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U.S. Lawmakers Introduce Antitrust Legislation That Could Significantly Impact Apple and Other Tech Companies
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This is the death march of every empire. Their inertia gets too big and they fight against smaller innovators (cities and states) by increasing control over everything. Over time this inability to innovate leads to breakdown. They retool and downsize or die.We really need to break up these two political parties. They have become a monopoly and they’re not looking out for the small business or consumers…
Innovation in politics is severely limited
Yes. Because they cannot boss me around. I don’t use Google and I don’t use Facebook. Try not using the govt for a year and see how it goes.
I don’t like that Google and Facebook have been shown to have power to influence elections and we should find ways to curtail those specific problems. But corporations are great - because they are optional.
It’s the reverse. In Apple’s case it stifles it. Apple does not have a monopoly position any any of these areas but they attract better customers because they make better products with features people actually pay for. On almost every software market Apple makes a first party software the 3rd parties treated us like 2nd class citizens and left our versions way behind other platforms, until Apple made a 1st party app. Suddenly the competitors did what they claimed couldn’t be done before.
Adobe was heading down that road until Apple came out with Aperture. The next year Adobe’s Lightroom was announced anc released the following year and accelerated their development on Apple platforms. Once Apple saw their commitment they chose to discontinue development.
Which will screw so many consumers who love that model and want to continue to support it. A silent majority.
We passed bills designed to end poverty and homelessness in the 1960s. Climate change a wee bit harder.
Facebook has a virtual monopoly on social media.
Google has a virtual monopoly on search.
Amazon has a virtual monopoly on e-commerce.
Apple has a virtual monopoly on…checks notes…nothing.
As they say on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others…
Also a difference:
Amazon, Facebook, and Google rely on invading users privacy and actively oppose efforts to improve privacy.
Apple does the opposite.
These legislators are out of touch with tech, and it shows in their legislation.
Google has a virtual monopoly on search.
Amazon has a virtual monopoly on e-commerce.
Apple has a virtual monopoly on…checks notes…nothing.
As they say on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the others…
Also a difference:
Amazon, Facebook, and Google rely on invading users privacy and actively oppose efforts to improve privacy.
Apple does the opposite.
These legislators are out of touch with tech, and it shows in their legislation.
Apple's business practices are awful and Tim Cook has really pissed off developers.
What government, the Communist regime currently in power ? Still, this is good as I want Big Tech to suffer, wither and die. It has caused nothing but problems.Because THAT’S the kind of power the government should have.
At that point, aren’t they doing exactly what they’re accusing Apple of doing, picking the winners and the losers?
Hell, time to setup “separate” subsidiaries that don’t meet the market cap.
You don't get it. Even if you don't directly use their products and services, there are other ways they work their way into your life.
Goodbye Big Five
gizmodo.com
I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible
Week 1: Amazon Apparently, I am a masochist. I am on a mission to live without the tech giants—to discover whether such a thing is even possible. Not just
gizmodo.com
I Cut Facebook Out of My Life. Surprisingly, I Missed It
Week 2: Facebook After Facebook’s hell-year of scandal, and its unabating erosion of our privacy—a topic I’ve been covering for over 10 years—I never
gizmodo.com
I Cut Google Out Of My Life. It Screwed Up Everything
Week 3: Google Long ago, Google made the mistake of adopting the motto, “Don’t be evil,” in a jab at competitors who exploited their users. Alphabet,
gizmodo.com
I Cut Microsoft Out of My Life—or So I Thought
Week 4: Microsoft When I initially planned to block all the tech giants from my life, I hadn’t thought to include Microsoft, mostly because Microsoft
gizmodo.com
Then bye bye cheap computers, good search and innovation at large. Big innovation needs big tech, like it or not.
It seems you missed my point. The "Bring it on" taunt didn't exactly lead to the results George had naively thought it would.
