Re:The European Commission versus Android
by enitihas on Thursday July 19, 2018 @12:48PM
(#17568113)
Seeing this entire thing fold out, it seems the best monopolies for a corporation are the legal monopolies(like iOS), where there are still very high barriers for customers to switch, but you aren't dominating any well defined market segment.
Re:The European Commission versus Android
by lotsofpulp on Thursday July 19, 2018 @12:55PM
(#17568193)
Dominating the market segment of people with greater than median average disposable income seems to be best strategy.
Re:The European Commission versus Android
by enitihas on Thursday July 19, 2018 @01:01PM
(#17568288)
Exactly. It incentivizes corporations to focus on the richer market segment, where the profit margins can be high enough to compensate the relatively low volume, and leave the lower end of the market to be dominated by cheaper alternatives. A product dominating a very low revenue segment may come to be seen as not worthwhile. Not saying such a strategy should be the goal or will be easy, but that seems the natural direction large corporations may want to take.
I'm not willing to trust companies with self regulation.
This could be seen another way. Instead of going too far with its contracts, i.e. limiting the supplier side, the results of these regulations should entice future companies to not go too far on their distribution, i.e. limiting the demand side.
If it becomes clear that having a dominant position in a market can be problematic, a reasonable company might do things to prevent it from happening including limiting growth, raising prices, stymying third-party ecosystems/distributions, and reducing feature investment. It can be argued that these punishments are predictable and easily avoided with self regulation, we just need to be sure we're happy with the forms this self regulation may take. Being in a dominant position is rare for sure, but in these rare cases, if I had a choice, I'd do everything I can do be just under dominant.
Google might want to start realizing this with Chrome and surreptitiously support (...er...keep supporting) Firefox or not implement too many features before others can catch up.