To ask you the same question, restated, that the judge asked Epic, which they had no answer for: if Apple wasn't a monopoly before, but they're a monopoly now, when did they become a monopoly?
They have over 50% market share though. They're by far the largest smartphone manufacturer in the US. And they also get the vast majority of app developer revenue, much more than the Google Play Store.
> Android has 86% worldwide.
Worldwide market share is not necessarily relevant to US law.
> They are no where near a monopoly like Standard Oil or Bell.
This isn't actually required by antitrust law.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
Shows the marketshare of mobile OSes by year from 2012-2019. It's worth noting that Apple's > 50% market share is a recent (2019) phenomenon. It's not like they've held that position for the entire decade, and it's not at all clear that they got that position by any illegal or unethical methods [0]. So consumers have made a clear and (somewhat) informed decision by electing to by iPhones.
[0] I'm sure someone will talk about green bubble/blue bubble, but seriously people: stop using SMS/MMS it's crap. Get your friends onto Signal or, hell, even WhatsApp so you can have real cross-platform, secure (less some metadata) communication.
Apple also has a lock over it's own platform for which switching costs are very high.
If people switched phones every few weeks, this would be less of an issue.
Hardly anyone buys apps. They either pay for services that work cross platform and the majority of sales are coming from in app consumables for games.
Media? iTunes music you buy has been DRM free for a decade and Apple Music is available on Android.
Movies? Blame that on the studios that don’t participate in Movies Anywhere. Apple is a member along with Amazon, Vudu, and Google. If you buy a movie from a participating studio, it syncs between all of the platforms.
Books? No one buys books from Apple.
People buy phones once every year or two, they're about $1K and data is controlled by the providers = High switching cost.
Your favourite Marmalade ... were it to double in price next week at the grocery store, could be substituted without any friction.
What do you mean “data is controlled by your provider”? You just switch the SIM card.
But now are you saying that we need government intervention because of “lock in” when people are using their own free will to buy more expensive products when their are cheaper more “open” products available? Are people too dumb to make their own choices.
You can transfer photos, mail, browser history etc between phones and app data is of course managed by the app.
The history is interesting and informative, and explains a lot about why the US government started to care about issues of corporate governance in the first place. When people talk today about the dangers of "monopoly," they often misunderstand the point entirely.
Size alone is not the issue. It never has been.
As the judge pointed out yesterday, Epic has "created a failsafe definition". Because they have defined a single product market, Apple by definition has a monopoly over their own product.
But assuming Epic's theory is true, it would have been true from the very start of the App Store, back when Apple had barely any market share. Of course, it would have been absurd to complain in 2008 that Apple was unlawfully maintaining its monopoly over "iOS app distribution", which is why Epic's lawyer largely dodged the question during the hearing yesterday.
Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, BlackBerry OS (and to some extent Maemo) all had the opportunity to compete with iOS and Android but were either too slow to transition to market demands or did not get a lot of traction to start with.
While not officially a monopoly in my book, I think it's safe to state that we're now down to iOS and Android for 99% of the market with KaiOS Ubuntu Touch (Tizen?) picking up some of the more niche or cheap devices.
There is roughly 50% of the US population who wouldn’t buy an Android phone if it cost $1.
Healthy competition is when the different parts have incentives to reduce prices to steal customers from each other. Then unless they collude they will reduce prices until there is barely any profits left. However if reducing prices doesn't help you get the other persons customer then there isn't healthy competition.
So tell me, what non government action would you say could cause Apple to reduce their 30% fee? I don't see any. Apple reducing their 30% fee wouldn't cause more people to choose Apple over Android and vice versa under current circumstances. Both of those fees are set with no care about competition.
> There is roughly 50% of the US population who wouldn’t buy an Android phone if it cost $1.
Pretty sure many would switch if the highest end android phones were free.
- in the early 80s, Apple //e’s were more expensive than the competition.
- in the mid 80s - 2000, the Macs were and continue to be more expensive than the equivalent PCs
- in the early 2000s, iPods were more expensive than the equivalent media players.
- the iPhones are more expensive than equivalent Android phones.
Apple hasn’t “found a reason” to reduce prices in 4 decades. Did it have a “monopoly” on computers, music players, tablets, watches, monitors, etc all that time?
> Pretty sure many would switch if the highest end android phones were free.
“high end” Android phones are cheaper than iPhones. Yet and still Apple dominates the high end. Maybe every one doesn’t buy solely on price.
Well actually, there is no Android phone that performs as well as the $399 iPhone SE, but that’s another debate....
The person you are responding to basically quoted the definition of a monopoly, as according to the opinions of the US government.
If changing prices does not change demand for your product, then by definition, according to the US government, you have significant market power (IE, you have a monopoly. The definition of a monopoly is merely having significant market power, according to anti-trust law)
That is the definition that judges and the government use for market power.
Do you really think that every company that can raise its prices is automatically defined as a monopoly? What next? Nike has a “monopoly” on sneakers because it can raise its prices on Air Jordan’s and people still buy them?
Should Apple also be regulated as a monopoly because it raised its prices on Mac Pros and people still bought them?
Could it possibly be that a bunch of posters on HN don’t know as much about the law as ... a real judge who didn’t agree with similar arguments.