At one point you could shop around at places such as Best Buy and get an Apple device with a "free" printer or something, but you were still paying what Apple charged for the Apple device. I guess I don't follow what's going on here.
When Apple's products are never available (barring certain rare sales) for significantly less than Apple themselves retails them, that's an indication that some kind of price fixing is going on. Yes, it's price fixing for the products of a single supplier, which means that there's a lot less to do, and a lot less benefit to be gained (ie, the least you're going to be able to sell it for without taking a loss is Apple's wholesale price), but it's still illegal.
It happens to me all the time with non-Apple products. Always the same price, down to the penny. Pricing agreements between the manufacturer and their resellers seem to be pretty common.
If we're suddenly going to decide that's illegal, it will have a huge impact on the market.
Why not? Apple isn't under any obligation to sell to anyone at a wholesale price, and can apply conditions via a contract when they do so.
Arizona iced tea even prints the price on the cans to prevent people from fucking with it.
Being able to pick and choose your customers (and apply conditions to any sale that favour Apple and disadvantage the customer) is a perfect indication of the level of market power that apple possesses.
Most businesses in competitive industries don’t get to do that.
Any number of products print the MSRP on the packaging. You'll notice it if you peel off the label showing the price you bought the thing for.
ref. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/522/3.html
I mean, Apple and Amazon don't make competing products wrt the lawsuit, so they can't collude to price fix their separate products and defeat the market?
I keep trying to see what i'm overlooking...presuming somehow it makes sense.