March 21, 2024 the United States filed an antitrust complaint against Apple. The filing is a new approach to antitrust and hinges on mostly how Apple chose to design the iPhone from the very start.
Another great piece, Steven. Ultimately all of this reeks of a more basic trojan horse: EU and US governments using these maneuvers to reduce iOS security for enhanced surveillance.
I find this sort of thing absolutely ridiculous. The DOJ is essentially trying to tell people what features they are allowed to implement in a product and also how those features get implemented. I hated this when it happened to Microsoft, and I found it absolutely insane. As an example, if I made a hammer that was better than all other hammers, and people bought my hammer but that hammer happened to also have a bottle opener on it, would the government then be able to say that I leveraged my monopoly on hammers to gain a monopoly on bottle openers? It is more sensible to say that for some reason people preferred my product, and that all I did was supply people with a product that they found valuable. Why should such a thing be illegal?
Yeah... I suppose I am not adding anything to the conversation here, but thank you for the write up SteveSi. Your insight is appreciated.
Wow Steven — this is a very well researched and written post. Must have been quite a lot of effort to compile all this, but we are certainly better off now that we read it. And the MSFT experience and anecdotes are so useful too.
Excellently researched article Steve, your anecdotes from Microsoft are very insightful. My hope is this becomes a landmark case for the limits of antitrust, by DOJ losing completely, but I doubt this will happen. The case law and the letter of the law at this point only exists as a historical constraint, something a new theory like Living Constitution etc can easily dismiss. Their whole motivation and deciding factors seems to me bigness and then they work backwards to see what sort of case they can bring against the “Big Tech”. At some point someone needs to make the govt/ DOJ understand that they don’t need to be so paranoid of big companies, those companies have far lesser influence than you think and trying to crush them every time they become big is not healthy for society or for you either. I wonder when that day, if ever, will come.
Just curious about the “smartphone is not a PC” idea. While a agree that in a very practical sense the two are not the same, when you start to deconstruct what they are, the line seems much blurrier to me. I agree that they are marketed as different products and that part of what Apple is selling is an ecosystem, but I am less convinced that Apple’s marketing is in any way what dictates what their devices are. I can market water as ice but that does not make it so.
I guess I find personal desire for a very technical contrast of what separates a smartphone from a PC. Maybe this is pedantic, and for all I know it may have already been worked out somewhere in a legal setting.
All the same, I enjoyed reading an opinion from the opposite side on this when almost everything I have heard up to now supported the DOJ. I look forward to reading more.
Without doubt, Apple, Android and Samsung reserve specific APIs in their sole interest of monopolizing profitable apps. Just because DOJ have not yet gotten to Android (kinda) or Samsung on that topic does not make it right for Apple, who is by far the most egregious violator. APIs for SMS, Bluetooth pairing, direct WiFi to name a few, Apple’s apps have magical experiences with such APIs, others have to go through such obfuscated processes deeming them worthless. Hey, I like Apple, but call a spade a spade, I would like see Apple level the playing field. Steven, your view truly sounds like you are looking to be on someone’s good graces. You are smarter than that.
Waiting for your Amicus Curiea filing. The clarity you provide to your readers/followers here could do wonders for the judge in this case. Your history would speak to the fact of your lack bias in support of Apple. Something to think about...
What about the right to repair, is that addressed at all? I like Apple products generally but they do make it more expensive and difficult to fix the products. Really hated that they took away the headphone jack and replaced it with the lightning connector. Wish the MacBook still had a network jack!
Conflicted about this piece. I agree that it's a weak-ish case to bring because, on any sensible market definition, Apple simply doesn't have the market share or power to trigger this kind of anti-monopolisation suit. However, I find the obvious subtext to the piece really offensive and distasteful. That subtext is essentially: "these dumb regulatory guys in D.C. who don't have computer science degrees just don't understand technology and so they don't understand how our markets work and they have no business interfering and opining on it." This is a horrible fig leaf: the reality is that power always corrupts in all circumstances and that includes when software or other technology companies hold that power. Markets don't actually become somehow impossibly difficult to understand just because they involve code or CPUs. Moreover, the lust for money and power is as equally distributed among holders of computer science degrees as it is among the rest of the population. Furthermore, the ways in which that power corrupts are as old as the hills and certainly as old (older, in fact) as the Sherman Act and so drawing analogies as far back as Standard Oil is very often a powerful and absolutely valid and appropriate tool for constructing the argument.
The government, who has the biggest harmful monopoly on the planet, the territorial monopoly on the use of force and violence, and who uses that monopoly to force upon society the corporation, which is a government granted shield to limit liabilities, takes issue with innovative entrepreneurs and private citizens conducting voluntarily transactions. The situation couldn't be more perverse. The government is projecting and are in fact guilty themselves of all the things they accuse.
Great article Steven! I perhaps simplistically reduce the case to who gets to define runtimes because control of those runtimes (and where they sit in the stack) can provide a significant economic and monetary benefits. Apps on the iPhone (with good reason) aren’t allowed to have their own runtimes; Flash as referenced is a good example. SuperApps is another looser type of runtime.
Apple has at the same time extended “runtime” to more customer facing elements— iMessage and the Wallet, for example. This approach means that there is one and only one interface for SMS or payments; this is somewhat beneficial to the users, as it prevents the need to open different wallets for different transactions, etc.
A remedy that allows for an open set of APIs to plug into these higher order “runtimes” is possibly, and arguably advantageous for Apple to further the value of its ecosystem.
