ryanpollock

Vultr Marketplace provides you with a collection of popular applications, software stacks, and operating systems that you can deploy to our infrastructure in just a single click.

Do you ever feel like an underdog? And that sometimes all that’s left are scraps? If so, I think you'll enjoy my story, from Google to DigitalOcean to Vultr.

The Vultr team is focused on bringing the easiest-to-use, highest-performance, and most cost-effective cloud computing platform to developers and businesses around the world. I am pleased to announce that in support of this mission we have closed a $150 million credit facility with J.P. Morgan and Bank of America.

Do you ever feel like an underdog? And that sometimes all that’s left is scraps?

If you can relate, then I think you’ll enjoy my story.

just sign into Chrome, and visit myactivity.google.com

you'll see your browsing history, which unless you have a preference turned off deep within settings, Google may then use to target advertising.

Good reading material here https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Mike and others, do you realize how different the web on Android has become from the web on iOS? The gap between the web's abilities on the two operating systems is growing quickly. Grab an iPhone and an Android phone, and visit http://pwa.rocks

You'll see very different behavior in Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS because the latter is required to use WebKit. There are some really big problems with the present situation. The web's fundamental promise of a cross-platform consistent runtime is basically broken, and consumers, developers, and businesses all suffer significant but mostly invisible harm.

Apple's devices are hugely popular among higher-income individuals, especially in the United States. Benedict Evans has written that there are 650 million iOS devices in active use globally. According to App Annie, roughly 2/3 of mobile application revenues are through the App Store. The other 1/3 is Google Play.

Considering how much consumers have invested in the Apple ecosystem across multiple devices, it's not reasonable to expect that consumers will switch to Android. Apple's customers are locked in.

The question is whether it's OK for Apple to prevent competition within iOS.

I think markets can be defined in a bunch of ways. I think the litmus test is whether a market is large - and whether people are adversely affected. Hopefully more to come here https://medium.com/@ryanpollock/

it's actually 104% of profits now http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/11/04/apple-ipho...

I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't need a monopoly on the entire smartphone market to have monopoly power...

Apple already got in trouble for price fixing - a violation of the Sherman antitrust act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_Inc.

Related to iOS and competition within it, see

http://fortune.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warren-apple-google/

http://www.thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/272399-time-to-prosecut...

Hopefully more to come from me on this topic...my channel here. https://medium.com/@ryanpollock

As I understand antitrust law, it is legal for a monopoly in one market to expand into an adjacent market. However, if that monopoly stifles competition in the adjacent market in a way that harms consumers, that monopolist’s acts are illegal.

By virtue of Apple integrating the operating system with hardware, iOS has a defacto 100% monopoly on devices compatible with Apple's Ax series chips (e.g. A9 in iPhone 6s). There's nothing illegal about that.

The market for Ax series devices is now larger than the Intel-compatible PC market was at under consideration during the Microsoft antitrust case.

The question then is whether Apple's policies stifle innovation and harm consumers. I think the answer is "yes".