One argument I don’t see being made is that mobile phones are actually in fact a duopoly and because the duopoly acts exactly the same, they should probably be treated as a monopoly inasmuch as they do act the same.
Listen, I get there’s a whole legal world you can argue around this, but really if I consider Apple + Google together, the lump sum of all their anti-competitive practices are enormous. In fact, they sort of thrive off each other.
For example: you can’t change the default search engine on iOS to anything but the four that come built in. How this isn’t anti-competitive is beyond me. But it’s because “the other half” of the oligarchy avoids monopoly. But is duopoly really tangibly different when they both have a sort of “agree not to infringe on each other” deal. Google basically stays out of the premium device market, and Apple stays out of search and advertising.
They literally got caught for agreeing not to poach each other’s employees. They both basically are acting together to preserve the golden cows, respectively, while both implementing a wide variety of truly despicable policies designed to further entrench their moats, suffocating whole swaths of startups along the way. Look no further than AMP and the ever-expanding google inline search answers and widgets, or on Apples side the complete lockdown of third party apps and unchangeable search engine. Then add the huge cut of app payments for both which mysteriously neither seems to think they need to compete on the cut they take? Somethings not right there. Especially given they both make more profit than just about any other company on earth.
It’s tiring to see all the legal-first thinkers who love to jump in and show how they aren’t monopolies... well, sure. But they are coordinating their efforts. The day Apple launches a search engine or Google actually attempts to build out a premium line of laptops (no the Pixel notebooks don’t count, they dropped those immediately), I’d have a little more faith.
People need to make the argument that they are coordinating and in effect acting as a monopoly because of it.
Google and Apple should not be allowed to act in as coordinated a manner as they do.
Two changes that would immediately make the world a better place. First, mandating that search engines cannot be locked down, and must be presented as a choice at setup without pre-determined order. Second, mandating that alternative app stores be allowed with no extra overhead. The second I don’t see how it happens legally, but outside that, it would absolutely be good for the world, no doubt at all it would increase competition dramatically.