Another great piece, Steven. Ultimately all of this reeks of a more basic trojan horse: EU and US governments using these maneuvers to reduce iOS security for enhanced surveillance.
I find this sort of thing absolutely ridiculous. The DOJ is essentially trying to tell people what features they are allowed to implement in a product and also how those features get implemented. I hated this when it happened to Microsoft, and I found it absolutely insane. As an example, if I made a hammer that was better than all other hammers, and people bought my hammer but that hammer happened to also have a bottle opener on it, would the government then be able to say that I leveraged my monopoly on hammers to gain a monopoly on bottle openers? It is more sensible to say that for some reason people preferred my product, and that all I did was supply people with a product that they found valuable. Why should such a thing be illegal?
Yeah... I suppose I am not adding anything to the conversation here, but thank you for the write up SteveSi. Your insight is appreciated.
Wow Steven — this is a very well researched and written post. Must have been quite a lot of effort to compile all this, but we are certainly better off now that we read it. And the MSFT experience and anecdotes are so useful too.
Excellently researched article Steve, your anecdotes from Microsoft are very insightful. My hope is this becomes a landmark case for the limits of antitrust, by DOJ losing completely, but I doubt this will happen. The case law and the letter of the law at this point only exists as a historical constraint, something a new theory like Living Constitution etc can easily dismiss. Their whole motivation and deciding factors seems to me bigness and then they work backwards to see what sort of case they can bring against the “Big Tech”. At some point someone needs to make the govt/ DOJ understand that they don’t need to be so paranoid of big companies, those companies have far lesser influence than you think and trying to crush them every time they become big is not healthy for society or for you either. I wonder when that day, if ever, will come.
Calling Robert Bork the "canon" of antitrust is deeply wrong and incorrect, and really the source of the problems we're facing now.
Just curious about the “smartphone is not a PC” idea. While a agree that in a very practical sense the two are not the same, when you start to deconstruct what they are, the line seems much blurrier to me. I agree that they are marketed as different products and that part of what Apple is selling is an ecosystem, but I am less convinced that Apple’s marketing is in any way what dictates what their devices are. I can market water as ice but that does not make it so.
I guess I find personal desire for a very technical contrast of what separates a smartphone from a PC. Maybe this is pedantic, and for all I know it may have already been worked out somewhere in a legal setting.
All the same, I enjoyed reading an opinion from the opposite side on this when almost everything I have heard up to now supported the DOJ. I look forward to reading more.
Without doubt, Apple, Android and Samsung reserve specific APIs in their sole interest of monopolizing profitable apps. Just because DOJ have not yet gotten to Android (kinda) or Samsung on that topic does not make it right for Apple, who is by far the most egregious violator. APIs for SMS, Bluetooth pairing, direct WiFi to name a few, Apple’s apps have magical experiences with such APIs, others have to go through such obfuscated processes deeming them worthless. Hey, I like Apple, but call a spade a spade, I would like see Apple level the playing field. Steven, your view truly sounds like you are looking to be on someone’s good graces. You are smarter than that.
Waiting for your Amicus Curiea filing. The clarity you provide to your readers/followers here could do wonders for the judge in this case. Your history would speak to the fact of your lack bias in support of Apple. Something to think about...
What about the right to repair, is that addressed at all? I like Apple products generally but they do make it more expensive and difficult to fix the products. Really hated that they took away the headphone jack and replaced it with the lightning connector. Wish the MacBook still had a network jack!
Conflicted about this piece. I agree that it's a weak-ish case to bring because, on any sensible market definition, Apple simply doesn't have the market share or power to trigger this kind of anti-monopolisation suit. However, I find the obvious subtext to the piece really offensive and distasteful. That subtext is essentially: "these dumb regulatory guys in D.C. who don't have computer science degrees just don't understand technology and so they don't understand how our markets work and they have no business interfering and opining on it." This is a horrible fig leaf: the reality is that power always corrupts in all circumstances and that includes when software or other technology companies hold that power. Markets don't actually become somehow impossibly difficult to understand just because they involve code or CPUs. Moreover, the lust for money and power is as equally distributed among holders of computer science degrees as it is among the rest of the population. Furthermore, the ways in which that power corrupts are as old as the hills and certainly as old (older, in fact) as the Sherman Act and so drawing analogies as far back as Standard Oil is very often a powerful and absolutely valid and appropriate tool for constructing the argument.
The government, who has the biggest harmful monopoly on the planet, the territorial monopoly on the use of force and violence, and who uses that monopoly to force upon society the corporation, which is a government granted shield to limit liabilities, takes issue with innovative entrepreneurs and private citizens conducting voluntarily transactions. The situation couldn't be more perverse. The government is projecting and are in fact guilty themselves of all the things they accuse.
Great article Steven! I perhaps simplistically reduce the case to who gets to define runtimes because control of those runtimes (and where they sit in the stack) can provide a significant economic and monetary benefits. Apps on the iPhone (with good reason) aren’t allowed to have their own runtimes; Flash as referenced is a good example. SuperApps is another looser type of runtime.
Apple has at the same time extended “runtime” to more customer facing elements— iMessage and the Wallet, for example. This approach means that there is one and only one interface for SMS or payments; this is somewhat beneficial to the users, as it prevents the need to open different wallets for different transactions, etc.
A remedy that allows for an open set of APIs to plug into these higher order “runtimes” is possibly, and arguably advantageous for Apple to further the value of its ecosystem.