Well both Republicans and Democrats came together and bailed them out instead of letting the free market determine if they would survive or fail.
U.S. House lawmakers today announced sweeping bipartisan antitrust legislation that could result in major changes to the tech industry, impacting companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
These measures are the culmination of a 16-month antitrust investigation into tech companies practices that kicked off in 2019, and which saw Apple CEO Tim Cook testify in an antitrust hearing alongside Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
At the conclusion of that hearing, which took place in July 2020, the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee leading the inquiry released a 450 page report with recommendations that have turned into the new antitrust bills that were proposed today. The five bills are aimed at Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, with Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline suggesting the legislation will "level the playing field."
Rep. Ken Buck, the lead Republican on the committee, said that the four major tech companies have "harmed American businesses and consumers" by prioritizing "power over innovation."There are five separate bipartisan bills that have been drafted by lawmakers, as outlined below:
Apple's competitors have already been weighing in on the bills. Spotify legal chief Horatio Gutierrez said in a statement that the American Choice and Innovation Online Act is an "important step in addressing anti-competitive conduct in the App Store ecosystem, and a clear sign that momentum has shifted as the world is waking up to the need to demand fair competition in the App economy."
- "American Innovation and Choice Online Act" - Prohibits discriminatory conduct by dominant platforms, including a ban on self-preferencing and picking winners and losers online.
- "Platform Competition and Opportunity Act" - Prohibits acquisitions of competitive threats by dominant platforms, as well acquisitions that expand or entrench the market power of online platforms.
- "Ending Platform Monopolies Act" - Eliminates the ability of dominant platforms to leverage their control over across multiple business lines to self-preference and disadvantage competitors in ways that undermine free and fair competition.
- "Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act" - Promotes competition online by lowering barriers to entry and switching costs for businesses and consumers through interoperability and data portability requirements.
- The "Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act" - Updates filing fees for mergers for the first time in two decades to ensure that Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have the resources they need to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws.
If ultimately passed, the legislation will overhaul competition laws that have not been revisited for decades, but tech companies will likely fight the bills.
Article Link: U.S. Lawmakers Introduce Antitrust Legislation That Could Significantly Impact Apple and Other Tech Companies
Remember that time when browsers were carved out of the OS? That made such a HUGE difference… /sarcasm
I’m sure that the politicians will be making rather a lot of money from the increased lobbying money.
This analogy doesn't make sense though, as Apple was the dominate one via iTunes and then Spotify came along and took over the market. It's more like Apple was one of the first popular Personal Computers with the Apple II, and then IBM came along with their IBM PC and took over the market with Apple never recovering the huge lead in personal computers again.
Geez, Apple solution is their hands … literally. They will need to decide if the App Store is an overall strategical cost, or actually needs to be run at a formidable profit. I personally think the company would stand to win far more than loose with th first. Because the second as its days counted in the current trajectory.
The a company ability build competing solutions together with controlling the sale of third party solutions if not their business models is the main elephant in the room. The control is as such that they charge for goods and services not hosted or delivered by Apple, case in case non app content. Not only that as they establish off the cuff policies in order to keep out anything that does not fit they total control model, case in case the recent xCloud/Stadia vs App Store conundrum. They immediatly came out with new unwritten policies to keep these businesses out of the iOS app ecossystem.This is in no way a pro competition practice.
Imagine if the App Store ran in a way just to cover the running costs. No one else is able to do the same. This would give Apple a massive ecosystem system advantage over competition helping sell even more devices and services, increase consumer and dev trust … keep 99% of the policies in place.
The App Store policies are the only reason in my view why Apple is with such company, Google and Facebook. As a customer I wouldn’t like the the simple iOS process of installing and updating apps as well as managing apps acquired to go away.
