Amazon and Apple 'Colluded' to Make iPhone and iPad More Expensive, Says Antitrust Lawsuit

[Mojohanna32]

No, it’s about the gravity and amount of customers Amazon has, which turns them anticompetitive.

EU’s Digital Market Act and Digital Services Act will come after them anyway. 🤣

That’s a stretch when you can get Apple products almost everywhere. At least in the US. I can’t speak for other areas.

 

[8CoreWhore]

3rd party sellers on Amazon are a bunch of criminals and you shouldn't buy from them anyway. They sell kniock-off products, sell used products as new, lie that a product has been refurbished, don't give refunds unless you catch it and complain to Amazon, etc. Let's just ignore all that.

 

[rlongaphie]

Politico ran a broader story back in August. This story is a smaller part of a larger lawsuit.

Apple faces growing likelihood of DOJ antitrust suit

An antitrust lawsuit against Apple would be a dramatic escalation in the administration’s battle against the tech giants.

www.politico.com

 

[Bankage]

I recall a time when Steve Jobs specifically fixed the price of Apple products as part of a reseller agreement. His defense was to prevent resellers from discounting Apple-branded products below what Apple Stores were selling the same. He harkened back to when Pepsi-Steve licensed pre-macOS X to other hardware vendors who made faster and cheaper hardware than Apple could make, then marketing the clones in stores that weren't Apple-authorized.
On a personal note, it bothers me to pre-order AirPods Pro 2 via the Apple Store, just to discover Amazon sold them on day-1 for a cheaper price. I think it's a terrible business model that Tim Cook has endorsed that erodes consumer trust and brand loyalty, and causes the market hesitation. It's a weird coupon game that is frustrating during a time of high-inflation, interest rate hikes, and corporate layoffs.

 

[PlayUltimate]

I recall a time when Steve Jobs specifically fixed the price of Apple products as part of a reseller agreement. His defense was to prevent resellers from discounting Apple-branded products below what Apple Stores were selling the same. He harkened back to when Pepsi-Steve licensed pre-macOS X to other hardware vendors who made faster and cheaper hardware than Apple could make, then marketing the clones in stores that weren't Apple-authorized.
On a personal note, it bothers me to pre-order AirPods Pro 2 via the Apple Store, just to discover Amazon sold them on day-1 for a cheaper price. I think it's a terrible business model that Tim Cook has endorsed that erodes consumer trust and brand loyalty, and causes the market hesitation. It's a weird coupon game that is frustrating during a time of high-inflation, interest rate hikes, and corporate layoffs.

I agreed. Re: Amazon - I order my wife a pair of AirPod Pros (gen 1) for her birthday through Amazon. The price was discounted compared to Apple so I was happy. However, the AirPods had already been renamed and were obviously used. No disclosure was given that I could have been buying returned items. I have since greatly curtailed my purchases from Amazon.

 

[jimthing]

You don’t know that to be true. You’re just assuming. The refurbers may even believe that the cheap knock off parts they use are totally fine, but they have nobody doing QA on their work. They assume they aren’t shoveling waste into people’s hands, but when their customers have a problem, they’re phoning Apple, not the reseller.

That's not true of all resellers. You're just 'assuming' they're all bad, when you don't know that to be true either. Anecdotes aren't data.

One long term seller even made a YouTube video explaining his QA processes. Yet he still couldn't get beyond Amazon's deliberately impossible barriers to entry.