> I find headlines like this much more appropriate when placed in terms of days of revenue: "Apple loses UK App Store monopoly case, penalty might near 2 days of revenue!"
I feel like fines aren't even an appropriate remedy for this. They're both inherently arbitrary and not something that actually fixes it. And that combination gives governments a perverse incentive, because they get $2B to put in their own pockets while leaving the monopolist to continue monopolizing so they can come back and extract more later instead of actually solving it.
What they should be doing is breaking up companies that do this sort of thing.
Fines can work. We should continue fining them one day of revenue every day until compliance occurs.
1% of annual revenue per week until the problem is fixed would absolutely have them adjusting policies.
Why not 300% or more for systematic abusers ??
You believe that breaking them up is geopolitically infeasible but a fine larger than the GDP of Finland would fly?
On top of that, giant bureaucracies are great at "compliance". That isn't the same as doing the thing you actually wanted though.
The UK could give Apple a choice: Either pay a fine exceeding the GDP of Finland, or stop being a monopoly, or every Apple senior executive will have an arrest warrant and the products will be seized on import.
To achieve the thing you wanted, word the law vaguely and have a judge interpret it. You know, the same way the law is applied to poors like you and me. Nobody gets off a murder by saying "Your Honour, when I stabbed that man to death, technically I didn't meet the criteria in point 3 subsection 12 and therefore I am innocent." Why should corporations get that privilege? (I note they may be found innocent of murder but guilty of something like manslaughter - which is fine! Different degrees of violation of the law can result in greater or lesser sentences. Proportionality is a good thing. Apple should only have to pay half the fine if the judge estimates they've done half what they should)
> pay a fine exceeding the GDP of Finland, or stop being a monopoly
Reaction from the US government would be swift and extreme, especially with this administration. 1000% tariffs on British exports or something like that...
But even under a normal/sane administration, doing something like this to an US tech megacorp would be unfeasible without a backlash that would outweigh any benefits.
> Either pay a fine exceeding the GDP of Finland, or stop being a monopoly, or every Apple senior executive will have an arrest warrant and the products will be seized on import.
That's what breaking them up is. "Stop being a monopoly" is breaking them up.
Leaving them in one piece and trying to pass a separate rule against every monopolistic practice they can come up with while they remain in one piece is an exercise in futility.
> Nobody gets off a murder by saying "Your Honour, when I stabbed that man to death, technically I didn't meet the criteria in point 3 subsection 12 and therefore I am innocent." Why should corporations get that privilege?
Some people do, in fact, e.g. because the evidence was seized unlawfully and the government's penalty for that is not getting to use it, or because the charges were filed in the wrong jurisdiction etc. This is why rich people often get away with things -- they have money to pay lawyers to trawl through thousands of pages of regulations to find the mistake the government made or bamboozle the jury or the court. See e.g. O.J. Simpson.
But the problem in cases like this is much harder than that, because there is no murder without a body. It isn't a normal thing to be having to decide if the person who killed someone is guilty of murder because it isn't a normal thing to be the person who killed someone.
Whereas it is a normal thing for companies to sell things for money and enter into contracts etc. Which means you're not trying to decide if they did something wrong in an outrageous event that happens zero times in the median person's life, you're trying to decide if they did something wrong in any of the millions of transactions they take part in every day.
Is requiring a fee or the use of an identification service in order to publish an app just recovering their costs, or is it a ploy to inhibit people from doing it? Is preventing third party software from performing certain system functions a security measure, or a means to prevent competitors making an app store that actually functions properly?
You can't be getting into the weeds like that or their lawyers will eventually come up with something the government accepts as the former while it still has the effect of the latter. You have to remove the structural incentive they have to do it to begin with, which comes from these separate products all being tied together within the same company.
You can't jail a company. And breaking one up is pretty much impossible considering the geopolitical pressures on huge companies like this.
You can imagine things a country could do in this respect. Require the devices they sell in your country to be completely unlocked with respect to third party app stores and operating systems, but also with respect to regions so that people can buy the unlocked ones there and use them anywhere. Invalidate their copyrights in your country so that third parties can ship phones with iOS. It's punishment, they're not supposed to like it. There are plenty of things they wouldn't like.
Also, putting aside whether the UK could actually break them up, the US or the EU could actually break them up.
> and operating systems
This must be an essential requirement for all PC-like devices.
> regions
People in different regions have very different average income. As long as manufacturer scales prices accordingly, I think locking to this region might be appropriate.
> buy the unlocked ones there and use them anywhere
In the case if the price is already the worldwide highest one, you're right, no locking to the region is needed.
> EU could actually break them up
I think, EU could only achieve that a non-EU-based company leaves EU.
> This must be an essential requirement for all PC-like devices.
Why are you excluding phone-like devices? That's where it's currently the bigger problem. You can't do it at all on iPhones and Android devices malign you with locked boot loaders, attestation failures and undocumented blob drivers tied to an ancient kernel version.
> People in different regions have very different average income. As long as manufacturer scales prices accordingly, I think locking to this region might be appropriate.
