0.5.1
The point everyone is missing in the EU vs Apple and DOJ vs Apple conflicts is that Apple is not a monopoly. In the EU, Apple has somewhere around 25% market share on mobile – behind Samsung and way behind Android overall.
A developer who wants to develop for Windows has to buy a PC. That PC will – 70% chance – have an Intel processor. Ask how many Macs there are in government entities. How many applications, ostensibly for the public good, run on Windows clients and how many on Linux or Mac. But no noises about that monopoly, which still persists, despite the lauded victory of the DOJ iover Microsoft in the nineties.
People bought iPhones and still do, because they are beautifully designed. I don’t know of an app that you can only get for iPhone or has no equivalent on Android. People don’t buy iPhones for the apps – there are way more apps available on Android. They buy iPhones for the design and for the promise of security.
I have to pay an exorbitant amount every month to a telephone corporation for data. They didn’t invent the internet, they are merely the gatekeepers on mobile. It costs them no more if I am out of the country, yet they are allowed to charge exorbitant roaming fees. Yet these companies are explicitly excluded from the DMA.
Apple’s Core Technology Fee is more like the pricing structure of the New York Times. Customers have bought the Newspaper, so there is no need for the NYT to charge for advertising? In this case we recognize that the NYT has invested in its brand. Its customers can count on reliable reporting, interesting columns, high profile opinions and sound editing. It was hard work building both the brand and the customer base.
Now someone wants to come along and freeload on the NYT. Demands that they carry their advertising for free, even if it disparages the newspaper it’s in. They don’t have to advertise in the NYT – there are other, much more popular