Fair enough. But, that doesn’t explain how Apple didn’t face the same problem, given that they don’t provide any alternatives at all.
For one thing, the judge in the Epic V Apple case did rule against Apple over its anti-steering position which wasn’t an inconsequential loss for Apple (Apple is appealing that decision). For another, on the other counts, the judge didn’t exonerate Apple of being an illegal monopoly, she said that Epic had failed in its burden to demonstrate such. A policy of not allowing competing stores is apparently not enough to reach that bar.
Maybe one way to look at it is that Apple is being “fair” in that it ruthlessly (but evenhandedly) holds to its position of no third party stores; Google, on the other hand, said “Third party stores are 100% welcome,” but then actively used its position to try to kneecap potential competitors to the benefit of its own store. Then they did a bunch of other shady shit, and for all of it Epic provided a trove of evidence.
I have a Samsung tablet. It comes with both the Samsung store and Google store. They don’t have the same selection and the Google store is much better. The only things I’ve ever installed from the Samsung store are apps proprietary to Samsung devices that allow me to do things like easily transfer files from one Samsung device to another. Otherwise the store stinks.
If you are in a town with only two restaurants, and one has a full menu and the other sells only breakfast cereals (and ones people usually aren’t interested in, like shredded wheat and unsweetened cornflakes) then cries of a monopoly aren’t tugging on my heartstrings as a consumer.
Thanks! This actually makes a ton of sense to me.
It’s true for Kindle store as well.
Personal anecdote time. After my partner got pregnant, we looked into baby monitors. Like most things prefixed with the word “baby,” monitors are over-priced. So instead of dropping a lot of money for middling camera and single-use monitor base with a small screen, we bought a Kindle Fire 10 and a Eufy day/night camera. The one issue is that the Eufy monitoring app is not available in the Kindle store. However, it’s easy enough to install Google’s store into various Kindle models and multiple websites will tell you how to do it.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to hear Epic’s appeal of the earlier ruling that Apple isn’t violating antitrust laws with their iOS store. This puts Epic on the hook for a $74mil court cost fee paid to Apple.