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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  2109 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is a closed ecosystem a monopoly?

    if you buy an Apple product and get locked in the Apple ecosystem

Which is, at its core, why you buy an Apple product.

Complaining that you chose to buy an Apple instead of something else, shows that the monopoly argument holds no water.





kleinbl00  ·  2109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No fuck that.

I bought Apple because they had synchronous audio transfer whereas ActiveX was packetized. I used Apple for a long-ass time because it's the friendliest form of UNIX there is and that's where all my professional apps lived. But then this happened

And then this happened

And now I'm forced to deal with GalapagosOS because Apple utterly and completely shit the bed.

Do not for one minute think I have any iDevices in my life because I want talking fucking dog avatars.

user-inactivated  ·  2109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Then I think the real question becomes, not whether or not it's a monopoly, but whether or not its still consumer friendly. It's an idea worth exploring.

goobster  ·  2108 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Consumer-friendliness is not a regulatory trait.

The market will determine whether the product fit their need or not, and will buy it. Or not.

This is not a place where regulation has a role.

tacocat  ·  2109 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not legally. It's not a monopoly. It's not illegal to be not consumer friendly. I gladly bought into an ecosystem that doesn't allow me to install whatever code I want. If you don't like it, you are free to buy an Android phone. And install a shady app programmed in Russia that will steal your credit card information and use it to pay for a kilo of cocaine.

The App Store ecosystem is the best example of Apple locking down their shit. I've had Android phones and iPhones and Google Play is a nightmare. If you want to whinge about something Apple does that's shitty, bitch about the Mac App Store and how you have to go into System Preferences to authorize the installation of programs from developers that they don't recognize or whatever their pay rate is for music.