It's discriminating against the poor people of any country that also happens to have rich people in it. Both the poor and rich people of that country should want it banned there for their own benefit and they're the ones who get to decide that.
> In the case if the price is already the worldwide highest one, you're right, no locking to the region is needed.
The point of prohibiting the region locking in this case is that it also allows the unlocked versions of that vendor's devices to spread across the world, making them feel the remedy. But also, it would be fine for everyone to just prohibit region locking everywhere. Price discrimination is an arbitrage opportunity and it ought to stay that way.
> I think, EU could only achieve that a non-EU-based company leaves EU.
International companies aren't "based" anywhere in particular except for on paper, but Apple has significant operations in the EU. Moreover, they sell a significant number of devices there.
The way a breakup works anywhere is that the government says "separate these business units into a separate entity or you can't operate here" and then if they don't do it, they both lose >$100B in annual revenue and cause there to be a large economic region where they don't exist which becomes a breeding ground for new competitors that can then spread into other regions. Given that choice, investors might be pretty unhappy if the executives choose that over just separating the company out into ones that collectively get to keep all of that revenue.
> Why are you excluding phone-like devices?
Actually not, for me *smart*phones are PC-like devices. Smartphone, especially modern one, is obviously a miniature personal computer.
> It's discriminating against the poor people of any country that also happens to have rich people in it.
I think, poor people are discriminated in every country generally if they need to buy products designed by an international company. While I've mentioned average income, it should be strictly speaking median income.
> Price discrimination
I mean that countries with lower median income deserves cheaper products. So that relatively there should be only minimal difference for poor people to be able to buy such products, regardless of the country of origin.
> International companies aren't "based" anywhere in particular except for on paper,
That's a good question. This "on paper" is crucial for all the legal stuff. US-based companies must obey not only EU rules but also US. Especially problematic is when they'd need to break a EU law to comply with the US law but they are never allowed to do this vice versa. This way I'd define where a company is based.
> anywhere is that the government says
It will be problematic due to multiple governments would be involved (typically US, EU, UK, China).
> I mean that countries with lower median income deserves cheaper products.
So if you make $20,000 and live in a country with a median income of $40,000 then you should pay higher prices than someone who makes $200,000 and lives in a country with a median income of $10,000? Why?
Also, that's not really how prices work for non-monopolies. If everyone can profitably produce something and sell it for $100 in e.g. South America and then you try to charge $200 in the US or Europe, your competitors are just going to take your customers by charging $100 there too. The ability to engage in price discrimination shenanigans is evidence of an uncompetitive market.
> Why?
Just because of statistic.
But actually, of course, it would be fair to make individual prices. E.g. there is a photo-camera for 7000, it makes very very good photos. Someone makes every day money with photos and buys it. Someone else wants also very good photos for non-professional private use, family and even for posts in WEB (without a fee, only donations). But this someone else must pay the same 7000.
Needless to say that in case of individual prices, additional rules and locks will apply.
BTW, some electronic devices are sold cheaper for academics (universities, students).
> I think, EU could only achieve that a non-EU-based company leaves EU.
Exactly, also, the US would prevent that geopolitically.
> also, the US would prevent that geopolitically.
Everybody keeps saying that Trump is eroding US power etc. etc. Are they all lying or is the EU just too chicken to actually do it when it comes up? According to the TACO principle it goes the other way, right?
E.g. EU companies could replace China 5G. But with US chips. While some new tiny FPGAs appeared recently (using obsolete manufacturing process), huge FPGAs from Xilinx(AMD)/Altera(Intel) cannot be replaced. China can make both US and EU calm down with rare earth materials. US can tame EU with chips and whatever else. And EU... no idea.
Oh he certainly is. But he is eroding it. It's only just starting and the EU is only just starting to disconnect itself from the US. So right now he still has a lot of pull.
> You can't jail a company.
You can, however, use the death penalty. I imagine a fine equivalent to twice their market cap should suffice.
You can't jail a company, but you can jail a CEO.
Always talking about bigger pay because of bigger responsibility. Might finally start making sense if they actually start putting them in jails.
> considering the geopolitical pressures on huge companies like this.
This seems backwards. The reason they can't be broken up is because of the pressure that huge companies like this put on individuals in government.
No different than why a small town mayor can't jail the organized crime ring that runs his town. If he tries anything, they will shoot him; or at least put up posters all over town accusing him of being a pedophile (and pay somebody to file charges against him that will eventually be dismissed for lack of evidence.) He wouldn't have become mayor in the first place if they hadn't supported him and attacked his potential competitors.
You can jail decision makers that work in the company. You can also jail the CEO, if they are ready to accept those big salaries they should also be ready to accept consequences.
It's also not really desirable to punish a company or dissolve it. It's mostly made up of laborers - you can bet your ass C-Suite is gonna be A-Okay. Also, we don't really want to just burn the IP. That stuff is useful.
>Also, we don't really want to just burn the IP.
