Apple has a 100% monopoly it's AppStore on 2 billion devices though which $90,000,000,000 in trade is conducted. If that's not a market big enough to be considered for Anti-Competitive practices and illegally maintaining a monopoly then I don't know what is.
The argument "people can just buy an android" didn't work for Microsoft with the Internet Browser abuse.
McDonalds has 100% monopoly on happy meals. That doesn't make it a monopoly in the sense that you're using the term. And IOS's position in the EU or even the US looks nothing like "Microsoft" and IE.
This isn't about monopoly in the EU. This is about the EU not being competitive in the mobile space, or software in general and wanting to foster local development without having to pay a tax to US corporations.
What you're seeing is some of the first shots in attempts to unwind globalization.
Happy Meals are not built and sold by third parties who also sell outside of McDonalds. It's more like Apple having a monopoly on petrol stations and deciding who can or cannot sell drinks at a station - and when criticized, they say "you can go buy an electric car".
> This is about the EU not being competitive in the mobile space
Apple has exclusive control over a market (AppStore), which has almost 2 million different products (Apps), 820,000 suppliers (app publishers) and over 1 billion customers which conducts more trade than the entire GDP of Luxemburg.
Happy Meals are a product, not a market.
If you can't see why one is subject to anti-trust laws and abuse of a monopoly, I can't help you. but regulators are taking action.
> And IOS's position in the EU or even the US looks nothing like "Microsoft" and IE.
Does it not? Apple's stance on marketing Safari as a "feature" instead of a product arguably goes further than Microsoft ever did. Combined with their unique stance on limiting alternate app stores it doesn't look any better in Apple's favor. Whether they did it deliberately or not, Apple has put themselves in a monopoly position that they use to specifically deny certain competitors from providing alternatives to Apple services.
> This is about the EU not being competitive in the mobile space, or software in general
Nobody is competitive in the mobile space. There are two software vendors; Apple and the catchall, Google. Both of them are American-owned and controlled. The only other "competitors" exist in places like China and Russia that are forcibly denied access to the duopoly. You can't scaremonger with a straight-face like this when everyone is in the pocket of American manufacturers.
And that's the problem. The EU can bring the axe down because Apple doesn't deserve to set their own fee. They can kick and scream and piss and moan, but it only makes their situation look uglier and prolongs the inevitable. Apple has tested the limits for years, and now that we've documented their trespass it's time to teach them their lesson. The EU started it, but Japan is headed in the same direction and the current US administration has started their own investigation into Apple.
> What you're seeing is some of the first shots in attempts to unwind globalization.
Right now I'm only seeing a bunch of whiny apologists that want their segregated market back. You can have your App Store as long as the App Store customers aren't ideologically banned from getting software anywhere else. That's what a free market looks like, and Apple doesn't get a free pass for drafting their App Store rules with crayons and colored pencils.
In what way is any of this intended to bring competition into the mobile space? By letting some entrants provide alternative app distribution?
The only plausible outcome of this is that Apple reduces their involvement in Europe (it’s already happening with features in the latest iOS that aren’t coming to European users) at which point Google will become the only software vendor. Congrats?
> You can't scaremonger with a straight-face like this when everyone is in the pocket of American manufacturers.
You had me at mobile OSes, but the majority of phones sold in Europe are produced and sold by companies in China and Korea.
Okay, what's a shorter stretch of imagination, that Google and Apple are a duopoly, or that Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer etc etc, all of which share pretty much the same music library, are a monopoly by any definition?
There's a difference between "distribute music controlled largely by the 4 big labels" and "be a part of a duopoly that controls the distribution of literally everything pertaining to modern life"
The App Store is content distribution in the exact same way that Spotify is. Third parties produce content, that content is delivered to users by an intermediate.
Spotify is like an old-time records store where you'd get the chance to listen to a CD/vinyl record you picked from the aisle before buying it (except that in this case it's a subscription and you stay in the "store" the whole time)
The App Store is like an electronics market where you purchase appliances that you take home and use later.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1338745/competition-poli...