[savaki]

I'm not sure what the laws are in Europe, but in the US, there's nothing inherently illegal about being a monopoly. The illegality begins when one tries using the monopoly to gain an edge in other markets. Arguably, Apple has monopoly power in the market they built so nothing wrong there.

If you're trying to make the argument that maybe we should change the laws to make monopolies illegal, it would be easier to discuss if you define what the guiding principle is. Are you saying companies shouldn't own more than X% of a market? Companies should comply with a set of practices? etc

Here's why it's difficult when you just use anecdotes. Consider your example, restaurants. Restaurants are a local industry with lower barriers to entry so naturally you have thousands to choose from. Online marketplaces tend to be global marketplaces with very high barriers to entry. So comparing restaurants to the App Store is a stretch at best.

A better example might be a national every day low price store like Walmart. So let's try your examples with them.

Imagine if you had to pay Walmart to open your own store INSIDE Walmart ... sounds reasonable.

Imagine if every store that wanted to open a store in Walmart had to do so ... again, reasonable. Starbucks pays to be inside target, Wells Fargo inside Safeway, etc.

Imagine if Walmart gathered data about your customers. They do, and again reasonable.

Imagine if Walmart saw what worked at your store and copied it and hid yours from your consumers. This happens as well. Consider Equate, Walmart's private brand. Or Safeway select. Basically the same thing.

[echelon]

I think we fundamentally disagree about Apple's behavior.

> Arguably, Apple has monopoly power in the market they built so nothing wrong there.

Apple embraced the web and the internet, then extinguished it as a means of getting software to consumers.

> Online marketplaces tend to be global marketplaces with very high barriers to entry.

This is false. The web is a free for all.

A better analogy for iPhone and Android being marketplaces is x86 and ARM being marketplaces. Can you imagine having to pay to run your code and your commerce on CPUs?

Phones should be utilities.

> A better example might be a national every day low price store like Walmart.

I don't know. There's Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Whole Foods, Kroger, REI, Dick's, CVS, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, ...

Why don't Netflix and DHH try to sell their wares there?

[savaki]

> Apple embraced the web and the internet, then extinguished it as a means of getting software to consumers.

Not sure why this is relevant to EU regulation.

> This is false. The web is a free for all.

Somewhat. The web is a free for all and is part of the high barrier to entry for online marketplaces. I probably should qualify that as a serious online marketplace for third parties.

> Can you imagine having to pay to run your code and your commerce on CPUs?

Sure can. It was called the 90's. I remember paying per cpu/per end user licensing fees to run things on my own cpus.

> Phones should be utilities.

As an opinion, I can't really argue this.

> Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Whole Foods, Kroger, REI, Dick's, CVS, Dollar Tree, Dollar General,

These are great examples that continue to make my point. * almost all have private brands that compete brands they sell * many allow stores in their stores (which they charge for) * they collect data on those stores (within their stores)

BTW, my intent is not to convince you. I normally wouldn't have responded at all, but since you seemed genuinely curious why you weren't seeing responses so I thought I would give you my perspective.