@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange
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ianbetteridge

@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange

Journalist, anecdontalist. I work for the company. But don't let that fool you, I'm really an okay guy. There is no future in England's dreaming.

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ianbetteridge, to random
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My dad worked here for 44 years, first at LMS, then British Rail, then BREL. There's about 3000 jobs at the plant, and 15,000 more at companies that rely on it. Once those skilled employees are gone, restarting production becomes incredibly hard.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2024-03-31/union-calls-for-action-to-save-jobs-after-alstom-stops-production-in-derby

ianbetteridge, to random
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Apple fans, last week: “It is terrible that the EU is making product design decisions and telling Applenow to design its products!”

Apple fans, this week: “The EU should have told Apple exactly how to make its products DMA compliant!”

ianbetteridge, to random
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MINOR SNARK ALERT! One of the most amusing parts of the Apple/DOJ and Apple/DMA cases has been seeing various Apple fans do a 180 turn. From crowing about how Apple was taking over 100% of all the profits in the entire global smartphone market to "poor little Apple has a tiny market share it's all so unfair" in the space of weeks.

ianbetteridge, to random
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Hmm, I don't know who I should trust when trying to work out how strong the DOJ's case is – tech pundits or actual professors of antitrust law? It's so hard to decide.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24109033/doj-apple-antitrust-lawsuit-legal-expert-praise

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

Well this is turning into quite the news day

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/22/moscow-concert-attack-crocus-city-hall-shooting-russia-live-updates

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

Hi, I'm Ian and I'm spending Friday night reading academic papers about smartphone switching costs and how companies can exploit that to keep raising prices while making sure customers don't jump ship. How about you?

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

TIL there is a film called “Shark Side of the Moon”, the premise of which is “decades ago, the USSR developed unkillable sharks and launched them to the moon.” And I am here for that.

ianbetteridge, to random
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This is one of those "thank god some journalists understand the history of antitrust" moments. One small quibble: Allison says, "I’m not really sure Apple owes the DOJ a thank-you card for making the iPhone possible", but Gates himself noted how, distracted by antitrust, Microsoft's ability to compete in smartphones was curtailed. They might not have stopped Apple, but they might well have been able to stop Android.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24107693/doj-us-versus-apple-complaint-microsoft-antitrust-case

ianbetteridge,
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Here's a story about Gates' comments...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/6/20952370/bill-gates-windows-mobile-android-competition-comments-microsoft-antitrust

ianbetteridge,
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And here's the key point. Importantly, the DOJ didn't have to legislate to keep Microsoft out of mobile: the chilling effect of worrying about the antitrust implications slowed the company down enough to make space for others.

ianbetteridge,
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@zzypt Well don't forget it was 2001 when the MS/DOJ case wound up (it dragged on a bit longer for some appeals but it was really all over). So that's quite a chunk of time when MS would have been looking over its shoulder.

ianbetteridge,
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@david_megginson Take your point, but remember AOSP didn't exist until Google bought Android. The Old Microsoft (pre-DOJ) could and probably would have just spent the $50m to buy it and kill it. That's a great example of the kind of second-order effects which will always remain invisible.

ianbetteridge,
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@david_megginson And even with servers it's a complex picture, Back in the old days, Microsoft per-processor licensing (where you had to pay for a copy of Windows even if it wasn't used) would have slowed the growth of Linux in servers. After 2001 they had to stop that.

ianbetteridge,
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@david_megginson A lot of people share that view (I don't). But you also have to remember that Microsoft had been subject to a consent decree since 1994. Breaking it was what dragged them back into court. Even before 2001, there was a wariness about what it could get away with. Once the eye of the DOJ is on you, things change -- especially if you've been caught doing things you agreed not to.

ianbetteridge,
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@david_megginson And you were correct!

ianbetteridge, to random
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What, Hirst conned some billionaires out of $8m? Cool.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/mar/22/damien-hirst-shark-that-sold-for-about-8m-is-fourth-2017-work-dated-to-1990s

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

"The flag is used by everybody, it’s unifying, it doesn’t need to change" said absolutely no one on the right about the police "thin blue line" badges when they started appearing on police uniforms.

ianbetteridge, to random
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Not content with being a question on both University Challenge and Jeopardy, it appears that I am now an academic journal article.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-today/article/abs/should-we-regard-questionbased-media-headlines-as-clickbait/F046FD99671C78B2F57B56F624F28FDC#

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

An entire generation of tech commentators and CEOs have grown up not understanding the history of antitrust in tech, or the impact it had in shaping the industry. And they really don’t understand that without regulatory action in the 1950s to 1980s, their own businesses would not exist.

ianbetteridge,
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One simple example: why did IBM not buy DOS outright, a move which would have killed the PC compatible before birth and made IBM dominate for longer? Bill Gates would love everyone to think it’s because he was smart and IBM was not. In fact, it’s because IBM was wary of yet another antitrust suit. As Bill Lowe put it, “IBM didn’t want to be seen as dominating the market too thoroughly.”

ianbetteridge,
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Similarly, IBM could have bought Microsoft - Gates even offered them 10% of the business and they could easily have afforded more. In the environment of the past 20 years, where big companies are allowed to buy pretty much anyone, they would have. Back then antitrust concerns made it a nonstarter.

ianbetteridge,
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And now antitrust law is being applied again in the way it has been for most of its existence, commentators and tech execs are finding it really hard to cope with the change. There’s an irony that Tim Cook appears to be affected deeply. After all, Cook started his career at IBM, and moved on to Compaq - a company that wouldn’t have existed without antitrust law. You would think he would get it.

ianbetteridge,
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If you want to know more about the impact of antitrust on IBM behaviour, I’d recommend reading this paper by Tim Wu. In his conclusions, he looks at what antitrust regulators should learn from the case, and I found this paragraph quite relevant to what’s currently happening. https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3292&context=faculty_scholarship

ianbetteridge, to random
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I have no proper opinion about the DOJ/Apple stuff yet, because like 98.7% of the people complaining loudly about how terrible it is, I haven’t read it.

ianbetteridge, to random
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You mean like the government plays a heavy handed role in designing technology in automotive, aircraft, every device that emits radio interference, and any one of the thousand and one ways government interferes in the design of goods?

ianbetteridge,
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@exchgr The internet was invented by AOL everyone knows that.

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