Cheers,
The a company ability build competing solutions together with controlling the sale of third party solutions if not their business models is the main elephant in the room. The control is as such that they charge for goods and services not hosted or delivered by Apple, case in case non app content. Not only that as they establish off the cuff policies in order to keep out anything that does not fit they total control model, case in case the recent xCloud/Stadia vs App Store conundrum. They immediatly came out with new unwritten policies to keep these businesses out of the iOS app ecossystem.This is in no way a pro competition practice.
Imagine if the App Store ran in a way just to cover the running costs. No one else is able to do the same. This would give Apple a massive ecosystem system advantage over competition helping sell even more devices and services, increase consumer and dev trust … keep 99% of the policies in place.
The App Store policies are the only reason in my view why Apple is with such company, Google and Facebook. As a customer I wouldn’t like the the simple iOS process of installing and updating apps as well as managing apps acquired to go away.
Cheers,
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I greatly admire & love their hardware and software experience, but their emphasis on the service part of their company (including the App Store) has been a stain on them.
I don’t like the company that they’ve become re. their pursuit to becoming a $3T company.
The way that the App Store is run is obviously unfair re. promoting it’s own services and apps above competitors.
The way they Apple decides to enter service segments that are already well-served by others is unfair. As is their own services not paying 30% on sales and subscriptions.
I think it’s time for Apple to spin off the bulk of its services into a separate company in a similar way that they did with Claris in the 90s.
I’d like to see the App Store’s promotion team utterly independent from Apple etc.
It’s not a clear cut situation though: whilst the Apple relay and email image blocking services is good for the consumer, it’s obviously strong arming content companies into creating apps with Apple ads or subscriptions (as their monetisation from ads is going to be severely limited). Is this an abuse of power by Apple or good for the consumer? You could argue that it’s both.
I don’t like the company that they’ve become re. their pursuit to becoming a $3T company.
The way that the App Store is run is obviously unfair re. promoting it’s own services and apps above competitors.
The way they Apple decides to enter service segments that are already well-served by others is unfair. As is their own services not paying 30% on sales and subscriptions.
I think it’s time for Apple to spin off the bulk of its services into a separate company in a similar way that they did with Claris in the 90s.
I’d like to see the App Store’s promotion team utterly independent from Apple etc.
It’s not a clear cut situation though: whilst the Apple relay and email image blocking services is good for the consumer, it’s obviously strong arming content companies into creating apps with Apple ads or subscriptions (as their monetisation from ads is going to be severely limited). Is this an abuse of power by Apple or good for the consumer? You could argue that it’s both.
So they prioritized power over innovation.
Let’s go back 20 years in time. Apple had to fight against the powerful IBM, Microsoft, Nokia. Google against Altavista, Yahoo, maybe America Online (did they provide search?) and others. Amazon started an online bookstore, not very common back then and had to compete against the bookstore that was located in every shopping street.
They all had to fight the bigger one that was already there.
You can’t get there without innovation.
Without all these companies you would have no smartphone and online shopping today.
What about Microsoft? It’s big. It offers everything, integrates best with its own software and services, which are sometimes even included with their other products and services. Shouldn’t they be more regulated?
Skipping Facebook in my reply because that just sucks.
Let’s go back 20 years in time. Apple had to fight against the powerful IBM, Microsoft, Nokia. Google against Altavista, Yahoo, maybe America Online (did they provide search?) and others. Amazon started an online bookstore, not very common back then and had to compete against the bookstore that was located in every shopping street.
They all had to fight the bigger one that was already there.
You can’t get there without innovation.
Without all these companies you would have no smartphone and online shopping today.
What about Microsoft? It’s big. It offers everything, integrates best with its own software and services, which are sometimes even included with their other products and services. Shouldn’t they be more regulated?
Skipping Facebook in my reply because that just sucks.
I keep wondering how running the App Store as a separate company would work in practice. Would it actually end up being any cheaper? Would they actually charge less than 30% commission? How else would they make money; would they resort to advertising more, would that impact on privacy concerns? Apple has massive economies of scale that an independent App Store wouldn’t have access to.