> The question is, why is it so infeasible to enter the market?
It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy in the 2010s.
Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up against the law to become a direct competitor in computing. Even with all the necessary resources, just try to build an iPhone clone, but with the addition of Y, and see how long you can go before lawyers start breathing down your neck. If you make the first day, I'll be impressed.
You can try to compete indirectly with something kind of the same but different enough to skirt the laws, but that's rarely what the market wants, making it difficult to justify the effort and capital utilization. You need something truly game changing to consider venturing down that road.
> It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy a few years ago.
Part of the issue is that it isn't just capital intensive, it's capital intensive across a vertically integrated market. If all you had to do was make a phone chip competitive with Apple's, or reimplement the proprietary Google APIs, or convince other phone OEMs and third party developers to use your competing app store, you might be able to pull it off. But when you have to do all of those things and more? At some point the hill is just a sheer cliff.
> Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up illegal to become a direct competitor in the computing space.
Oh, that's definitely a major issue. In theory DMCA 1201 has an interoperability exception, but the exception is narrower than it ought to be and then you would have to be willing to stand up for it in court against a megacorp with unlimited lawyers. There is no sensible argument for not fixing things like that.
You can’t enter the cutting edge phone market easily for the same reason you can’t enter the cutting edge fighter jet market easily. Regulations, sure. Capital, sure. Materials, sure. But holy shit you’ve gotta develop everything from the airframe to the turbines to the cockpit and landing gear simultaneously.
> But holy shit you’ve gotta develop everything from the airframe to the turbines to the cockpit and landing gear simultaneously.
To make matters worse, you cannot just develop it, but you have to develop it in an entirely new way that has never been conceived before, else you will be in violation of endless patent and copyright claims.
But the reality is that the development is already done. No need to reinvent the wheel. It was a huge undertaking, but we've already done it. It is now only regulation that locks it up in a monopoly. Capital, materials, even effort are definite hurdles – but regulation is the reason why duplicating it for the sake of a competitive marketplace is impossible.
> But when you have to do all of those things and more?
It would be completely insurmountable for one person, but distributing the load is what an economy is for. If all you had to do was make a competitive chip, and all I had to do was reimplement APIs, and all Joe Blow had to do was <X>... soon we'll have all the pieces.
> Oh, that's definitely a major issue.
It might even be the only issue. China could no doubt start dumping iPhone competitors on the US market tomorrow if the regulatory environment allowed it.
> I don't think you can escape iPhone Android duopoly in the short term.
You wouldn't need to, if regulations were removed, as you would just straight up copy the iPhone/Android devices. You'd become a true competitor, not be left trying to establish an entirely new parallel market.
But currently, true competition is illegal in this space. Police will be knocking down your doors if you so much as even consider thinking about competing – actually competing – with the iPhone. All you can do is kind create something that is sort of similar, but not really, and that's not going to fly in the marketplace. The market wants iPhones, not something that might passingly look like an iPhone if you squint hard enough, but is entirely different in almost every other way.
It is capital intensive, so that is a hurdle, but capital isn't that hard to come by if you are doing something compelling. It was downright easy in the 2010s.
Regulation is the biggest problem. It is straight up against the law to become a direct competitor in computing. Even with all the necessary resources, just try to build an iPhone clone, but with the addition of Y, and see how long you can go before lawyers start breathing down your neck. If you make the first day, I'll be impressed.
You can try to compete indirectly with something kind of the same but different enough to skirt the laws, but that's rarely what the market wants, making it difficult to justify the effort and capital utilization. You need something truly game changing to consider venturing down that road.