> Isn't this extremely obvious?

Yes and no.

The obvious answer is to make your own device with your own OS and make it better than iOS or android. That used to be difficult, but the quality of iOS and android has been declining for a long time. We're at the point where an alternative could be viable for somebody with deep enough pockets and the know-how.

The not-so obvious answer is we have lots of evidence over the years of the tech sector engaging in anticompetitive and illegal actions with very little consequence. Apple, Google and Facebook colluding not to poach each other's employees. Intel threatening to cut off relations with any computer manufacturer that deals with AMD.

It's very likely that Google and Apple would use their influence and power to kill any viable competitor. So, how do you deal with that?

you can use android and not use google as evident from huawei's latest devices. at least in my country they are selling just fine even though google services are not enabled.

Huawei has been completely crippled in my country. In Latin American markets at least, people heavily depend on Google services.

I'm talking exclusively about the US. Different markets have different market shares. Different countries have different monopoly and antitrust laws. Limiting it to the biggest market, and the one most germane to HN, is what makes it possible to have a discussion. Otherwise, we're all just talking to ourselves.

Biggest market?

No, and it's untrue: only Apple does that, Google doesn't.

Yea, ‘monopoly’ in the question is the answer...

so monopoly laws dont matter?

Thanks to what’s become known as the Bork doctrine, they matter a lot less than they used to. Since at least the 1980s, regulators and courts have favored a very narrow idea of what counts as abuse of monopoly power, centered on consumer pricing issues. More general problems of market efficiency, preventing competition, monopsony, etc., have fallen by the wayside.

They don't get to say that due to antitrust laws. Hence why you can use Amazon's appstore on Android, or FDroid etc. I'm not really familiar with the Apple ecosystem.

They do get to say that. Apple has a minority of the market and wouldn't run into legally-justifiable antitrust problems.

Monopoly is not necessary for antitrust enforcement - 'market power' is sufficient: https://www.justice.gov/atr/monopoly-power-and-market-power-...

FYI, your account seems to have triggered the system that hellbans new accounts. I vouched for your comment (which revived it), and I sent a message to hn@yc to point out that it looks like there was a false-positive. Your last few comments haven't been visible without showdead set or been able to be interacted with by anyone.

Thanks. I noticed that most of my comments were invisible, but with a few seemingly random ones getting through. I assumed it was a matter of time before restrictions were lifted on my account.

WOW thanks for vouching for him and keeping watch on that.

Apple certainly has a monopoly in the iPhone app market.

Sure, and Frigidaire has a monopoly on Frigidaire refrigerators.

I said legally-justifiable antitrust claims. Apple has a minority of the smartphone market. You can make anything into a "monopoly" if you define it narrowly enough but that's not legally justifiable in any way.

But that's not what the discussion is about. Frigidaire doesn't try to limit you to only putting stuff you bought at Walmart into their fridges.

Nor does Apple: you can have as many PWAs as you want. As JS is Turing complete, you can then have every sort of app. They've always encouraged PWAs.

Unless you want to legally force every company to surrender their source code (which I enthusiastically would support), there's no legal basis for Apple not being able to have their proprietary feature phone locked down.

Though if you'd like, you can look at Keurig, which does limit what you can put into it to "only Keurig products" or one of the millions of other things that limit what you can put into it.

> Though if you'd like, you can look at Keurig, which does limit what you can put into it to "only Keurig products" or one of the millions of other things that limit what you can put into it.

Whatabout...

If I buy a house I can put any fridge in there. If I get an iPhone, I can only buy through the App Store.

What use case is there for Fridgidaire refrigerators that cannot be fulfilled by other brands?

What use case is there for Apple devices that cannot be fulfilled by other brands? Literally none.

There are no other options for Apple devices besides the App Store. This is not about a monopoly in the smartphone market.

> iPhone app market

That's not a monopoly nor is that how monopolies work. iPhone is their device and creation, they can lock it down as much as they choose. They could only allow apps they develop if they wanted.

That's debatable. Just because the Play Store exists doesn't mean the App Store isn't its own market

The app store is not a free market. If I set up a card trading store, I'm free to set any constraints I want. Maybe I want to only allow users to trade cards that were purchased at my shop. That's my right as a private enterprise. Maybe everyone will hate it and go to a different store, and that's the free market. If I somehow prevented any other card stores from existing, then we would have a monopoly

Also - that's not the reason. The reason is because Android is open source and Google allows sideloading.

I don't think Google allows Amazon to distribute their app store through the Play Store, so you have to sideload it.

Doesn't solve the distribution problem anyway – the app stores are the shelf