219
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] MudMan@fedia.io 33 points 8 months ago

Some nuance to that. The software platform is a duopoly, the hardware is not.

Not that it matters too much, because anticompetitive practices don't need a 100% or even a 50% market share.

[-] chalk46@kbin.social 8 points 8 months ago

and even then, Android is mostly open source.
I've personally updated the kernel to my Amazon Fire tablet (and believe me, the 3.18 branch doesn't contain as many security backports as they'd have you believe)

[-] maynarkh@feddit.nl 14 points 8 months ago

Antitrust is not about whether people have the arbitrary ability to go around it, it's about whether people actually go around it, and if not, is that because one player entrenched themselves in the market that they are able to distort it.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 9 points 8 months ago

I mean, you're both right.

Yes, the use of OSS by Google doesn't exempt them from antitrust laws.

But also yes, it does give them a defense that Apple just doesn't have. Not solely because of the OS portions, but also because it tends to guarantee some nominal competition. See above my point about Samsung's alternatives.

[-] Hiko0@feddit.de 2 points 8 months ago

Correct. But hardware is not the problem here, I‘d say.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 13 points 8 months ago

I guess it depends. If Apple made iOS available on other hardware this conversation would be different, I bet. The problem with Apple's practices is the "ecosystem" approach. You get one of their devices and you HAVE to use their OS, you HAVE to use their core app bundle, you HAVE to use their store. And in a number of things where you don't have to, you're heavily incentivized or the competition is made less competitive. And now you're on a software platform that only works with Apple hardware, so now you have an incentive to migrate your other computing devices (laptops, desktops, smart TVs) to be from Apple, too, because that's where your compatible software lives.

It's the sort of practice antitrust laws exist to prevent.

Google is no saint and will do as much of this as they're allowed, but at least the nature of their OS and the diversity of manufacturers and OS customizations means they don't control the ecosystem end to end. The biggest manufacturer is Samsung, and they will ship with their browser, an alternate store, a different mail client and a bunch of OS modifications Google doesn't control, so Samsung and Google give each other some plausible deniability within the Android ecosystem oligopoly.

this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
219 points (80.5% liked)

Technology

60035 readers
4097 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS