That's not quite comparable to what Apple's doing.

Here's a better analogy:

Amazon sells set-top boxes. Apple TVs, Rokus, the works. They also sell HDMI sticks, like Chromecasts.

All of a sudden, they come out with a product called the "Fire TV". It integrates with Prime, and in comes in either stick or box form, depending on your preference.

All is well in the world.

But then, all of a sudden, Apple and Netflix and Google find that their Amazon product pages for Apple TV and Roku and Chromecast (respectively) aren't published anymore. When they ask Amazon about it, Amazon stubbornly replies with some rule in their ToS about mentioning competing products.

Is Amazon's behavior in this scenario ethical? Is it worthy of brushing off as "that's how the market works"?

This differs from your analogy by the order of events. In your analogy, your movie theater existed before the attempt to buy an ad for a competitor.

In the case of my analogy (and, indeed, in the case of what Apple's doing now), it would instead be akin to you running a TV station that runs ads for a theater, you opening up a theater of your own, and you then banning the ads of the other theater while running your own ads on the TV station you own.

First of all, Apple isn't PULLING apps now that the Apple Watch is released. The Pebble app is still there, and you can still use it. This whole uproar is about a single developer who had his app denied by a specific reviewer at Apple for a basic breach of their terms and conditions for putting Apps on the App Store. The general consensus seems to be that a simple rewording (maybe not even having to remove the word 'Pebble') is all that he needs.

Also, a theater buying a TV/Radio station and not allowing competing theaters to run ads is perfectly acceptable and realistic.

Overall, I'm failing to see your point. Not to be a broken record, but these are competing businesses. It doesn't really matter if you s/Apple/Amazon|Google/g and s/Pebble/Netflix|Roku/g, all you're really arguing is that a company doesn't have a right to control a marketplace that they OWN.

I get that choice is great for the consumer, and I totally agree. It's absolutely best to have the ability to choose the devices you want, have them interconnect, and to be able to run the software that you want on them. I also think there should be no war or crime, and that the 1%'s money should be spread out evenly over the population. I (shockingly) think that no one should treat ANYONE unfairly. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world.

As long as we allow competition between businesses, they are going to, well, compete. Just because one gets very large and popular doesn't suddenly mean the rules have to change for it.

> First of all, Apple isn't PULLING apps now that the Apple Watch is released. The Pebble app is still there, and you can still use it.

For now.

A better analogy would be if Amazon suddenly refused to stock new Apple TVs and Rokus and Chromecasts in its warehouses and only stocked Fire TV devices, if we want to get all semantic about it.

> This whole uproar is about a single developer who had his app denied

There are multiple apps affected per the linked discussion.

> by a specific reviewer at Apple

No, by multiple reviewers on multiple occasions. Even appealing the decision results in the same response ("don't reference Pebble in your metadata").

> for a basic breach of their terms and conditions for putting Apps on the App Store

That's only being enforced for Pebble-related apps now that the Apple Watch has been released.

> The general consensus seems to be that a simple rewording (maybe not even having to remove the word 'Pebble') is all that he needs.

Apple's response (when SeaNav tried to appeal) was specifically to remove the word "Pebble". It's not a wording issue; it's an issue with that specific word existing in the metadata.

> Also, a theater buying a TV/Radio station and not allowing competing theaters to run ads is perfectly acceptable and realistic.

That's not what the more accurate scenario describes; you're still getting this backwards. It's the TV/Radio station buying/building a competing theater and preventing new ads from existing theaters that the corrected scenario describes.

> Just because one gets very large and popular doesn't suddenly mean the rules have to change for it.

Yes they do, per U.S. and European (at the very least; probably others are included) antitrust laws. Using one's market position to conspire to monopolize runs afoul of them.

And even if it weren't strictly illegal per se, it sure as hell doesn't mean that we should just lay back and let Apple do what it wants. What's the harm in calling them out on their dickery? A free market relies on an informed consumer base; such call-outs - at the very least - might put market forces in the consumers' favor for once.

> Yes they do, per U.S. and European (at the very least; probably others are included) antitrust laws. Using one's market position to conspire to monopolize runs afoul of them.

I'm sorry, but I have to *sigh at that one. They don't have a monopoly on anything but THEIR OWN marketplace.

Anyway, have fun with your opinions man. I'm sure you're a bit hit at parties.

I understand that is how that the market works. It may not be a "problem" in people's current understanding of the law, but I certainly think a problem is being exposed here. I am arguing that Apple has created something different with the AppStore; a privileged sub-market. Because the burden of changing markets is heavily in Apple's favor they should, as a large public company, be required to serve the public good and manage it in the consumer's best interest, not their own.

I can understand what you mean, but isn't the consumer's best interest sort of... subjective?

Apple has obviously gone to great lengths to make their walled garden a reliable and safe place for consumers who have chosen to buy their products. If you talked to Tim Cook or Jony Ive, I bet they would make a case that the best thing for consumers is to be entirely invested in the Apple ecosystem. After all, it DOES give you the most consistent experience.

So if you look at it from that perspective, who's right is it to go into a company and say, "No, that's not what's best for the consumer!" Obviously people like what they are getting, otherwise they would be defecting to Android in droves. Contrary to what some people are saying here, they DO have a choice.

Thinking through it logically, I just can't see any scenario where a company, no matter how large, should be forced to push a competitor's products.