03-22-2024, 12:49 PM
"Monopoly" is a difficult to determine, and evolving, criteria. The old "standard" was 60% of the market, but they've repeatedly expanded the definition of a market to include substitutes (i.e. Youtube's market is not just online video, it's market includes all video with Cable and movies...sometimes even more broadly than that).
IMO, it's become very lax over the years and many mergers that were anti-competitive should have been disallowed. While there's "competition" in many areas of their business, the big tech companies have been gobbling up all the start-ups that would diversify the market and increase competition.
But as for the IPhone being a monopoly, that's clearly not true as I believe Samsung is the largest global producer of phones. There may have been a case back in the early 00s and 10s before Android launched, but that ship has long sailed.
Although the way Apple sort of locks in consumers to their ecosystem is a different issue.
IMO, it's become very lax over the years and many mergers that were anti-competitive should have been disallowed. While there's "competition" in many areas of their business, the big tech companies have been gobbling up all the start-ups that would diversify the market and increase competition.
But as for the IPhone being a monopoly, that's clearly not true as I believe Samsung is the largest global producer of phones. There may have been a case back in the early 00s and 10s before Android launched, but that ship has long sailed.
Although the way Apple sort of locks in consumers to their ecosystem is a different issue.
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