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No, it's like walmart demanding that suppliers of a house alarm which has an associated subscription (e.g. alert response service) also give them a cut of that subscription, or else.



I'm fairly certain they do that. In fact, I know they do.


Got any examples of that? Seems like it should be illegal to me, and it's also nothing like the original analogy.


I can't be too open, but I work with a firm that makes IoT products, sold at retail, and as part of the contract a retailer was granted a percentage stake in the attached subscription service since otherwise the margins weren't sufficient for them.

There's no reason that should be illegal. A contract is a contract is a contract.


I disagree that any contract is valid - sometimes they're illegal because they abuse the near monopoly power of the retailer to force suppliers into contracts to their detriment - the choice is either accept the draconian terms or go out of business. Very much like Apple's message to hey - nice app you've got there, shame if something were to happen to it.

This is why we have (or had) antitrust laws - not every contract is legal and left alone capitalism tends towards abusive monopolies.




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