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Apple Rejecting Apps That Use Dropbox
KynloStephen66515:
But there is a viable competition.
Apple has a dominant market position in only the market for "Apple products". Not in smartphones, not in laptops, not in desktops, and given market trends, not in tablets (at least not for long).
Do you really want government to intervene because Apple has a monopoly in producing iphones or ipads?
Apple is no more dominant in any product category than General Motors is dominant in cars.
But General Motors has a dominant market position in making Cadillacs. Should government intervene to foster competition?
-eleman (May 02, 2012, 05:08 PM)
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When they are blocking things purely because users might signup for an alternative service...yes...Apple must die. That is my one and only opinion on this, nobody (And you can ask anybody on DC who knows me) will EVER change my mind about apple.
eleman:
Uh, don't take me as a fanboi, I wouldn't be caught dead owning an Apple product.
But I don't believe that Apple's policies constitute violations of anti-trust laws, because, as I said, there is a viable competition. Consumers have the very real and reasonable option of telling Apple "go forth and multiply".
What I'd concede, however, is that jailbreaking is technically a crime (violation of DMCA). That twists the concept of ownership.
So, if I were a US citizen, I'd be demanding the government to fix the intellectual property rights regime for good, instead of interfering in a single firm's policies. The disease is more deep-rooted. Focusing on symptoms won't do much good in the long run.
wraith808:
<sarcasm>Yes, Apple doesn't have a dominant position in the marketplace- that's why their market capitalization has outstripped Microsoft.</sarcasm>
The existence of alternatives doesn't change dominance. iOS is the dominant OS in the mobile market- not to the same extent as Windows on the desktop, but still dominant. Though charts of penetration have variance, most show iOS with around a 65% penetration. For an example see this chart from NetMarketShare. Apple did something that was dissimilar from Microsoft- it set rules for participation before there was competition. However, as those rules show their lack of coverage (i.e. iCloud vs DropBox, iBooks vs Kindle/Nook), they change the rules, using their gateway to entry to strong arm the competition.
One might say, well go to the competition. Buy-in and sunk cost are two very big reasons why this isn't a really viable alternative.
eleman:
Apple did something that was dissimilar from Microsoft- it set rules for participation before there was competition. However, as those rules show their lack of coverage (i.e. iCloud vs DropBox, iBooks vs Kindle/Nook), they change the rules, using their gateway to entry to strong arm the competition.
One might say, well go to the competition. Buy-in and sunk cost are two very big reasons why this isn't a really viable alternative.
-wraith808 (May 02, 2012, 06:15 PM)
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Well yes, these are very legitimate concerns. In any case, I believe the right solution is preventing device lock-in once and for all, and not forcing just one company behave under the stick of a DoJ investigation.
wraith808:
^ To prevent a device lock-in, you'll have to enforce a standard across OS's, and that's not really realistic. Also, anything like that would have to be enforced from a DOJ level, on a per-country basis. I personally think it's just better for everyone to compete on their own merits, and know that their responsibility is to the consumer after a certain growth level is reached. But... yeah...
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