> I don't see why it's unreasonable to replace a $500 device, when you already had to buy a $500 device in the first place to get access to iOS apps.
You paid $500 for a device that can browse the internet, make phone calls from the back of a moving car, give you directions from anywhere to anywhere, record video, etc. You don't see how having to replace that entire device in order to buy a $1 app is unreasonable?
> If you had to move every time you signed up for any broadband service, even the first one you ever sign up for, then that might be a comparable analogy.
1) Where Comcast is the only provider in your area, you do. 2) In areas where Comcast has actual competitors, that would imply that Comcast is less of a monopoly than Apple. I don't think that's what you were going for.
> Nintendo controls the availability of games for my Wii, and I'd have to spend a chunk of money to switch to another gaming platform, but that doesn't make them a monopoly either.
Sure it does. It's exactly the same thing. Although Apple does have a higher barrier to switching, because cost of phone:cost of app is a much bigger ratio than cost of console:cost of game.
> While I think that $500 doesn't break my point, I'd still also like to point out that it's wildly inflated. If you own an iOS device and want to run Android apps, the cost of entry is more like $30-50, even if you don't consider used hardware. Even coming the other way, prices start at $229.
The $500 isn't the cost of the Android device, it's the cost of the iPhone you canceled the service on. Unless you want to say you're going to keep the iPhone too, in which case you're going to have to add in the recurring cost of a second cellular plan. And the market value of the huge inconvenience of having half your stuff on each of two devices.
Why does the price of the iPhone, which you already own and which is a sunk cost, factor into it?
Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service.
If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you can still switch to Android for $30-50 through the simple expedient of buying an unlocked Android phone, taking the SIM out of your iPhone, and placing it in the Android phone.
> Why does the price of the iPhone, which you already own and which is a sunk cost, factor into it?
Exchanging $500 for an iPhone was a sunk cost. You now have an iPhone with an expected future value to you of at least $500 (or why did you pay that much for it?). Using an Android phone instead of the iPhone you already have prevents you from extracting that expected future value from the iPhone. The more you use the Android phone instead, the less value you can extract from the iPhone. It's effectively a $500 opportunity cost.
> Further, why do cellular services factor into any of this? Both iOS and Android devices run apps fine without cellular service. In fact, lots of them don't even have the ability to use cellular service.
If cellular service is so unimportant then why does everybody pay so much for it?
> If you're insisting on only examining the scenario where you own an iPhone and a long-term cellular contract, then you can still switch to Android for $30-50 through the simple expedient of buying an unlocked Android phone, taking the SIM out of your iPhone, and placing it in the Android phone.
Your efforts to reduce the switching cost are doing nothing but incurring more switching costs. A $30 Android phone is not comparable to a $500 iPhone. It will have a slower CPU, less memory, less storage, a lower resolution screen, etc. It's liable to be running an old version of Android that doesn't support newer apps, and any apps it does run will run more slowly and otherwise not work as well as they would on the newer iPhone (or newer Android device). These are all costs -- costs the market values at hundreds of dollars or the price disparity wouldn't exist. Meanwhile even $30 is a significant price to pay against a market for $1 apps.
And sharing a SIM card is an enormous pain in the ass. If you have an iPhone, other iPhones remember that and route text messages to iMessage. Your Android phone won't receive them when it has the SIM card. Any app you use on either device which is dependent on receiving events from the network won't work outside of WiFi whenever you put the SIM card in the other device, and every time you go to a new place you get to type the WiFi password twice. "Is an enormous pain in the ass" is a significant switching cost.
Which is before we even get to all the other costs of switching platforms, like trying to move your data, which is only difficult when it isn't impossible.
You paid $500 for a device that can browse the internet, make phone calls from the back of a moving car, give you directions from anywhere to anywhere, record video, etc. You don't see how having to replace that entire device in order to buy a $1 app is unreasonable?
> If you had to move every time you signed up for any broadband service, even the first one you ever sign up for, then that might be a comparable analogy.
1) Where Comcast is the only provider in your area, you do. 2) In areas where Comcast has actual competitors, that would imply that Comcast is less of a monopoly than Apple. I don't think that's what you were going for.
> Nintendo controls the availability of games for my Wii, and I'd have to spend a chunk of money to switch to another gaming platform, but that doesn't make them a monopoly either.
Sure it does. It's exactly the same thing. Although Apple does have a higher barrier to switching, because cost of phone:cost of app is a much bigger ratio than cost of console:cost of game.
> While I think that $500 doesn't break my point, I'd still also like to point out that it's wildly inflated. If you own an iOS device and want to run Android apps, the cost of entry is more like $30-50, even if you don't consider used hardware. Even coming the other way, prices start at $229.
The $500 isn't the cost of the Android device, it's the cost of the iPhone you canceled the service on. Unless you want to say you're going to keep the iPhone too, in which case you're going to have to add in the recurring cost of a second cellular plan. And the market value of the huge inconvenience of having half your stuff on each of two devices.