DOJ sues Apple, AI arms race, Reddit IPO, Realtor settlement & more

The episode opens with mock-hostile banter over a film the transcript renders as “due” and “June”. One host urges seeing it twice in IMAX, another calls it overrated, and they keep telling each other not to spoil it.

The host says the Justice Department filed a Sherman Act suit against Apple just before taping, alleging abuses in five areas: super apps, cloud gaming, messaging apps, smartwatches and digital wallets. Apple shares fell about 3% on the news. He reads the complaint as saying Apple answers new competition not with lower prices but with:

meet competitive threats by imposing a series of shape shifting rules and restrictions

Chamath has not read the filing and thinks some such cases are plainly political. The government has lost a fair number, he says, going roughly even with Epic and losing against Spotify. The real question is whether Apple went beyond past practice to lock users in, and whether that can be proved.

Working only from press coverage, Sacks sees no smoking gun. His examples are Tim Cook's reply to a user who could not send a video to his mother, and the Apple Watch working only with iPhones, which he treats as consistent with Apple's strategy of products that work together.

Tim Cook responded, well, your mom should buy an iPhone.

He frames the case as a dispute over interoperability. The government says Apple's refusal to work with other apps and operating systems creates a monopolistic network effect; Apple would say its vertically integrated stack, from hardware to key applications, is what makes the product work. Both sides have a point, he says, but he doubts the government can win without a reported smoking gun.

Friedberg calls the closed system a consumer choice: unhappy users can switch to Android, which dominates outside the US, and Apple should not necessarily be coerced to serve frustrated developers when consumers pay for the products.