Apple the device manufacturer and iTunes (or whatever) the streaming content service provider.
> Or Facebook?
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.
> I guess you could break up Google
Alphabet makes this easy. YouTube, Cloud Compute and the other things.
> it's basically a natural monopoly
Natural monopolies don’t have to acquire potential competitors to protect their flanks. Facebook minus Instagram would be very different today.
The breakups you suggested would make them slightly smaller companies but wouldn't solve any of the problems. the problem with Google if there is one is that it's the only search engine anybody uses. It's 90% of the market. Taking away YouTube doesn't change that.
Instagram isn't really a competitor with Facebook. Facebook would still be an effective Monopoly. Same with apple without iTunes.
Of course it is. Facebook is losing certain demographics to Instagram. If they were separate companies, Facebook would be under far greater shareholder pressure.
You literally just proved the point of GP.
With Apple it would be the same. You would have several platforms competing with IOS. Eventually they will start to doffer on thier offerings.
Now we’re arbitrarily drawing lines. Platform-service separation, on the other hand, has precedent. (As does gobbling up up-and-coming competitors, as Facebook did with Instagram and WhatsApp.)