Comment Re:I would argue... (Score 1, Informative) 246
That Amazon's Fire Phone failed because people knew it was made by Amazon.
I would substitute that with it failed because Amazon tried to lock it down by not installing the Play Store, trying to force everyone to download or buy only apps that they approved of. Basically the Fire Phone failed because Amazon tried to imitate Apple. So in a manner of speaking, it did fail because of Apple, but not in the way that the DOJ is implying.
HTC didn't fail. They sold the division to another company that is still building phones.
Windows Phone failed because it was Windows. There's no real advantage from compatibility with Windows apps on your phone, and a huge disadvantage to being an also-ran ecosystem that isn't compatible with anything else. See also: Reasons why Fire Phone failed.
In principle, I agree with the FTC that Apple's tactics have harmed competitors and, by extension, consumers. But those aren't the right competitors. The companies it has harmed are companies like Paypal and others who want to provide their own RFID payment options, companies like Epic and Steam and streaming game companies that are harmed by Apple's "one store for all" rules, companies like Spotify that faced unfair competition with Apple Music because of favoritism in payment rules (Apple could link to its own payment system, but Spotify couldn't), and so on.
The idea that Apple's behavior harmed hardware manufacturers significantly is bordering on silly. Maybe, maybe lock-in caused some number of parents to buy an iPhone because their kids wanted an iPhone and they wanted to all be on the same platform. Maybe. But that's really hard to measure. Either way, in the grand scheme of things, that's so minor compared with the other harm from Apple's anticompetitive behavior that it almost isn't even worth bringing up except in the context of it being additional evidence of a pattern of abuse.