During the United States Judiciary antitrust hearing on Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook, the CEO of the latter, Mark Zuckerberg, tried to minimize dominance of the service market by pointing out the areas behind his competitors. Remarkably, Zuckerberg called Apple in a surprise diversion.
Each CEO of the top four tech companies had five minutes to share their opening remarks before answering questions from the Judiciary Committee. Interestingly, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity to make it appear weaker than Apple, Amazon, and Google, and thus less antitrust threat, and these comments were not in the prepared Zuckerberg comments that were shared last night. ..
In many areas, we are behind our competitors. The most popular messaging service in the US is iMessage. The fastest growing app is TikTok. The most popular video application is YouTube. The fastest growing ad platform is Amazon. The largest ad platform is Google.
In particular, Apple-specific apps like iMessage are not the focus of antitrust concerns for the company, but rather how its App Store operates, such as the 30% commission it takes and the App Store rules and how they affect competition and consumers. But Zuckerberg’s comment inferred that the popularity of Apple’s iMessage should be under investigation by the Judiciary Committee with the subtext “don’t worry about us, look at them.”
Part of the responses from Apple CEO Tim Cook during the hearing included a defense that the company has not abused its power over the years.
“In more than a decade since the App Store debuted, we have never increased the commission or added a one-time fee. In fact, we’ve reduced them for subscriptions and exempted additional app categories. The App Store evolves with the times, and every change we’ve made has been in the direction of providing a better experience for our users and a compelling business opportunity for developers. “
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