4 ms·

Read it again - it's about the monopoly on App Store. It's like buying a car and only able to use gas sold by that company.

coin 8y ago
Similar to ink cartridges for inkjet printers
- blfr 8y ago
  Which is crazy as well, right?
  - dwaite 8y ago
    Sort of. Some printers have built the print head (with low MTBF) into the ink cartridge itself. You can refill once, but by the second time the output will be really bad. Some printers ship with only partially-filled cartridges. This winds up being destructive on several fronts - users feel buying a whole new printer is cheaper than buying all the refill cartridges, not understanding that the new cartridges are different than what they had. This means the printer company is constantly selling new printers at a loss, with functional printer hardware thrown away to make space. The print cartridges also usually sell with an XL-size option that appears cheaper overall. However, people who feel they should buy a new printer rather than cartridges are typically people who are at an ultra-low usage level (<10 pages per month). Even at the normal size, they are not going to make it through the ink before the cartridge starts to degrade with age. HP rolled out a printer monitoring/ink subscription service which may solve these problems - assuming people feel it is financially sound to subscribe.
EGreg 8y ago
Sorry but there are tons of companies like that. Nintendo Sega Any loss leader product
greglindahl 8y ago
Right, and US anti-trust law is pretty much OK with a car manufacturer requiring that, because no car manufacturer has a monopoly. There may be other laws that would prohibit that, but they aren't anti-trust laws.
geitir 8y ago
That's the contingency: Where is the separation of product? Apple isn't strictly a hardware company more than it's strictly a software company. If you consider the iPhone a unified inseparable product, then the ability to install other apps is a privilege

coin 8y ago

Similar to ink cartridges for inkjet printers

blfr 8y ago
Which is crazy as well, right?
- dwaite 8y ago
  Sort of. Some printers have built the print head (with low MTBF) into the ink cartridge itself. You can refill once, but by the second time the output will be really bad. Some printers ship with only partially-filled cartridges. This winds up being destructive on several fronts - users feel buying a whole new printer is cheaper than buying all the refill cartridges, not understanding that the new cartridges are different than what they had. This means the printer company is constantly selling new printers at a loss, with functional printer hardware thrown away to make space. The print cartridges also usually sell with an XL-size option that appears cheaper overall. However, people who feel they should buy a new printer rather than cartridges are typically people who are at an ultra-low usage level (<10 pages per month). Even at the normal size, they are not going to make it through the ink before the cartridge starts to degrade with age. HP rolled out a printer monitoring/ink subscription service which may solve these problems - assuming people feel it is financially sound to subscribe.

EGreg 8y ago

Sorry but there are tons of companies like that. Nintendo Sega Any loss leader product

greglindahl 8y ago

Right, and US anti-trust law is pretty much OK with a car manufacturer requiring that, because no car manufacturer has a monopoly. There may be other laws that would prohibit that, but they aren't anti-trust laws.

geitir 8y ago

That's the contingency: Where is the separation of product? Apple isn't strictly a hardware company more than it's strictly a software company. If you consider the iPhone a unified inseparable product, then the ability to install other apps is a privilege