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> iOS doesn't have dominant market share, so we aren't even talking about smartphone apps.

iPhone has a 57% market share in the United States, the jurisdiction of the case.




Cherrypicking one quarter to make your point is pretty desperate and still irrelevant. When the case started it was less than 50%. Now what?

A textbook monopoly price antitrust case involves people who are virtually the only player, or a combination of almost all or all of the players.

And the court found that they didn't do anything with whatever marketshare they had and this is obvious to people who were paying attention. What about consoles? They are even more locked down than phones, yet the Internet seems to have a lot less to say about that, even though it's been that way for decades.

You can think Apple is a bad company. You can think they are too big. But you can't just wish the antitrust laws to be completely unworkable to punish them. That's the not the rule of law. That's the rule of "I don't like them."


> Cherrypicking one quarter to make your point is pretty desperate and still irrelevant.

I didn't "cherrypick" one quarter. I'm talking about the most recent quarter.

Anyway, it wasn't a comment about the court case, it was a response to the claim "iOS doesn't have dominant market share".

Apple's US market share has been growing and growing over the years. It's only going to get higher, I think, and Apple more dominant.


What you did was the literal definition of cherrypicking. You chose the one frame where the data supported your claim, even on your own terms.

57% is not the kind of market share usually associated with a monopoly or a combination in restraint of trade, so you're wrong either way as others have pointed out.


And if you own 57% of the properties in Monopoly you still might lose. The standard, for better or worse, in the US for "wielding monopoly power" is consumer harm not market share. If you can't convince the courts customers are harmed by the status quo it'll be a uphill climb.


If this case had any legs, someone would've made progress against Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft consoles in the past. They haven't, those are more locked down and much easier to demonstrate the price harm when games are $60 and marketed to children.

You say "for better or worse" and I agree, but people don't want to hear that. They want to hear [company I don't like] should be punished and [company I like] shouldn't.




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