Re:Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it
by unishark on Wednesday January 15, 2020 @08:18AM
(#22053884)
I think the problem is in its asymmetric use. Here they are defining the "market" in question as a subset of the actual market for smartphones or software, restricted to only that software in the Apple store. Surprise, Apple dominates their own store. As if customers don't have alternatives, when of course they do.
If you swap the logic around it would be like calling Apple a monopoly because they are the only seller of iphones, a contrived market that is actually just a subset of the smartphone market.
How so?
If you want to buy X, and there's only one person selling X, then that person is the monopoly seller of X.
If you want to sell X, and there's only one person buying X, then that person is the monopsony buyer of X.
You can't swap the adjectives around; monopsony buyer is redundant in the same way monopoly seller is. You can think of them as the same word with different agreement forms, much like how "is" in "He is red" is the same word as "am" in "I am purple".