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Comment by jorvi | Hacker News Reader

> The people who argue for antitrust action against Apple seem to badly misunderstand anti-trust, at least compared to my own understanding.

It is your understanding that is bad.

It really hinges on two simple facts: in modern life, smartphones are essential, and Apple is one of only two players in that market. This gives them absurd amounts of leverage vs other parties.

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Yeah, the ideas expressed by the person above seem to lead to a lazy and incorrect argument that there's aren't any things to argue anti-trust. Google doesn't have one android store, they have 57, across 57 countries with different arguments. And in the they even have two, one focused on English and one on Spanish or something. Divide their total revenue by 100, see it is not so much!

And cars aren’t essential? Further, Apple is not one of two players there are a handful of manufacturers of phones for sale in the US. The comparison to ford, and ford parts, maps directly to apples situation and it is instead people like you trying to change the historical understanding of anti-trust with arguments about how this tech is different because you don’t seem to grasp said history.

Cars are essential, but there are 14 companies controlling some 54 brands. If you don’t like what the Volkswagen Group is doing, you can go to GM. Or Fiat Group. Etc;

Conversely, if you don’t like iOS your only other option is Android. Two players.

Technically you have alternative means of installing apps on both those platforms, but none of those have been commercially viable.

> Conversely, if you don’t like iOS your only other option is Android. Two players.

To be fair Google’s control over Android is far more limited. Manufacturers can make significant modifications to it if they wish.

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