Your monopoly point is an interesting one. Wonder if there's an actual legal case there, as Nintendo have done a lot of this bullying over the years.
One is certainly allowed to have a monopoly over their own products, that’s what trademarks and patents are for.
It’s hard to argue a game developer is forced to play ball with Nintendo.
There are a whole lot of ways to distribute a video game. Three major consoles. Computers. Things like the steam deck. Smart phones. You could ignore any one or two of them, and still have a great business. In fact, lots of companies do. A whole lot of people have access to more than one of these platforms. You could ignore anyone or two of these platforms, and still sell your product to most of the people in the market. It is a highly competitive environment. If you don’t like Nintendo’s policies, just sell on Xbox and PlayStation and steam. People do this. If an environment is competitive, then by definition, nobody has a monopoly or an unfair advantage.
The Earth has 8 billion people, most of whom have a smart phone, all of which are using one of two operating systems. Not many people have more than one. If Apple says your app cannot be in their App Store, half of humanity, cannot use your app. It is a much different scenario.
Plenty of companies get shut down for regulatory violations, or employee mistreatment. Pointing at some extreme outliers is nothing more than a form of selection bias.
Same reason AirBnB works despite many laws to the contrary. If you get popular enough that the public will vote against people who threaten to enforce the law, out of a desire to keep using the product, you win. It's a race to get too big to be shut down.
It is popular with tourists, who don't vote in the jurisdictions they visit, and it is popular with some landlords, who are a small minority that generally the renting public have at best indifference and often hatred for. It is very unpopular among renters who now see supply taken off long-term rental market; and it is very unpopular among other homeowners who do not want to live next to hotels.
It is not really a surprise that major tourist destinations are now slapping AirBnB with all kinds of restrictions.
You actually said "if you get popular enough that the public will vote against people who threaten to enforce the law".
So someone builds a product that the public likes, something they demand that politicians allow, and somehow this is "too big to be shut down". Do you forget that modern democracies pretend that their authority derives from the will of the people?
The law is not sacred. Get off your high horse.
There are many reasons why popularity alone of the voting public does not translate into policy. The dangers of tyranny of the majority is well known, will of the people is a necessary but not sufficient reason.
There are also some pre-requisites for a functioning democracy like a well-informed electorate which is questionable today at best.
Laws are there to serve society. Some of the ways it serves society is when it restrains society, but people are not stupid and understand when they’re being unreasonably restrained. Unreasonably being the key word, as I’d like to think we’re all generally anti-murder around here, even if we can argue to death about things like AirBnB.
Let me put it like this: the laws of San Francisco (and other cities) protected Taxi drivers from competition, and by the late aughts the local taxi services here were godawful magnets for complaints every weekend that the relevant regulatory authority (the SFMTA) didn’t do a goddamned thing about. If you wanted to go out and enjoy a nice weekend night, the responsible thing was not to drive. But good luck getting home, and if you could get a cab, it would be filthy and the driver would unlawfully insist his card reader was broken (it wasn’t, and it never was, the card reader was probably the most reliable thing in that car given how little wear and tear it would have seen in life).
Uber didn’t walk into a well regulated transportation marketplace. They and Lyft drove headfirst into a marketplace where the existing laws and regulations were suppressing supply and killing the market, and not in service of the passengers (i.e. the voters). They won the battles that mattered which were the political battle by upending a status quo that had favored this shitty little taxi medallion system and the market battle by just being better at a price people were willing to pay than their competition.
Popularity doesn’t always translate to policy in a democracy, but it often does.
We prioritized cars a long time ago, and we’re still paying for it. I’m not happy about that fact either. You can absolutely argue that cyclists are victims to a tyranny by majority much as I can argue that that the presence of Uber and Lyft is a net benefit versus the status quo that existed prior to their coming onto the scene, and I’ll just say both things can be true. People also lose in democracies.
OK, let's take a vote to take your stuff and share it around.
Why would you want 10 companies competing, bet your investment in one, or "spread it" like a loser, when you can pool ALL your money and make sure ALL the profit accumulates into one giant enormous company ?
Uber in this case happens to be the company chosen for big money.
Basically, Uber had powerful allies and was willing to do illegal things. That's the difference between Uber and the other apps that got shut down for breaking the law
[1] https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2022/01/uber-could-be-return...
Nintendo is being a bully here, but what on earth does a monopoly on the market of your own platform even mean?
- Nintendo Switch OS only runs on Nintendo Switch hardware -> Nintendo monopoly on Switch OS hardware
- Nintendo Switch hardware and OS only run officially licensed Nintendo game -> Nintendo monopoly on games for Nintendo Switch and OS games
- Nintendo Switch games only run on Nintendo Switch -> Nintendo monopoly on hardware that runs Switch games
(Apple and iPhone are in the same situation)
Compare to the situation with Windows:
- x86 hardware can run any OS, including Linux and Windows -> mostly no Microsoft monopoly, although Windows and Microsoft keys are often pre-installed
- Windows can run on any x86 hardware (and ARM I think?) -> no Microsoft monopoly, although they don't release source to port to other CPU architectures
- Windows can run any software from anyone at no charge -> mostly no Microsoft monopoly, although they can favor their own software
- Windows software can run on any OS, such as Windows or Linux with Wine -> mostly no Microsoft monopoly, although one can argue that having an OS API without an open-source implementation induces lock-in and creates a partial monopoly
It's baffling to me because some users on HN grandstand so much about how making your own product or platform means that you are morally obligated to support any and every third party under the sun. But then the actual tech industry seems to be the direct opposite - if anything companies make lots of fanfare out of achieving basic interop.
The landscape has obviously changed since, but not for any good reason in my opinion.
But, we'll see what the judge says.
So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the judge says. :)
Their entire case rests on the presumption that the DMCA protects Nintendo's monopoly over not only distribution, but playback of its console game software.
When corporations like Uber violate multiple laws, do they get shut down? When Amazon treats its employees poorly, does it get shut down? When Google forbids manufacturers to pre-install competitor apps, does it get shut down? Well, it seems that as long as copyright is not infringed, everything is ok.
Also it seems to me that Nintendo might themselves violate antitrust laws by using their monopoly power on market of Nintendo-compatible games, and not allowing enough competition there.