> Under what definition of monopoly does Apple possess one?
Market power is defined by pricing power (empirical absence of substitution effect), not share of some descriptive market (where you could always get any result you wanted just by changing the way you divide market descriptions.)
Then say market power instead of monopoly and no one will ever dispute that. Of course Apple can and does set the price of its products above their marginal cost. Doesn't have quite the ring to it as "monopoly" though.
This is such banal point to make when Apple combined with Google have Duoloply. With Apple's advantage in App store spending Apple basically dictates whatever they want to App developers. So saying that they have monopoly like powers is completely and entirely correct.
That isn’t the definition of monopoly as stated by Wikipedia[1]: “a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.” I think calling them a monopoly is a real stretch.
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages. In addition, that leading position must be sustainable over time: if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power.
> Obtaining a monopoly by superior products, innovation, or business acumen is legal; however, the same result achieved by exclusionary or predatory acts may raise antitrust concerns.
>Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages.
which seems to lend real credence to the argument that Apple would (most likely) not be understood as a monopoly in the courts. Sure it could happen, but lots of unlikely things can happen that still say won't happen because of how humans communicate.
> which seems to lend real credence to the argument that Apple would (most likely) not be understood as a monopoly in the courts
The issue isn't marketshare, the issue is defining the market within which marketshare is looked at. If you don't use some consistent objective defenition of market boundaries, you can pick or choose any result you want by how you describe the market applicable to any given case.
While it isn’t perfect, “the space within which consumer substitution in response to changes like pricing occurs from the given good or service” is a rough description of what market boundary determination in US antitrust/competition law aims at.
It's also, for obvious reasons, often the most contentious issue in antitrust cases, with a whole lot of market data thrown up by every interested party aimed at proving what the right market boundary is. If you just assume the boundary is some popular market description without interrogating whether consumer substitution for the given product really occurs across that whole descriptive market space (and, on the other side, only within that space), you are really just skipping over the most important question in antitrust.
If you're stretching "market power" and "consumer substitution" this far it seems like a whole lot of fashion brands would be "monopolies". Tesla. The BMW/Mercedes/Audi luxury German auto bands in the US. Google Search. Macs. Thinkpads. There are SO MANY market sub-slices where some brands have pricing power over others. Where do you draw the "how often do people have to switch" line? Some of use have switched multiple times between Android and iOS in the last decade, after all.
If there's anything that's an industry outlier, it's a FAANG, not to mention the most profitable company in the history of the world since the Dutch East India Company.
Apple has 60% of the mobile OS market share in the US, and even more when it comes to mobile app distribution. Google has 40%, both in effect are a duopoly.
I mean they are the only person who can legally provide adds and payment services on iPhones. Apple exhibits a huge amount of control over there platform in name of defending there customers but give little choice to the customer in how that's delivered
> That isn’t the definition of monopoly as stated by Wikipedia[1]: “a market with the "absence of competition",
It exactly is, if you further define “market” empirically by consumer behavior demonstrating products actually compete with each other rather than analytically based on some abstract comparison of features that make you think they should.
Market power is defined by pricing power (empirical absence of substitution effect), not share of some descriptive market (where you could always get any result you wanted just by changing the way you divide market descriptions.)