You absolutely want to burn the IP in the sense of make it freely available to use and build upon. Every time history has weakened IP protections for the few, the many have benefited.
A lot of the success after WW2 was the immense amount of patents that were no longer protected and could be built upon without 25 years of monopoly extraction. You can't rent seek something that isn't patent protected, so you have to build and improve.
For example, several German and Italian patents around good motorcycle engines were completely nulled out, and every company that built motorcycles made a popular model from it. It basically invented a portion of the industry.
The same elimination of patent protections after WW1 boosted tons of chemical industries, and spurned immense innovation in pharmaceuticals, dyes, explosives, etc.
"Oh you want to do illegal anti-competitive stuff? In addition to any fine, you have forfeited your IP benefits"
Breaking antitrust laws and similar is an explicit admission that you cannot compete fairly, and therefore it does not benefit society to let you continue to monopolize anything and someone else should be allowed to take your place.
> you can bet your ass C-Suite is gonna be A-Okay.
No but that's why it should be possible to hold them personally accountable IMO. I think them getting away with everything is what's wrong with the world these days.
Also, a company is a culture. Labourers will find another job. But probably in a company with a better culture. Which is good for them too.
Yeah I guess the "fix" would be legislating that such platforms require OS makers to provide an open market of software either by allowing manual installation or third party app stores.
Imagine the response if the uk tried to break up apple
> Imagine the response if the uk tried to break up apple
This right here is why they need to be broken up. Are we supposed to have a company more powerful than a country?
It is not just Apple. The UK is going after every company with their porn filtering laws. Imagine the response if people did not stand up to their tyranny and the Uk kept pushing their agendas further and further. This is why the UK needs to be broken up.
That's having the causation reversed. The porn filter laws are them breaking themselves up, because they're a hidebound own-goal and they're causing significant damage to themselves for no advantage.
But censorship laws and antitrust laws are two different things. It's possible for the same country to get one thing wrong while simultaneously getting a different thing right.
I get the argument, but "country" spans many orders of magnitude in size. I mean, deliberately extreme example, but I'm fairly sure the smallest of the discount supermarket chains near me is more powerful than the country of Tuvalu:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_(supermarket)
Also, one party being stronger doesn't mean fighting them is worthwhile, e.g. Iceland threatening to withdraw from NATO to win the Cod Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars
And and, also why the People's Republic of China hasn't taken control of the Republic of China after all this time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
Countries that small are outliers and aren't really the point. It's about the size of the company, not the size of the country. Being too powerful for the smallest country isn't that interesting. Being too powerful for the median country seems like a problem, much less for the UK, which is at the ~90th percentile by population and #6 in the world by GDP.
Yes? In feudalism, kings control everything. In capitalism, investors control everything. It's what the system is named after - kinda hard to miss.
Investors don't control Apple, the CEO of Apple does. The investors are random people holding shares of it in their 401k. The company being so big is also they reason they can't control it effectively, because the people holding it are so diffuse that they have significant coordination costs.
In the same way, one could say that the president, prime minister, or similarly titled person controls a democracy.
Investors are "one share, one vote", rather than democracy "one person, one vote". The recent thing with Musk/Tesla and his trillion dollar options is being voted on, and Apple face campaigns and have votes, too: https://apnews.com/article/apple-dei-shareholder-proposal-an...
> In the same way, one could say that the president, prime minister, or similarly titled person controls a democracy.
That depends how big it is. For something the size of the US, sure, and that's a problem. It's one of the reasons the central government was meant to have limited powers.
For something the size of a small town or local business, absolutely not, because then each vote both matters more to the outcome and has more direct consequences to the voter, which dramatically lowers the coordination costs. A single individual could change the outcome just by convincing a small number of local people who are each more inclined to care about it.
The investors with effective voting rights are not usually people with retirement funds, but rather the administrators of those retirement fund pools.
So another case of it not being the investors then.
You invested in Vanguard, and Vanguard invested in the company and promises to give you the same amount of money they get from the company, but doesn't pass through other rights and responsibilities.
This is feudalism. Technofeudalism, to be precise. Corporations have created digital fiefdoms and reduced us all to serfs.
Whether that behaviour is good or bad have nothing to do with the economic system in place. Pure capitalism have obvious flaws. To me, a company being more powerful than a country is one.
Yes, but capitalism is just a name for the bad thing. We don't actually say that we have capitalism, if we did we would basically be saying 'capital ownership by some to the exclusion of others is good actually' and that isn't compatible with having society.
You say things like 'free markets are wonderful and efficient and we don't believe that they lead to the kind of outcomes that people who have come up with terms like "capitalism" believe they will'.
I'd love it if a government would decide that the hardware side of the company needs to split from the software side.
Suddenly we could buy macos to run in a VM.
Or we could buy iPhones running android.
We'd have to pay for iOS upgrades.
Which, given my feelings about iOS 26, might be a good thing. I mean, if their revenue depends on the OS actually being good rather than inevitable…
But that would be like a sudden outbreak of common sense.
Or split Apple UK off. And then fine them.