Why competition matters in the tech world

It seems to happen more often when I ask myself, “Why can’t I just purchase that movie rather than a streaming service?” or “Why can’t I just upgrade my MacBook to keep up with my workflow”? 

As technology advances, companies have been implementing anti-competitive practices into their business models that would cost the end user more to keep up with the growing digital world. While some legislation is developing to control large tech companies, I believe that these laws will never see the light of day. 

Right to repair anti-competitive practices 

Apple mainly started the right-to-repair issue in the Johnny Ive design era.  Apple has always made thinner and thinner products with many shouldered components that cannot be upgraded or replaced without being brought into Apple directly. A big issue lies when Apple finds it too much work to fix your existing computer rather than replace the entire system.  While doing this may be convenient, the environmental aspect of the increase in e-waste also exists, and Apple played a massive part in it. 

Rather than making these intentional choices, tech companies could return to user-replaceable parts and encourage self-repair to reduce environmental impacts. Allowing self-repair could also reduce manufacturing costs for the company, as they would be only manufacturing individual parts rather than an entire device. 

Media services

Throughout the 2010s, subscription-based services such as Netflix and Hulu have become extremely popular.  While consumers should have the right to choose how they receive their content, it has slowly gotten to the point where companies bank on people’s desires for convenience.

Most media have stopped selling media outright, either online or with physical options.  Production studios increasing interest in streaming has led to losing the ability to own content physically and instead placing everything on streaming services.  Doing this gives large film studios such as Warner Bros more power to create exclusive streaming services, releasing movies exclusively to streaming rather than other venues. 

This push affects those working in small media and electronic stores, causing them to lose the ability to profit from these products.  Most of these video stores cannot get new major titles that people are interested in and available to sell, causing a significant loss of sales from those who use physical media and the world rather than their content.  Movie theatres are also suffering because people would instead stream conveniently at home rather than go out, making it an experience.

Digital software anti-trust 

Subscription services have affected more products than just media. When signing up for a new phone through carriers, they will now try to set you up on an upgrade plan, where you would get the latest phone every year, paid every month. In doing so, customers would never own their phones and would be in a constant loop of payments. 

Software companies such as Adobe have a monopoly over their creative cloud software. Instead of being able to purchase the latest version of Photoshop or Premiere, users must consistently pay a large amount of money each month. Adobe also charges a cancellation fee, which costs customers more money to cancel their subscriptions. For people going into the creative fields, it’s easier to stay away from Adobe rather than use products such as Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve.

Suppose new customers stop signing up for subscriptions as much as possible and only use available products. In that case, it would put more control back into the consumer’s hands, lowering prices and making content more accessible.