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> You can poll your friends, colleagues, and relatives It only makes sense to do this on the level of a governing body, because the term 'monopoly' is defined

> You can poll your friends, colleagues, and relatives It only makes sense to do this on the level of a governing body, because the term 'monopoly' is defined by governing bodies and the remedies against it are enforced by the same. You can cherry-pick / gerrymander any group you want to make it look like Apple has a monopoly by the numbers, but in order to make it stick you'd need to demonstrate that Apple fixes prices (they don't, their phones cost ~2x or more what competitors' phones cost) or that they're somehow excluding other competitors from access to the phone market (they're not).

slt2021 4y ago
the current definition of monopoly is coming from industrial ages, when all goods were perfectly replaceable with each other, like steel, tobacco, or grain or other commodities. From this point of view, prices of goods are similar to each other and using market share (in units sold) is good enough proxy to identify monopolists (identify monopolists using topline approach) However, iPhone is not a commodity, it comes bundled with an OS and plethora of apps and services, the whole ecosystem. per this report ( https://www.imore.com/apple-takes-75-smartphone-profits-despite-13-market-share-says-report https://www.imore.com/apple-takes-75-smartphone-profits-desp... ) it says apple is taking over 75% of profit pool of the market, despite selling only 13% in units. If we identify monopolists using bottom-line approach, then Apple will be a clear monopolist. As would be Facebook and Google. as they should be, if lawmakers truly cared about public good
- dwaite 4y ago
  > If we identify monopolists using bottom-line approach, then Apple will be a clear monopolist. Per the parent, the challenge is to convince governments to take your proposed approach. Repeating the argument to try to convince a HN crowd is not just non-productive, but counter-productive if it doesn't move toward this goal. Taking away property and/or converting investments into a utility when a business becomes too successful results in a lot of nasty byproducts and most governing bodies will shy away from this. Instead, you likely see the issue completely side-stepped. Nobody truly cares about labelling Apple a monopoly or declaring iOS to be a somehow accepted as a market onto itself - they want a change in behavior. The challenge is how to side-step this when per the letter of the law, they have literally done nothing wrong. For instance, the EU will likely get a lot of pressure due to new regulations being solely against US-headquartered countries for the primary benefit of companies in the EU.

slt2021 4y ago

the current definition of monopoly is coming from industrial ages, when all goods were perfectly replaceable with each other, like steel, tobacco, or grain or other commodities. From this point of view, prices of goods are similar to each other and using market share (in units sold) is good enough proxy to identify monopolists (identify monopolists using topline approach) However, iPhone is not a commodity, it comes bundled with an OS and plethora of apps and services, the whole ecosystem. per this report ( https://www.imore.com/apple-takes-75-smartphone-profits-despite-13-market-share-says-report https://www.imore.com/apple-takes-75-smartphone-profits-desp... ) it says apple is taking over 75% of profit pool of the market, despite selling only 13% in units. If we identify monopolists using bottom-line approach, then Apple will be a clear monopolist. As would be Facebook and Google. as they should be, if lawmakers truly cared about public good

dwaite 4y ago
> If we identify monopolists using bottom-line approach, then Apple will be a clear monopolist. Per the parent, the challenge is to convince governments to take your proposed approach. Repeating the argument to try to convince a HN crowd is not just non-productive, but counter-productive if it doesn't move toward this goal. Taking away property and/or converting investments into a utility when a business becomes too successful results in a lot of nasty byproducts and most governing bodies will shy away from this. Instead, you likely see the issue completely side-stepped. Nobody truly cares about labelling Apple a monopoly or declaring iOS to be a somehow accepted as a market onto itself - they want a change in behavior. The challenge is how to side-step this when per the letter of the law, they have literally done nothing wrong. For instance, the EU will likely get a lot of pressure due to new regulations being solely against US-headquartered countries for the primary benefit of companies in the EU.