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> That said, I don't see how the App Store is a monopoly. How would "monopoly" be defined to even formulate a case against Apple? I think the argument would be
by Majromax 7y ago
> That said, I don't see how the App Store is a monopoly. How would "monopoly" be defined to even formulate a case against Apple?
I think the argument would be fairly straightforward: the App Store is the exclusive avenue to distribute paid applications to iPhone users. In so doing, it acts as a single seller of applications to consumers and a single buyer of applications from developers, and its arbitrarily-set fees are incorporated into prices.
The fine parsing comes in whether "iPhone users" are a sufficiently distinct market to effectively make the App Store a monopoly, and I think reasonable people could have different opinions here.
- wayneftw 7y agoThere was a story recently about how "83% of US teens have an iPhone, Android 9%" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357 So, they're certainly a monopoly in that market today and possibly in the general market in the near future. I have also read that you don't even need to have a higher than 50% market share to be considered a monopoly. You simply need to affect the entire market, which Apple certainly does with their 45% general market share in the US.
- threeseed 7y agoIt's ridiculous to think that Apple will be a monopoly in the future. The overwhelming trend is towards Apple losing share as Chinese phone manufacturers start to increasingly capture the middle market.
- tekknik 7y agoyet all it would take is Apple reducing prices to change that trend, which can happen at any unpredictable moment