A piece from Jonathan Zittrain, here - well worth reading.
What do you think? Is the "walled garden" approach beneficial, protecting consumers from harm from the wild web, or must it be used in moderation, if at all?
Is the walled garden approach not akin to unfair trading and monolopisation. Microsoft, God love them, were fines millions of dollars for bundling, and though they have improved, one could argue that they still persist in bundling. The recent case of WMC bundled in Windows 7 in Germany illustrating this point. But Apple are taking this one step further. They dont allow any other browser on the iPhone. The whole framework will be wall-gardened. I agree with the last line of Jonathans piece, we need more angry nerds.
"if I switch from iPhone to Android, I can't take my apps with me, and vice versa. And as content gets funneled through apps, it may mean I can't take my content, either—or, if I can, it's only because there's yet another gatekeeper like Amazon running an app on more than one platform, aggregating content. The potentially suffocating relationship with Apple or Google or Microsoft is freed only by a new suitor like Amazon, which is structurally positioned to do the same thing."
As a techonology wonk, understanding the 'walled garden' approach and its benefits, however as a consumer I loathe anything which is exclusive to a platform thereby limiting my choice and options. The smart ones in all of this may be the ones in the middle like Amazon who see the weakness of exclusivity and thus fill in the gap.
Is the walled garden approach not akin to unfair trading and monolopisation
It could well be, but it would depend on whether the approach amounts to an abuse of dominance.
However, I do like Apple's Mac App Store model - the walled garden environment for those who want to use it, and the ability for anyone to write / install anything directly. Here, the App Store is an "added value" service, which justifies Apple taking a cut, in my opinion. Once Apple starts restricting certain parts of the operating system to App Store software only, or else restricted third party software other than through the App Store, I'd have a much greater problem.
(One of my theme reports on the telecoms law module was about the competition implications of vertically-integrated platform environments; it's a bit of a long essay, but, if you're interested, it's here.)
Amazon who see the weakness of exclusivity and thus fill in the gap
But their eBooks are only available through their Kindle application, and I'm not aware that they allow third party access to their DRM system, to enable others to integrate?
Although I do not tend to use Google services, I do think that their "Data Liberation" policy is a good idea - I can understand that not all software will run on all platforms, but the ability to export and migrate the content which I put into a service is highly desirable, to my mind, and I wish more companies would adopt this approach - selling on the benefits of the service, rather than because it is very difficult to escape.
Fortunately, Kindle DRM is not a hugely troubling speed bump, but I expect that it makes many people feel tied-in.
Is the walled garden approach not akin to unfair trading and monolopisation. Microsoft, God love them, were fines millions of dollars for bundling, and though they have improved, one could argue that they still persist in bundling. The recent case of WMC bundled in Windows 7 in Germany illustrating this point. But Apple are taking this one step further. They dont allow any other browser on the iPhone. The whole framework will be wall-gardened. I agree with the last line of Jonathans piece, we need more angry nerds.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like this section,
ReplyDelete"if I switch from iPhone to Android, I can't take my apps with me, and vice versa. And as content gets funneled through apps, it may mean I can't take my content, either—or, if I can, it's only because there's yet another gatekeeper like Amazon running an app on more than one platform, aggregating content. The potentially suffocating relationship with Apple or Google or Microsoft is freed only by a new suitor like Amazon, which is structurally positioned to do the same thing."
As a techonology wonk, understanding the 'walled garden' approach and its benefits, however as a consumer I loathe anything which is exclusive to a platform thereby limiting my choice and options. The smart ones in all of this may be the ones in the middle like Amazon who see the weakness of exclusivity and thus fill in the gap.
Is the walled garden approach not akin to unfair trading and monolopisation
ReplyDeleteIt could well be, but it would depend on whether the approach amounts to an abuse of dominance.
However, I do like Apple's Mac App Store model - the walled garden environment for those who want to use it, and the ability for anyone to write / install anything directly. Here, the App Store is an "added value" service, which justifies Apple taking a cut, in my opinion. Once Apple starts restricting certain parts of the operating system to App Store software only, or else restricted third party software other than through the App Store, I'd have a much greater problem.
(One of my theme reports on the telecoms law module was about the competition implications of vertically-integrated platform environments; it's a bit of a long essay, but, if you're interested, it's here.)
Amazon who see the weakness of exclusivity and thus fill in the gap
But their eBooks are only available through their Kindle application, and I'm not aware that they allow third party access to their DRM system, to enable others to integrate?
Although I do not tend to use Google services, I do think that their "Data Liberation" policy is a good idea - I can understand that not all software will run on all platforms, but the ability to export and migrate the content which I put into a service is highly desirable, to my mind, and I wish more companies would adopt this approach - selling on the benefits of the service, rather than because it is very difficult to escape.
Fortunately, Kindle DRM is not a hugely troubling speed bump, but I expect that it makes many people feel tied-in.