Korea is first in open platforms! Korea has rejected digital commerce monopolies and recognized open platforms as a right. This marks a major milestone in the 45-year history of personal computing. It began in Cupertino, but the forefront today is in Seoul.https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1432644358646415363 …
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Replying to @TimSweeneyEpic @cmuratori
Can someone please explain. If I take risks, invest money, hire people, and manage my business in such a way that it becomes one of the dominant platforms for app distribution, why am I not free to charge whatever fee I want to make things happen IN the platform that I built?
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Replying to @meglio @TimSweeneyEpic
I am happy to explain, but obviously Twitter is a tough platform for explaining. I would start with the basic underlying premise, which is that if you want South Korea to enforce Apple's intellectual property (which Apple needs to survive), it must obey South Korea law.
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So the most basic reason why Apple is not "free" to do what it wants is because it is not the sovereign of South Korea :) Doing business in any country means that you accept their rules, because they have the army and what they say goes.
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Assuming you accept that underlying premise, the rest is pretty straightforward. Countries ideally set their laws so that they benefit the public interest. Monopolies, in general, have proven detrimental to the public interest, so many countries apply constraints to them.
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So the only real question is, is it in the public interest to allow companies a monopoly on software if they make the hardware? While some people have tried to argue "yes", I can't say I've seen any compelling explanation as to how it benefits the public interest.
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In the United States, we have a legal precedent called "The Rule of Reason". This says that while some things are illegal for a monopoly to do, others may or may not be illegal depending on whether consumer harm has occurred.
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So in _our_ antitrust law, the question would be whether Apple's monopoly on software for its hardware has helped or harmed consumers. It is likely the Supreme Court will decide this question in the future.
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If you would like a preview of what it will sound like when the Supreme Court in the US reviews this issue, you can listen to the oral arguments in Apple v. Pepper, which you can listen to here: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-204 …
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Unfortunately, this case is only an appeal on a motion, so does not deal with directly deciding a threshold question (called "Illinois Brick", it is a precedent that controls which parties can sue for damages in antitrust cases).
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But it will at least give you some perspective on the issue. If you would like to hear a case that deals directly with the issue involved here (which is called "tying" - when you condition the purchase of one thing on the purchase of another)...
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... you can listen to Eastman Kodak, which is a case whose significance people argue about, but it is the most recent case on monopolistic tying: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/90-1029 …
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I have no insight into South Korean law, or how their antitrust system might work. So I'm afraid I can't help explain why they made the decisions they did. But I am very happy with the outcome, since personally I think everyone benefits when they own the hardware they buy.
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