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Comment by djrogers | Hacker News Reader

> Apple should be legally stopped from doing this monopolistic garbage.

mo·nop·o·ly məˈnäpəlē noun 1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

What's the iPhone's marketshare compared to Android again? You can't just decide to define a monopoly as something that's inconvenient or even abhorrent to you - words (and the laws that use them) have real meanings.

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Anti-trust laws should be more complex than that. Having a disproportionate control over the market is already a problem. And Apple have control over which features in HTML gain adoption, and which not, by refusing to implement ones they don't like, and refusing other browsers on iOS. This has negative influence on the whole browser market, way beyond iOS itself.

Then don't buy an iPhone. Apple doesn't have a "monopoly", it's just defining the specs of its own product. If you don't like those specs, buy a similar product with specs you do like.

As for it going beyond iOs, well, it's still not a monopoly, since those other options exist. They aren't buying out/shutting down competition, people are simply choosing to not use the competition. And you can't hold that against Apple.

Literal monopoly is just one extreme example. Anti trust laws regulate more than theoretical extremes. As I said, Apple have enough damaging effect on browsers market, that even if I don't buy any iPhones, I can be affected by that damage. So your suggestion is missing the point. I explained it above, in the comment you answered to.

It's not about market share of phones, its about market share of browser engines. Apple controls 100% of the market on web browser engines on the iphone.

Well they do own the iPhone. Whether or not the "iPhone browser engine market" itself is a thing within the greater "mobile browser engine" market is kind of a grey area.

That's legally immaterial. Microsoft controls 100% of the OS APIs on Windows. The legal distinction is whether the consumer has an alternative. Microsoft got in trouble because Windows was literally 99% of the PC market. Apple has something like a 30% share of the smartphone market - not even close to a monopoly.

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