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> I really don’t understand why it’s taking so long to recognise Apple/Google as a monopoly. Monopolies, in and of themselves, are not illegal in the US. Leve

> I really don’t understand why it’s taking so long to recognise Apple/Google as a monopoly. Monopolies, in and of themselves, are not illegal in the US. Leveraging monopoly position to gain unfair advantage in markets outside the monopoly is illegal.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
So for example, if you have a dominant position for phone operating systems, or a certain type of phone operating systems, and you want to exclude others from the market for app stores for those phones?
- kemayo 3y ago
  I don't really like slicing the market up that way. There's a compelling argument against broad-category monopolies, but the more specific it gets the closer it is to just "you have made a successful product". Apple naturally has a monopoly over Apple products, but that's not very helpful from an antitrust perspective. The analogy that is persuasive to me for this particular case is that Apple / Google are excluding people from their app stores in the same way that Kroger is excluding people from its grocery store shelves.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The real question is if a given "Apple product" is a separate market. Is it fungible with a competitor? If you ask this question about "Clorox bleach" the answer is obvious. Any other brand of bleach is a perfect substitute and the only reason Clorox can demand a premium is if customers value the brand as an indicia of quality, i.e. they're paying to get bleach they trust not to be watered down or contaminated in a bottle that doesn't leak, not because there is no other source to get bleach they can use with their washing machine. For the iOS app store that is not the case. If you have an iOS device, you have to use the iOS app store. It would be as if you had a Kroger-brand washing machine that could only use bleach from Kroger, e.g. because they sell it in cartridges that authenticate with a microchip. At that point Kroger would have a monopoly on bleach for those washing machines, and that product would be its own market because there is no competing substitute. For this not to be the case you would have to be able to install apps on iOS devices via Google Play or some other competitor with non-trivial market share. Because the relevant concern is whether there is a viable substitute that the same people can use for the same purpose. And yes, this means that if you cordon off something that might otherwise have been part of a larger market by using DRM, you now have a monopoly on the thing you erected a fence around and should be subject to antitrust enforcement.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

So for example, if you have a dominant position for phone operating systems, or a certain type of phone operating systems, and you want to exclude others from the market for app stores for those phones?

kemayo 3y ago
I don't really like slicing the market up that way. There's a compelling argument against broad-category monopolies, but the more specific it gets the closer it is to just "you have made a successful product". Apple naturally has a monopoly over Apple products, but that's not very helpful from an antitrust perspective. The analogy that is persuasive to me for this particular case is that Apple / Google are excluding people from their app stores in the same way that Kroger is excluding people from its grocery store shelves.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The real question is if a given "Apple product" is a separate market. Is it fungible with a competitor? If you ask this question about "Clorox bleach" the answer is obvious. Any other brand of bleach is a perfect substitute and the only reason Clorox can demand a premium is if customers value the brand as an indicia of quality, i.e. they're paying to get bleach they trust not to be watered down or contaminated in a bottle that doesn't leak, not because there is no other source to get bleach they can use with their washing machine. For the iOS app store that is not the case. If you have an iOS device, you have to use the iOS app store. It would be as if you had a Kroger-brand washing machine that could only use bleach from Kroger, e.g. because they sell it in cartridges that authenticate with a microchip. At that point Kroger would have a monopoly on bleach for those washing machines, and that product would be its own market because there is no competing substitute. For this not to be the case you would have to be able to install apps on iOS devices via Google Play or some other competitor with non-trivial market share. Because the relevant concern is whether there is a viable substitute that the same people can use for the same purpose. And yes, this means that if you cordon off something that might otherwise have been part of a larger market by using DRM, you now have a monopoly on the thing you erected a fence around and should be subject to antitrust enforcement.