<story><title>Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut</title><url>https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/appleid/android-apple-music-account-payment-none.jpg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iav</author><text>Defining Apple as a monopolist on iOS is like calling Ford a monopolist in selling radios in Ford vehicles. No one thinks it’s a violation for Ford to include their own radio (built by a 3rd party like Bose - same as an app) in a Ford truck, and offer you an expensive upgrade to that radio (say also by Olufsen - also like a better App) if you want it. No one demands that Ford allow a different vendor to sell you a compatible radio through a Ford dealer and for Ford to not take a cut of the purchase price. And if Ford says that installing a third party radio without their authorization voids your warranty or otherwise makes it impossible to do so, it’s generally accepted to be OK. This analogy is at the core of Apple’s defense and it was brought up in previous anti trust cases like AA v. Sabre.</text></item><item><author>Despegar</author><text>&amp;gt;That&amp;#x27;s correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant&amp;#x2F;monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market).&lt;p&gt;The reason why everyone has to narrowly define the market to &amp;quot;Apple has monopoly power in the iOS market&amp;quot; is because they don&amp;#x27;t actually have monopoly power in smartphones and are mad about that fact. Defining markets are a major part of antitrust cases and just because a prosecutor or regulator is willing to do it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it will actually work in court.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>Analogous != same. It means its very similar factually.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google&amp;#x27;s store the same way they choose to run their own store.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant&amp;#x2F;monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market). Apple cannot then do the same thing it prohibits in its own app store in the Google Play Store, which has similar rules, because both of these actions have the effect of taking legal positions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;In fact it&amp;#x27;s arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet customer demands. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which Apple does not permit. It&amp;#x27;s literally Apple&amp;#x27;s way, plus a 30% cut for doing nothing, or you&amp;#x27;re not even allowed to play. And that&amp;#x27;s exactly what antitrust laws were intended to prevent.</text></item><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>Obviously if Apple owns one platform, and Google owns the other platform, it is not actually the same situation.&lt;p&gt;The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google&amp;#x27;s store the same way they choose to run their own store.&lt;p&gt;In fact it&amp;#x27;s arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet customer demands.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>Note to the people asking why this matters:&lt;p&gt;Legally, if you take a position in federal court on X (i.e., that it&amp;#x27;s okay to ban external transactions by apps using your app store), and you are found to be doing not-X in an analogous situation (i.e., setting up external transactions to avoid fees in your competitors&amp;#x27; app store), the court can rule against you in the original case...and then sanction you &lt;i&gt;and your lawyers&lt;/i&gt; for wasting the court&amp;#x27;s time proclaiming X...and then legally bar you from asserting X in those proceedings, or related proceedings.&lt;p&gt;Courts are generally okay with some form of alternative arguments, (i.e., I didn&amp;#x27;t do Y, but if I did Y it was legal for me to do so), but they absolutely will not accept &lt;i&gt;contradictory&lt;/i&gt; arguments by the same party (It&amp;#x27;s okay for me to do Z but I won&amp;#x27;t allow others to do Z in the same situation).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vonmoltke</author><text>&amp;gt; if Ford says that installing a third party radio without their authorization voids your warranty or otherwise makes it impossible to do so, it’s generally accepted to be OK&lt;p&gt;This has been generally illegal in the US since 1975: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&amp;#x2F;uscode&amp;#x2F;text&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;2302&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.law.cornell.edu&amp;#x2F;uscode&amp;#x2F;text&amp;#x2F;15&amp;#x2F;2302&lt;/a&gt; (section c)</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Music on Android requires its own payment details to avoid Google 30% cut</title><url>https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/appleid/android-apple-music-account-payment-none.jpg</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iav</author><text>Defining Apple as a monopolist on iOS is like calling Ford a monopolist in selling radios in Ford vehicles. No one thinks it’s a violation for Ford to include their own radio (built by a 3rd party like Bose - same as an app) in a Ford truck, and offer you an expensive upgrade to that radio (say also by Olufsen - also like a better App) if you want it. No one demands that Ford allow a different vendor to sell you a compatible radio through a Ford dealer and for Ford to not take a cut of the purchase price. And if Ford says that installing a third party radio without their authorization voids your warranty or otherwise makes it impossible to do so, it’s generally accepted to be OK. This analogy is at the core of Apple’s defense and it was brought up in previous anti trust cases like AA v. Sabre.</text></item><item><author>Despegar</author><text>&amp;gt;That&amp;#x27;s correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant&amp;#x2F;monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market).&lt;p&gt;The reason why everyone has to narrowly define the market to &amp;quot;Apple has monopoly power in the iOS market&amp;quot; is because they don&amp;#x27;t actually have monopoly power in smartphones and are mad about that fact. Defining markets are a major part of antitrust cases and just because a prosecutor or regulator is willing to do it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it will actually work in court.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>Analogous != same. It means its very similar factually.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google&amp;#x27;s store the same way they choose to run their own store.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s correct. But the law does require them to run the stores in a way that does not violate antitrust laws. Apple is violating antitrust laws by forcing companies to use Apple Pay as a condition of using the App Store (i.e., leveraging dominant&amp;#x2F;monopolistic market position in one market in a non-competitive manner over another market). Apple cannot then do the same thing it prohibits in its own app store in the Google Play Store, which has similar rules, because both of these actions have the effect of taking legal positions.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;In fact it&amp;#x27;s arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet customer demands. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Which Apple does not permit. It&amp;#x27;s literally Apple&amp;#x27;s way, plus a 30% cut for doing nothing, or you&amp;#x27;re not even allowed to play. And that&amp;#x27;s exactly what antitrust laws were intended to prevent.</text></item><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>Obviously if Apple owns one platform, and Google owns the other platform, it is not actually the same situation.&lt;p&gt;The law does not require that Google and Apple run their online stores the same way, or that Apple interact with Google&amp;#x27;s store the same way they choose to run their own store.&lt;p&gt;In fact it&amp;#x27;s arguable that a free marketplace encourages and depends on different companies taking different approaches to meet customer demands.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>Note to the people asking why this matters:&lt;p&gt;Legally, if you take a position in federal court on X (i.e., that it&amp;#x27;s okay to ban external transactions by apps using your app store), and you are found to be doing not-X in an analogous situation (i.e., setting up external transactions to avoid fees in your competitors&amp;#x27; app store), the court can rule against you in the original case...and then sanction you &lt;i&gt;and your lawyers&lt;/i&gt; for wasting the court&amp;#x27;s time proclaiming X...and then legally bar you from asserting X in those proceedings, or related proceedings.&lt;p&gt;Courts are generally okay with some form of alternative arguments, (i.e., I didn&amp;#x27;t do Y, but if I did Y it was legal for me to do so), but they absolutely will not accept &lt;i&gt;contradictory&lt;/i&gt; arguments by the same party (It&amp;#x27;s okay for me to do Z but I won&amp;#x27;t allow others to do Z in the same situation).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Denvercoder9</author><text>&amp;gt; And if Ford says that installing a third party radio without their authorization voids your warranty or otherwise makes it impossible to do so, it’s generally accepted to be OK.&lt;p&gt;No, not really. In the EU for example, a unauthorized change to one part can legally never void the warranty to an unrelated part.</text></comment>