Lawsuit against tech giants like Apple may change Market Structures
Recently, a BBC news report disclosed that Apple, one of the world's most dominant and influential tech companies, has lured over 4,000 British users into iCloud service and charged them exorbitant prices.
The consumer representative in the lawsuit against Apple noted that by not allowing competing storage services to access its products like iPhones and iPads, Apple charges high fees in a closed environment, depriving users of the right to choose and change. Once using Apple products, users are inevitably stripped of the choice of alternatives.
Regardless of the severity of the lawsuit and accusations, it's undeniable that Apple has created a "cage" for users. In the market structure (Litman, 1988), this resembles a combination of monopoly and oligopoly.
On a macro scale, major Big Tech firms like Google, Microsoft, and China's Huawei and Baidu have all launched cloud services similar to iCloud. Despite other platforms, the market is dominated by a few large companies, constituting an oligopoly. On a micro level, for iPhone and iPad users (the lawsuit victims), their choices are restricted by Apple alone, which can raise prices arbitrarily, forming a monopoly.
For a long time, this market model, along with Apple's perfect product ecosystem, has earned a good reputation among users. Its high-quality and personalized services have made consumers willing to pay high monthly fees. Long-term, Apple has ensured a high-quality cloud storage utopia, with powerful functions laying the groundwork for product upgrades, setting an industry standard and spurring innovation.
However, with technological progress, Apple's competitors can offer equally or more abundant cloud service functions. In mainland China, for example, the Huawei Harmony ecosystem has been popular due to its low cost and rich features; Xiaomi has integrated cloud storage and the ecosystem into its smart home products, creating unique value. There are increasingly more iCloud alternatives with lower entry barriers, but Apple's existing users have no choice. Apple's inflexibility in opening software compatibility has gradually eroded user confidence, making it harder to attract new customers.
According to the BBC report, the suing users hope Apple admits its monopolistic behavior and opens up software compatibility for more and cheaper choices. This has two sides. In one hand, if Apple allows more cloud service choices, it can attract more users; cooperation with other tech giants can also promote innovation and benefit consumers.
Nevertheless, with more third-party developers, concerns over user privacy and security cannot be overlooked. It's also hard to guarantee Apple's consistently high product quality, which may negatively impact future customer loyalty.
ref:https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g50ny53eo; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGJIDy-mdzo.
This article is very innovate and practical, as a user of Apple especially iCloud myself, it actually arouses a lot of resonance in me.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the impressive parts are a lot, for instance, you choose to take the lawsuit against Apple reported by the BBC as the starting point, it has strong timeliness and pays attention to important dynamics and hot issues in the current technology industry.
Besides, you analyse the pros and cons of Apple opening software compatibility, it not only sees the possible user growth and innovation opportunities but also considers potential risks such as user privacy, security, and product quality, that's very impressive.
Moreover, you cited some specific cases such as Huawei's Harmony OS ecosystem and Xiaomi's smart home products to support the analysis of Apple's competitors, helping to enhance the persuasiveness of the article.
However, I also think your article just mainly focuses on the analysis of the perspectives of users and market competition, as for the analysis of Apple's business strategies, technological innovation, and its position in the global economy and industrial chain is not in-depth enough, if you have more chances to add more information to your article, that would be better.