The big thing is that the US government needs to recognize how vertical integration harms consumers. While Apple and Google and Amazon may all compete with each other in multiple venues, very little of that is cross-compatible. People with one product or service from a company often has little option but to use the rest of that company's products and services. The ecosystem effect means that even if there is a handful of "competitors", those services on an individual level often aren't available to consumers. If you have your stuff purchased in iTunes, you have massive monetary cost preventing you from switching to Android, for example.

One of the stories I hadn't heard of until recently when discussing the AIM closure, is that the FTC ordered AOL once to make AIM cross-compatible with their two largest competitors or face antitrust action. Had someone like Google been subjected to the same, we'd have had Gmail, YouTube, etc. on Windows Phone, and it wouldn't have died from the lack of Google apps support.

I'd be more than in favor of ordering vertically integrated companies to support at least two competitors' platforms in every way they support their own.

That's quite the can of worms, but what an interesting topic.

I see your point and agree that vertical integration is harmful. I would like to offer the automotive industry as an interesting comparison of an industry with similar compatability issues.

All of the major components produced by the big manufacturers tend to be incompatible (without heavy engineering effort). When parts on a car are compatible between many makes and models it tends to be a third party parts manufacturer that has made it but a concerted effort from the big manufacturer that allowed that to happen. Think brake pads, tires, air filters, spark plugs. In most cases engines, their computers, interiors, transmissions and so on, are all make specific and also usually model specific.

No one is compelling BMW to make sure their engine fits into a Jeep. When I buy a BMW I am locked into their infrastructure and without their parts and support I could find myself without a working vehicle.

While you can often mix and match manufacturers parts so long as you can wield a few tools and have time and knowhow, it's pretty rare that someone wants to. Similar to emulators or jailbroken phones, IFTTT, APIs and integrations, it's easy to see there is a desire for this kind of flexibility but again it's often only a particular type of individual with a particular desire that makes it happen.

I feel that this desire for interoperability is niche. My mother on her Windows phone has been perfectly happy. I have never met anyone who wasn't in tech that has complained about interop. So while I agree it would probably be a good step to introduce more flexibility there, I don't think it's critical to protecting consumers against monopolistic behavior. If you buy an iPhone you are locked into Apple for that device, but you can still buy an Android. Just like I am locked into BMW while I own their car, but could still move to an Audi.

It's not just parts though. The car analogy is more like, I can't drive my car to your house because your house was built by BMW and my car is an Audi. It's like we all live in corporate-controlled subdivisions with proprietary, incompatible rail lines instead of roads.

And we've already seen them collaborate to suppress wages through cartel-behavior. Anti-trust regulators seem to have a limited view on what necessitates punitive measures or even trust-busting.

This is due to a current style of thinking known as the "Chicago School approach": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law_theory#Chicago...

> genuine monopoly .. Facebook in social networks

I think Snap and Twitter would disagree with that point of view...

Only slightly more effectively than Bing would disagree in search.