[Pet_Ant]

> The App Store is a de-facto monopoly, it may not fit the legal definition of a monopoly but it practice it is (or what other App Stores can end-users install on iOS?). I'm not making a legal argument.

Ford has a monopoly on Ford-branded floor mats! I mean you could choose other floor mats, but if you want Ford-branded ones they got a monopoly. A large audience is not a monopoly. I may not like Android phones, but they are sufficiently good, have almost all the same apps, and plenty of people have them.

[jkestner]

Let’s not focus too much on the use of ‘monopoly’, but why we care about monopolies. A company doesn’t have to have one to harm consumers and markets, and harm can be things other than high prices. See: Lina Khan.

Some of the trust-busting policymakers’ discussions about tech products are painful to listen to, but it’s all trying to recalibrate anti-trust law to the rise of vertically integrated products, which have created amazing user experiences but but also high switching costs that create the conditions of a monopoly, without meeting the technical definition.

[zepto]

> Some of the trust-busting policymakers’ discussions about tech products are painful to listen to,

Because they are wrong.

> but but also high switching costs that create the conditions of a monopoly, without meeting the technical definition.

Because they are not monopolies.

If there is a problem, they should address that rather than trying to distort what is happening, otherwise they will simply make bad policies because they are being dishonest.

[melff]

Pardon me, I think you misunderstand what I claim they have a monopoly on. They (obviously) don't have a monopoly on the mobile(or mobile software) market. They have a monopoly on the iOS software distribution market(a secondary market spawned by apple themselves). On an iOS device you cannot install a different App Store, therefor the end-user has no other choice than using Apple's App Store to download/buy software(=monopoly).

TL;DR iphones don't have a monopoly, the _AppStore_ has.

On Andoird the situation is a bit murkier, you technically can install software from outside Google's playstore, but you have to click trough scary dialogs(warnings about the danger of doing so), and App Stores installed that way don't have the same device permissions than googles play store have(you have to manually confirm each software update, for example). so yeah, on android it's debatable, but that's a story for another time.

[zepto]

Everyone has a monopoly on their own products. Samsung has a monopoly on Galaxy phones. Tesla has a monopoly on Model Ss. It’s meaningless to say that Apple has a monopoly on a certain part of the iPhone infrastructure, since it’s their product.

Of course they don’t have a monopoly on mobile apps or app stores or phones. There are competing products.

[melff]

You're conflating the phones themselves with the secondary markets they create.

The problem is that Apple has a monopoly in selling/distributing Apps to iphone users. This is not the case on other operating systems, technically not even on android(eg. Samsung) and has nothing to do with a "monopoly on their own products".

[shukantpal]

You're calling a product (iOS app platform) a secondary market.

[melff]

A phone is a product, the iOS app platform(or app distribution on iOS to be more precise) is a (monopolized) market, not a product.