Apple doesn't even have 50% of market share in any country, how are they in "complete control" of anything?
Their app store is their monopoly, sure, but if you don't want to use Apple products you are not barred from using other cellphones and app stores.
This is different than, e.g. saying that there is a monopoly with the electricity provider. If you don't want to use company A for that, you have absolutely no access to electricity at all.
The question is instead, I think, if after some size, companies wield so much power that they should be regulated as if they were monopolies, just because of the sheer amount of people that depends on their services.
But that's a whole other can of worms and a different discussion than "Apple is a monopoly"
I.e. the term "monopoly" has a very specific legal definition which is not met by whatever behavior Apple is having.
Does that make it ok? not necessarily and the nuance is debatable. But the fact is that as per the current definition, it's not a monopoly.
That's why I said they should be regulated...because they currently aren't. When anti-trust laws were being written, software walled gardens weren't a thing. They should be updated for modern times, since the App Store is basically its own industry. It brings in tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year, which is more than the GDP of some countries.
iOS isn't great software (ok, "good software" for 13) in a vacuum. It's inherently, inextricably tied in with Apple's world-class hardware; and vice versa as well. To allow unfettered access to both is a risk to users, whose trust in Apple has been built up over more than a decade.
It's not a monopoly. It's an experience.
I think the point is that there are other electricity providers in other areas, so monopoly rules don't apply.
Their electric service is their monopoly, sure, but if you don't want to use company A electricity you are not barred from buying a house somewhere else, with a different electric service.
This is different than, e.g. saying that there is a monopoly with the app store. If you don't want to use Apple for that, you have absolutely no access to iPhone software at all.
However I do understand that for a lot of people, moving from Apple to Android (and vice versa) is not as easy or straightforward to do, and thus why perhaps the discussion should be about regulating those companies that hold so much power, as if they were a monopoly. That doesn't make them a monopoly by current definitions though.
When did being able to access / sell to a private marketplace become an entitlement of public accommodation?
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of this then by all means go ahead and assert this. I personally don't believe the iPhone App Store (or any other app store) yet rises to the level of a forum of open public access and certain pricing in the name of public good.
You are perfectly free to develop apps and sell them elsewhere.
Yeah, you just lose access to a giant chunk of the market and severely limit your growth potential.
The entire industry with its millions of jobs and immeasurable value to society is two stores owned by two companies. That needs to be regulated.
What does that have to do with this? Anti-trust laws are to protect competitive forces in the market, not human rights.
Allowing these companies to have limitless control over millions of jobs with no regulation whatsoever gives us the crappy situation we have today. Someone could have their developer account terminated by accident/laziness, and then that person's entire livelihood is destroyed and they're left with no recourse because Apple/Google can't be bothered to even answer the phone. The Play store is an endless sea of malware, adware, and spyware, and any attempt at making a competitive marketplace is hopeless and instantly attacked by Google (remember Fortnite installer fiasco?). There's so much anti-competitive and clearly harmful (for developers and consumers) bullshit going on in these two stores every day that it's ridiculous that there still is not any strong regulatory action against them.
> I personally exercise a bit more restraint in saying that things call for government intervention.
Good for you. I heard that a lot in college. People who just took an economics class for the first time felt compelled to "pick a side", and everyone always picked that same side as you (me too). Yet that decision is made so so far detached from any real life problems or data that it's effectively arbitrary. If you feel that this characterization doesn't apply to you, then please contribute to the discussion with some actual substantive arguments and not hand-wavy virtue signaling.
This isn't a monopoly. With your logic I could scope down to arbitrary levels and call everything a monopoly.
* Oh, Safari is a monopoly because you can only set the search engines Safari lets you!
* Verizon is a monopoly because they look the bootloader on a phone bought from Verizon!
* Target is a monopoly because you can only buy the products Target sells when you're in Target!
Monopolies are considered in the scheme of the wider industry. And in the wider industry, Apple is far from a monopoly. Both users and businesses can move to other platforms that in fact have more consumers.
Just like you could go to another supermarket down the street, you can switch from iOS to Android.
Nobody ever claims they get more revenue on android than IOS