never found a party with less than 75% market share to have monopoly power. And we have observed that when monopolization has been found the defendant controlled seventy to one hundred percent of the relevant market.” (citations omitted)); Syufy Enters. v. Am. Multicinema, Inc., 793 F.2d 990, 995 (9th Cir. 1986)"
You may not like it but that is reality.
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Sooner or later you’ll need to settle on a position. Is it “generally considered” or is it something a few courts here and there have argued is notionally possible but have not actually ruled specifically exists?
You can’t maintain both positions simultaneously.
The DOJ had no issue stepping up and making their case against Apple when they saw antitrust issues in the iBook case. The fact that the current batch of antitrust claims seem to be trial balloons made by individual companies to see if anything will stick and legislators have all but abandoned faith in the courts in favor of new legislation indicates there is no there there.
The last thing anyone needs is arbitrary marketshare thresholds that criminalizes a company’s previously legal and acceptable business practices. Especially if it allows slightly smaller competitors to keep doing them. Courts are very aware of the implications and use many tools and tests to determine the existence and abuse of a monopoly. People really need to get over the idea that there is some magic number that triggers antitrust armageddon for a company and come to the realization that it is a multitude of factors. Many of which have evolved over the years as courts have better defined the constitutional limits of regulatory action. It’s no secret the government has dialed back their prosecution of antitrust cases after some very unfavorable and unpredictable rulings and the courts have weighed the track record of prosecutors’ previous arguments for intervention that didn’t pan out in their rulings.
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Are you saying that Cydia was ever an easy to install product, or did they need to create a malware installer to get it onto your system? It's pretty clear that the iPhone/iOS ecosystem was always designed to be a walled garden and rather than sue Cydia like they maybe would any other malware vendor they could identify by name, they chose to make it irrelevant by simultaneously viewing their own security holes as their own problem, and making people less interested in hacking capabilities onto their device by making their first party experience more desirable.
Likewise, are you saying that the licensing terms are an exercise of monopoly power? Because Apple clearly had no monopoly power in phones when the iOS restrictions were put in place and therefore couldn't be leveraging that power to achieve a monopoly in another market. Apple has seen the hardware/software/distribution model as unified since the early days when they were still a scrappy little upstart.
iOS is based on MacOS, but it is not MacOS so MacOS is irrelevant to this discussion, just like saying CrackerJacks and Grandma's cookies are too sweet and don't need to be because Frito Lays also sells Doritos which are too salty instead. Different products, different solutions, different discussions.
Saying a company can't provide an integrated experience and using the power of government to kill a valid and useful technology model is going to have all kinds of negative repercussions. I get that some minority of people want the iOS ecosystem to be different, and for whatever reason don't want to go with Android which offers all the wonderful features they seem to find so valuable, but that's not a reason to bring Big Brother in to punish legitimate, and popular, technological design decisions.
Apple is an American corporation and as such, is subject to the laws of the land including antitrust laws. Apple doesn't get to decide which of their business practices the antitrust laws don't apply.
Monopolies are NOT generally considered anything over 50% share. As Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21 documents 65% is the bare minimum and the Supreme Court goes with 75%
The reference to that is:
"See Hayden Publ'g Co., Inc. v. Cox Broad. Corp., 730 F.2d 64, 69 n.7 (2d Cir. 1984) ("[A] party may have monopoly power in a particular market, even though its market share is less than 50%."); Broadway Delivery Corp. v. UPS, 651 F.2d 122, 129 (2d Cir. 1981) ("[W]hen the evidence presents a fair jury issue of monopoly power, the jury should not be told that it must find monopoly power lacking below a specified share."); Yoder Bros., Inc. v. Cal.-Fla. Plant Corp., 537 F.2d, 1347, 1367 n.19 (5th Cir. 1976) (rejecting "a rigid rule requiring 50% of the market for a monopolization offense without regard to any other factors")."
Please note that the California ruling sited later cases (the youngest was 1986) and when looking up that "Some courts have stated that it is possible for a defendant to possess monopoly power with a market share of less than fifty percent." part I got the Department of Justice Archives which warns "This is archived content from the U.S. Department of Justice website. The information here may be outdated and links may no longer function."
Also that page has this:
"Following Alcoa and American Tobacco, courts typically have required a dominant market share before inferring the existence of monopoly power. The Fifth Circuit observed that "monopolization is rarely found when the defendant's share of the relevant market is below 70%." Similarly, the Tenth Circuit noted that to establish "monopoly power, lower courts generally require a minimum market share of between 70% and 80%." Likewise, the Third Circuit stated that "a share significantly larger than 55% has been required to establish prima facie market power" and held that a market share between seventy-five percent and eighty percent of sales is "more than adequate to establish a prima facie case of power."
Apple is in California and that is where the case will be decided and that court has already gone with the later (minimum of 65% and 75% for conservative) section.
This is a failed analogy and argument as gasoline is what makes the car work. In this case, that would be the battery. Which just as an FYI, you can replace the battery on your phone with a non-OEM one.
It a few courts. The "generally considered" baseline is 65% minimum and at the Supreme Court it goes up to 75% marketshare. More over the court Apple is in front of has already ruled that the marketshare of the iPhone is global.
That's simply not true. 50% share is generally considered a minimum, not definitive. And market share is just one consideration.
Monopolization Defined
The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power.
It is worth stopping for a minute and realizing that “monopoly” literally means “one seller”. So the question is how small can ones market share be while still being able to distort the market in a way substantially similar to the distortions of an enterprise with 100% market share.
This isn’t a discussion that starts at zero, or even 50 and works up, it’s a discussion that starts at 100 and works down.
The Federal Court Systems is not just the Supreme Court but also includes district courts and circuit courts. The DOJ statement was speaking to courts where antitrust cases are most often heard and clearly stated a 50% figure. The FTC, as another example, also speaks to the 50% figure as being the typical minimum used by courts. In some circumstances, the percentage could even be less.
You may not like it but that is reality.
How is that different than what I said?
I said, "monopolies are generally considered anything over 50% share" to which you replied "50% is share is generally considered a minimum." Is that not the same thing?
A monopoly (or monopoly power) as being discussed here in the legal sense can exist when there is more than one player in a particular market. There were more than one desktop OS maker in the 1990s, for example, during the Microsoft case and rulings. Microsoft didn't have 100% of that market.
Because your statement claims "anything over 50% share" is generally considered a monopoly. That's completely false. It is not considered a monopoly to simply surpass 50% share.
To be considered a monopoly, you must meet all the requirements presented, not just a market share minimum. And often that market share minimum is going to be higher than 50%.
I clearly said generally (not definitively) just as you said "generally considered a minimum."
Also, there are are legal and illegal monopolies and distinguishing between the two is typically where other factors come into play.
Recognize that the DOJ case involved conspiracy and collusion with book sellers. Neither of those are in effect in the App Store
No. You’re tripping on the difference between a necessary condition and a sufficient condition.
And I quoted you as saying generally.
Again, simply having 50% share is not "generally considered" a monopoly in the US. As defined by the FTC, "monopoly" is shorthand for "significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors." It's not a label you put on a firm for exceeding 50% share.
Apple does not meet this definition by any stretch of the imagination.
Perhaps you should just read the definition from the FTC. The difference between a legal and illegal monopoly, is exclusionary conduct without legitimate business justification.
Apple doesn't engage in exclusionary conduct within the market. And they certainly have legitimate business justifications for their strategy. So it would be hard to argue that they are breaking antitrust laws.