Kara Swisher, in a tough interview, gets big tech’s “tormenter-in-chief” to acknowledge it feels like she’s playing antitrust whack-a-mole.
Here’s a great opportunity to catch up, in 32-fact packed minutes, on Apple’s wins and losses in the European courts.
Podcast link: Meet Big Tech’s Tormenter-in-Chief
My take: Required listening for anyone who wants to understand Apple’s European tax and antitrust risks. I was surprised to learn how relatively powerless — depending on the results of her appeal cases — Vestager might turn out to be.
There goes her delusions of grandeur.
With that revelation she can now concentrate on genuine violations.
It’s people like her that make BREXIT look like a sane move on the part of the Brits.
She’s a shill for Spotify using the exact same basis as did Epic, by claiming everyone has an absolute right to set up their own store inside the App Store. She wants to “harness” the gatekeepers like Apple and let others decide how to operate the walled garden. One would have thought that her role was to protect consumers as opposed to corporations seeking to get a free ride on the back of Apple. She’s a politician in constant search of a cause. I so tire of hearing the word:”Duopoly.” How about: “Triopoly”; “quadopoly”….
Who decides what is best for the iOS system? Hopefully not this person.
When she talks about using “all of her tools in the box”, she ought to look in the mirror as she’s the biggest tool of them all. She essentially said that any acquisition of a company is counter to free competition if done by an American Tech company.
The problem here is that a global authority assumes a global market. In any market, despite its size or geography, there are three, maybe four, dominant players. Global companies will always dominate local companies, just as national companies dominate neighborhood companies.
Until China unleashes it’s own platform (something I believe they are working on) we have three dominant platform players: GOOGLE, FACEBOOK and APPLE. They became dominant because the consumer chose them, not by coercion or government intervention (until China steps into the fray).
Vestager’s argument is that neighborhood/local companies should be able to compete within the framework developed by larger companies, in order to be fair.
That is an ugly perversion of fair.
Obvious logic flaw: Vestager says, “If I don’t like one supermarket, I can go to another” to defend her suggestion for legislation to require Apple to offer alternative App Stores in iOS. But that is exactly Apple’s argument; Customers can go to Android, or to any web service or to any other game console.
Regardless of where they are, in my experience, bureaucrats and politicians tend to see their role as staying in and expanding their power and number.
A friend was a senior tech person for the US subsidiary of a French software company. The US side was profitable, the French side drove them into bankruptcy.
Apple is guilty even with an innocent verdict so let’s change the law. I think Vestager is the dictator?
“Although the European Parliament has legislative power, as does the Council, it does not formally possess the right of initiative – which is a prerogative of the European Commission – as most national parliaments of the member states do.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
I give credit to EU for GDPR success and their mission for privacy but don’t get why they are attacking Apple. I just don’t believe this lady is being fair.
To suggest having two app stores shows how poorly she and her team understands technology. Stupid, dumb and powerful. A common theme around the world today.