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Comment by jclardy | Hacker News Reader

While it is an interesting question, what does it matter? When did standard oil become a monopoly? Is there some specific date where they changed from competitive to anti-competitive? More likely they grew over time and the ability for competition to exist was diminished over the entire period.

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The reason it matters is because Epic's entire theory of the case involves Apple having a "monopoly" over the specific sub-market of "iOS app distribution". They've intentionally defined this market very narrowly because they know Apple does not have an actual monopoly in the smartphone market.

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.

You seem to be asking your second question rhetorically, but its actually an interesting question. The reason we call anti-monopolistic activity "anti-trust" is because Standard Oil organized itself as a series of companies related only through a common trust. That trust controlled 40 different companies, and was the original target of the government's ire. When the trust was ordered dissolved, it eventually was replaced by a holding company.

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.

This question assumes that Standard Oil didn’t engage in anti-competitive practices after they gained a monopoly position which they absolutely did. On the run / don’t have time to send links but this is common knowledge and easy to look up. It’s worth noting that a monopoly alone (a definition for % market share) does not meet the criteria for antitrust. Antitrust carries an extra burden of the company abusing its monopoly position eg what Standard Oil did and arguably, what Apple is not doing.

Apple doesn’t even have 60% market share in the US. Android has 86% worldwide. They are no where near a monopoly like Standard Oil or Bell.

> Apple doesn’t even have 60% market share in the US.

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.

Worldwide share could be made to matter during the trial (assuming it reaches that point). It demonstrates that Apple's position in the US is a consequence of consumer choice, as they do have real competition. It's just that their competitors have (for various reasons) failed to take (or in this case failed to hold) a larger share of the US market.

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 and Android together have a duopoly or an oligarchy over mobile phones.

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.

What is the high switching cost?

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.

"What is the high switching cost?"

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.

The ASP of an iPhone is $675. An Android phone is less than $300. That doesn’t take into account the ability to sell your phone and/or give it to someone.

What do you mean “data is controlled by your provider”? You just switch the SIM card.

ASP is meaningless because who had iPhone won't buy dirt cheap Android phone.

The ASP of an iPhone is around $700

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.

Data isn't locked to one platform.

You can transfer photos, mail, browser history etc between phones and app data is of course managed by the app.

Standard oil never had more than 20% marketshare.

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