[darklion]

> “The fact that they have a [less than] 50 percent market share of smartphones doesn’t mean they don’t have a 100 percent share of the distribution of iPhone apps — which they absolutely do,”

Yes, that's true, but it's not a particularly meaningful or insightful statement. That's defining the market in terms of the answer you want. Any company has a 100% market share if you define the market as "things that only that company can do".

"The fact that they have a [less than] 50 percent market share of operating systems doesn't mean [Microsoft doesn't] have a 100 percent share of Windows -- which they absolutely do", says Captain Obvious.

The question is, has there been a detrimental effect for customers?

Practically, I don't think the answer is as clear-cut as Rifkin wants it to be, because (at least to me), the drawbacks of a single-vendor app store (of which there are a significant quantity) have to be weighed against the benefits of a single-vendor app store (of which there are a significant quantity).

[wayneftw]

> the benefits of a single-vendor app store (of which there are a significant quantity).

I'd say the great majority of those benefits are going to Apple.

There's nothing that Apple does in their app store that a third party app store owner couldn't do. Anyone can curate apps.

As a customer of the Apple app store, I've absolutely experienced the detrimental effects of Apple's behavior. For one thing, I can't build software for my own device because Apple is too concerned about losing control. There are also whole categories of software that I simply cannot have because Apple won't let them be sold in their store.

They already lost the anti-trust case to decide if they can be sued again by customers. I hope they lose the next one too.