🏅 Top traders

Apple isn't a monopoly - it holds 15% market share

Monopolies are usually regulated nationally rather than globally. Assuming you're around the Anglosphere, it's closer to 50/50, and there are strong network effects from iMessage intentionally not working well with Androids (reactions aren't rendered properly, etc)

> Users can buy other phones, app makers don't have to make apps on iPhone store

A significant portion of smartphone usage is secondhand/used, even in rich countries:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1208609/used-smartphone-market-share-worldwide/

> Market forces suffice here

Apple forces apps to not surface this fee, so most iPhone users seem unaware of the Apple tax, and are surprised to find out they're paying more for their subscriptions than if they signed up online

Even if they did hold a monopoly, wouldn't it be better to break up the monopoly rather than try to regulate what they charge? The only good reason to allow monopolies is when economies of scale mean that multiple smaller companies would be much less efficient and deliver a worse service. That doesn't seem likely to be true for an app store.

@IsaacKing Seems way easier to regulate the price than force them to change the entire way they run their business.

@NathanpmYoung In that single case, sure. But on a societal level, it seems better if companies are able to trust that their individual decisions won't be interfered with. The core problem here isn't app store fees, it's that Apple is too big and trying (successfully) to crush competition. Regulating a single choice they made isn't going to solve that problem.

But forcing them to have a non-apple app store would be breaking their monopoly

@NathanpmYoung I don't understand how that's intended to function as a response to my comment, could you elaborate? I'm saying that if Apple's app store has too much impact on the revenue of other apps, the best solution would be to break up the monopoly rather than allow the monopoly to continue and just try to regulate it.

Is that true that apple holds 15% market share? If you mean by number of devices that might be true, but don't think that's true for revenue. Having a ton of devices in developing countries using android doesn't necessarily reflect the fact that apple dominates the revenue charts in developed countries.

@PsychoComet What do you think their market share is?

@NathanpmYoung Seems like there isn't just one relevant market but perhaps many—it might be that Apple is a small fraction of the 'phone' market share, but a large fraction of the 'phone that will seem cool to onlookers' market share, so if for many people that is the relevant market (or something else is like that), then Apple isn't so replaceable for those people, and can act as a monopoly for them, with the concomitant losses of social welfare. (Low confidence that I understand the relevant economics.)