https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
The practice of locking down hardware is many things, but textbook anticompetitive it does not seem to be. Apple isn't working with other vendors to fix prices (cheap Android devices are far more common), reduce quality, or innovation.
This is indeed text-book protectionism
Edit: In fact, doesn't the locked-down state of the hardware actually encourage competitors to release their own products? Anti-consumer could be valid here, but anti-competitive just doesn't seem correct.
The argument is that Apple chokes app developers ON THE APP STORE. The existence of other handset manufactures is irrelevant
Talking about a monopoly within an ecosystem misses what a monopoly means in economic terms. It's a question of consumer choice and leverage.
Considering you're declaring Apple's practices anti-competitive, I thought you were. Apple's competition is definitively other handset manufacturers.
> The argument is that Apple chokes app developers ON THE APP STORE
Okay so you're trying to lay down that Apple, who profits _billions_ per quarter on the iOS App Store, is actively engaging in practices which _discourage_ competition?
I mean, I think I see where you're coming from, and that fits a kind of definition of anti-competitive practice. Since a developer can't offer software free of the app store Apple has manipulated their own market to discourage that kind of competition.
Still the fact is that there is nothing _special_ about iPhones or any other phone. They have distinct user bases. Despite the fact that Apple does sell software on their platform, if they didn't I don't believe it would change their position on the value of the walled garden. Apple is competing with decidedly few software companies, and those it competes with seem to be able to manage just fine even on iOS (see: Apple Music v Spotify, Notes v many-notes-apps, Reminders v many-todo-apps, etc.). It's not as though Apple releases apps then removes competing apps from the app store _because_ of the competition.
Either way, thanks for engaging. I doubt we agree, but it was good to explore the thought out some more.
Absolutely false. The video game industry has been doing this for 35 years, in every console since at least the NES.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games_Corp._v._Nintendo_...
However you look at it, completely locking down hardware owned by the user, to apps blessed by the manufacturer is the text-book definition of anti-competitive, and lest we forget, didn't exist before Apple's false "but it's all for the consumer's good" marketing blitzkrieg. Regardless of the B.S. mental gymnastics employed by Apple and it's shills, it is unfairly placed as a kingmaker in a $60B app-store market - and it's app store is designed to place it as a monopoly controller of software running on it's phones.