Antitrust Lawyer Breaks Down DOJ’s Apple Lawsuit | WSJ

The Department of Justice is claiming that Apple is a monopoly, and it’s turning to a century-old law called the Sherman Antitrust Act to sue the company. The DOJ compared the case to its efforts to stop Microsoft from monopolizing the market two decades ago.

WSJ breaks down the DOJ’s legal argument in proving Apple is illegally monopolizing the market, and how the tech company might fight back.

Chapters:
0:00 Is Apple a monopoly?
1:03 Breakdown of the Sherman Act
4:02 Challenges
5:46 What this means for Apple

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[Lolatyou]

"Raise prices above a competitive level, and to exclude competition" -- Hmm almost like the health care and prescription drug system...

[nxios]

They also monopolized how they repair their products

[reyesarg]

I own an independent repair shop. If a customer want's an aftermarket display or battery then a message will pop up saying, "Cannot verify if an original part is used, please contact apple". This message scares off customers and then they want on OEM apple part. I can buy an apple part from apple for 2 or 3X the cost of an aftermarket. I then have to contact apple and give them a serial number and order number for apple to serialize the parts to the logic board. Apple has agreed to right to repair however they have still cornered the billion dollar repair industry with this software serialization of parts. Apple also does this with the new macbooks.

There have been times when an update has been released and I see many ipads/iphones/macbooks come into my shop. I once had over 13 ipads come in in one week after an update (all ipads where of the number series & 2-3 yrs old). All ipads had bad batteries. Coincidence? I think not.

Apple Sux and their corporate values have gone astray.

[breechcomet]

I'm surprised that neither the EU nor the DOJ did something about apple's xcode(which is mac exclusive) requirement to publish apps to iOS, MacOS watchOS etc.

[HaHaBIah]

"Just buy your mom an iPhone"

[TTOS]

Sounds like Apple didn't give the right comgressmen their heads up stock information... Bc why else would they be doing this?

[KashifNawaz]

Apple,
"We don't allow our devices to work on other OS."
"We don't allow others companies' smartwatches, and other accessories to work properly."
"We don't allow apps to use 3rd party payment methods."
"We don't allow apps to even mention that user can subscribe on app website."
"We don't allow 3rd party app stores in our OS"
"We don't allow sideloading"
"We make almost impossible to leave our walled garden."
Also Apple
"We are not a monopoly."

[JayDizzle]

But they don’t go after the real estate monopolies

[AndrewRusherLDS]

When a company is broken up, the owner(s) of the broken up company just become the owner(s) of the newly "freed" company/companies. When Standard Oil was broken up, the "freed" companies merged into smaller Standard Oils so the only thing that changed was that we went from one company to a handful of companies owned by the same people.

[mriz]

building seamless integration is fine. but when you proactively control integration with other protocols (RCS), it is sure monopoly!

[bjkjoseph]

It doesn’t matter, if they are found guilty it’s a slap on the wrist and they will eventually have a workaround. It’s all theater to make it look like they’re doing something… probably a small fine and they will not admit any guilt

[josidasilva]

The purchase of competitor companies in the beginnings of their existence and then having their products/services completely disappear, is the most common method of eliminating the competition; this should be illegal, the cost of this practice is charged to the consumers.

[FabTBC]

A well explained breakdown of the Sherman Act!

[michaelthetrent]

As an Android user who wholeheartedly dislikes Apple and the things they do to block off their ecosystem, I don't think they have a case. I feel that way about Apple and I have the choice to not be involved with their business. Not a monopoly in my eyes if you have the option to not use their products\services.

[rwaxzy]

Can someone break this down for me?
How is there a monopoly? I am free to buy whatever phone I want, and if I want to switch from Apple to Samsung, I am free to do so?
If I have bought several Apple products and "locked" my self in the Apple environment, that's my solely my fault and not Apples' fault? The same would go for Samsung, if I wanted to switch to Apple? Or am I missing something?

[Max]

If Apple wins the monopoly case, then other companies will follow Apple and that's not good for the consumers 💯

[ruspj]

there is no dennying that apple has a manopoly on :-
repairing apple devices. - only autheriesed repairers can obtain parts and to be autheriesed you have to agree to replace expensive sections of devices rather small repairs like a single faulty cable/chip making repairs uneconomical. people able to carry out these repairs like this have no access to parts unless they agree not to carry out these repairs.
iphone app distribution - dictates what apps can/cant be released to users - cannot even change the deffault apps like maps, browser, etc from apples dictated choice

[grzesiek]

I hope they fix ram and disk upgrade prices. Back when you could add ram to the imac I could tolerate those prices, but now there is no way to upgrade machine later. Everything is soldered…

[ThickBanana]

Apple's really guilty of making superior products.

[Mrussell]

For those who don’t understand what a monopoly is, A monopoly is when you have 3 properties and then you can buy houses for them…you’re welcome